Inside the 2013 US Intelligence "Black Budget"

i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government's top secret budget. The $52.6 billion 'black budget' for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses those funds or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress."

Comments

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to pretend like the president has any actual control over any of this! Makes you feel like you as an American matter, doesn't it?

Douglas Adams was right. The presidency does not exist to wield power. The presidency exists to distract attention away from the wielding of power.

Re:Cool

[noh8rz10]

I think the only thing that is "intelligent" about "intelligence agencies" is the way they secure unlimited black box budgets. $60 billion for 100,000 staff is an average of $600k for each staff member. what are they spending it on? contractors i bet.

Re:Cool

[jythie]

People tend to vastly overestimate how much defacto power a president has.

Re:Cool

[PPH]

The presidency is like a piano player in a whorehouse. He knows what is going on upstairs, but there's not much he can do about it other than to drown out the sounds.

Re:Cool

[Garridan]

Did you RTFB? Oh wait, no, I did. And I still have the same question. Funny thing about this horrific terrorist act by Snowden -- we barely know anything we didn't know beforehand -- but the administration totally pulled a Streisand and now more people are learning the truth

Re:Cool

[cold fjord]

what are they spending it on?

I hear these sorts of things are useful, and expensive: KH-11

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

" Makes you feel like you as an American matter, doesn't it? "

Actually, I agree with all the government programs that have been in the media lately. So do millions of other Americans. Sorry if it's a shock to you that there are people in your democracy who disagree with you.

Re:Cool

[Runaway1956]

Drones. That's where the money goes. Drones are expensive. And, the facilities to operate the drones. The military industrial complex, and the components of that complex, sets their own prices. Like the no-bid contracts exposed in the Iraq war, money is no problem. Secret deals are made, complete with kickbacks and campaign donations, and the government pays whatever the contractor says to pay. The people who authorize these expenditures are part of the same group that authorizes expenditures for billion dollar aircraft. Think about that - billion dollar aircraft.

Alright - maybe I exaggerate the drone cost some, but I am pretty damned serious.

Re:Cool

[shentino]

Would we agree if we knew what was really going on?

Re:Cool

[Camael]

Time to pretend like the president has any actual control over any of this! ...The presidency does not exist to wield power. The presidency exists to distract attention away from the wielding of power.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Obama is apparently a a keen supporter of intelligence spending.

Jun. 2, 2009

When U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair met with President Barack Obama in February to discuss a proposed new constellation of multibillion-dollar imaging satellites, the resulting series of conversations was unusual and maybe unprecedented in the country's decades-long history of using orbiting cameras to spy inside foreign borders. ...

Obama's personal involvement in formulating a satellite acquisition proposal to Congress was "very unusual," said a retired intelligence official. U.S. presidents often receive briefings about spy satellite capabilities at times of crisis, the official said, but he did not know of another president being involved in acquisition planning. That is normally left to the intelligence community, which manages construction of spy satellites and operates them through the National Reconnaissance Office. Acquisition proposals are accepted indirectly by presidents when they sign off on their classified budget requests to Congress.

Well, since Obama was personally (and unusually) involved in formulating a satellite acquisition proposal to Congress, I'd say the argument that he is a mere figurehead doesn't quite fly.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware. You think Satellites are cheap? You think massive data centers are pocket change? Not to mention facilities, which have to meet strict security requirements and be guarded 24/7. There is waaaaay more being spent on hardware than on people.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Come, now. I don't think any of us really ever assumed Bush was an evil super-genius.

Cheney, on the other hand...

Re:Cool

[shadowofwind]

Though drones don't cost that much, there are other billion dollar aircraft.

After Obama won in 2008, his administration's spending plans had large increasing drone spending before he even took office.

The revolving door is another big part of how the system work: retiring colonels have lucrative employment deals lined up with the contractors before they award the contracts. And of course private stock offerings are another mechanism for congressmen. I've been out of the industry for a few years now, and it still makes my blood boil.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

GLG-20s don't come cheap.

Re:Cool

[shadowofwind]

I completely agree. As I saw it, the arguments about the Iraq and Afghan wars that were in the press during the Bush administration could be mostly understood as a part of the turf war between the pentagon and the state department.

Re:Cool

[erikkemperman]

And it's not just this black budget' either. Google "GOA DOD not auditable" and you'll find that the office of accounting has pretty much zero idea how the Pentagon budget (of some 800 billion at present) is spent.

See this huff post article for example. Further digging indicates that the DoD has effectively been unaccountable even since before 2001.

Currently they are promising to be auditable by 2017...

Re:Cool

[erikkemperman]

Google "GOA DOD not auditable"

Damn that should have been GAO of course, not GOA.

Re:Cool

[schnell]

People tend to vastly overestimate how much defacto power a president has.

Why do people on Slashdot keep saying this? The POTUS really does hold ultimate power over the Executive Branch of the US Government, which includes the DoD and the DNI agencies. I get that we want to think he doesn't know or that he's just some dupe, but he's not. (It reminds me of how Soviet citizens in the '30s would look at terrible abuses or atrocities - usually specifically approved by Stalin - and often say, "If only Stalin knew!")

Anyone who has spent much time around the government in DC can tell you that, yes, defense companies and lobbyists wield a lot of influence over the Legislative Branch... but they're not really in charge of the National Security apparatus - the president is. And he's not some patsy. The sad truth about these activities is that he knows about them and he thinks they're OK.

Maybe he's right that they do actually stop terrorist attacks, maybe he's just letting these programs continue because he doesn't want to look "soft" on terrorism or get blamed if there's another attack. I don't know and neither do you. But either way please don't delude yourself that the POTUS has not 100% approved what the intelligence community's big initiatives and scope of surveillance are.

Re:Cool

[betterprimate]

Time to pretend like the president has any actual control over any of this! ...The presidency does not exist to wield power. The presidency exists to distract attention away from the wielding of power.

I'm afraid I have to disagree. Obama is apparently a a keen supporter of intelligence spending.

Well, since Obama was personally (and unusually) involved in formulating a satellite acquisition proposal to Congress, I'd say the argument that he is a mere figurehead doesn't quite fly.

That's President Obama. Now, if you were to quote Senator Obama, your point would be valid. You want to know how much he is a pawn? Military action against Syria will happen between next Saturday night and Tuesday morning. He will take action, as Presidents before him have, while Congress is in recess. He has until the 9th. This will be the main focus of his Presidential Address on Sunday; justifying the legality and U.S. interest in doing so. He'll pull at liberal heart strings.

This has been planned for the past 15 years now just like the Iraq war was. U.S. and Britain (primarily) won't miss their chance even though there is more evidence to counter the claim Assad used chemical weapons. They're manufacturing evidence.

The Elites need the Syrian pipeline and this is their chance to take it.

(Did I mention the U.S. and NATO have been funding the destabilization of Syria for the past four years?)

Next stop: Iran

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

As its always been : C P Snow's book 'The Corridors of Power', written in the 1950s details how it all worked in the UK

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

All spending is eventually people. It might be more dispersive, and it might be that large numbers of civilians end up working for the US communist state, far more than are accounted for by metrics of direct employees and contractors, but in the end, even things like steel, oil and gas are human costs.

We're still paying for those materials and resources to be produced and used for something that is not productive or beneficial. One way to look at it is that a Spirit stealth bomber costs $1B, divided by the US median income of $50K (FY2011), is that a single stealth bomber costs 20k US man-years or 500 people's entire working lives (assuming an average working life of 40 years, no basis). It might well also be that a large part of that $1B is gratuities for the people who were directly involved in the production of the aircraft and it's sub-components, but it all detracts from wealth that could otherwise be earned by honest, hard working people. Unfortunately when the US communist state spends it immediately becomes mandatory confiscation, as it introduces a shortfall in money available for paying mandatory income tax, which can only be met by SOMEONE succumbing to the temptation and allure of overcompensation and working for the US communist apparatus.

It is also important to remember that it is only card carrying members of the Communist apparatus that are eligible for such freebie handouts, that card is known as an SCS "Top Secret" clearance, and is communist party members ticket to a free ride and a free lunch. These tickets are hard to come by as they are basically a vetting of your personhood to ensure that members have the right communist mindset. For most of the history of the US communist apparatus this meant you had to be white and upper class and not show tendencies of sympathy to the down trodden outsiders, initially blacks and other minorities and the poor inside the US, but now tending more towards "illegals" and the subjects of the US communist empire outside the states ("non US persons") who are subject to rule and taxation by the US communist machine, but are not eligible for representation or "constitutional rights", "human rights" etc.

Re:Cool

[BlueStrat]

This has been planned for the past 15 years now just like the Iraq war was. U.S. and Britain (primarily) won't miss their chance even though there is more evidence to counter the claim Assad used chemical weapons. They're manufacturing evidence.

The Elites need the Syrian pipeline and this is their chance to take it.

(Did I mention the U.S. and NATO have been funding the destabilization of Syria for the past four years?)

Next stop: Iran

You're close, but think bigger. Much bigger.

The global interests have decided that it's time for global change. They want the "Age of America" as a top superpower finished and over with. They want a major global power-shift.

The only way outside of natural disasters/pandemics that major and sudden global changes happen is through world war.

World War 3 is what is being staged here. Russia has already sent a fleet to the area. Both Russia and China have warned the US not to strike Syria. The US will be facing Russia, China, Iran, and much of the Middle East and others with an over-extended and exhausted US military. The US doesn't come out of that well.

The US Dollar is about to collapse. They've been running the printing presses at warp speed to maintain a rough status-quo while they make preparations. They see a war as not only the only way, but the preferred way, out of the somewhere-north-of ~$17T debt (that's admitted to), while simultaneously taking the US out of the top-global-superpower club and allowing martial law to be declared in the US and massive domestic political/societal changes made via the barrels of guns.

Hang on boys and girls.

Shit's about to get real after Obama strikes Syria.

I firmly believe it will be the "Archduke Ferdinand" moment that starts a world war and signals the end of the US as a top superpower, and the end of constitutional civil liberties as we've known them for the people in the US.

Strat

Re:Cool

[Lennie]

Or maybe he just thinks all the companies provide employment.

Or maybe his political party wants to secure funding for the next elections.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I agree with all the government programs that have been in the media lately. So do millions of other Americans.

That is the saddest aspect of it all. Many people, especially in the US, actually want to live in a police state not unlike the one in Nineteen eighty-four.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

"Damn that should have been GAO of course, not GOA."

That explains the hippies in India I got when Googling it.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

"You think massive data centers are pocket change? Not to mention facilities, which have to meet strict security requirements and be guarded 24/7"

Not to mention what they paid for the IT guy who walked out the door of those secret, guarded facilities with all the secrets in his pocket.

Re:Cool

[Deluvianvortex]

World War 3 is what is being staged here. Russia has already sent a fleet to the area. Both Russia and China have warned the US not to strike Syria.

That was not said at all. They cautioned about leaping to conclusions about the nature of the attack and should let the weapons inspectors finish their investigation. They said, literally, "Military strikes could have catastrophic consequences for the entire region." No one said anything about war, except Iran, who no one cares about. Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23845800

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not taking into account the real black budget - the money from drug dealing.

