The Theory of Business Enterprise Part 3: Business Principles

Panel of Maggie and Jiggs comic strip, undated.

By principles, Veblen means the overarching habits of mind that enable one to participate effectively in a society or a subset of society. Before the machine age, the age of the industrial process, people thought about themselves and the world around them in terms of “…the principles of (primitive) blood relationship, clan solidarity, paternal descent, Levitical cleanness, divine guidance, allegiance, nationality”. Veblen thinks these principles are in decline as of 1904, replaced by habits of mind of thinking in terms of cause and effect, a scientific habit of mind, because that is what a machine culture needs. These habits relate to the pecuniary nature of the machine age. And the basis for the pecuniary culture is the ownership of property, which is the only one of the primitive standards to survive into the machine age. It not only survives, it becomes the dominant principle of the machine age. Every transaction, it seems, is settled with a payment of money.

Veblen says that the theory of property as used in the machine age comes from John Locke. Before Locke, the general theory was that the Deity gave dominion over the earth to humans, and specifically the King, who in the name of the Deity gave control over land and the things in it to those he desired, who in turn gave it to others. Locke offers a different view, which Veblen describes this way; the quotes are from Locke’s Second Treatise on Government.:

This modern European, common-sense theory says that ownership is a “Natural Right.” What a man has made, whatsoever “he hath mixed his labor with,” that he has thereby made his property. It is his to do with it as he will. He has extended to the object of his labor that discretionary control which in the nature of things he of right exercises over the motions of his own person. It is his in the nature of things by virtue of his having made it. “Thus labor, in the beginning, gave a right of property.” The personal force, the functional efficiency of the workman shaping material facts to human use, is in this doctrine accepted as the definitive, axiomatic ground of ownership; behind this the argument does not penetrate, except it be to trace the workman’s creative efficiency back to its ulterior source in the creative efficiency of the Deity, the “Great Artificer.”

I had never read any of Locke’s works, so I took a look at the Second Treatise. Here’s the original, and here’s a translated version that is somewhat easier to grasp. As I read Chapter 5, Veblen seems to be accurate. There is a lot of scholarly material attempting to understand and apply Locke’s ideas; here’s an example. For those interested in a polemical current view of Locke (and who isn’t?), here’s a fascinating essay by John Quiggan in Jacobin, Locke Against Freedom. Quiggan says that David Hume offered a rejoinder to this view:

As Hume objected, “there is no property in durable objects, such as lands or houses, when carefully examined in passing from hand to hand, but must, in some period, have been founded on fraud and injustice.”

Veblen agrees with Hume:

It became a principle of the natural order of things that free labor is the original source of wealth and the basis of ownership. In point of historical fact, no doubt, such was not the pedigree of modern industry or modern ownership; but the serene, undoubting assumption of Locke and his generation only stands out the more strongly and unequivocally for this its discrepancy with fact.

He thinks that Locke’s general idea came from a time when most useful work was done by small artisans like cobblers and blacksmiths, and farmers. He traces it on to the needs of merchants, and into his time. Veblen saw that while that this idea might work in earlier times, it’s application was not suited to the machine age. Still it was the dominant theory.

Veblen describes two other business principles. The first is the stability of money values, which at the time stood on the stability of the price of gold and to a much lesser extent, of silver. It was an assumption of businessmen, but not of economists, says Veblen. The second is a regular rate of profit. This enabled businessmen to capitalize their plant and equipment and their industrial processes, so that value turned on the capitalization rather than output, livelihood of the owner, or serviceability of products.

Veblen’s discussion of Locke is strikingly contemporary. Locke’s theory of ownership by reason of work done certainly doesn’t seem like a useful principle to me. Suppose a person sets up a factory, buys raw materials and machines, and hires some people to work for him. Who exactly is mixing labor with goods so as to “own” the resulting product? Or, consider a scientist working in a lab on identifying anti-virals for the Zika virus. The project will require the current work of thousands of people, and past work of uncounted numbers. Who exactly do we identify as the owner of the finished protocols and the final results? Whatever it is, it has little to do with the work done by those uncounted people. Ownership is divorced completely from substantially all of the workers who created the new solutions.

