Slashdot Mirror
FBI Burying Doc Showing US Officials Stole Nuclear Secrets?
BoingBoing is reporting that the FBI may be burying the existence of a document that proves US officials stole nuclear secrets for eventual sale to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. "One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file. Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an 'outright lie.'"
Government agency lies; news at 11.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
... try the original Times article..
The BoingBoing writeup is so irritatingly fragmentary it's hard to tell what it's even saying. Which is a good description of BoingBoing in general, actually.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Maybe if CNN or another major news outlet picked this up it would gain the attention it deserves.
Go Illini!!!
If you think this is scary, try to imagine all the things that we don't know about.
"Outright lie"? F.B.I. ? Oh, My !! Let's just die !! Or eat pie ?? Or kiss the sky !! Well, bye-bye !!
When a corporation operates with this kind of lack of transparency, it's called Enron. Why do accept this kind of behavior from our government?
Each American citizen has an investment in government, predicated on that whole "By the people" schtick that a few goofballs advanced. Why can't we see that a bunch of bureaucrats are causing this investment to depreciate more rapidly than the dollar?
She is labeled an International Terrorist, since they can't out her husband as a spy
10... 9... 8...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Why don't we have a Pollard..er, poll.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.
8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called "divine manipulation of the threads." It is the sovereign's most precious faculty.
9. Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district.
10. Having inward spies, making use of officials of the enemy.
11. Having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes.
12. Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy.
13. Surviving spies, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp.
14. Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved.
Oh yeah, we're so stupid that we're going to let some reporter just find this filing we're trying to hide... NOTHING TO SEE HERE!
The Art of war has been around since 5 BC, misinformation has been around longer than that...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
PUNNED!
If the documents literally contained explosives, there would probably be a better chance of the government actually releasing them.
The government would never lie to it's employers (The tax payers)
Why would the FBI have to steal nuclear secrets from anyone? If we wanted to give nuclear secrets to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, we could just give them some of ours. And wouldn't messing with other countries and stealing secrets fall under the CIA's realm anyway?
Fortunately Iran stole nuclear secrets from US in time to fix the problems with US stealing nuclear secrets.
Despite the fact that this is a story now, is it a coincidence that the document in question went missing during the Clinton administration?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Why would we do that when it'd be much easier for Pakistan to buy secrets when we already more or less openly trade arms with them? i.e. we just finished a 20 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia... what can't 20 billion dollars worth of arms do that a nuke can do?
stuff |
...it's not. FTA, "tip-off's" from anonymous correspondents (paragraph 8) and documents signed by un-named FBI officials (paragraph 4) does not lead me to believe in the veracity of the story. I gave up on conspiracy theories years ago when I realized that human nature doesn't lend itself to keeping secrets very well...particularly government officials.
Oh, for the days when sig's didn't have to be cute...hey, wait a sec.
About 3-4 of us have been JE'ing this for 3 years.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
While a lot of biased and unfounded propaganda is directed against us, the Western world never talked about their own hectic and persistent efforts to sell everything to us. When we bought inverters from Emerson, England, we found them to be less efficient than we wanted them to be. We asked Emerson to improve upon some parameters and we suggested the method .
At that time we received many letters and telexes and people chased us with figures and details of equipment they had sold to Almelo, Capenhurst, etc. They literally begged us to buy their equipment. We bought what we considered to be suitable for our plant and very often asked them to make changes and modifications according to our requirements.
so is Israel. We used to see India as leaning toward communism. India and Pakistan were at each other's throats. India got the bomb either by themselves or with Soviet help. That tilted the balance of power a lot. Some misbehaving civil servant leaked important nuclear secrets to Pakistan. Now the balance of power was restored. Strange how accidents happen like that.
... don't they?
Of course now, because of the law of unintended consequences, an unstable country, on the verge of a civil war that may leave it as a failed state like Afghanistan, has the bomb. It's ok. Everybody over there loves us
Operational work from the armed forces? Well not after five years.
