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CIA Director Brennan Admits He Was Lying: CIA Really Did Spy On Congress
Bruce66423 (1678196) writes with this story from the Guardian: The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the
agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials. Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, called RDINet, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture." (Sen. Diane Feinstein was one of those vocally accusing the CIA of spying on Congress; Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised a similar question about the NSA.)
get an apology from these lying bastards??
So now what? Redefine honesty?
So why is lying to Congress not a punishable offense?
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
Charged with Treason ?
He violated his departments charter and law...
So Toss his ass into Gitmo and wait 15 years to bring him to trial ..
UPS Sucks
I mean, if they can spy on congress they can spy on anybody and we'll get new laws protecting our individual freedoms now. Right?
*crickets*
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So, thermodynamics it was.
Not since Oliver North found Congress to be quite contemptible.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You haven't been paying attention, blinded by partisan slogan bullshit. This has been happening since before 9/11.
Did you ever seriously doubt that the CIA was lying? They are paid to do this sort of work. Yes, yes, it says international and all that goody stuff in the contract but that is just for show. To feel safe the government is going to violate. Violate what? Everything. Including you and itself.
Can we start fucking putting these traitors in jail now?!
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
It's a disease that needs to be stomped out, mercilessly. Allowing the NSA, DHS and CIA (hell, even the IRS, for that matter) to continue to operate as they are allowed to will swallow up the last vestiges of America and its dream.
The dystopia exists now but it's not too late to turn back.
Why hasn't John Brennan been fired yet? If this was any private company in the United States, he'd have been fired on the spot for lying to his superiors for months and trying to cover up his own incompetence.
At first it said they where spying, then it said they were monitoring the use of the CIA network. CIA monitoring the use of the CIA network? That seems obvious.
Given the Snowden leaks, it *is* the most transparent administration ever. It's too bad that it took leaks to become transparent, but we may as well take what we can get.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
That's not treason. Treason is specifically defined in the Constitution.
However, why isn't he being charged with multiple felonies, including perjury, etc...?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
So Toss his ass into Gitmo and wait 15 years to bring him to trial ..
What?!?!?! The people in Gitmo actually gets chance to go to trial???? /sarcasm
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You more or less have to assume the entire upper management of the CIA (and other TLAs) are all equally corrupted.
They've decided that the people overseeing them don't know what they're talking about, and taken matters into their own hands.
Treason indeed. And there's no way just one guy is responsible. The whole system has rotted into this.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Agents do the spying.
Politicians do the lying.
Congress didn't much care when the NSA was spying on us peons. Now that Congress-critters are the ones being spied on, I'm thinking they just might do something about it. Thanks for pissing of the right people, CIA.
Anyone can be charged with anything. Once it hits a courtroom it will be thrown out. Like the man said, put him in Gitmo and postpone trial for 15 years. Waterboard him as he did to others.
Yes ... but W. didn't reach for the "most transparent administration" banner.
And it's hazy how much of this ramped up during the Obama years.
Clandestine Interception Admission
So who is the final authority? i.e. "how high up does it go?". I doubt its Brennan himself who made the call.
You haven't been paying attention, blinded by partisan slogan bullshit. This has been happening since before 9/11.
No, you haven't been paying attention.
Obama's DNI Clapper lied under oath to Congress about mass surveillance programs.
Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was held in Contempt of Congress:
On June 28, 2012, Holder became the first U.S. Attorney General in history to be held in both criminal and civil contempt.
Obama's IRS political appointee and documented raging conservative hater Lois Lerner dog ate her hard drive, and she was also held in Contempt of Congress for refusing to testify under oath about her politicization of the IRS.
So, "this has been happening since before 9/11?
Ummm, BULLSHIT.
So Cabinet-level officials such as the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence have committed perjury during Congressional testimony or been held in Contempt of Congress before?
No, they haven't - every other time officials of that level have been about to be held in Contempt of Congress, the official caved and supplied Congress with what was being asked.
Holder still hasn't turned over the subpenaed documents that were the subject of his being held in Contempt of Congress.
NOTHING has happened to Clapper for committing PERJURY.
And how many more risible excuses is Lerner going to shit out?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...
So, if government employees start realizing that government power is too broad, unchecked, and outsized, will they actually do the work necessary to limit the size and scope of government, even though it might mean limiting their own personal powers?