On the other hand, those old ideas that Veblen dismissed so casually never died. I don’t think many ideas ever die, but the ties of kinship, nation, and the Church are especially hardy. Even the idea of Levitical cleanness remains, as we can see in the unending efforts to control the lives and health of women, not just here, but around the world. There are even theoretical frameworks in which such principles have an important place, such as Moral Foundations Theory, discussed here:

We propose a simple hypothesis: Political liberals construct their moral systems primarily upon two psychological foundations—Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity—whereas political conservatives construct moral systems more evenly upon five psychological foundations—the same ones as liberals, plus Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity.

In the US the rise of the anti-Enlightenment right wing and its sponsors forces us to question whether the scientific mind continues to be a form of self-governance and of shared cultural values. And, of course, Natural Law lives on in the jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas, at least according to an astonishing article in the Regent University Law Review which I couldn’t make myself read because the sections I did read were appalling, google it if you have to know.

Locke’s ideas generally are associated with the Founding Fathers. No doubt his positions on slavery and expropriating the lands of Native Americans, and his idea that ownership of private property free of governmental interference is a crucial element of freedom, were congenial to their personal desires and philosophical positions. We may need to think about property more closely, as we have done with the other two.

2015 I Con the Record Transparency™ Working Thread

ODNI has released the Transparency Report and DOJ has released the FISA Report for 2015. The former is the first that falls under USA Freedom Act expanded reporting requirements, so I’m going to do a very detailed report on it. Here are the ODNI and DOJ equivalent reports from last year and my post on both from last year.

The big news here is a 200% plus increase, either in the reporting or the actual back door searches of US person data collected under Section 702. And remember, this doesn’t include the FBI at all.

Preamble

(2 fn 3) ODNI admits that AOUSC counts each certificate under 702 as an order, whereas ODNI counts all the certificates as one order, so ODNI makes AOUSC redact its more accurate number.

(2) The report confirms something not everyone understood before: the report counts renewals (so an order that gets renewed 4 times a year will be counted 4 times) but not modifications.

(2) ODNI here admits that selector can be a much bigger number than target — I suspect maybe a hundred times bigger (because even for Google one target will have up to 45 selectors).

Within the IC, the term “target” has multiple meanings. With respect to the statistics provided in this report, the term “target” is defined as the individual person, group, entity comprised of multiple individuals, or foreign power that uses the selector, such as a telephone number or email address. If a target were known to use four different selectors, the IC would count one target, not four.

(2) ODNI is using the timing of the implementation of USAF to not report on how the new phone dragnet works.

Title V of FISA. The IC implemented the USA FREEDOM Act’s Title V provisions on November 30, 2015, resulting in one additional month’s worth of data for calendar year 2015. Because statistical information tied to a particular FISA authority for a particular month remains classified, Title V data specifically associated with December 2015 – i.e., the information required under Section 603 (b)(4)(A) and (B) and 603 (b)(5)(A), (B) and (C) – is included only in the classified annex to this report that has been provided to Congress.

Here’s all the reporting that we don’t get this year as a result (though we appear to get the top-line for 4 and 5 — see page 8 below):

(4) the total number of orders issued pursuant to applications made under section 501(b)(2)(B) and a good faith estimate of– [This is traditional 215 orders]

(A) the number of targets of such orders; and

(B) the number of unique identifiers used to communicate information collected pursuant to such orders;

(5) the total number of orders issued pursuant to applications made under section 501(b)(2)(C) and a good faith estimate of– [This is new style phone dragnet orders]

(A) the number of targets of such orders;

(B) the number of unique identifiers used to communicate information collected pursuant to such orders; and

(C) the number of search terms that included information concerning a United States person that were used to query any database of call detail records obtained through the use of such orders;

(3) ODNI used a definition for US person that is not the one used in USAF (in that it includes incorporated and non-incorporated US persons). At one level, this should provide a more realistic number, as it might include additional targets. At another level, it could very easily hide bulky collection, both by not counting (for example) a targeted mosque or US run chat room, or for non-communications signifiers, hide that a US corporation was used as part of a selector term.