Re:Cool

[KGIII]

The Cold War is long since over, McCarthyism is no longer fashionable, and bad government policy or actions do not automatically equal communism. Communism has a definition. If you learn that definition, it's real definition, you may actually not be so scared of it but I digress and that's not the point. The point is that, no, it's not communism by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyhow, no, I don't recommend communism as a system of government for anything larger than a tribe. In and of itself it isn't a bad system. Unfortunately it has had its name tarnished by lots of people and governments self-defining themselves as communists when they are nothing even close to communists. Today's seemingly more popular example would be the self-defining libertarians who don't understand the platform, don't even know what libertarianism is, and generally seem to do so because it is no longer fashionable to admit that they're Republican extremists, authoritarians, or extreme right-wing theocrats who believe capitalism is a system of governance.

But, still, I digress and will assert, again, that this isn't (and I'm not in favor of it either) communism. I can only wonder if your post was an attempt at humor.

Re:Cool

[KGIII]

Why do people on Slashdot keep saying this?

The truth and the short answer:

Their side is in office.

Re:Cool

[dkleinsc]

Further digging indicates that the DoD has effectively been unaccountable even since before 2001.

Actually, they've arguably been unaccountable since about 1935 or so during the run-up to that little problem in Europe and the Pacific. Dwight Eisenhower was warning the country about it back when he was president. There have been numerous documented cases of the DoD and intelligence agencies flat-out lying to presidents and legislators when it suited their interests, and never being called to account for that.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

An MBA who had a C average in college and ran every business given to him by his daddy into the ground is what anyone thought was a "super genius"? lolwut?

[Citation needed]

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

What I saw in the House of Commons debate in the UK yesterday was an actual, passionate, multi-sided (not merely two sides) debate, and in the end the government motion advocating for military action before hearing from the UN inspectors was barely defeated. It was a serious grilling of the government, with awesome points and counterpoints throughout. Some government MPs voted against their government, some opposition MPs voted against the opposition's wishes. MPs demanded explanations of what, exactly, the wording of the motion meant. It was a messy and beautiful democratic process to watch regardless of the outcome.

What I see in the US is everybody awaiting the solitary, closed-door decision of the President, including whether or not to even consult with Congress on the matter. It's sad by comparison.

Yes, he has a lot of fricking power. For all the "checks and balances" the US system has built-in, they seem to be failing a lot based on a ridiculous amount of deference to whatever decision the POTUS comes to almost on their own. When the POTUS has to show up *in* Congress and the Senate to actually debate and defend their decision *in*person*, and answer questions and criticisms on the spot in the public eye, rather than a bunch of secret back-room closed meetings in the Whitehouse with "house leaders" and a few press conferences, then I'll be convinced they don't have all that much power.

Re:Cool

[interkin3tic]

It's amazing to me that we voters accept that budgeting needs to be secret for legitimate security purposes. "Oh no! If China knew how much money we're spending on tanks, they'd only have to spend ONE MORE DOLLAR to get an edge on us and take our freedom in a tank war!"

Re:Cool

[interkin3tic]

People tend to vastly overestimate how much defacto power a president has.

Why do people on Slashdot keep saying this?

Doesn't seem like anyone is saying the president is POWERLESS, but the thread was about budgeting. The president doesn't write the budget. He's obviously influential through allies in congress and has more leverage to influence it than probably any other single person, but he cannot wave a pen and change it fundamentally without getting congress on his side first.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cold War is long since over

Yes, yes it is.

McCarthyism is no longer fashionable

Are you sure about that? Try replacing the word Communism with the "equally frightening" terrorism.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Presidents are human. They want to continue to live. They know when to not interfere... Kennedy grew some balls, and look what happened to him.

Re:Cool

[jythie]

POTUS holds dejure power, but their defacto power is not really the same. No matter how much power one has on paper, internal diplomacy is usually far more complex and holding on to any real authority requires a complex dance of satisfying entrenched and institutional powers.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about foreign vs domestic authority.

The authority of the President in foreign relations (as compared to Congresses authority in that realm) is immense - in domestic policy the lions share of authority lies with Congress. The reason you dont see a debate in Congress on the subject is because Congress has no real say in military matters other than to approve/disapprove military budgets or to declare war (which Congressional authority was meant to be a check on the military power of the executive branch but has been gotten around pretty easily by every President since Reagan).

In the case of this article, because it concerns finance the ultimate buck stops with Congress, not the President.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Look what happened to JFK 50 years ago when he went up against the CIA and military's wishes in the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam. . . Read "JFK and the Unspeakable."

Lesson learned--no president has opposed the military-industrial-intelligence complex since then.

Re:Cool

[umghhh]

I think you are forgetting the hookers and the white powder. These things are expensive in quality that is required.

Re:Cool

[dcw3]

Though drones don't cost that much, there are other billion dollar aircraft.

Depends which you're talking about. From Wikipedia's Global Hawk page:
Each aircraft was to cost US$35 million in 2005,[2] but this had risen to $222.7M per aircraft (including development costs) by 2013.
That's just the build price, sustainment (think parts replacement, supporting staff, etc.) costs a bunch more.

Re:Cool

[dcw3]

Knowledge of program costs give you plenty of knowledge about potential capabilities. As much as I dislike the way Congress does things, I'm very comfortable with them keeping this budget to themselves, as long as they're providing sufficient oversight. Don't like who's holding those pursestrings?...vote them out.

Re:Cool

[superdave80]

Currently they are promising to be auditable by 2017...

And when they aren't auditable by that deadline, absolutely nothing will happen. What are they going to do, shut down the military? Fire federal workers in charge of this mess? Ha!

Re:Cool

[Squidlips]

Absolutely! Great snarky comment. There are still Obama apologists out there I see!

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

This stuff all goes out on RFP's and bids come in. Think you can do better than Lockheed on the F35? Feel free to bid on the contract. But I think you'll find it's not as easy a project as you think.

But when the federal government needs major infrastructure built in Iraq and they need it NOW, there aren't many options of companies who can get the job done. That's why they hand no-bid contracts to companies like Haliburtan.

As for kickbacks, a contractor can't give anyone from the government a cup of Starbucks without breaking a law.

Re:Cool

[tqk]

Not to mention what they paid for the IT guy who walked out the door of those secret, guarded facilities with all the secrets in his pocket.

Yeah, what was that IT guy doing there allowing such an abysmal internal security regime to continue?

Re:Cool

[interkin3tic]

Knowledge of program costs give you plenty of knowledge about potential capabilities

I have absolutely no experience with such things. Could I have an example?

Re:Cool

[tqk]

An MBA who had a C average in college and ran every business given to him by his daddy into the ground is what anyone thought was a "super genius"?

Imagine what all those people who supported and voted for him to get there were thinking.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the dumbest comments I've read in a long time. Really? REALLY? It makes even less sense now that Britain voted against military action.

Re:Cool

[tibman]

I'd say it gives you an estimate about how seriously they are pursuing something. Is the program a joke or something that we need to put resources into countering?

Re:Cool

[RespekMyAthorati]

Or maybe his political party wants to secure funding for the next elections

Bingo.

Re: Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

They do buy satellites and stuff too.

Wow... I RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

And saw the American public ripping the big government a new asshole.

Good job peeps. Keep doin gods work.

We could spend this money almost any other way and do much more good.

Re:Wow... I RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

We could spend this money almost any other way and do much more good.

Could, but won't.

Re:Wow... I RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you accusing THEM of not using for good things? THEY are doing good, for own their good, though.

Re:Wow... I RTFA

[Seumas]

We'd spend it bailing out corporations or fighting for corporate interests overseas, in another sandlot where we justify our actions with some manufactured humanitarian atrocity.

And you're still right, because at least with either of those things, the actions are not directly against the population and citizens of this government, itself.

Open Source

[chill]

Between the CIA and the DoDIA they have over half a billion in the category "open source". Very interesting.

Re:Open Source

[c0lo]

Between the CIA and the DoDIA they have over half a billion in the category "open source". Very interesting.

The notion of CIA and "open" impacts my mind pretty much as cognitive dissonance.
If I leave aside the software context and put "CIA + open source" alongside, the impact is double (what the hell can be source from CIA and still be open?)

Re:Open Source

[tukang]

"open source" refers to analysis of publicly available information such as news, social media, etc. (https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunities/analytical/open-source-officer-foreign-media-analyst.html)

Re:Open Source

[chill]

Thank you. I was wondering where all the upstream contributions were, or if this was just support licenses for Red Hat and Apache.

Re:Open Source

[slick7]

Between the CIA and the DoDIA they have over half a billion in the category "open source". Very interesting.

If you want to believe their lies, I have have some bottom land for sale along the Mississippi, or how about a bridge in New York City, real cheap, almost nothing.

Re:Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to find this bit of info in TFA(s) - can't find any reference. Can you help, please?

Re:Open Source

[thoth]

Come on folks... read the damn info. The site says that "open source" data is "publicly available information appearing in print or electronic form". I'm gonna speculate part of the open source budget goes towards the salaries of linguists, computers for translation and the support staff, etc.

There's also a government website: www.opensource.gov

Re:Open Source

[Livius]

Open source is easy stuff like newspapers from other parts of the world and other forms of public record.

Re:Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering where all the upstream contributions were

SELinux, for one.

Re:Open Source

[NotSanguine]

Between the CIA and the DoDIA they have over half a billion in the category "open source". Very interesting.

The notion of CIA and "open" impacts my mind pretty much as cognitive dissonance. If I leave aside the software context and put "CIA + open source" alongside, the impact is double (what the hell can be source from CIA and still be open?)

IIRC, Open source in this context refers to intelligence gathering from public sources like newspapers and public records and such.

Re:Open Source

[jiriki]

Yeah... it's to easy to monitor all those unencrypted mails and web requests. Therefore the DHS spents money on things like http://polycrypt.net/ . So breaking codes becomes fun again for the NSA

Bomb Syria

[bhlowe]

Obama's (and the neocon's) response: bomb a civil war in the Middle East...

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really care about the people in Syria, Iran or any Stan. So if the US wants to send its soldiers to die in those countries with the mission of preventing muslim countries from having muslim leaders, as far as I'm concerned they can fight it out between them. Just, please don't call it "giving them democracy".

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

you are blind. The neocons are not asking for bombs this time. This one is all about one man needing to show how big his balls because he is pissed they didn't listen to him.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

if this happens, Israel will become a parking lot.

Re:Bomb Syria

[cold fjord]

Obama's (and the neocon's) response: bomb a civil war in the Middle East...

Just to be clear, are you advocating leaving the Syrian government in peace to use nerve gas on the population at will.... like Saddam was doing to the Kurds? Another Hama is OK? Just asking.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

What on earth (other than controlled agitprop in the media) makes you think the Syrian government was responsible for that attack? How could they benefit from it? Why would you be fooled again after Iraq?

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

I read an interesting opinion piece that asked what's the big deal about nerve gas? Regimes have been killing people on mass with conventional weapons, why is this a particular type of trigger for anything?

Re:Bomb Syria

[Seumas]

Funny thing, that.