It sounds like there's an opportunity here, but I'm not sure if any government employees have the wisdom to embrace the right answer.
NOT Gitmo! Can't guarantee he won't get five star hotel treatment from his buddies there. Do like the CIA has done to so many others? Send him to another country completely unfriendly to him and his groups? Not quite the "American way" of course, except in practice it seems. Of course you could do like the FBI, just label him a child sex offender and toss him in with the imprisoned blue collars. Not quite the "American way" either of course, except in practice it seems.
Who knows, maybe the President will come out and say that Senator Feinstein and her congressional staff are connected to foreign terrorists and thus a legitimate intelligence target. Why else would he continue to stand up for Director Brennan? Even in the political cynic in me is surprised that the White House didn't sacrifice him just to make the attention go away.
I'm a moderate, who leans a but left, but I can say without equivocation that this administration has really let people down. Little knownn is that our current Attorney General, Eric Holder, was a lawyer who defended banks prior to coming to Washington. That not ONE of the banking CEO's or their very senior staffers is in jail for what was done several years ago, is an outrage! Unless we start JAILING people who otherwise think they can scoff at the law due to wealth or political connections, we are going down a road that violates the very tenets of our nation's forming.
Knowing the Senate intelligence committee, they'll try to have the NSA and IRS absorb the projects of the CIA. Feinstein has nothing against spying on everyone else, but she'll want the spying done by an agency that is primarily loyal to her (or at least her party).
His statement says some CIA employees did what Feinstein suspected. This brings up the question of "What did the director know and when did he know it?" but doesn't necessarily mean he was lying any more than Hillary lied at most of her appearances before Congress...oh, never mind.
Going??? It's well underway.
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the terrorists, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
This is the Stasi, the KGB, J Edgar Hoover, McCarthy, and cyberpunk all rolled up into one festering mass of shit.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And Congress *ONLY*.
Consider the following; Until very recently Congress were the only individuals exempt from insider trading laws. Congress is exempt from TSA searches when boarding a plane, Congress is exempt from *not* being paid during government shutdowns.
Congress takes care of itself, NOT the people on the United States. Therefore, Congress will pass a law making itself exempt from CIA/NSA spying and the rest of the country be damned.
Trust me on this one, if there's one thing Congress is consistent about, with 100% bipartisan support, it's about making sure they are elite, untouchable, and completely corrupt.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
This is always the case. They are completely incapable of seeing things from their constituents' point of view (unless of course there's money or votes to be made by doing so), which for an elected official is pretty tragic.
This is also why the only way we get any changes in gun legislation is if someone shoots one of their kids.
The Germans must've also been quite happy with the difference of the reaction of NSA spying on German citizens vs. their Chancellor.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Send him to Russia, and let Eddie Snowden, a car battery, and ignition coil and some jumper cables have some "quality time" with him...
So this is the problem... The intelligence agencies effectively answer to no-one now. They've declared themselves so important they can lie to congress. Their over-site in the judicial branch is so secret less than 10 people on earth know what goes on in there. They feel that they can make legal decisions allowing them to ignore established law, on their own, tell no one and then lock the reasoning behind that in a lawers safe. They can lie to congress, the president maybe even to each other.
Using all of this, they could easily establish that their existence and the continuation of these programs is critical to national security. Then run operations to push their agenda in the media (propaganda, forum hacking, news site infiltration etc....) they could threaten members of congress through blackmail, defy the president in secret, etc... and there's absolutely no way to stop any of that.
Is congress unaware of this? Unable to do anything? Or do they just not care? This has to be stopped. If it's not, we will certainly see this power abused in a horrific way in the near future if it hasn't been already. And I'm not talking about Iraq/Afghanistan/Guantanamo horrific, I mean much much worse. Are we really going to allow ourselves to turn into the 4th riche?
He lied to congress ... well I never.
Seriously, who ever thought that was a trustworthy guy to begin with?
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Why should Congress people be exempt.
We get spied on and unless they are willing to stop that, they should get their fair share.
You mean there are people who believe the CIA didn't spy on Congress? It's their job. Well it's more the NSAs job but spooks regardless.
You are starry-eyed and naïve. It is a universal principle of human organization that those who hold power are beholden to a separate set of laws from those who do not. It comes with the territory. Having power means having the power to avoid responsibility. That is just how it works.
Know your place.