Nuclear secrets? Well, they age very quick too. The spies from other countries get this stuff in a few years.
"Commercial in confidence"? Nope. It's MY money they're spending. And what's the downside? Someone undercuts? Well that's only a problem if the undercutter is expecting to cut corners too.
Names of spies. Well, OK. 'cept they're already doing this nuofficially.
Access codes? Yup. Though I don't think anyone's ever ASKED.
What? YouTube and Napster are ISPs now? Usenet is an ISP, not a discussion system? Optimum Online seems to be the only real ISP in this list.
All ISPs connect to the internet, by definition of the term 'ISP'. If they don't connect to the internet, they're not an ISP.
Hasn't the technology already been developed^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H deployed by Comcast?
So it's up to the foreign press, in this case the Times Online. (Makes my head hurt that a Murdoch-owned outlet counts as the best source of investigative, or at least reportive, journalism.)
"The FBI has been accused of covering up a file detailing government dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece
Which was itself a follow-up to
"For sale: West's deadly nuclear secrets" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece
Basically, the story was that Sibel Edmonds, an FBI translator listening to comm intercepts looking for Middle Eastern "terrorists," discovered evidence of a network of US, Israeli, Turkish and Pakistani nuclear weapons secrets trading. She's told the FBI - they fired her. She told Congress - they placed her under a gag order and threatened to jail her if she talked about it. She's even agreed to tell the story to any American media outlet (which means she's willing to go to jail so people can know), as long as the outlet agrees to tell the whole story, and not edit it to hide the truth. So far, all American sources have refused to cover the story.
Interesting tidbit - the CIA front company, "Brester Jennings," for which Valerie Plame worked before she was outed by Cheney and company, had as its mission tracking nuclear weapons activity in the ME. Outing Plame meant the Brewster Jennings cover was completely blown, like a wiretap being discovered. Which means that Plame's outing, with its supposed rationale as payback for exposing Bush's lies about Iraq and uranium, may have been nothing more than a convenient two-fer with a great cover story, when the real goal was to take out CIA assets who were getting too close to something far more important.
Sibel Edmonds' web site is http://www.justacitizen.com/>here.
"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers." - Daniel Ellsberg
Only to have them spy on us or buy secrets?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Cory Doctorow?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Is it possible that by outing Valerie Plame, the white house also (inadvertently) derailed an important investigation that her department was working on, allowing the bad guys to get away with a lot of state secrets?
Its not like we haven't slipped a few nukes to some of our allies in the Middle East before.
Have gnu, will travel.
Next thing you know is the US government accusing Pakistan and Saudi Arabia of possessing weapons of mass destruction.
"The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
The FBI has made it an un-page!! :O
Won't someone at least hint at who those officials were, so that I can start making my ideological prejudgments on the credibility of the allegations?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
(5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
18. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
I hate it when people only quote half of it, like "judge, not lest ye be judged"
It's funny that the way to LOSE a war according to the art of war is to have the army in a distant land and run the people into recession in order to fund that war (that you should be using the supplies from the fallen army/land to restock).
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
You know these nuclear secrets? Everyone in the FBI knows them? wouldn't messing with other countries and stealing secrets fall under the CIA's realm anyway? The FBI plays an essential role in the U.S. Government's counterintelligence efforts and has the responsibility to produce domestic foreign intelligence in support of other members of the Intelligence Community.
You can't take the sky from me...
They say: Never attribute to malice what can readily be explained by incompetence.
Which has this corollary when leveling accusations at slipper, duplicitous people: Before you accuse some one of an illegal cover-up, be sure that they can't simply say, "Oops, my bad".
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
>> And no, I don't believe the Government has a secret fleet of unicorns.
> But if they did, what better crowd to capture them than the slashdotians?
Umm, I thought they required FEMALE virgins. Also, the "pure of heart" thing is kind of difficult when you have several terabytes of porno.
not surprisingly this is being covered up. Next the ADL will shout antisemitism.