(3) As a reminder, the unique identifiers used for 215 and PRTT collection does not include non-communications identifiers (say, bank accounts) or pings (say, stingray collection).

Targeted FISA

(4/DOJ 1-2) In 2015, the government got 1,585 targeted FISA orders targeting 1,695. That’s based off 1,499 applications, of which 1,497 were for electronic surveillance only.

One of those applications was withdrawn after submission stage (which is tantamount to a denial). In addition, DOJ included a footnote reminding that they don’t include pre-final submissions withdrawn to be withdrawn, which suggests the number of what would normally count as rejections might be significant this year.

Those numbers compare with 1,519 orders affecting 1,562 targets, based off 1,416 applications, of which 1,379 were for electronic surveillance only.

So the total number of orders has gone up 4%, the number of persons affected as gone up 8.5%, and the number of applications has gone up almost 6%.

The really alarming change is in modifications. Last year, there were 19 modifications to proposed orders (1.3% of all applications); this year there were 80 modifications (5.3% of all applications).

Section 702

(5) Last year there were 94,368 targets of 702 surveillance, up from 92,707 last year, which is less than a 2% increase. But remember, for each of these targets, NSA may have a hundred or so selectors.

This is the first year I Con the Record has to report back door searches (though FBI is excluded from this reporting). Last year, there were 4,672 back door searches of US person content. In 2013, there were 198 NSA US person identifiers whitelisted, some of which will get searched more than once; there were 1,900 CIA content back door searches, representing 1,400 unique identifiers (see pages 57-58). While these numbers are not exact, that suggests there was a 223% increase in back door searches of Americans by these two “foreign” intelligence agencies. There were 9,500 NSA US person metadata queries in 2013, and CIA didn’t count them. There were 23,800 metadata searches, with one IC element not being able to provide this information. That probably means CIA was not able to, which means there may have been a 250% increase in NSA back door searches of metadata.

(6) NSA discretionarily reports that NSA released 4,280 reports based on 702 including US person information, of which the information was unmasked upon release in 1,122 cases and got unmasked on request in 654 cases. (Note, given the number of 702 reports they issue, this is actually impressive, but since they don’t tell us how big that number is, they don’t get the PR value of it.)

PRTT

(7) The number of PRTT orders was down last year, from 135 orders affecting 516 targets in 2014 to 90 orders affecting 456 targets in 2015. 134,987 unique identifiers were used to communicate information in those PRTT orders, but that number doesn’t include:

• FBI orders that don’t include email addresses or phone numbers (that is, this doesn’t include Stingray use or data flow, among other usages)
• Data turned over in hard copy or portable media (only those turning over such information electronically gets counted)

Section 215

(8/DOJ 2) Because of the transition period, the 215 numbers may be a mess (see page 2 above).

There were 142 215 applications approved last year, as compared to 170 in 2014.

There were 134 specific targets of 215 orders as compared to 160 last year (in both cases it appears all but 6% of the orders are individualized, and the discrepancy may have had to do with the timing of the year, and this may not include December at all).

There were RAS approved selectors last year, as compared to 161 in 2014. These numbers are probably the same (in which case far fewer selectors are being RAS approved), but it’s possible last year’s numbers don’t include those who, by virtue of having a traditional FISA order, automatically get treated as RAS-approved. I will try to clarify this.

There were 183 US person queried identifiers last year, as compared with 227 in 2014 (this partly reflects the automatic approval of those with FISA orders). But the number for last year definitely doesn’t include phone dragnet queries in December (so compare the 183 to 208, which is what 11 months of last year’s number would be).

The DOJ report notes that,

On application made by the Government after the effective data of the business records provisions of the USA FREEDOM Act did not specifically identify an individual, account, or personal device as the specific selection term.