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the authoritarians, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
FTFY
9/11 was a very public strike against the West by the terrorists but it did little to benefit their own goals (in fact, given the increased US involvement and the general unrest in the Middle East it probably pushed back their goals somewhat). We got to the current state of affairs in this country by our own doing, thanks to our own home-grown corruption and power-hungry factions and an apathetic populace.
9/11 may not have been engineered by us, but the people in power certainly took advantage of it when it happened.
Or at the very least fired.
By his own words he has proven himself unfit for that position. Whether or not he has broken laws is for courts to decide and will probably take months - if not years - to play out to its conclusion. But in the mean time, that asshole needs to be removed from his position immediately.
Not to mention this shit has been going on for over 100 years at this point - 9/11 just made it easier for them to do it in front of our faces rather than in secret.
So Toss his ass into Gitmo and wait 15 years to bring him to trial .
Whoa there,
I think the man violated the law. I think he and his organization is specifically out of control and has a real chance to subvert the only check on their power. I even think that this poses a threat to the democratic nature of the USA. To that extent, this is a matter of national security. Our nation is at risk of being subverted and controlled by a small group of individuals with the whole constitution being thrown out the window.
But I am not willing to throw out the man's right to a speedy trial because he nearly destroyed the constitution. Simply put, we have to be better than he is.
Seems that congress only cares about the CIA spying in Americans when those Americans happen to be members of congress.
Perhaps government officials/employees above a certain level should not have the same rights as a standard citizen. It would take a constitutional amendment but why not?
a bunch of pussy cunts are congress
There is a difference between making a false statement to congress and lying to congress.
The difference is intent. You can unknowingly make a false statement based on lack of information.
There is nothing in any article about this about attempt to cover up or lie. It seems like he been misinformed by his own subordinates
and after Brennan was briefed by the inspector general he went to congress and told them the truth.
"“Recognizing the importance of this matter and the need to resolve it in a way that preserved the crucial equities of both branches,
Director Brennan asked the CIA Office of Inspector General to examine the actions of CIA personnel,” Boyd said."
...Senator Feinstein and her congressional staff are connected to foreign terrorists...
Yes, Israel
I'll give you Clapper and Holder, those are outragous. I don't blame Lerner though. If the speaker of house gets up on the podium and start shouting about people going to jail, I'd take the fifth too. Lerner isn't a politician or an appointee, she's a civil servant. In her position I wouldn't be offering my neck out for the axe either, I don't care how political bad it looks (again she isn't a politician).
Congress' opinion on the matter regarding contempt is incompatible with the fifth amendment, if they actually try to jail her on it I'd expect to see a habaes corpus filing almost immediately. If congress is truly serious about hearing what she has to say they can immunize her. Until they do that it is just posturing and nonsense.
Just burn the entire organization to the ground and start fresh. Throw in the TSA, NSA, and Homeland Security while you are at it. Maybe the ATF, too. I could go either way on the FBI.
...Due largely to the information they have on everyone.
"Sure would hate to see something about XXXXXXX XXXXXX come out just before the election, Mr. Senator."
I feel certain it will get worse before it gets better.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
No, it's really the FBI's job to do counterintelligence, but thanks for playing.
So Cabinet-level officials such as the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence have committed perjury during Congressional testimony or been held in Contempt of Congress before?
No, they haven't - every other time officials of that level have been about to be held in Contempt of Congress, the official caved and supplied Congress with what was being asked.
Have you heard of Ollie North?
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
> This is also why the only way we get any changes in gun legislation is if someone shoots one of their kids.
That, and the fact that the numbers show EVERY instance of reactive gun legislation since 1940 has always been counter-productive. It works much better for the politicians to retain it as a campaign issue rather than ending up line the UK, with TWICE as much violent crime after they actually banned guns.
But ensure that the operatives who DID know are charged with something.
and not a revolution by force... otherwise those nice people in the black vans will be round.
It is getting really hard not to be cynical about our whole governance.
The conspiracy nutjobs have been made to look as fools not for making outlandish claims, but not making outlandish enough claims to match the audacity of these agencies.
I worked for one of the 3 letter acronym agencies for a short stint, and it struck me how you had a large group of folks paid to be underhanded and devious, and this crept into the collective psyche. So dealing with other departments to share resources was a cat and mouse game itself. Professional liars just don't know how to turn it off after a while.