When Bush did it, Obama (rightfully) stated "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

And Biden stated "I teach separation of powers in Constitutional law. This is something I know. So I brought a group of Constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I'm going to deliver to the whole United States Senate pointing out that the president HAS NO CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY to take this country to war against a country of 70 million people unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him."

After the bullshit the government tried to stir up in/over North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and so on the last few years -- I wondered when these comments were finally going to catch up with them. Tonight, I saw them in The Atlantic, even -- which tells me they are not going to remain forgotten and ignored, except by the politicians, themselves.

Their statements and positions were right, when they stated them against Bush. They were right when they ran for office on these statements and promises to the American people. They are still the right positions to maintain.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Seumas]

So let's wait for a UN mandate and then act on that. And let's wait until there is verification that this is actually happening. John Kerry said something to the effect of "You can't deny that these horrible atrocities of chemical warfare on their own people are happening -- we have all seen the evidence first hand, on social media".

Sorry, but youtube is not "witnessing evidence first hand". I saw a video of a man flying with man-made wings, lifting off the ground and high into the air. That didn't mean it wasn't fake (it was fake).

Let's also not buy into this "it's for humanitarian purposes!' bullshit, so readily. Why does our government care about humanitarian military efforts over 300 dead people when it is in a high-energy resource center, but not when it is hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, Darfur, and many other places?

This isn't even a disguised agenda. When Obama hagiographer, Gwen Ifill, interviewed him recently, he stated the following. Notice that he throws absolutely fucking everything but the kitchen sink out there to compel America to throw in on Syria . . . but he very clearly states one of the reasons is to maintain the clear flow of energy through the region. You know, save people from chemical warfare, abuse of women and children, freedom, safety, opposition of authoritarian regimes (hah!) and... energy.

Obama: And so we don’t have good options, great options, for the region. But what I am clear about is that if the United States stands by its core values and its core interests; if we’re very clear about making sure that we’re stopping terrorist attacks against the United States; if we are very clear about our, you know, commitment to the safety and security of Israel; if we are clear about the free flow of energy throughout the region that affects the entire global economy; but also if we’re clear about our values and that we believe in inclusive governments, that we believe in the protection of minority rights, that we believe in women’s rights, that we believe that over time it’s better for governments to be representative of the will of their people, as opposed to being, you know, dictated to by authoritarian governments; if we are consistent in those principles, then eventually, I think, we’ll be better off. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have some very difficult problems in — in the meantime.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Seumas]

Fool me once (Iraq, Afghanistan), shame on - shame on you.
Fool me (Lybia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon and so on down the road) -- you can't get fooled again.

Except that, clearly, we can.

Re:Bomb Syria

[tnk1]

The problem is... they have no plans to remove Assad from power. That would almost have a point. They are just going to dump a few hundred cruise missiles in a civil war.

An action with the desired effect of removing Assad would require us to actually put troops in there, or at least advisers. Otherwise, we aren't doing anything to remove Assad. The resistance might still win, but that wouldn't be us.

We're just shooting at them because chemical weapons.

Re:Bomb Syria

[cold fjord]

Nerve gas is a chemical weapon. Chemical weapons are considered Weapons of Mass Destruction. There is considerable stigma to killing people with them.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I realise that, but the point I think is killing 10000 in an instant differs from killing 10000 over a 2 month period doesn't really make much of a difference.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, nonsense. Tell us WHY would legal Syria gov use suddenly 1 chemical missile, while it WINS the conventional war against their terrorists uprising? And drop it on civilians! Obviously ONLY result of using this missile is that USA/Isreal gets excuse to bomb them.Why the fuck would they want that? Think.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the guy that "was sure" there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq just came back from vacation and now he is also *sure* that government used chemical weapons with NO REASON to do so (they are winning anyway) and ALL reasons to NOT use it (because it allows USA to attack).

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fool me (Lybia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon and so on down the road) -- you can't get fooled again."

Turkey is a Nato member, you moron. Without them, there will be no Syria bombing.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

There are rules to war, rules that are there to protect non-combatants and combatants alike, although in different measure. After the first World War it was decided that certain weapons were too indiscriminate and too inhumane to be used legitimately and as a result they were outlawed. Using these weapons moves you from a "nation state" to a "rogue state" in the eyes of other legitimate nations. Unless you are Russia of course.

Re:Bomb Syria

[Anonymous Coward]

The media told him. He doesn't question the news media.

Why would our government ever lie? Meh. I bet even the AC I'm responding to completely believes the governments story on 9/11.

Oversight

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are ever going to rein in our out of control government we desperately need to have all the public scrutiny we can get. Maybe even put some penalties up, say your budget gets slashed by a billion dollars every time one of your officials gets caught lying to congress or gets caught up in a scandal.

Re:Oversight

[jythie]

I doubt that would actually help much. Look how protective they get over secrets and accountability when the only 'cost' is embarassment. Imagine how much energy they would put in to not being accountable if there were actual penalties.

Re:Oversight

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are ever going to rein in our out of control government we desperately need to have all the public scrutiny we can get. Maybe even put some penalties up, say your budget gets slashed by a billion dollars every time one of your officials gets caught lying to congress or gets caught up in a scandal.

Beyond public scrutiny we need people who care. Most voters don't care about any of the current issues unless it directly affects their immediate day to day life.

Re:Oversight

[Anti-Social Network]

...at some point the "cheaper" option becomes "don't do shit that can blow back on the agency." MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Links to classified data should be labeled

[Myria]

Slashdot - and other news aggregation websites - should put warning labels on links that go to leaked classified information. Some people can get into trouble for viewing it. I love reading it, but some people who read Slashdot work in the classified world and have to work under some of its sillier rules. (Like having to wipe your unclassified work computer because it got Top Secret data on it from the Washington Post.)

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

That makes sense..... and is truly the most insane thing I have heard this week.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Charliemopps]

No, fuck that. It's our moral responsibility to make sure this shit hits every wall in the room.

Re: Links to classified data should be labeled

[statusbar]

So if there were an article on a news site about top secret news but it was pretend and wasn't really top secret would you still have to wipe your computer? If yes, then you will be wiping your computer often. If no, then you get acknowledgment if a leak is actually true or not.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the type of NSFW I normally think of first, but it's a valid point. It also occurs to me that if you were reading this stuff in an airport on a laptop, boarded a plane, then crossed a US border (either direction) you might be accused of transporting classified materials internationally if they searched your computer. Heck, depending upon which side of the border you were on, you might already have broken the law just by reading it.

I wonder if there are all sorts of loud alarm bells going off in the bowels of the NSA thanks to automatic filters picking up scads of classified material going all over the internet?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot - and other news aggregation websites - should put warning labels on links that go to leaked classified information. Some people can get into trouble for viewing it. I love reading it, but some people who read Slashdot work in the classified world and have to work under some of its sillier rules. (Like having to wipe your unclassified work computer because it got Top Secret data on it from the Washington Post.)

You chose to work for the Devil. It turns out, sometimes the Devil wants his due.

That's your problem. So fucking tired of every edge-case person wanting the whole rest of the world to accommodate them. It's self-important entitlement at its finest.

Here's an idea: don't click on links that talking about US intelligence agencies. Simple!

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[bmo]

Pretty much this.

Prior restraint is bollocks.

--
BMO

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Nyder]

That makes sense..... and is truly the most insane thing I have heard this week.

I think it was a joke. But the mod's disagree.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it's true.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this modded down? It didn't kiss his ass enough or what? It's the truth. You take a job with special requirements, those requirements are _yours_ and not every web site's. Is this controversial or difficult to understand?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[cold fjord]

That's not prior restraint, that's information labeling. Prior restraint is when the government says you can't publish it.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[AHuxley]

The automatic filters dont work like that anymore. The first find would be set aside for machine learning and then the search tasks go on as normal.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Gov is super paranoid, they're fingerprinting people every four months now I heard.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[bill_mcgonigle]

No, fuck that. It's our moral responsibility to make sure this shit hits every wall in the room.

Right - don't enable the bastards. Does a spook have to spend three days re-installing his PC because some stupid rule says that he has to if he reads a WashPo article? Good, that's three days less that he can be doing other damage.

Somebody give me a "Top Secret" nugget that's been in the MSM for months so I can I can put in my .sig.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[AHuxley]

From that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 ~"unpleasant content and contradicting facts and opinions" is now just "secret" news.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[CoolGopher]

I'm sorry, but if it's available to all and sundry on the internet, it is no longer secret, let alone Top Secret. The cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the bottle, the train's left the platform, etc.

If institutions fail to adapt to the changing world, that's their problem, not the world's.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Isaac Remuant]

We went over this when wikileaks Material was posted to /.

It's your responsibility. Not the site's. Otherwise, they'd have to accomodate to every small request.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[nsaspook]

You mean the words "Intelligence Black Budget" didn't clue you in?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Gravis Zero]

Slashdot - and other news aggregation websites - should put warning labels on links that go to leaked classified information.

yes, that's it, let's have everyone go out of our way to help those poor souls like you that are helping perpetuate the problem. oh wait, here's a better idea, dont work for criminals or companies that help them.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[cold fjord]

Good, that's three days less that he can be doing other damage.

Like making sure Russia isn't cheating on its ballistic missile treaty obligations? Like looking for North Korea making preparations to launch missiles at Japan? Like Iran assembling a nuclear warhead? I think you have a "funny" idea there, probably more than one.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Runaway1956]

Nahhh - some people probably think it's the government's budget for black SUV's. And, that would be "news for nerds" based on all the options and accessories to be found in said black SUV's.

I saw one not long ago, in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Damned thing was completely blacked out, violating any and all laws about tinted windshields. There had to be six antenna sticking up out of it, maybe more. I only saw it for a couple seconds, in cross traffic at one of the three red light intersections in town. Wonder what the hell spooks were doing in Broken Bow, Oklahoma? Maybe there was a credible threat to the ancient old cypress tree outside of town or something.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[AHuxley]

Yes contractors selling more kit and overtime to watch over new contractors fixing past contractors work...
Expect a lot of internal testing, experts, deep staff tracking, random chats with strangers after work about life at bars/gyms/book clubs (fiction only).
Report any chats you have with strangers, anyone could be a loyalty test.
Direct and covert offers to 'buy' info on work topics as huge new loyalty budgets spin up.
If you really want to keep your job, report coworkers reading news aggregation websites :)
Get in fast before they report you first.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[EmperorArthur]

The problem is that the agency responsible for all that shouldn't be the same agency looking at US citizens.
That's not a moral, or even constitutional issue. It's a management one.

Go through all this data to do any of the things you refer to above are specific tasks. Things no one has a problem with. The problem comes when the NSA has information overload because every AT&T office in the middle of no where has a tap on it. I hope that last statement was just hyperbole, but you get my point.

Terrorism is such a nebulous term in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. It's being used to justify huge amounts of departmental overreach. I want the NSA to watch Russia, and Iran, and North Korea. What I don't want is for them to watch everyone at home. Doing so makes as much institutional sense as replacing policemen with soldiers.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[bill_mcgonigle]

Like making sure Russia isn't cheating on its ballistic missile treaty obligations? Like looking for North Korea making preparations to launch missiles at Japan? Like Iran assembling a nuclear warhead? I think you have a "funny" idea there, probably more than one.