The footnote explains that there’s a discrepancy between the reporting requirement, which is limited to individual, account, or personal devices, and the definition of specific selection term, which also includes “address” and anything else they can get the FISC to approve. Perhaps this is just about targeting an address, or perhaps this is a bulk or bulky collection (in any case, 215 can be very bulky on its own). That’s a problem with the transparency guidelines.

There’s also one more problem. The 2015 702 reauthorization opinion revealed that in summer of last year, a PRTT used a novel interpretation of specific selection term, which FISC might have otherwise gotten an amicus for. They didn’t because by the time they considered doing so, the emergency PRTT was done. But that may mean that novel interpretation of specific selection term will never get amicus review, because it will no longer be novel.

NSLs

(9/DOJ 3) Keep in mind that the NSL numbers aren’t exactly apples to oranges, because this year adds subscriber numbers. But this is what the comparison looks like. (I will update this once I figure out why the Total NSL numbers don’t add up, which presumably has to do with how they request for subscriber information.)

The key takeaway here is that while a lot more of the requests affect non-US persons, there were more US persons affected by non-subscriber requests than foreigners (though this sort of makes sense, as they’d be issued for US providers which would disproportionately affect US persons).

Monday Morning: Brittle

The Emperor’s Palace was the most splendid in the world, all made of priceless porcelain, but so brittle and delicate that you had to take great care how you touched it. …

— excerpt, The Nightingale from The Yellow Fair Book by Andrew Lang

Last week I’d observed that Apple’s stock value had fallen by ~7% after its financial report was released. The conventional wisdom is that the devaluation was driven by Apple’s first under-performing quarter of iPhone sales, indicating weaker demand for iPhones going forward. Commenter Ian remarked that Apple’s business model is “brittle.” This perspective ignores the meltdown across the entire stock global market caused by China’s currency devaluation, disproportionately impacting China’s consumption habits. It also ignores great untapped or under-served markets across other continents yet to be developed.

But more importantly, this “wisdom” misses a much bigger story, which chip and PC manufacturers have also reflected in their sales. The video above, now already two years old, explains very neatly that we have fully turned a corner on devices: our smartphones are and have been replacing our desktops.

Granted, most folks don’t go through the hassle of purchasing HDMI+USB connectors to attach larger displays along with keyboards. They continue to work on their phones as much as possible, passing content to and from cloud storage when they need to work from a keyboard attached to a PC. But as desktops and their attached monitors age, they are replaced in a way that supports smartphones as our main computing devices — flatscreen monitors, USB keyboards and mice, more powerful small-footprint external storage.

And ever increasing software-as-a-service (SaaS) combined with cloud storage.

Apple’s business model isn’t and hasn’t been just iPhones. Not since the debut of the iPod in October 2001 has Apple’s business model been solely focused on devices and the operating system required to drive them. Heck, not since the debut of iTunes in January 2001 has that been true.

Is there a finite limit to iPhones’ market? Yeah. Same for competing Android-driven devices. But is Apple’s business just iPhones? Not if iTunes — a SaaS application — is an indicator. As of 2014, there were ~66 million iPhones in the U.S., compared to ~800 million iTunes users. And Apple’s current SaaS offerings have exploded over time; the Apple store offers millions of apps created by more than nine million registered developers.

At least nine million registered developers. That number alone should tell you something about the real business model.

iPhones are a delivery mechanism, as are Android-based phones. The video embedded above shows just how powerful Android mobile devices can be, and the shift long underway is not based on Apple’s platform alone. If any business model is brittle right now, it’s desktop computing and any software businesses that rely solely on desktops. How does that change your worldview about the economy and cybersecurity? Did anyone even notice how little news was generated about the FBI accessing the San Bernardino shooter’s PCs? Was that simply because of the locked Apple iOS account, or was it in part because the case mirrored society’s shift to computing and communications on mobile devices?