Technically, Bush kept his campaign promise. It wasn't a pledge to not tax the American people further. What he said was "no NEW taxes"; he never said he wouldn't raise the old taxes. Think about it.
I'm confused. How can anyone steal something they already have? Shouldn't it be "leaked" nuclear secrets?
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.
If only liberal Democrats cared about whether the government is stealing our own nuke secrets and selling them to threats like Pakistan and the Sauds, I'd certainly hope that (American) Slashdotters turned Slashdot into something like the Daily Kos.
What's "Democratic" about caring that your government is so corrupt that it threatens nuke war?
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make install -not war
Quote: "if any political party, irrespective of the nation, actively campaigns on the platform that Government is a bad thing, of COURSE you're going to get bad government."
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Because if any political party, at least in THIS country, campaigns on the platform that Government is a GOOD thing, then you will get equally bad government.
The simple fact is, Government *IS* a Bad Thing. It is properly classed as a "Necessary Evil". Anyone who truly believes otherwise does not understand it.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Can I have some of whatever drugs or videogames you're on? Because they must be pretty good for you to be bored by revelations that the US government is covering up theft of nuke secrets to threats like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
What does impress you, news of maybe an alien invasion?
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make install -not war
| Before you accuse some one of an illegal cover-up, be sure that they can't simply say, "Oops, my bad". |
Ineptitude is also covered up all the time, nobody wants to look like the fool they are. I perfer to call it when I see it.
They're both examples of obstruction of justice.
There are even huge bribes involving both parties - i.e., Marc Rich's $1 million 'gift' to Bill Clinton in exchange for a pardon.
Corruption is corruption regardless of which party is practicing it.
See, here's teh de41. That post was sarcastic. Ff it had not been, your outrage would have been valid. As it is, it was, and your was not, and you blew it.
See how easy it is once you grasp the core fundamental basis of it all?
Infuriate left and right
Who is "we"? As I sometimes like to say: "we" is a great word, because there are so many of them to choose from. "We" can be a totally ununified America in general (that is a "we" that can't be said to want anything in particular), or it can be the FBI, or it can be the FBI+DoE, or it can be just a handful of people. There probably is no particular "we" that includes both the knowledge of nuclear secrets, and the desire to transmit them to Pakistan. That is why someone else's secrets needed to be stolen (by us (whoever that is)).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3216737.ece/
I hate links to blogs which contain the real link and add nothing. Why not just link to th eoriginal story in the first place?
Infuriate left and right
and you'll find them.
Only one "pilot" was from Saudi Arabia.
This mix was on purpose.
By using so many Saudis they could fool people about the nature of the operation and organization.
I'm sure they thank you for playing along.
Nobody needs to worry. In the big picture it's all good. You knew that if you knew the big picture. For now, just read my lips. It's all good in the big picture... you can all shut up now.
It is Marc Grossman
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/
I read about this the other day on fox so although you didn't see it on CNN other news sites apparently did.
People on slashdot haven't mentioned yet the reason for the gag order apparently is cause they want to investigate the officials and see whats going on.
I know its a good knee jerk reaction to yell conspiracy but if you caught a spy in your midst wouldn't you want to counter intel back instead of just firing him and posting the paperwork? This whistle blower might have blown an investigation for all we know.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
How long before people are allowed to stop paying taxes, I mean, if you were to view the constitution as a contract, and argued that by removing people's rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and more technical and well documented things) the government has lost the right to charge the public with taxes and infact enforce laws on the people.
if I am going to be f*&ked up the a*&, I would like at least a little bit lube, thank you very much. I would imagine that it does not feel too good otherwise.
:-) Conspiracy theorist seem to have taken over the entire internet today!
The Secret Diary of Steve Ballmer
Subject says it all ^^^
Shocked I say! A secretive agency has lied about the existence and/or content of a possibly very sensitive file with a very real potential for having ongoing security implications. Why, next thing you know, the CIA will start marking files "Top Secret" and telling people they can't look at them.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
1. Federal government does something that is stupid in the long term to gain something short term. 2. Years later, shit hits fan. 3. Cover up. Rinse and repeat.