Our government leaders can't figure out how to pay to fix roads and bridges, yet can't figure out how not to build tanks that nobody wants.
The election system is just so badly corrupted by the rich and powerful that I see no real path to get leaders in place that are not already owned by masters other than the electorate.
How's the weather in Canada these days?
If Bush had done this it would be EVIL, but team Obama did it so it's just great.
As long as Obama's people are doing it and they are just going after Bush, it's clearly a good thing - after all, it's not like this sets any precedent that some future Republican could use against progressives...
This is EXACTLY what's wrong with [1] blind partisanship, [2] "situational ethics", and [3] "big government"
in fact, given the increased US involvement and the general unrest in the Middle East it probably pushed back their goals somewhat
Not at all. It made the position of Islamist groups that were arguing from more moderate positions, and generally preferred a democratic transition to their goal (like Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots), much weaker. At the same time, it made the position of groups arguing for violent jihad much stronger - especially since, with foreign intervention in Muslim countries, they could declare jihad to be fard ayn (individually obligatory for any observant Muslim) on scriptural grounds. It also created lots of martyrs.
Think about where things were before the intervention, and where they are now. Taliban is rapidly regaining control over Afghanistan, and in the meantime Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are also rapidly Islamized by similar Salafist strains. In Pakistan, military and intelligence are stuffed with Taliban-friendly Islamists. In Iraq and Syria, large swaths are under control of an armed jihadi group that has officially declared itself to be the Caliphate, and which practices the version of Islam that even many other extremist Salafi organizations find too brutal - and they keep expanding territory and getting a steady influx of volunteers. Volunteers, I must add, that come from our own countries, and are in many cases not only our citizens by law, but are born and raised here within our culture - and yet falling under the influence of extremist preachers who convert them. Do you really think that we could see anything on that scale without the free (to them) advertising that the West gave to jihadis?
...he's going to be very disappointed
"NOTHING has happened to Clapper for committing PERJURY."
You mean he hasn't been charged with suspected perjury yet. He hasn't officially committed perjury until due process has taken place.
Dianne Feinstein statement on CIA torture report 'cover-up' Ã" full text (12 March 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
"wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed."
Feinstein accuses CIA of 'intimidating' Senate staff over torture report (12 March 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The problem is the issues go back to many, many years. Vital information was not passed on to the FBI about the movements of bad people into the USA.
Later after an event the FBI was then given files showing that same vital information existed via US gov staff in another country.
At a later date interrogations took place in a 3rd country. The FBI used wise open court interrogation skills that got a person to talk so a real US trial could be held. The CIA and their medial staff had a free pass to try torture. The FBI got results. The CIA got to try torture.
The CIA was in change of the site and communications. The CIA passed the results back. For years the upper levels of the US gov really, really wanted to hint that CIA got real results, so did the press with contacts and sockpuppets.
The problem for the CIA is the first hidden paper trail, the promotions that have been allowed over not sharing information with the FBI and then FBI interrogation results issues.
Kind of not so easy to tell the US public, press many years later.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Damn... Ollie.... that makes all this current shit totally ok. It's cool - sorry for the bother!
Clapper was asked to testify on classified material in a non-classified forum.
He did the best he could, and then called the committee head and said he hadn't been telling the truth. Not someone else coming forward, but Clapper himself.
Sure, he could have said "no comment", but that is basically a comment to the people that he is not supposed to tell.
I can't get outraged over Clapper. and leaning on that for your case makes it look weak. The hard drive problem is easily explained by anyone who has ever filled their inbox, leaving the question of why backups were not being done properly. It's hard to pin on Lerner, and you just sound silly.
You have legitimate complaints here - focus on those.
no, just the "Mission Accomplished" banner...
GW Bush famously said the terrorists attacked us because the hate our freedoms so what did we do but turn around and reduce our freedom. Terrorists win. While rather spectacular the events of 9/11 were like most terrorist attacks more of a nuisance* than any big blow against the US. If we'd really wanted to piss OBL off we should have just ignored it.
* I'm not minimizing the pain and suffering of those who were directly affected by the events of that day and I grieve for your losses but in the grand scheme of things more children die of starvation around the world every day than died from those events.
Thereby precipitating the most epic win imaginable against Western Democracy.
I honestly don't think they imagined the extent to which they would to undermine the society they were trying to shake. And if they did, that's truly scary.