File under ‘Stupid Michigan Legislators‘: Life sentences for automotive hackers?
Hey. Maybe you jackasses in Michigan’s state senate ought to deal with the permanent poisoning of nearly 8000 children in Flint before doing something really stupid like making one specific kind of hacking a felony worthy of a life sentence. And maybe you ought to do a little more homework on hacking — it’s incredibly stupid to charge a criminal with a life sentence for a crime as simple as entry permitted by wide-open unlocked doors. Are we going to allocate state money to chase hackers who may not even be in this country? Are we going to pony up funds for social media monitoring to catch hackers talking about breaching wide-open cars? Will this law deter citizen white hats who identify automakers’ vulnerabilities? File this mess, too, under ‘Idiotic Wastes of Taxpayers’ Money Along with Bathroom Legislation by Bigots‘. This kind of stuff makes me wonder why any smart people still live in this state.

File this, too, under ‘Stupid Michigan Legislators‘: Lansing Board of Water and Light hit by ransomware
Guess where the first ransomware attack on a U.S. utility happened? Do I need to spell it out how ridiculous it looks for the electric and water utility for the state’s capitol city to be attacked by ransomware while the state’s legislature is worrying about who’s using the right bathroom? Maybe you jackasses in Lansing ought to look at funding assessment and security improvements for ALL the state’s utilities, including both water safety and electricity continuity.

Venezuela changes clocks to reduce electricity consumption
Drought-stricken Venezuela already reduced its work week a month ago to reduce electricity demand. Now the country has bumped its clocks forward by 30 minutes to make more use of cooler early hour during daylight. The country has also instituted rolling blackouts to cutback on electricity. Cue the right-wing pundits claiming socialism has failed — except that socialism has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of rainfall to fill reservoirs.

Coca Cola suing for water as India’s drought deepens
This is a strong piece, worth a read: Whose Water Is It Anyway?

After a long battle, the UN declared in 2010 that clean water was a fundamental right of all citizens. Easier said than done. The essential, alarming question has become, ‘Who does the groundwater belong to?’ Coca Cola is still fighting a case in Kerala where the farmers rebelled against them for using groundwater for their bottling plants. The paddy fields for miles around dried up as water for Coke or the company’s branded bottled water was extracted and transported to richer urban consumers.

Who did that groundwater belong to? Who do our rivers belong to? To the rich and powerful who can afford the resources to draw water in huge quantities for their industries. Or pollute the rivers with effluent from their industries. Or transport water over huge distances at huge expense to turn it into profit in urban areas.

Justus Rosenberg: One of Hannah Arendt’s rescuers
Ed Walker brought this piece to my attention, a profile of 95-year-old Justus Rosenberg featured in this weekend’s New York Times. I love the last two grafs especially; Miriam Davenport characterized Rosenberg as “a nice, intelligent youngster with no family, no money, no influence, no hope, no fascinating past,” yet he was among those who “…were a symbol of sorts, to me, in those days […] Everyone was moving Heaven and earth to save famous men, anti-fascist intellectuals, etc.” Rosenberg was a superhero without a cape.

That’s our week started. See you tomorrow morning!

See you tomorrow morning!

The (Former) Riyadh Station Chief Defends His Saudi Friends from Charges of Terrorism

On Sunday, former CIA Riyadh Station Chief John Brennan had a remarkable appearance on Meet the Press. A big part of it — the second to last thing he and Chuck Todd discussed — was Brennan’s argument against the release of the 28 pages (“so-called,” Brennan calls them) showing that 9/11 was facilitated by at least one Saudi operative.

Brennan opposes their release in three ways. First, he falsely suggested that the 9/11 Commission investigated all the leads implicating the Saudis (and also pretends the “so-called 28 pages” got withheld for sources and methods and not to protect our buddies).

JOHN BRENNAN:

Those so-called 28 pages, one chapter in this joint inquiry that was put out in December of 2002, was addressing some of the preliminary findings and information that was gathered by this joint commission within the Congress. And this chapter was kept out because of concerns about sensitive source of methods, investigative actions. The investigation of 9/11 was still underway in late 2002.

