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CIA Blogger Fired for Criticizing Torture Policy
PetManimal writes "A contract software developer for the CIA who had a blog on the CIA intranet was fired after criticizing torture in an entry. The title of the post: something along the lines of 'Waterboarding is Torture and Torture is Wrong.' The Washington Post reports Christine Axsmith is not the only CIA blogger -- the spy agency uses blogs to let agents and other workers share information and ideas." From the article: "Hundreds of blog posts appear on Intelink. The CIA says blogs and other electronic tools are used by people working on the same issue to exchange information and ideas. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on Axsmith's case but said the policy on blogs is that 'postings should relate directly to the official business of the author and readers of the site, and that managers should be informed of online projects that use government resources. CIA expects contractors to do the work they are paid to do.'"
Im I the only one wondering what the hell this has to do with our online rights?? It was on a private INTRANET for god sakes...
Charming thing for a civilized country to be practicing & defending.
Who claimed the US was a civilized country??? That's pretty subjective, and the perception about the US from within her walls are a lot different than the perception outside her walls.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Make as much noise about torture as possible.
Developers: We can use your help.
So, let us review. A software developer had access to a blog set up specifically for collaborating on software issues. She instead uses it as an opinion journal, and even go so far as to reveal classified information that she has seen in the course of her previous job. Regardless of the clearance required to access the site, she shouldn't have been using the resource the way she was and she certainly shouldn't have been discussing interogation transcripts in her roll as a software developer!
Being fired seems like the logical concequence.
Right, because we've NEVER gotten information by any other means. Spying never works. Bribery never works. Negotiation never works.
In fact, name a single piece of valuable correct information the US has ever gotten by means of torture. Didn't we supposedly overthrow Saddam because he was a vicious dictator who tortured his own people (that's the line these days)? Then how is the US government any different if they torture people?
Developers: We can use your help.
Sounds like the contractor was being paid to do one thing but was instead "blogging" about this. Title should read "contractor fired for improper use of company time."
Maybe if you want to keep your job you should keep your mouth shut and not criticize your employeer. There are plenty of people who can fight the fight for you, we are all well aware that the CIA practices waterboarding on foreign nationals on a regular basis. And occationally it is practiced in government institutions against American citizens (prisons and mental hospitals).
It has shown many times that torture often produces falses confessions, so I'm skeptical of its effectiveness for gathering information. I will not deny its effectiveness for punishment though. Punishment that leaves no scars is a step up from the usual beatings that take place.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Look, from a social psychology perspective, this is just an example how is being punished for voicing opposition to the party-line. The CIA is shocked by this opposing voice, since they have not heard within-group opposition lately. This is because they have a culture of cohesive groupthink.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
I call bullshit. Do you think the situation for women has gotten much better now that Afganistan is free from the Taliban?
If by "better" you mean "women are no longer dragged out into what used to be a soccer field in front of a crowd at lunchtime and shot in the head for daring to teach their daughters to read," then... yes, better.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Oh, please; don't play semantics. Being 'civilized' is not an absolute. Instead we should look at it as the degree of civilization. I would say that while the US is not at the edge closest to 'Civilized', there are many (most) more countries closer to 'Barbaric' than the US. Don't indict an entire country's populace because of it's administration that most of the country disagrees with.
The current quibble is whether this ammendment applies to non-citizens as it does to citizens.
It's pretty sad that the only thing apparently keeping the government from torturing us is that some people have a right not to be tortured.
Dammit, "I don't like this" is not a sufficient reason for violating classification.
Err, yes it is.
Should she have been fired for breaking security? Yes.
Should she have done it anyway? Yes.
This is a classic case for civil disobedience. There come times when following the law violates your own integrity as a person, and the dual virtues of loyalty and compassion conflict. At that point, you must showcase you humanity and be willing to take the punishment for it.
Might I have the strength to choose as wisely.
I can't speak for those "other countries", but the Canadian constitutional applies to everyone, citizen and non-citizen alike, just like the rest of the laws.
It's also why we're reluctant to extradite death-penalty cases unless we get assurances that the death penalty won't apply. Once they're here, they have the same right not to be put to death for a crime as anyone else.
It must work - our murder rate is 1/3 the US rate.
I'm striving to underdstand your logic. You claim that the USA is civilized because it has laws banning torture. Yet, in spite of the fact that We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, there is uncertainty over whether the illegality of torture applies to non-citizens. This would suggest that non-citizens are not all men, but something else. Indeed, this wholly undermines any claims that the outlawing of torture are based on moral considerations. How can it be moral not to torture me, but to torture my neighbour?