Your scare tactics don't work on me - I don't live in fear, and America doesn't work when people do (even Francis Scott Key got that right) . Japan can worry about Japan. Russia isn't planning to bomb the world. Iran hasn't started a war with another country in 150 years. If you're afraid of Iran, you should look at the CIA, which even admitted this week to overthrowing its democracy and installing the government that led directly to the Islamic Revolution and the current clusterfuck of a government they have there.

America is not the World Police, but the US intelligence agencies do violate our highest laws (and International law) every single day. We need to take care of our internal problems as our primary responsibility.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[AHuxley]

Long term the nugget idea is interesting, just keep quoting the info as posted to Slashdot and adding your own insights.
A lot of staff will for the first time face the reality/limits of their rights and freedoms and wonder about their own internet logs.
Self censorship takes over and very well educated staff members notes group think setting in.
Thats why the more successful clandestine services ensure staff read as much as they can and offer to keep their education going.
Languages, propaganda, protest movements where all once seen as great learning environments.
So if your good clearance "still" has some "leaked classified information" clause ... where you in the newer uptake?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're right about Iran. Interesting. But if there's such a thing as begging to be invaded, this has to be it:

"Between February and September 1979, Iran's government executed 85 senior generals and forced all major-generals and most brigadier-generals into early retirement.[26] By September 1980, the government had purged 12,000 army officers.[26] These purges resulted in a drastic decline in the Iranian military's operational capacities.[26] Their regular army (which, in 1978, was considered the world's fifth most powerful)[48] had been badly weakened by purges and lack of spare parts. The desertion rate had reached 60%, and the officer corps was devastated."

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[AHuxley]

The US press did to with Nixon too. The old trick was to get to the press/publisher/author first. That worked well for many, many years :)

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[cold fjord]

Sorry, but it doesn't stop being classified if it is stolen and published. The only way it stops being classified is to be declassified in the usual way. There are lots of reasons for that.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[b4dc0d3r]

if you haven't paid attention to the many other threads, your computer has to be wiped. as a programmer I keep notes and snippets and URLs and all kinds of helpful stuff handy. not to mention the installation and config.

if I worked on a controlled pc and clicked an interesting link while researching why Md5 is harmful so u can explain why a Microsoft patch disables cert checimg for md5 signatures, I have to start over.

a controlled computer, without being able to set options like disabling scripts, and likely ie8, on potentially underpowered hardware is a recipe for browser unresponsiveness. I constantly mis- click on android browsers, and dad's ie8 is slower than sloth crap.

a warning would be helpful, and if you still disagree, you should do all of your computing from a livecd with a 3.5" floppy for storage, to remind yourself what starting over entails.

assuming that source is controlled, mails are on the server, and your home drive is not local, most people would be down at least a day, best case, and slower than normal for weeks.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

... Like making sure Russia isn't cheating on its ballistic missile treaty obligations? Like looking for North Korea making preparations to launch missiles at Japan? Like Iran assembling a nuclear warhead? ...

So that's why the USA is spying on its citizens! To stop other countries making war preparations. It's lucky for the rest of the world the USA was so honest about attacking Cuba (regime change), Vietnam (patrol boat scared the Navy), Grenada (airport was 'dangerous'), Iraq (destroy 'weapon' factories).

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you communist bastard.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[cold fjord]

You may not live in fear, but you live in poverty, a poverty of understanding. What I listed isn't scare tactics, but simply issues that have to be faced in the world by the United States. There is no requirement for you to face them, but you shouldn't pretend to understand them when you don't. Trying to pretend that Iran is peaceful when it is one of the key sponsors of terrorism in the world, threatens genocide against Israel, and menaces its neighbors in the region shows you are either badly uninformed, or disingenuous, to be kind. Most of Iran's neighbors are buying large amounts of arms due to Iranian threats. Iraq has been plagued by Iranian agents equipping and training anti-government militias, bribing members of the government, and targeted US and coalition troops trying to restore civil government to Iraq. Iran has been directly linked with terrorist attacks against Americans, including the Beirut bombing that killed 299 American and French soldiers and marines there for peace keeping. Iran has repeatedly threatened to block the Persian Gulf oil routes, a key energy supply for the world, and to cut European petroleum supplies to freeze people in the winter. The "democracy" that you refer to in Iran was gone before the US helped restore the Shah to power. If you trouble yourself to become informed, you will find that the former prime minister had dissolved the legislature, faked an election, was ruling by decree indefinitely, and ignored the last check on his power - the right of a constitutional monarch to dismiss the prime minister. Calling Iran a democracy at the time is a sick joke.

So you claim, "Russia isn't planning to bomb the world"? Who told you? And why do you believe them? Russia has threatened nuclear weapons strikes against NATO for planning to install a limited missile defense against Iran. They have restarted the former Soviet practice of probing American and NATO nation air defenses with nuclear bombers and submarines. They have engaged in practice nuclear strikes against US bases on Guam. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union (of which Russia was the heart) sought US acquiescence to a nuclear decapitation strike they wished to perform against China. The US said NO. I doubt Russian nuclear strategy is much different. They are probably even more reliant upon nuclear weapons for deterrence since the Russian military is a mere shadow of the Soviet military, and reform is faltering. If you have definite knowledge, perhaps you could share it with the American and European defense community?

If you want "Japan to worry about Japan," then you should be ready for a nuclear armed Japan, and terrified neighbors. The Japanese have rockets that they regularly use to orbit satellites, including spy satellites. They have a large and highly competent nuclear industry. They could have ICBMs with nuclear warheads very quickly, if they chose to. The North Koreans and Chinese have already given them incentive. Now, just mix in a little "cultural problem" in that many Japanese don't accept responsibility for waging aggressive war in WW2 and still honor the old ways, and the ingredients of trouble are assembled. Add to that the intense resentment held by many of Japans neighbors to its actions in WW2, and the brew is starting. Stir the pot with a growing movement to rewrite the Japanese "peace constitution" to remove its restrictions on using force, and the neighbors start getting nervous. Those nervous neighbors will buy more weapons and may poison the atmosphere with Japan. South Korea might very well arm with nuclear weapons too given a nuclear armed North Korea, China, and Japan. (And a "Japan looks out for Japan" policy that also implies a "South Korea looks out for South Korea.") The South Koreans already have brand new cruise missiles to fit them on. But hey! No worries! It's not like the economies of Japan, South Korea, China, and the US are related in any way, right?

America may not b

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up cold fjord, you are a dishonest communist propagandist, and a traitor to the citizens of the world.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

and if you still disagree, you should do all of your computing from a livecd with a 3.5" floppy for storage, to remind yourself what starting over entails.

Or perhaps you should have some sense and only browse the web from a LiveCD session.

Why do you have a controlled computer connected to the Internet?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite frankly, that's wonderful. At this point, much like congress or Douche Nozzle in Chief, the less gov contractors get done, the better off we all are.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[geogob]

No. That's no joke. It's irrelevant from where and how you got the classified documents in your hands. If you are not supposed to have them, you'll can get into a lot of trouble. The only way out of bigger trouble is most likely to fill an incident report, which will, i guess, ruin your day, your work and your computer. Possibly your private stuff as well back home.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Like having to wipe your unclassified work computer because it got Top Secret data on it from the Washington Post.

That isn't necessarily as crazy as it sounds. Suppose they have a monitor program on each computer that immediately makes an alert if it detects any classified information based on a hash. That is a reasonable thing to have running to prevent the situation where classified information accidentally gets puts on a computer where it was not supposed to be. If they do have such programs in place, then downloading classified data from the Washington Post is going to set it off with all the inconvenience that follows such alerts. So it makes sense to avoid that. Of course the data should be declassified if it's already public, but that is going to take some time and in the mean time the problem still exists. If that's what they do, I wouldn't know.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[rts008]

Why should we take responsibility for your choices and actions?

If you work with classified info, then you should know better than to let your curiosity rule over responsibility. 'Do you know how curiosity killed the cat?'

Not all of us are molded to think this way. Some of us prefer a more open and honest government that is truly ' by the people, for the people', as advertised!

I your case(and those similar/applicable), I will concede that the above was a bit harsh. I meant no insult...consider it a warning. (Hint: "Ignore the man behind the curtain."

Save the defensive arguments you may intend to reply with for Rosa Parks....in the alleged afterlife.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[rts008]

There are lots of reasons for that.

Are any of those reasons valid after they have been uploaded and spread around the internet?
It HAS to be about retribution, and not secrecy. IT'S ON THE FRIKKING INTERNET ALREADY!!!

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[rts008]

Hi from Stillwater!
Don't bet the farm on a Fed vehicle, the description sounds like our own Tri-County Task Force, made up of all local law enforcement agencies.

There has been on ongoing trend in civil law enforcement to become more 'militarized' since 9/11 in the USA.
It's starting to remind me of the rise of Nazi Germany. Not total, but just starting....

Before you jump to conclusions, check it out.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[rastos1]

I did notice your name on several interesting posts during last 2 weeks, but this time I'm not so sure that you are right.

When talking how Iran menaces it's neighbors it reminds me of this picture. If you say that that Iran threatens the world supply of oil by blocking the Persian Gulf - yes, they do. Does that mean that you can force them to give up their right to control their territorial waters? Do you have some god-given right to that oil or what? Yes, it would cause troubles world wide if they did that. So we just march in and take over the oil reserves? If you say they were involved with Beirut bombing - that was 30 years ago. Move on. There is no point in bringing up that stuff again again - apart from learning from past mistakes. If you describe what USSR/Russia did 50 years ago ... the politicians as well as foreign politics of both USSR and USA changed a lot since that time. When the ballistic rockets start flying, they will fly over my head, not yours - because I live in central Europe. If Russia decides to take out the radar control stations that give information to US rockets, they will hit my country, not yours. Americans seem to be keen on going into military actions around the world - because it is happening far away from them. It is easy to order military strikes when you do that with remote control and drones. When all you see is the footage on CNN. Russia isn't positioning military bases outside of their territory - USA does that. And everybody caves in because of USA power. You are becoming a bully.

America may not be the "World Police," but America has interests around the world. Sure. I'm interested in living like a millionaire sipping mojito on a beach. Does not give me right to force someone to give me their stuff and land.

Don't be mistaken. I'm not supporting Russia/Putin and I'm not supporting Iran developing nuclear weapons nor Syria using chemical weapons. I'm just much closer to the scene and I don't see the world powers trying to resolve the situation with minimum required force.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[3.5 stripes]

I think you mean fascist.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me you're kidding. You're not SERIOUSLY suggesting the USA are the only thing that keeps Japan from starting a nuclear war of aggression against China, right?

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Charliemopps]

Don't surf the internet from your spy computer. Problem solved.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[drinkypoo]

a warning would be helpful, and if you still disagree, you should do all of your computing from a livecd with a 3.5" floppy for storage, to remind yourself what starting over entails.

Well, no. My computing does not involve violating the constitution all day, every day. If you work for the federal government on secret information, then yours probably does.