US officials corrupt and selling secrets to terrorists? Yawn... Wake me up when their is a new naughty upskirt picture of Britney or Paris on the 24 hour Brawndo channel.
How on earth can you steal a secret? Is the original owner deprived of the information they had? Let's call it 'infringment' instead, not of copyright but of secret information.
/. meme but I just can't do it.
I have to stop now.
I thought I could keep up with the rainman "copying something isn't stealing"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The AIPAC crowd will probably mod him down
Mainly the one that Jews are in control of the U.S. government? Pollard is caught spying on U.S. surveillance capability for Israel and gets sentenced to life in prison. Someone sells U.S. nuclear secrets to Pakistan, and the U.S. government does its best to cover it up?
Oh, you're just being sarcastic.
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make install -not war
...that makes any federal agency officials or even their mere employees guilty of felony sabotage and obstruction and subject to federal prison if they try to claim "executive privilege" or "national security" for the purposes of covering up any of their fuck-ups, no matter whether accidental or deliberate.
--
Amazing, that the captcha I must type to post this comment is "servant".
Anyone on this thread should drop what they're doing and check out 'Kill the Messenger', a documentary produced for Canal+ Television by some French guys. They followed Sibel Edmonds around for a while and spelled out the basic scene here. Its an hour long on googlevideo:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1991080575212848283&q=kill+the+messenger&total=348&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
Also i have a special section on my website dedicated to the subject, tho the page is pretty half assed: http://www.hongpong.com/sibel_edmonds_9_11_the_turkish_spy_scandal
Essentially here is my understanding of what this weird scandal means:
Sibel edmonds was hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11 to digest the backlog of foreign-language wiretaps run by the counter intelligence division. However Sibel also could listen to English-language conversations recorded on those lines. Within three months she heard extensive conspiracies involving the American Turkish Council, which were being actively covered up by Melek Can Dickerson, who was working alongside Sibel in the translation unit.
However, there was also evidence that the FBI was tracking an international criminal network that includes the big name neocons (Feith and Perle among others) which was funnelling and covering for nuclear secrets pilfered from the national nuclear laboratories (ever notice their shitty security?) and routed to brokers in Pakistan, Turkey and Israel.
Additionally the Turks were caught by the FBI wiretaps doing cash/secret handoffs from the ATC to the State Department. Once 9/11 occurred, it seems that then-State Dept official Marc Grossman was helping get foreign spies who had foreknowledge of 9/11 out of the United States, after the FBI had become very interested in talking to these guys. The wiretaps and intelligence fragments finger real people - and Kill the Messenger details how Sibel was momentarily a famous 9/11 whistleblower because of this. 60 Minutes ran a special with very heavily edited footage and has never released the raw footage of the interview. (yes in fact even the highly controversial Israeli art student 9/11 conspiracy theory appears to fit here)
Finally, this criminal network was deeply opposed to the CIA's counter proliferation operations - attempting to block turkey and pakistan from getting more nuke bits. So therefore Scooter Libby fits in quite differently than widely known. He used to be a lawyer for billionaire israeli-american fugitive Marc Rich, the moneyman for arms trafficker Viktor Bout. These guys seem to roughly be part of this same network. There is apparently an FBI recorded conversation of Marc Grossman tipping off the Turks/and/or Pakis to Brewster Jennings' status as a covert front company. This was certainly treasonous!
Also there is an important revolving door dimension: lobbyists, retired generals, military industrial complex. Turkey is able to convert laundered drug money into funding for the military industrial purchases - its something like 25% of GDP.
this is all a great example of an orwellian cryptocracy getting tangled up in all the criminal evidence it observes. oops. kinda like the federal reserve logging all that drug money moving around.
i realize all of this sounds quite bottom-of-the-barrel everything and the kitchen sink kind of super conspiracy. But hey, it does in fact have odd threads that go back to the weirdest events of the Bush administration - and before. Sorry. I'm offering this stuff in good faith: there is just too much material to ignore.