The USA may guarantee freedom of speech. But it doesn't gaurantee freedom from execution from the state -- and many other things. Furthermore, when you think about recent concepts such as 'free speech zones', you see that the utility of freedom of speech extends only as far as the 'right' can be excercised -- which in the current US political climae is not very far at all.
Finally, if you use countries that practice infanticide or honor killing as your yardstick, then something is wrong. After Abu Ghraib, I heard people like yourself pointing out that 'at least we aren't as bad as Saddam was'. This sort of reasoning strikes me as very worrying.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Oh, that still happens, just not in the major cities. Town/Village centers suffice if there is a lack of a soccer field. Also they don't send out invitations or make public announcements. Smaller crowds but the end result is pretty much the same.
No, it's not the same. Yes, Afghanistan has long been a fractured place with a wide range of local cultural pockets ranging from Cool to Insane. But the Taliban moved in and said, "Now there's a central authority here, and a dominant theocratic culture that we will enforce at the point of a gun, and one feature of that culture, country-wide, is: women who try to get a job (even if we've killed her husband), or who teach daughters to read will be put to death."
Of course it's horrid that there are spots in that country where that same attitude still exists. But the difference is that now there is no longer a "government" that directly embraces and celebrates that medieval nonsense by actually having government employees who run around and do that evil crap. It will be at least a generation before it becomes culturally embarassing, for more like a majority of Afghanis, to have that stuff happening in their more rural areas. But the difference is crucial: before, it was the law of land, and now it's not.
Just like it took a while before some people in the deep south of the US stopped openly lynching blacks (and getting a nudge-nudge-wink-wink from the local law enforcement). Now, such a think is loudly, and instantly condemned from every meaningful corner of the culture, and perpetrators of such crimes get what they deserve. The Taliban was still running the courts and what passes for law enforcement in Afghanistan just five years ago. This stuff takes a little while - but to suggest that there's no difference between the two conditions is absurd. Both in philosophical and practical terms.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
...whether the person being tortured did it or not.
Confessing to a crime is always better than being tortured by another.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
maybe my dictionary is a little dusty.... but last i checked democracy is directly appointed by the people, so you ARE responcible for the actions of your administration.... unless you became a monarchy or a dictatorship while i was in the bathroom. If you really dont like what they are doing, quit posting on /. and go out there and do something about it... or else how is anyone else to know that you are against what they are doing?
You're right - correlation isn't causation.
Take the murders caused by hand guns out of the US stats, and our murder rates are similar.
Guns don't kill - stupid people with guns kill.
Per capita, Canada has more firearms, but WAY less hand guns, than the US. There's the causative difference - pretty much unregulated hand gun ownership.
No, please don't go on. Your ignorance is painful. About those bodies hanging from a bridge...
Oh, so those weren't soldiers, not part of the a regular uniformed force. Well, according to our president they couldn't be prisoners of war and not covered by the Geneva Convention. And besides, there are a few morons in every bunch, right?
If that were true we'd be invading Washington D.C. instead of Iraq. Education policy decided on personal religious beliefs, science and research policy decided on personal religious beliefs, health and medical policy, who you can consider part of your family, all policies on the federal level being directed by the president's personal religious beliefs.
George W. Bush represents the real threat to the American way of life.
The reason he has to used honor-killings as a yardstick is because of people like you have who have absolutely no perspective.
I reject this argument entirely. Looking to the lowest common denominator and striving to be "a little better than they are" is sickening. We should strive to be the best at everything and look to the best at any given thing for our ideals. Anything else results in not reason, but rationalization of wrongdoing. "Someone else is still worse," is no excuse for wrongdoing.
But that kind of political climate disappeared a long time ago, so I've never liked this argument.
Voting for the 'lesser of two evils' is still voting for an evil - and you still have every right to complain about what they do. Once, we didn't have to vote for an evil - just a potentially less effective politician. And to be fair, of course there were corrupt politicians in the early days of the US. Just fewer of them, because the education was different, the values were different, and the laws were different.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
But seriously, do you believe she would have been fired if the content of her speech had been something else?
I agree, groupthink is a dangerous thing. I'll bet all of your co-workers argee with you too. Let's all stomp out groupthink!
Um, no. It's NOT that simple.
The CIA is part of the US Government. The US Government is supposed to work for the people of the United States.
When the "bosses" in government fail in their duties (as is currently occurring in the United States Government) it is the responsibility of those in a position to do so to go over the heads of their direct "bosses" to their real bosses - the people.