I hope that you see so much classified information that you can never work again until you quit and go to work for someone more reputable.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about choice. It's about helping people make an *informed* choice. As in, it would have been a courtesy to let people know it was a link directly to the classified document rather than to a general article on the WSJ *about* the document, which is what I expected. Informing people about what they're probably about to view is one of the reasons why slashdot automatically adds the domain name after links. Same principle. People probably wouldn't expect the WSJ to directly host classified documents any more than they'd expect disney.com to host goatse.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all people that hold clearances are spies.

Some are developers, some are engineers, some are managers, some are secretaries. Most are not spies.

It's already the case that you can't surf the internet from "your spy computer" (any classified computer).

That's the problem. You're using your unclassified machine to surf the internet, and you unexpectedly find yourself looking at a classified document on the web.

Now your unclassified machine has become classified. And it's plugged into the internet. You're in trouble. And your computer needs to get wiped [if you're lucky, destroyed if you're not,] so you can resume using it as an unclassified machine.

But I hope fucking over the secretary provides you a good amount of smug satisfaction.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work for the federal government on secret information, then yours probably does.

You, sir, are an idiot. An overwhelming majority of cleared personnel have nothing to do with anything revealed by Snowden, or anything remotely similar.

Unless you feel that the federal government is inherently in violation of the constitution just by existing, in which case, wow.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[GameboyRMH]

And those reasons are "stupid old rules that have taken too long to change."

If they don't want to call it "declassified" because technically it's not, then call it "leaked" and treat it the same as declassified.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[NoImNotNineVolt]

The law is the law. If someone jumps out of a plane without a parachute, you still get charged with murder if you stab them to death before they hit the ground, despite the fact that "THEY WERE GONNA DIE ANYWAY!!!".

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[GameboyRMH]

It's typical intelligence agency / law enforcement thinking, the status quo makes my job not as easy as it could be so the rest of the world should change and sacrifice for us.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[NoImNotNineVolt]

You're right, let's fuck over all the researchers at NASA, the DoE, and countless other research agencies that are funded by the government and filled with cleared employees. Yes, NASA researchers are criminals.

Fucking idiots. The comments about this article are written by fucking idiots.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[bmo]

"I have to start over."

Boo fucking hoo. Use a virtual machine, numbnuts.

Restore "safe" image and you're done.

--
BMO

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a religious computer, if I see a nekkid lady, I have to purge it with holy water.
Please don't show nekkid ladies.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Whorhay]

And it's not even that small of an issue. Any government computer that has accessed classified information in the wild has to be wiped, whether or not it is used by someone with a clearance of any type. And it's not actually about containing the spread of the information that has already been leaked. It is about ensuring that the people using those computers haven't created a spillage of their own. Every bit of classified information in government systems is supposed to be tracked and traceable. That is easiest to do when contamination from one system on another is cleared up rapidly.

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[Deflagro]

It's all about the red tape. The gov't is run like a corporation and I'm sure all the red tape is causing the huge amounts of financial bloat. You probably need to get a proposal of your TPS report cover sheet approved by a board before it goes into draft and another round of proposals just so it can be added to a report that will have lost all relevance and only cost taxpayers 100 million dollars.
I'm sure there's some ego to it too.
"It's not declassified until I say it is!"
"B..b..but sir, everyone has a copy of this. There are billions of these in the wild"
"What did I just say?!"

Re:Links to classified data should be labeled

[bmo]

Then if it's that inconvenient, we should all put "classified" information on our websites.

Make it inconvenient as hell for everyone in TLAs, because honestly, they've been cramping *our* style through intimidation and self-censorship because of the "gotta catch 'em all" archiving of everything that flies through the aether and fiber.

--
BMO

Different "open source"

[Mr. Underbridge]

I couldn't find that in the text. However, that likely doesn't mean "open source" as in software. It means "open source", as in, the source of info is, well, open. Think things like broadcasts, newspapers, slashdot...

Re:Different "open source"

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. "Open source intelligence", eg. getting paid to read a bunch of newspapers all day.

Re:Different "open source"

[Anonymous Coward]

More like reddit...

Alexis contracted with Snowden's former employer Booz Allen way back in 2007

http://www.mintpressnews.com/what-was-going-on-between-reddit-co-founder-alexis-ohanian-and-stratfor/167937/

Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

$52 billion? That's like burning up a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet every year.

With that amount of money spent, there shouldn't a terrorist left breathing on the face of the planet.

Um, Secret Squirrel guys, I think that you are doing something completely wrong with that money. I know that you like listening to other folks telephone calls, but clearly, this isn't the way.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[TheRealMindChild]

Wrong hat

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Charliemopps]

Ah, I see you're mistake. This budget has absolutely nothing to do with terrorists. As with all government programs its primary goal is in justifying its own existence.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[whoever57]

Um, Secret Squirrel guys, I think that you are doing something completely wrong with that money.

Perfectly reasonable statement, but wrong. The goals of the program are being well met -- it's just that you misunderstand the goal, which is really to funnel money into the privatized defence/intelligence community.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

this stuff has been going on for years, and no one bothered to find out how much those programs were running. to your point, this is over a way to disguise themselves from being authoritarian. use any and all propaganda to implement a state of control over its own citizens.

people do not know what they want and a majority believe this terrorism threat, just like they did communism. what makes me laugh out loud over this country are people that believe in politics, and believe what there government tells them, but they somehow do not trust nether?? that is a mind f**k... and I try not to think about that for too long, for fear my head would explode..

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[dbIII]

Don't be so hard on them, they predicted that the USSR was going to break up - oh wait, they didn't - despite more than half the Russian civilians on the street knowing it was going on. Arab spring? Not as such. Planes crashing into buildings? No, that was Tom Clancy and the writers for the Lone Gunman series.
OK then, be hard on them. Kick the toy soldiers out and replace them with real ones. Nowhere near as many will be needed and the outsourced money funnels will be removed.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? It was well known the USSR couldn't keep up the level of spending. That's the reason they spent as much as they did, as well as put many plans in place that made our spending look even higher than it was. And it is the same lesson that Bin Laden used on Sept 11th. They didn't need to out fight our army, they had had to get us to spend ourselves into oblivion trying to police the whole world. I think he's just about right, too. Our debt level is beyond unsustainable. Hopefully we aren't past the point of no return yet, but we have to be close if we haven't passed it yet. And we are still spending too much.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[cold fjord]

The budget is for intelligence, of which terrorism is just one slice. Other slices keep track of the ballistic missile and nuclear programs of Iran and North Korean. Another slice keeps tabs of Russia to check and see if it is cheating on its nuclear missile and conventional forces treaty obligations. Another slice is watching Russian submarines and bombers as they have restarted their probes of NATO and US/Canadian territory. Another slice is watching China and its occupation of territory claimed by India, and naval encroachments on many of its neighbors, including Japan and the Philippines. Another slice is tracking developments in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and many other places. Another part is probably watching the rise of fascist parties in various parts of Europe, such as Greece, Russia, and other countries. Another slice is watching Columbian drug cartels and their drug smuggling submarines, and the threat the cartels pose to the central government. Yet another slice is probably watching Iran's activities in Central America where they are allying with various terrorist groups and governments that consider themselves adversaries of the US. Another slice is watching arms shipments around the world, such as North Korea to Iran. Another slice is engaged in countering nuclear weapons proliferation. There are also exchanges with allies, both enduring and episodic, in which the US provides data to stop terrorism or aggression. There is way more to watch than that, lots of infrastructure to build and maintain, satellites to launch and monitor, data to process and analyze. Hopefully they'll be able to prevent a new Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and generally help to maintain as much peace in the world as possible.

If you think the intelligence agencies have to justify their own existence, you're kidding yourself.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Livius]

The purpose is to have an impressive-looking budget to create the *appearance* of Doing Something(tm).

They achieve that more effectively by not spending the money sensibly.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[AHuxley]

Re maintain as much peace in the world as possible?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
Much of that seems to been keeping the world in a mess so it needs US help/arms and political cover/support.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of those uses aren't part of the black budget, or if they are don't need to be. They can simply be buried in consolidated departmental budgets. In fact, some of the budgets in the so-called Black Budget are buried this way.

With a black budget that huge, something is definitely wrong. At $50+ billion there should be little doubt that congressmen and lobbyists are conspiring to hide their pork.

Even something like the NRO's budget doesn't even need to be entirely in the Black Budget. Any amateur analyst can figure out how much it costs to build and send up satellites. And sub-billion dollar precision isn't going to reveal any technological secrets. Plus, it's not like other countries don't use spies to obtain this information, _especially_ the Chinese. Most of it available using open source information (Lockheed budgeting, etc, etc). The rest can be had by sending over an army of young Asian spy whores to seduce all the brass with yellow fever.

The Pentagon, lobbyists, and Senators are simply avoiding accountability and criticism. It's as simple as that. The only people who seriously argue otherwise are military fanboys who fetishize everything defense and intelligence related. In fact, it's these fanboys who end up revealing sensitive information. In D.C. people trade secrets like currency. Every little disclosure, accidental or intentional, is innocuous. But spies are paid to collect all of these little leaks and put the whole picture together.

If you want real secrecy, you need fewer secrets. The more secrets there are, the lower the average value people perceive in them. More people will leak them. And it's hard to differentiate what secret is worth getting laid for, or one-upping some guy at a bar during an impromptu defense strategy discussion, and which ones will actually cost lives or money.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[cold fjord]

-- it's just that you misunderstand the goal, which is really to funnel money into the privatized defence/intelligence community.

If you think that is the goal then it is possible there is more than one thing to misunderstand.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are GCHQ equivalents, two or three levels of elected reps and non elected officials, may be several dozens of them, to bribe in each of the over 100 countries with our military bases are present; add a dozen or more terrorist groups we train/arm/support in other 20 or 30 countries. This is a big chunk. Then we have our own M.I.C to feed.

The 272 MPs who voted for illegal attack on Syria, do you think they did honestly, on their own accord? I don't.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[khallow]

With that amount of money spent, there shouldn't a terrorist left breathing on the face of the planet.

That's crazy talk. If they did that, then how would they get $52 billion next year? The US government is a place where one gets paid generously to not do their job.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pffft.. $52 Billion is chump change... a mere 10% of the amount spent on Defense every year.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[cold fjord]

That's a handy club you have there. I notice there doesn't appear to be one for discussions of Soviet actions. I might have more to say about this later, but do you really think the world would be better off if the Soviet Union was still around invading and annexing lands to itself? Installing communist governments in captured territories? Fostering communist revolution around the world?

If you think the US was keeping the world a mess to sell arms or support, you may not have looked at the situation in the communist block nations, which were a bloody mess that was spreading through the world. The communists managed to kill 100,000,000 people in the last century, and created massive suffering and misery.

I will also add that some of the examples on that list are overblown or misleading as befits their nature as a club. Take Iran, for example. People keep posting about how the US "overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran." That is utter baloney. Democracy was gone from Iran before the US helped restore the Shah to power. The former prime minister had dissolved the legislature, faked an election, was ruling by decree indefinitely, and ignored the last check on his power - the right of a constitutional monarch to dismiss the prime minister. Calling Iran a democracy at the time is a sick joke. Various other examples on that list aren't too different from that classification. In other examples the US learned a valuable lesson to not repeat its action.