That the 'authoritarians' (*cough* fascists *cough*) took advantage of that, we are not in disagreement about.
But either forcing them to, or giving them an excuse to, finally just fully take control ... I still say 9/11 was a game-changing event, because everybody immediately rushed to build the "at any means" surveillance society in the open.
These guys almost have express written permission for these kinds of abuses. The exact same abuses people were warning would happen while they were being passed. The PATRIOT Act had stuff in it which people said would lead to this kind of crap while it was being passed, because it was a knee-jerk response.
I argue that Western society post 9/11 is overtly different than it was pre 9/11. Some of the rot may have been there already, but it's come into the full light of day since.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In theory it's usually good when bad things happen to congress for exactly that reason, but the violation here is "we've been spying on you and know all your dirty little secrets" ... so maybe not so much.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
in fact, given the increased US involvement and the general unrest in the Middle East it probably pushed back their goals somewhat
Really? You've heard about this caliphate they are creating in what used to be Iraq before the US tore it to pieces?
If anything, I'd say 9/11 was a win/win for those involved.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
That's true. On the other hand, normal people are merely annoyed by this. We're also annoyed by the TSA; Senators are accustomed to walking right through. Security is there to protect them, the VIP. The ranking Senator from wherever is likely to be the type of personality that can't believe it someone did it to THEM. "How dare you! Don't you know who I am!" I wouldn't be surprised if a senator or two did something stupid when so greatly offended.
So Cabinet-level officials such as the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence have committed perjury during Congressional testimony or been held in Contempt of Congress before?
No, they haven't - every other time officials of that level have been about to be held in Contempt of Congress, the official caved and supplied Congress with what was being asked.
Have you heard of Ollie North?
Ollie North was a Lt. Col. in the Marine Corps. Hardly a Cabinet-level political appointee.
What part of "Cabinet-level" is difficult to understand? Ollie North was hardly a close political ally of Ronald Reagan who was selected for a position of extreme power because of his political support.
Ollie North wasn't anywhere inline for the Presidency.
Eric Holder is seventh in the the line of Presidential succession.
Did you REALLY just compare a Lt. Col. in the Marine Corps - one of literally THOUSANDS of military officers of similar rank at the time North served - to someone SEVENTH in Presidential succession?
Did you REALLY think you were being clever?
Oh, and thank you for making clear just how bad things have become under OBAMA.
Well the other guy was one of the politicians who enabled the S&L crisis of the early '80's and tried his hardest to pass laws making sure those bankers did not go to jail. (They actually did go to jail back then). Both parties are in thrall to the bankers because they're in thrall to money and the banks represent money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
George W Bush said a lot of things. That doesn't mean what he said was worth listening to.
The attack on the US was not primarily because they "hate our freedoms", although they are radically opposed to many ideals of western culture. Rather, the attack was more motivated by our interference in the Middle East.
If the terrorists were just about "hating freedom", we'd see more attacks on Sweden or Iceland, which share many of the same ideals as the US but are softer targets.
Wow... going back a quarter of a century? What's next? Teapot Dome?
At any rate, Ollie was tried for his actions. Of course, the ACLU (that vast bastion of conservatism) helped get the convictions vacated, but he was still prosecuted.
Take your partisan bullshit and shove it up your ass.
On Slashdot, "Bush LIED us into a war!" when he (truthfully) said our allies were telling us Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake uranium (which the US and Canada gathered up by the tons and removed from Iraq after the war). In the fevered brains of progressives, Bush LIED when he cited facts he knew at the time because it later turned out that those bits of information turned out to be partially wrong (interestingly, somehow Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who also believed and cited those bits of info as justification for voting in favor of the war are NEVER accused of "lying us into a war")
As a basic matter of consistency, I assert that Bush did NOT lie us into a war (even though I do not like that war) nor did Hillary or any Democrats lie us into that war, and it's possible that Brennan did not lie, but rather recited to congress false information provided to him by his staff... I'll withold my opinion on whether he "lied" until I see more information. Incidentally, Obama DID LIE his ass off selling Obamacare, given that we now have the documents that show he absolutely KNEW people would not be able to keep their doctors and their insurance BEFORE he ran around the nation demanding that they could and insisting that any critic of his who denied this was a LIAR.