I’m quite puzzled by Senator Graham and others because what that joint inquiry did was to tee up issues that were followed up on by the 9/11 Commission, as well as the 9/11 Review Commission. So these were thoroughly investigated and reviewed. It was a preliminary review that put information in there that was not corroborated, not vetted and not deemed to be accurate.

The 9/11 Commission didn’t even look at NSA for intercepts Thomas Drake has said were there. Nor did it adequately investigate what now appears to be a Sarasota cell. How can Brennan claim the Commission investigated all these leads?

Brennan then slightly misstates how absolute was the 9/11 Commission judgement on Saudi involvement, such as it was.

CHUCK TODD:

The information in those 28 pages, you think, are inaccurate information? Everything that’s in there is false?

JOHN BRENNAN:

No, I think there’s a combination of things that is accurate and inaccurate. And I think the 9/11 Commission took that joint inquiry, and those 28 pages or so, and followed through on the investigation. And they came out with a very clear judgment that there was no evidence that indicated that the Saudi government as an institution, or Saudi officials individually, had provided financial support to Al Qaeda.

The 9/11 Commission report judged,

It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11, although some government’s may have contained al Qaeda sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al Qaeda’s fundraising activities. Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization. (This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al Qaeda.)

That is, Brennan’s comment overstates whether any Saudi officials funded the attack, which the 9/11 Commission did not comment on (and the key paragraphs in underlying documents also remain classified).

Ultimately, though, the (former) Riyadh Station Chief argues it would be “very, very inaccurate” if anyone were to suggest the Saudis were involved in 9/11.

CHUCK TODD:

Are you concerned that the release of those pages will unfairly put the relationship in a damaged position?

JOHN BRENNAN:

I think some people may seize upon that uncorroborated, un-vetted information that was in there, that was basically just a collation of this information that came out of F.B.I. files, and to point to Saudi involvement, which I think would be very, very inaccurate.

Remember, for at least 8 years after 9/11 (including in the 9/11 report), it was the judgement of the intelligence community that Saudis were still the biggest funders for Al Qaeda. But the (former) Riyadh Station Chief argues it would be very, very inaccurate to suggest any Saudi involvement in the attack.

The whole thing was pathetic enough — Meet the Press propaganda worthy of Dick Cheney’s best exploitation of the form.

But it is all the more remarkable, coming as it did, after Brennan transitioned seamlessly from a victory lap about killing Osama bin Laden to “this new phenomenon of ISIL.”

CHUCK TODD:

You know, five years ago, I remember going to the White House and hearing cheers, hearing people gather in the streets of Washington, and it was happening in other cities. And there was a sense of relief. It was like this moment of, “Wow. Is this the end? Have we won whatever this was we were fighting, this war with Al Qaeda? Have we won?” Boy, it doesn’t feel that way five years later.

JOHN BRENNAN:

I remember that same evening. When I left that White House about midnight, it was as bright as day outside, and the chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A,” and, “C.I.A., C.I.A.” It was the culmination of a lot of very hard work by some very good people at C.I.A. and other agencies. And we have destroyed a large part of Al Qaeda. It is not completely eliminated, so we have to stay focused on what it can do. But now, with this new phenomenon of ISIL, this is going to continue to challenge us in the counterterrorism community for years to come.

I noted on Twitter during CIA’s propagandistic Twitter reenactment of their version of the bin Laden killing that, five years later, we’re still fighting the war against bin Laden. But Brennan wants you to forget that war, and pretend it’s all just ISIL.

And in doing so, he tacitly admits that ISIL arose among the chaos in Iraq, but emphasizes the later events in Syria to discuss ISIL’s rise, which is anachronistic, but convenient if you’re trying to help the Saudis overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

CHUCK TODD:

The failure to see ISIS, the rise of ISIS, as quickly, was it an intelligence failure? And I ask it this way. Remember, the president one time referred to them as the JV team. And obviously they’re not the JV team anymore, and that’s since been a remark I think that he regrets, and he says it was taken a little bit out of context. But was that because the intelligence he was getting seemed to downplay the importance of ISIS at the time?