--hongpong.com
Hey, that's not funny.
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make install -not war
"The words "matter of national security" should carry a bit of weight"
They used to, until the last couple of presidents used them in an abuse of power.
Their words are not so weighty these days.
and that's a hanging crime, not that anybody cares.
Lying, corruption and treason? In my secretive government bureaucracy? It's more likely than you think.
Governments do sometimes lie. Ours lies, too. It's part of what has kept your unpatriotic asses free to write such hate-filled diatribe. Get over it. Or do the right thing -- move to another country. (You may like the U.K.; they have to register TOY weapons there!)
Her main point is a thriving market around the "not for export" US weapons market.
The US keeps some of its good stuff back from its allies, for its own protection ie never to face its own weapons (tomcats ect).
Or just too many human rights problems/wars with some regimes ect.
Think Australia, UK, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan ect. have all asked for code, upgrade to "export" quality systems.
The USA just offers some more aid or 'more' of the same export quality systems to keep them happy. So the parts of the world with US based systems then have a few options.
The nice way:
Reverse engineering while begging the USA for the codes/products ect.
Or what Sibel Edmonds hints at
Join a strange network of interested US politicians, weapons manufacturers, countries and individuals.
Then you swap, trade, bribe, spy or steal you way to cool new toys - nuclear is just a small part of this huge network.
They all win. Get the systems/parts you want, or plans and upgrade at home, sell around the world ect, and US politicians are corrupted. Sibel Edmonds hints at details ie that Israel, Turkey and Pakistan
have a network with connection to US politicians (household names).
The FBI found out about it, did some work on a case and then got a bit 'lost' when it hit real 'names'.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Those things are not linked. The incompetance is wide ranging and not limited to military mismanagement. When you have an executive branch that uses Enron as a role model you end up with more than one problem.
The other factor is that Israel is the one place in that region where the rule of law is beleived in even if it is imperfectly applied. That makes them easier to deal with than their neighbours. I think there is also a feeling of kinship and some sort of odd admiration of the spirit of the old wild west as Israel colonises the place.
Well, she already did. And, as one might expect, both Dems and GOP'ers have been implicated.
The Times declined to name names, even though she said she would. Edmonds has provided a "rogues gallery," of the perps -- uh, sorry, alleged perps -- which includes Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Dennis Hastert, Brent Scowcroft and Marc Grossman, who is described in the Times article as a "well-known senior official in the US State Department."
For the most part, this activity appears to have been driven by pure avarice, selling accessible, desired product (nuke "secrets," arms, drugs, etc), with the perps pocketing cash.
By the bye, here is the latest statement from Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame.
Poor lady, her days are numbered. I wonder how long it will be before she is mysteriously "disappeared".
I wonder if, when you control the world, you can pull out tricks like this to distract from unwelcome news surfacing? I mean, the people whose names are attached to selling nuke technology have some pretty big pull. . . Yes, they're just managers for the real behind-the-scenes powers that be, but maybe they can't be sacrificed at the moment, given that it would likely unravel the U.S. leadership right up the ladder.
I admit it's a thought with fairly thin connective tissue, but I figured I'd point it out nonetheless.
-FL
Certain matters of national security are allowed as "exceptions" to the Freedom of Information Act in the FOIA statute itself. Given the topic is nuclear secrets, I could imagine that these fit properly within those exceptions. That may be why they deny the document exists. Exclusions mean they have to admit it exists and can refuse production. Exceptions allow them to deny the existence altogether (or do I have that backward). The FBI may be doing nothing illegal or unusual here at all. From reading the article it sounds like the author has no clue that "exceptions" exist for just that sort of national secret. The best course of action for pursuing items like that is to take the FBI to court and sue under the FOIA to have an "independent" federal judge. The quotes are because many of the judges are former USA attorneys- prosecutors for the FBI, who roll over like Fido for them. Nonetheless, worth a try. But then again, I just had a panel of three federal appeals judges affirm an order declaring discovery of two certified mailing records from the Post Office burdensome- so don't hold your breath. But then again, they may have been doing the Second Circuit corruption protection thing for the presidential campaign sex tape scandal that's being primed. Oh well.