It's possible to be wrong, without being a liar. To be guilty of lyinng, one must know that the information one is asserting is actually untrue at the time one is asserting it. If you provide wrong information without knowing it is wrong, you are still in error, but you are NOT lying. This is somewhat like the difference between "involuntary manslaughter" (killing a person by accident) and "first degree murder" (planning to kill somebody with malice and then doing it).
There are now two J Edgar Hoovers (DNI & DCIA) that have far more power and intel than the original ever fantasized about.
Nothing will happen. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
my main problem with people screaming that bankers should be jailed is that i've never heard anyone cite a single statute of law that has been broken.
You need to point to a specific act of commission and be able to say "on this date, at this place the CEO of BigBadBank(tm) did knowingly and willingly snort cocaine of a hookers breasts; and here are the photos of said cocaine laden breasts being snorted."
who modded this stupidity +5 ?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
See my essay here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
"This approximately 60 page document is a ramble about ways to ensure the CIA (as well as other big organizations) remains (or becomes) accountable to human needs and the needs of healthy, prosperous, joyful, secure, educated communities. The primarily suggestion is to encourage a paradigm shift away from scarcity thinking & competition thinking towards abundance thinking & cooperation thinking within the CIA and other organizations. I suggest that shift could be encouraged in part by providing publicly accessible free "intelligence" tools and other publicly accessible free information that all people (including in the CIA and elsewhere) can, if they want, use to better connect the dots about global issues and see those issues from multiple perspectives, to provide a better context for providing broad policy advice. It links that effort to bigger efforts to transform our global society into a place that works well for (almost) everyone that millions of people are engaged in. A central Haudenosaunee story-related theme is the transformation of Tadodaho through the efforts of the Peacemaker from someone who was evil and hurtful to someone who was good and helpful. Another theme is exploring the meaning, if true, of a allegation by Wayne Madsen about President Obama's deeper connection to the CIA than was otherwise known."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You have a pretty narrow definition of "Terrorist".
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the authoritarians, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
FTFY
No, you didn't. You just made it say the same thing again.
He authorized it and he used it.
When the Leader of the US government uses any and every tool in the toolbox to find out anything and everything he can about US citizens so they can be attacked, at will. There are no individuals in this country that could survive a CIA or NSA witch-hunt. Every person has things they would not to become public knowledge. So, these agencies collect the ammunition to use against anyone that speaks up. What is confusing about that? If you are not concerned about what these agencies are doing at the behest of our Emperor, you should be. The administration has abridged any and all of our Laws that they don't care for, and failed to enforce others simply for their own purposes politically, to quash dissent. Have you noticed your Doctor or their staff are now asking you questions about your life-style they never used to ask? They have to provide this information to the US government under ObamaCare. If having the intelligence agencies digging up dirt on you, doesn't work they just consult your medical files for things to use against you. Of course this is all "For the Common Good". It isn't about the common good. It is about control. And information is the key to control.
Scooter Libby, adviser to VP Dick Cheney, was indicted, prosecuted, convicted for perjury and making false claims to federal agents, and subsequently sentenced to 30 months in federal prison (which President Bush commuted). Until people are prosecuted and imprisoned in these cases of lying to Congress, I'll know our government isn't serious about preventing perjury.
I wonder if the Republicans realize how much they have shot themselves in the foot (and elsewhere)? Apparently someone didn't tell them the story of the little boy who cried wolf.
When House members try to turn every little thing into some great crime, then things that ARE serious get ignored as "oh that's just those batshit crazy teapartiers again..."
There are things that this administration has done that are clearly wrong and require a strong response. Clapper lying is one of them. Holder's intransigence on Fast and Furious is another.
But when the crazy wing of the House (hard to call it a "wing" now since it seems to be taking over) can only say "no" to getting any actual legislation/work done, and goes nuts about fabricated bullshit - Benghazi! IRS scandal! - they lose all credibility. And what we need right now are people in Congress with some credibility.
Not treason. But I thought the CIA was forbidden by law to spy domestically. So yeah, very bad felonies.
I would rather see the actual employees and their bosses tossed in jail then some random figurehead that was probably lied to by his own staff. Check out how long CIA heads stay in power. It is about an average of 3 years. They are basically just punching bags that get replaced every so often when something bad comes out.
The real power in the CIA are the long term bosses and employees, that have obviously decided they can do what ever they want. Why would you do otherwise when your figurehead boss will just take the blame and resign "in shame" every few years.