Western Europe has enjoyed peace and relative stability since the end of WW2. The US participation in NATO and the rebuilding of Europe played no small part in that. Other parts of the world are also better off as well. South Korea doesn't share in the oppression, starvation, and atrocities that are inflicted on the people of North Korea. Instead they have built a peaceful and prosperous society. Iraq is still finding its way, but the people there have a real chance. They have freely elected democratic government, and no more Saddam to steal the oil money to build palaces and buy weapons. The Poles found American support in the 1980s to be bracing.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[gagol]

Here is the goal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions, and its not democracy, quite the contrary.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[gagol]

The only reason the US financial system is still operational, is because china have big interest in wall street. The day it stop serving them, you can bet on a huge financial crisis live you never saw before. Welcome to war 2.0.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[gagol]

The irony of it all: the power of china comes from the greed of western capitalists.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Seumas]

Probably part of the elite cabal of sex trafficking that is so popular among European politicians and aristocrats. The top freaks in power in America want to get in on some of that.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[dbIII]

What are you talking about? It was well known the USSR couldn't keep up the level of spending

It wasn't well known in the "intelligence community", they were waiting for the non-existent ace in the hole to come out and were utterly dumbfounded when it didn't. Their paranoia had them living in a fantasy world where the decades long economic problems of the USSR were "just what they want us to think".
That's why I've listed that as a truly "epic fail". Too much SIGINT and not enough HUMINT meant a major divergence from reality.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[erikkemperman]

So you're saying... It's not all bad? Please.

You zoom in on Iran, conveniently glossing over the huge list of entirely uncontroversial examples of US-backed overthrows of democratically elected regimes (*).

But you fail to notice -- or just pretend to -- that the inked article does not mention the 1979 Islamic revolution which is what you discuss. I think you've got that wrong too, but let's put that aside. The article discusses the overthrow of Mossadegh in the 1953, and includes this gem:

In August 2013 the CIA formally admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup

(*) This list should of course really be complemented by a list of US-backed dictators, to paint a more complete picture of US dedication to "spreading democracy".

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Give 'em a break. It's only $7 per inhabitant of the planet.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[dunkelfalke]

Well, USSR could have been around for a while longer, but then Chernobyl happened and the cleanup cost was almost as high as the yearly military budget.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[dbIII]

They were screwed well before then.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Khashishi]

Considering how many governments we've toppled, $58B/year isn't that bad.

Re:Clearly, they are doing something wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that is the goal then it is possible there is more than one thing to misunderstand.

Of course there are more things to misunderstand than just one. I'm glad you've finally found out. Perhaps one day, you'll even get to realize what you yourself have misunderstood. Although, given your posting history, I suspect it'll take another few years until you achieve the capability to do so. Still, a step is a step, even for you.

Well it's "only" 50 billion

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, that's about 5x the revenue of the entire NFL, so it must be at least 5x as important.

Re:Well it's "only" 50 billion

[djupedal]

I mean, that's about 5x the revenue of the entire NFL, so it must be at least 5x as important.

At least they're both non-profits....

Too much secrecy, not too little, is the problem

[InterGuru]

Thought experiment: What if just before we went into Vietnam and Iraq, someone leaked all our intelligence about these countries. There is a good chance the outcry would have stopped these stupid/criminal wars.

What is new

[AHuxley]

Agent recruiting - this was exposed in the Church reports wrt to US press/universities and their very close role to the US gov.
Spending has been sort of public but out by 50% seems too low?
Offensive cyber-operations - very public in many comments about direction changes and new missions, recruiting needs.
Insider threats - that is interesting. All the new contractors and rushed language needs add up to people with pasts and family connections/faith well outside the USA.
The "anomalous behaviour" has been in the US press and the FBI/task forces really did try on that but little was done.
The China, Russia... spy back list would be well understood by many over the years.
One-third of all spending going on a tactic is amazing in its mission creep/dreamy contractor wealth. Considering the US faces real nations with real tech/people/charm/skills.
Seems the Iran, China and Russia and North Korea get a feeling they are under constant electronic supervision, keep to ~"one time pads" and keep the chatter down? Back to the 1950's vs the floods of later cold war data?
Lethal strikes - the press is understanding the double tap drone strikes, locals using tracking devices for US pay.
Master such complexity? The US needs human spies "again", ie DIA/CIA and so many others will get the budgets. So many issues? The US faces a tactic/nations with people who know not generate masses of easy to collect data.
The "structure and operations of the intelligence bureaucracy" - the press, past authors and researchers seem to have been doing fine work.
To see any comment on the National Reconnaissance Office is very different.
The CIA’s dominant position/paramilitary role is news? The NSA got extra cash and listened much 'more'.
The internal “moderate progress” comment is interesting. Night raids, drone strikes, informants and gathering information will "hold" any war with endless funding...
"Large protests" seems to hint at ever more US funded NGO and colour revolution efforts, 20 somethings with banners, stickers, web 2.0 skills .... waiting for that great optics moment when some regime uncovers their funding connections.
"Russian chemical warfare countermeasures" handing lots of cash to skilled Russians is not working?
The great news for the US is the research projects hint- thats at lot of cash flowing within the US for ~math, ~science ~language grads.
Long term the world seems to understand they are all on ENIGMA like units and their communications might want to take on a more imaginative role?
Will the question of who allowed the "applicants and contractors" vetting to become an issue be tracked back to the policy or just fixed?
Someone allowed the US to change its very good vetting...

May well be the Most Transparent Administration...

[Anonymous Coward]

...thanks to Edward Snowden.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[PPH]

Iraq and Vietnam were different cases. In Iraq, the evidence was manufactured at the outset to get us in there. In Vietnam, it was a misunderstanding of the internal politics (a civil war) plus lies later on about how badly things were going.

I want my $157 back.

[Anonymous Coward]

$52B / 330M US population = $157 for every man, woman, and child.

I don't think I received $157 worth. Maybe I got $50 worth? And I feel like I probably only need about $25 worth.

Re:I want my $157 back.

[Anonymous Coward]

A year of dropbox costs $99, so you're really getting free location tracking and number-plate reading satellites thrown in.

My favorite part

[Antipater]

I loved when Clapper tried to minimize the number by saying that it accounts for "less than 1% of GDP". Not 1% of government revenues, not 1% of the government's total budget. 1% of fucking GDP is his chosen comparison. That's like someone claiming they're not an alcoholic because they only drink one bottle a day, and Jack Daniels makes thousands!

Re:My favorite part

[notanalien_justgreen]

Yeah, especially when NASA's budget is ~0.1% of GDP. We bitch about NASA's inability to get anywhere these days, but here the NSA is blowing far more money doing far far less. I hope the Republicans can finally jump on this bandwagon now that the issue can be framed as "government waste" instead of "protection from terrorists". It amazes me that conservatives have given Obama such a free pass on all of this so far. Hopefully that changes now.

Re:My favorite part

[AHuxley]

Yes we have seen that "chosen comparison" like idea used on Slashdot. If you forget data compression and keep raw footage/recodings no real data can be stored for very long.

Re:My favorite part

[causality]

It amazes me that conservatives have given Obama such a free pass on all of this so far. Hopefully that changes now.

It amazes me how you or anyone else can see this happen time and time again and still believe that we have two distinct parties.

Jefferson knew what a two-party system would become and specifically warned against it. At some point they both realize they can play the voters in the middle, sort of like "good cop, bad cop". For maximum effect, switch roles once in a while. Then people support a given one for irrational, emotional, tribal, "my team" reasons and stop thinking critically. Take a hard look at the world of US politics and tell me this isn't exactly what's happening. Then make the next tiny leap and understand that someone definitely benefits from this, and it is not accidental.

Re:My favorite part

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that their blood alcohol level is only 0.1%. But then neglect that if that's all the time, they have a serious problem.

Re:My favorite part

[cold fjord]

I loved when Clapper tried to minimize the number by saying that it accounts for "less than 1% of GDP".

Given the significant percentage of GDP taken in taxes and spent by the government, it is a reasonable metric. In FY 2013, entitlement spending will be about 14.5% of GDP. Defense spending will be about 4% of GDP. There is additional discretionary spending, and interest payments as well. You can see the figures and trends here. The trends are not favorable.

Re:My favorite part

[Antipater]

Being mathematically accurate does not mean that it's a reasonable metric. GDP is not a measure of government spending. Comparing a subset of government spending to a measure of something other than government spending is meaningless without prior knowledge of other facts, like the ratio of total government spending to GDP, for example. It's comparing apples to bushels: you have to know how many apples in a bushel before the comparison makes any sense. That makes it unreasonable.

In addition, there's no possible reason for Clapper to be using that specific metric, even if it were reasonable. The argument can be made that comparing entitlement and defense spending to GDP can be informative, because those two subsets of spending can be used as proxies for, respectively, the income of a certain population subset and the health of a manufacturing industry subset. But unless you're suggesting that the intelligence community represents an important share either of the population or of industry, then comparing its budget to GDP is not informative. It's simply being used as a tool to lower people's perception of the amount of money being spent. It's a comparison made to obfuscase, not to inform. That makes it laughable.

Re:My favorite part

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to see your unwavering support for the US communist regime. Not because I support it, but because it shows determination and commitment, but maybe you should put your efforts into something more productive and supportive of the citizens of the world.

Re:My favorite part

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I can figure out, anything the NSA or their related peeps says is quite akin the use of the word "affection" by a pedophile: innocent on the outside, highly privately invasive on the inside.

Re:My favorite part

[GameboyRMH]

I hope the Republicans can finally jump on this bandwagon now that the issue can be framed as "government waste" instead of "protection from terrorists".

Hahaha no, if it's protection from terrorists it can't be government waste!

Re:My favorite part

[jfengel]

I don't think it's unreasonable. Government spending is in a sense an arbitrary number. About half of the budget is money that comes in one door and out the other; they're wealth transfer programs rather than actual "spending". Such programs could, if we wished, be many times GDP. It's a bit like basing a bank's value based on the size of its deposits, even though every dollar on deposit is also a dollar that they owe. I'm not taking a stand on the programs one way or another, simply pointing out that the size of the budget isn't an easy number to interpret for comparison purposes.

The GDP, on the other hand, more or less corresponds to something real: how much the nation produces. There are numerous ways in which the calculation is flawed, and that number too is most effective only when compared to historical data. But in this case, it's a not-completely-insane way to say, "This is how much the nation makes, and this is what fraction we spend on protecting that earning capacity via intelligence services."

It would also be meaningful to compare to real government spending (as opposed to the government's supervision of transfer payments). But that number is roughly proportional to GDP, since it effectively takes a fraction of GDP in taxes. So it's another way of saying the same thing.

You can certainly dispute whether that amount is still too much, or whether the amount is being spent well in pursuit of that protecting-the-rest-of-our-earnings goal. But I don't think it's meaningless to compare the two numbers.

intelligence-gathering collosus

[Anonymous Coward]

that was unable to detect a couple young known terrorists from detonating explosives at the Boston Marathon.

Epic. Fail.

Re:intelligence-gathering collosus

[gagol]

Since 9/11, most of the "terror" acts the FBI have avoided, was their own sting operations. Cant fight a war when you have no enemies, eh?