Anyone interested in potential viral videos on this story?
Here's a current one to start off with-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VMnOxMuOAk
Great choice of words...
"Israel colonises the place"
Sort of like how the white man colonized north america, right?
This sig space tolet, reasonable rate.
The Twin Towers were brought down by foreign hijackers.
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
And it was just a weather balloon that crashed in Roswell.
This particular individual is Marc Grossman, identified here. Re:'Which party?' The short answer: 'both' Sibel named 18 people 2 weeks ago, some of them Dems
OK - maybe they are actually called settlements or something but the reality is the same. There's no reason to read good or bad into it becuase you get both. There are parallels with putting the indians into a reservation and then taking over the reservation because that's how uneven colonial wars work. It will improve once the extremist loonies on both sides settle down but that is hard to do while blood is being spilled.
ipod!
guitar hero!
my big screen tv!
nah nah nah nah
the government will fear my next blog entry!
that will change everything.
Is this like the Chinagate scandal?
And got a badge, and a fake police history check....
Oh man LEOs do a good job, its just that they have dual roles.... one to protect the public, and two to protect the govt and VIPs, or are their priorities the other way around?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I thought that the guys high up actually believe that jesus will come in aid if there is WW3, and half the planet nuked, thats why they are actively
and indirectly making sure it happens, kind of like teasing god to wakeup and come down here or we will nuke the whole earth.
I hope they realize, that most likely the aliens will come down save the earth then kill all those who started this nutcase warfare.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The guys high up have done so much evil that there's no way they think there's a god, especially one with a hell.
But supposedly they do have some insider info on the aliens. Not a reassuring thought.
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make install -not war
The FBI is the closest thing to a national police force that the US has so you'd think that the national police force of a powerful country fighting terrorists would be somewhat powerful itself. You would be wrong. The FBI is routinely slapped around by every other part of the federal governement including the CIA, Secret Service, White House, Congress, DIA, and Defense Department. All thanks to J. Edgar Hoover who undermined the FBI with his weird pogroms. The FBI used to conduct overseas intelligence-gathering which the CIA grabbed away from it in the early 50s. When Kennedy was shot, the Secret Service literally pushed the FBI aside (they wouldn't even let them watch the autopsy) and conducted what little investigation was ever done even though there was originally a suspicion of a coup-in-progress that Secret Service agents were mixed up in up to their eyeballs. The only things the FBI really does today are background checks, services for municipal police departments, and investigation of corruption by petty local officials.
And here comes the "America is perfect and can do no wrong" party to defend treason, torture, extortion, coercion, lying, theft, abuse of power, destruction of the constitution, and any other evil under the sun. All so you can feel good about yourself as a "patriotic American" and excuse the fact that you don't have the courage to stand up to tyranny. What if, just what if your country was engaging in evil? Would you have the balls to stand up and do something about it? Or would you close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and shout "LALALA I can't hear you!" at the top of your lungs? Would you be so quick to excuse if democrats were in power?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"It's funny that the way to LOSE a war according to the art of war is to have the army in a distant land and run the people into recession in order to fund that war (that you should be using the supplies from the fallen army/land to restock"
:). It was pretty obvious what would happen before the battle even started.
Lose a war? That assumes your beloved General and his army are fighting a war _for_ _you_. Funny assumption to make given the circumstances.
After all guess who is winning and who is losing. It sure isn't the citizens of the US or Iraq who are winning
Know thyself and the real enemy indeed.
"We have always been at war with Oceania/Iraq/Iran/Drugs/etc".
So does all that secrecy protect you from your _real_ enemies?
Corruption, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
MOD PARENT UP