JOHN BRENNAN:

Well, ISIS comes from Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has been around for the last ten, 15 years. And what we need to do is to understand that ISIL took advantage of a lot of opportunities inside of both Iraq and Syria. The fact that–

CHUCK TODD:

Are they opportunities that we gave them?

JOHN BRENNAN:

Well, I think they’re opportunities that presented themselves inside of both of those countries. When we see that President Bashar Assad was carrying out these horrific attacks against his citizens as part of this Arab Spring, and was using chemical weapons, this is something that extremists and terrorists seized upon.

So I think ISIS was able to use those instances, whether it be in Syria, or Iraq, and abuses and corruption on the part of these governments to appeal to a broad swath of people. And so it gained strength very quickly, quicker than we thought.

I especially like Brennan’s mention of Assad using chemical weapons, the intelligence on which Brennan’s nominal boss James Clapper reportedly admitted was not a “slam dunk.”

The ISIL discussion is what led Todd (without the obvious context) to ask Brennan about the Saudis. Amusingly, Todd mentions that “this was part of your portfolio many times,” but doesn’t raise the publicly known fact that Brennan is–er, was–the Riyadh Station Chief in the 1990s.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you about Saudi Arabia. This was part of your portfolio many times and various times that you’ve been in government, and you were actually just there with the president as director of the C.I.A. Before, you were there a lot as chief advisor to president for homeland security. What is the state of our relationship? How fractured is it?

JOHN BRENNAN:

We have a very strong relationship with Saudi Arabia, and it’s on the economic front, the political front, military security, and intelligence; across the board. I have very close relations with my Saudi counterparts.

The non-mention of Brennan’s service as Riyadh Station Chief is all the more interesting given that Brennan has been faulted by the bin Laden team members for thwarting attempts to pressure the Saudis during that period, as Saxby Chambliss addressed in his CIA confirmation hearing.

CHAMBLISS: Mr. Brennan, the 9/11 commission report describes a canceled 1998 CIA operation to capture Osama bin Laden using tribal groups in Afghanistan. The former head of CIA’s bin Laden unit told staff that you convinced Director Tenet to cancel that operation. He says that following a meeting you had in Riyadh with Director Tenet, the bin Laden unit chief and others that you cabled National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, saying the operation should be canceled in favor of a different approach, described by the 9/11 Commission as a, quote, “an all-out secret effort to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden.” Now, as we know, bin Laden was not expelled. Three months later the bin Laden wrath was unleashed with the attack on our embassies. Did you advise senator — Director Tenet and National Security Adviser Berger against this operation? And if so, why?

BRENNAN: I had conversation with George Tenet at the time. But I must point out — out, Senator, that every single CIA manager — George Tenet, his deputy, the head of the director of operations at the time, and other individuals, the chief of the counterterrorism center — argued against that operation, as well, because it was no well-rounded in intelligence, and its chance of success were minimal — minimal. And it was likely that other individuals were going to be killed. And so when I was involved in those discussions, I provided the director and others my professional advice about whether or not I thought that that operation should go forward. I also was engaged in discussions with Saudi — the Saudi government at the time and encouraged certain actions to be taken so that we could put pressure on the Taliban as well as on bin Laden.

CHAMBLISS: So I’m taking it that your answer to my question is you did advise against — in favor of the cancellation of that operation?

BRENNAN: Based on what I had known at the time, I didn’t think that it was a worthwhile operation and it didn’t have a chance of success.

Note, Brennan’s role in this discussion — which he got downright stammery about in the hearing — is not mentioned in the 9/11 Report (PDF 128ff); he is only mentioned in the report in his function as head of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center who would lead the new approach to terrorism going forward.

Incidentally, a number of us were trying to figure out whether Brennan was on the President’s trip to Saudi Arabia (which Brennan pitched as far, far more successful than it was). So Todd did commit a teeny tiny bit of journalism along with setting Brennan up to spew propaganda.

But mostly Todd just offered a platform for an American official on to engage in propaganda for a foreign government that has facilitated terrorism around the world, including — the “so-called” 28 pages reportedly show — in the US.