Re:intelligence-gathering collosus

[Deflagro]

It is funny how most of these "terror" events seem to happen at the same time or around the same time as simulations of the exact same events. 9/11, boston, sandy hook, etc...
Maybe they have the right idea but their timing stinks? Definitely better ways to spend billions of dollars.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

So what your saying is that the secrecy of the US govt. spying on it's citizens will be understood by all when the US goes to war against it's citizens? I'm not sure I follow....

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

Both cases, false casus belli.

Re:Mod This Bullshit To Oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, the same tactic worked for Bush, and since Obama learned everything he knows from him (since he wasn't actually in government long enough to learn from anyone else...) he figured he'd give it a shot. And you know, the saddest thing is, it will probably work.

Re:Mod This Bullshit To Oblivion

[Sperbels]

But if it were Bush's idea...they'd love it.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Livius]

Not identical, but not that different either.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[AHuxley]

Re: against it's citizens and spying on citizens?
Most countries have a file or team working on that tricky problem. What to do when the war toll, contractor prices, taxes and safe jobs get out of sync and real people fill the streets of a few cities in protest.
What can be done? Print more cash and offer big jumps to wage, stock and pension plans?
Celebrity fun? A calming national event?
Fine contractors and expose their political friends?
Ask the special forces and the trusted military if they have any small tanks in the area to clear the streets with?
Ask the clandestine services just how many of the "protesters" are really informants?

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Runaway1956]

https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=vietnam+CIA+false+flag+

Like Iraq, Vietnam was also based on manufactured false information. You may limit your reading to the wikis, or you may dig deeper, as you wish. But, Tonkin Bay, which was the primary igniter in getting our troops into Vietnam was entirely a false flag operation.

I can list a dozen

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me one prominent/influential neocon or conservative that is in favor of intervening in Syria.

There you go.

Up 32% YTD. I'm be-investing that it will end the year at ~133 if nothing changes, 145+ if we decide to 'help' Syria. Either way the investors win, and the Syrian people lose.

McCain

[Anonymous Coward]

'course, I don't know where exactly he falls on the spectrum...

Not a joke. Publication != declassification

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange rule, but true.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. The Generals wanted to invade Vietnam, regardless of any facts, to make themselves look powerful. What they expected was to win the war quickly.

Re:May well be the Most Transparent Administration

[b4upoo]

The public needs to know about these budgets. Now we have no way to know the growth rate of this budget over the years and we have no real way to know if these agencies get enough money or too much money. So what good is a vote? One can not vote with any clarity when important information is held back.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

you're completely wrong about Vietnam.

Vietnam started at the request of France. They wanted the US military to help back them up in Vietnam because they were losing control of it [Vietnam being a colony of France at the time]. France turned the revolution in Vietnam into a civil war, with the revolutionaries turning into the VC and the other side becoming our guys. The US was pulled wholesale into the conflict by the NSA and the Johnson administration distorting information around the gulf of tonkin incident.

We started in Vietnam to support France's colonial interests, and went all in because the administration of the time faked intelligence. There was absolutely no misunderstanding of vietnam's internal politics.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they were quite different. First of all, the Gulf of Tonkin incident wasn't a prelude to war. We already had soldiers fighting on the ground in South Vietnam. The contrived incident was an excuse for moderate escalation. Also, no politician was fooled, only the American public. That's despicable, but not as despicable as what Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld did--both George Bush and Colin Powell actually believed the lies about WMDs in Iraq.

Second, the entire Vietnam War was arguably a strategic success in the sense that the entirety of SE Asia was dealing with communism. Both Malaysia and Indonesia had significant communist military and political insurgencies. Few people realize that, under U.S. orders, conservative elements of the Indonesian military took over the Indonesian government and proceeded to slaughter hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions--of Indonesians suspected of communist ties. Neither Russia nor China seriously supported those insurgencies, dissuaded by what they saw happening in Vietnam.

What was wrong about Vietnam was that it was probably unnecessary. The original containment and domino theory was predicated on political actions, not military. The whole point of containment as originally conceived was to avoid military action by deft political maneuvering. The same long-term results could have been achieved without slaughtering many millions of Vietnamese and Indonesians.

Sweet Quote

[dcollins]

"To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the Community." (p. 5)

Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[msobkow]

Over 50 BILLION dollars and they didn't catch and stop the Boston bombers.

<SARCASM>What a great investment.</SARCASM>

It makes it worth every penny to spy on the whole nation and surrounding world, doesn't it?

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's even AFTER the Russian's told us they were extremists and need to be investigated! Then again the Tsarnaev's uncle used to live with a high level CIA operative in the 90s so they were kind of "insiders" and probably got a pass.

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[Seumas]

No, but they *did* convince people that they were "being rescued" by the end of an assault rifle barrel when being forced to stay in their homes and then forced at gunpoint to get out of their homes for mandatory searches.

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[thoth]

Over 50 BILLION dollars and they didn't catch and stop the Boston bombers.

It's easy to be a critic.

If they had stopped the bombers before they detonated the bombs, you'd claim a conspiracy or coverup meant to scare the public and gain sympathy (e.g. recent embassy closures), plus accuse them of spying on domestic targets.

The FBI is the agency for this situation and they aren't getting the entirety of the 50 billion.

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[GameboyRMH]

And they were saying things all over social networking that should have been picked up by the NSA's all-seeing eye.

Also the underwear bomber was thwarted only by his own incompetence at building bombs, after his own father warned the US about him.

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[Anonymous Coward]

Domestic operations are the domain of the FBI which is not covered under the "Black Budget".

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been under a rock for the last few months?

Re:Yet they STILL didn't stop Boston

[mu51c10rd]

Correction...

Domestic operations used to be the domain of the FBI which is not covered under the "Black Budget".

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we entered the Vietnam War because Ho Chi Minh was a communist. It was Kennedy who first put troops on the ground in Vietnam. This happened _after_ Vietnam's full and complete independence from France, and _before_ the Gulf of Tonkin incident. In 1954 Vietnam was officially split at the 17th parallel, with a Western-style government in the South, and a communist regime in the North. Ho Chi Minh, who had been fighting for independence since WWII, was attempting to unify the country under a communist government by waging war with the South.

If you're going to spin some weird theories, at least make sure they fit the timeline. France was long out of the equation, and in fact all Western countries had long accepted the end of colonialism. Vietnam was entirely about communism; in fact, it's perhaps the only military action the U.S. undertook during that era which didn't have mixed motives--the strategic relevance of Vietnam was purely a construct of defense academia.

We entered Vietnam because of the domino theory, which was a war mongering version of containment theory. This isn't some revisionist history. With so much to criticize about the Vietnam War, I can't believe people are so lazy that they can't even get the indisputable, universally accepted aspects of it wrong. There's no inherent political bias in the reality of why we entered the war. Do you also think that 9/11 was a conspiracy, too?

Offensive counterintelligence targets

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, we are investing in target surveillance and offensive CI against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Cuba.

Interesting list, there...

Re:May well be the Most Transparent Administration

[cold fjord]

Unfortunately it is mainly the wrong part of government that is "transparent." The culture of corruption continues.

The Summer of Corruption: The Plot Thickens
Obama’s Green Favor-Trading
The well runs deep.

Enhance Cybersecurity

[10101001 10101001]

A funny pie chart on page 8. 8% of the budget is dedicated to "Enhance Cybersecurity". That is, ~$4.16 Billion is spent just on *enhancing* cybersecurity (yea, maybe it's actually all the money spent on the subject and the title is misleading/wrong). To put that in perspective, that's enough to hire 41,600* $100,000 programmers on the task of fixing open source software . Imagine what that'd do for enhancing cyber security.

*A figure close to ~1.7x how many people worked at Google in 2010. Yes, a lot of people at Google aren't programmers and their top programmers/engineers/whatever may well earn over $100,000/year on average, but it does give you a ballpark idea on the scope of the potential.

Re:Enhance Cybersecurity

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's certainly a dramatic figure.

As a "non us person" subject of the US communist empire, it disgusts me that there is supposedly no money available in the economy to pay me to do anything useful, and I thus sit unemployed at home waiting for an end to come to the US communist empire, but at the same time the US is spending 100's of billions on pointless intelligence and secret police. There is no chance I could get the golden ticket (SCS clearance) and one of these sweet intelligence positions, being a "non us person" and also having ethics and sympathies to every citizen of the world and not just "US persons" (the apparent only people deserving of living standards, human rights and dignity).

And programmers in my part of the US communist empire don't earn anywhere near US$100k/year, we would be lucky to earn US$40k/year.

Re:a whole lot of nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

i think you have a point...before Snowden the NSA couldn 't really use any of the data it collected on Americans for anything, it had it's cake but couldn't eat it...but now thanks to "the Snowden Affair" we all know it's there and it won't be long before FBI and local law enforcement start using it, constitution be damned.

tax payers

[Anonymous Coward]

52'000-million.
or 8$ per hours @ 8 hours per day @ 5 days a week @ 52 weeks = 16'640$ a year.
or fifty-two-thousand million gets you 312'000 8$/hour workers for a year .. and maybe some french fries.

Re:Mod This Bullshit To Oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me one prominent/influential neocon or conservative that is in favor of intervening in Syria.
That's right, you can't, because they don't exist. Because you know this is only Obama's idea.

I just utterly fucking destroyed you with facts. Mod the parent to oblivion for being such a dumbass. You got owned.

Every *single* one. It's called the Project for the New American Century. The friction game is just politics to appease the masses. The neocons are full throttle on this; in fact, they helped plan it.

Failure of will

[SplashMyBandit]

The intelligence failure are not about not having sufficient technology. It is a failure of will. There is an ideology that has driven over 21500 fatal attacks around the globe and is tearing up the Middle East (citation: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/). Yet, the US Government has *banned* any mention of that ideology and association of it with the terrorism it so clearly spawns (citation: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/robert-spencer/obama-adminstration-bans-the-truth-about-islam-and-jihad/). The FBI, CIA, DoD, NSA are all *prohibited* from mentioning certain words to do with this ideology due to Government policy (where the Government has been infiltrated by the very organizations that promote such terrorism) [citation: http://www.investigativeproject.org/3869/egyptian-magazine-muslim-brotherhood-infiltrates%5D

The Orwellian nature of this ideology and its political associates has gotten so bad that I cannot even say its name on Slashdot - because to mention that ideology invites a flurry of downmods. No matter how many citations or indisputable facts one provides.

That is why the NSA will fail to provide timely information. Friendly countries can provide all the tips in the world (as the Russians did a number of times with the Boston Bombers: citation http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/russia-repeatedly-warned-us-about-muslim-boston-bomber/) by the US intelligence agencies will discard this information. This represents a failure of will on the part of the US intelligence services (driven by their political masters).

ps. this is *on topic*, so p!ss off with your downmods (those that suppport terrorism).

Re:Failure of will

[3.5 stripes]

You're awful dumb, and anyone who thinks that the problem is Islam hops right on that awfully dumb bandwagon right next to you.

Re:Failure of will

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is much simpler than any kind of ideology (aside from the suicidal ideology of blowing themselves up).

The problem is dead simple, the US (and Europe) draw a line in the dirt and say "everyone born on that side of the line must live and die on that side of the line", while moving all the material wealth from that side of the line to the privileged side (the so-called coalition of the willing). A few desperate people on that side of the line cross the line and kill a bunch of privileged people living inside the privileged perimeter, who themselves in all likelihood haven't done anything except being fortunate enough to be born in the good part of the world. Then the powers that rule the privileged part of the world retaliate with a force proportional to their power (totally exceeding all possible power the people in the bad part could exert) against SOMEBODY (who? the people who did the original killing blew themselves up) and fuck things up on the bad side of the line, making it the even-worse side of the line.

As long as there's a line, and as long as we keep taking the wealth from their side to our side and not letting them over the line, they are going to hate us, and some of them are going to try and kill us.

It really is US vs. THEM, but it has nothing to do with Islam.

Re:Failure of will

[SplashMyBandit]

"As long as there's a line, and as long as we keep taking the wealth from their side to our side and not letting them over the line, they are going to hate us, and some of them are going to try and kill us."

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why the First World countries are rich. They are rich because the citizens work to *create* wealth. That's right. Wealth gets created. Through great ideas and hard work. Case studies: the Internet and iPhone. The First World invented these and *created* massive wealth in the process. The Third World was not deprived by their creation - yet the Marxists will lie to your face and say that the only reason the First World, and entrepreneurs are Rich are because they exploit others. This is absolute rubbish and it is amazing in this day and age that anyone still parrots that throughly discredited view of a long-gone Early Industrial Era.

The First World cultures work together to prmote honesty and trust in a common project. That means people can trade and corruption is exposed and minimised. Yes, the First World sometimes uses the Third World for its resources - but this benefits the Third World too (and would benefit all citizens, except for the fact that the major problem in the Third World is corruption so only a few get the benefits).

The reason the Third World is poor is because of rampant corruption and ideologies that calls great instability (eg. abberant Christianity of the Lord' Resistance Army in Uganda, or the mainstream Islamic jihad in Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Southern Russia etc).

To say that the First World is rich because it "stole" from the Third World is simply *wrong*. To say that the Third World is poor because of the First World is *wrong* (its due to internal problems in the Third World, such as the corruption). That's why countries with totally smashed infrastructure like Germany, Japan and Korea can got from behind the Third World to well in front.

Its the culture of personal industry, entrepreneurship, honesty and investment in the common national project that makes the difference between First World and the rest. Don't let the false Marxist memes fool you - they are not based on the historical facts.

Now to you all socialists out there. Stop whinging about the rich, k? Instead of complaining that hard working entrepreneurs give more to the poor (despite the fact they give a lot more than you) how about you create something that other people will willingly pay you for. Then you will enrich yourself, your employees and you will pay a lot of tax to keep the insatiable Governement bureaucracies going and a lot of tax will go to helping the poor. Whinging about the rich doesn't help anyone. Creating wealth yourself to share with others does. So get to it!

Re:Failure of will

[SplashMyBandit]

You're awful dumb, and anyone who thinks that the problem is Islam hops right on that awfully dumb bandwagon right next to you.

Could you please supply facts and citations to refute my view. An "argument" solely based on calling names is best left for the playground.

Re:Failure of will

[SplashMyBandit]

Oh, looking at your post history I see you in London. Did you happen to miss the Tube and Bus Bombings? Did you miss the beheading of Lee Rigby? these were the little things. Did you miss your Prime Minister lie to your face when he said the beheadings were nothing to do with Islam when the jihadi beheaders clearly, explicitly and repeatedly see they were. Do you not know about the 87 Sharia courts already operating in the UK (Google it! check the facts for yourself). Do you not know all the people who have been told to take down their English flags in case they offend people who voluntarily migrated to the UK? Boy, you must be "awful dumb". No wonder English Culture will disappear within a few generations - if people like you don't even know the basic facts of what is happening (and worse, refuse to believe the *facts* when they are pointed out to you). That really is dumb.

"Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!"

[rts008]

Outstanding! LOL
I have to say, that's the best analogy I've ever heard on this subject.
On the surface it seems so simple, but the subtle implications are truly astounding.

He knows what is going on upstairs, ...

And nobody talks about what is going on in the basement....$52.6 bn USD worth of something.
Those that break that rule usually have to flee the country.
That from a country allegedly ruled 'by the people, for the people'.
What people? Not me!

Bin Laden won a decade ago.
It strikes me as ironic that we kill him just before public awareness that we lost has just started sinking in slowly to the masses.

Well done, PPH...Very well done.

Re:"Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin Laden won a decade ago.
It strikes me as ironic that we kill him just before public awareness that we lost has just started sinking in slowly to the masses.

Ironic? The ironic thing is that he got his terrorist training from CIA during the cold war to use against Soviet.

Re:"Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!"

[rts008]

Yeah, I know.

The US and UK have been mucking about in the whole of the Middle East since 1945.

We have caused most of our problems there.

We are to blame for Osama Bin Ladin. That's what struck me as ironic.

It's like Frankenstein's Monster run amok over there.

I'm not a christian, but this seems appropriate here:
"Yea shall reap what yea sow." Or, something of that nature.
That was my point...why do we have to impose our way of life on the unwilling? Just for cheap oil?
That's obscene.
We already know (for decades) that it would end.
At the expense of 'next quarter profits' MBA mentality, we have fallen into our own trap.

 

Re:"Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player!"

[KGIII]

We've been mucking about in the Middle East longer than that I'm afraid. *sighs* If you exclude the US it goes as far back as the Crusades. However, check what happened to the whole area after WWI and then under the direction of the League of Nations (which the US didn't join, we weren't wanting to police the planet back then - I'm not sure what happened to change the mentality honestly except maybe the Cold War happened but that's a rather generic statement and I can't pin it down to a specific turning point so I'd be curious to hear thoughts on the subject).

Confused priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously guys, if the US Government would spend that $50billion a year (plus a large chunk of the $50 billion a MONTH defence budget) on doing genuine good works around the world (curing diseases, supplying clean water and sanitation, fighting poverty etc) they wouldn't need a massive 'intelligence' arm, or a massive Army, as they'd have so many friends they'd have trouble moving. Wouldn't it be nice to be an American visiting a foreign country (that's one of those places with independent governments outside the United States) who gets greeted with open arms and a smile and a big 'Thank You'?

Every tax paying American...

[Anonymous Coward]

Has paid over $300 to enslave themselves.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[rts008]

Well, I beg to differ.
A lot of the reason we ended up in Vietnam, was our perceptions of alliance treaties with France, and a 'we gotta stop the red tide at any costs!' mentality against 'communism'.

Iraq, well, we should not of went there for the reasons stated.
Why did we not go there when Saddam was gassing the Kurds? (see:current US position on Syria)

We are still engaged in two wars(decade+, over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!), and want to engage in a third?!?!!?? WTF?!

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, your version of history is wrong. It is the official US version, but it is still wrong.

The US started interfering in Viet Nam long before the French were kicked out, in fact, the first US military sent in there was in 1950.

Fuck that.

[pabs3]

Fuck that, people who work in the classified world should just quit their jobs. Who's side are you on?

https://noisysquare.com/ethics-and-power-in-the-long-war-eleanor-saitta-dymaxion/

The $52.6 billion 'black budget' for fiscal 2013

[MRe_nl]

That's equal to the TOTAL nominal GDP 2012 of Africa's 20 (!) poorest countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
This is a criminal enterprise the size of which the world has seldom witnessed.
I myself have trouble making that kind of turnover every year.
I applaud the scope as I bemoan the consequences.

Obama's a big liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama promised Americans more transparent government. Instead he hides its ops even more. Thank god for Americans like Snowden. Obama should be stripped of his Nobel Peace prize.

Tail or Dog

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

"Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses those funds or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress."

I imagine that by now, the intelligence agencies set the goals against which congress and the president are to perform.
 

Re:Mod This Bullshit To Oblivion

[GameboyRMH]

John McCain? I'd say he's a neocon and prominent.

Syria.

[Anonymous Coward]

The gameplan was laid out in 1996. It's all here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm

Still think Snowden was not a traitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

The damage Snowden has done to his country is substantial and inexcusable. He has betrayed his country and weakened the United States -- presently the greatest force for peace and security in the world.

A recent case in point is Syria. A country that has massacred over 100,000 people and used chemical weapons against its own people. Do you see China, or Russia (countries Snowden chose to align himself with) coming to the rescue of the Syrians? No it's America, the country many people love to hate, but which is in fact the greatest force for peace, and security in the world. This doesn't mean America is perfect, and that is has done no wrong.

But I would rather have America in charge any day than the alternatives including the rising power of China which does not seem to care much for human rights, collective security, or the interests of any other country or people for that matter, except its own.

Re:Still think Snowden was not a traitor?

[kcorey]

The damage was done by the inexcusable criminals who: 1) ordered the breaking of the constitution 2) started the killing spree known as the "war on terror" 3) the spending of $56.1 billion PER YEAR to disrupt, what, 50 terrorist events across the last decade?

All I have to say is that sad little people like you who want to punish Snowden are getting the government you are paying for.

You know what's even worse? The terrorists are winning.

The American government has thrown away the constitution. Arguably the main thing that made America worth having in the first place.

The criminals are spending the government into the ground. At some point, the rest of the world is going to say "Hey, I'm not loaning you any more money. You're on your own."

Bottom line? The terrorists made /Americans/ and the US government crazy enough for them to tear their own country apart! It will take time, but think about what's happening out there.

Al Quaeda has lost /maybe/ 1000 people.

America has lost its soul, and is toppling in slow motion.

Blaming Snowden or any other whistleblower is simply the criminals trying to make sure the mob kills the wrong people.

Re:For example

[dkleinsc]

Not just him, especially if you throw in the FBI since they are sort of part of the "intelligence community" even though they're DoJ instead of DoD. Some of the members of that wall of shame include: J Edgar Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, Robert McNamara, G Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, Leon Panetta, Condaleeza Rice, and yes, Richard Clapper.

Re:Too much secrecy, not too little, is the proble

[PPH]

Right. But then Kennedy started to see the light. The Communist vs Democracy conflict was a by-product of who was supporting which side. The underlying conflict was a civil war. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was played up to escalate the war, not start it.

These are just the visible amounts too

[trevelyon]

These are staggering amounts for being just the tip of the iceberg. Remember that many other companies are forced to provide access and tapping resources out of their pocket. This is passed onto the consumer as more charges. All the major ISPs, Mobile phone companies, many email hosting providers, etc, etc, etc all have to provide facilities, data storage and other resources to comply with "lawful interception" requirements. These costs add up and are not insignificant but you have to do them or the government will shut you down. BTW, this was happening in Europe more than 10 years ago and things are only ramping up. I can only imagine with systems like carnivore and the sealed requirements how much this is costing US companies (and therefore us customers). It might even rival or surpass the 56 billion figure by the time you tally up all the company costs.

That is,

[Anonymous Coward]

His job is to pretend he doesn't know, and to pretend it's not happening. And to keep a whole lot of other falsehoods alive. In other words, he's an actor. Nothing more. If you believe the charade, you're lost.