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How the Pentagon Punished NSA Whistleblowers (theguardian.com)
10 years before Edward Snowden's leak, an earlier whistle-blower on NSA spying "was fired, arrested at dawn by gun-wielding FBI agents, stripped of his security clearance, charged with crimes that could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life, and all but ruined financially and professionally," according to a new article in The Guardian. "The only job he could find afterwards was working in an Apple store in suburban Washington, where he remains today... The supreme irony? In their zeal to punish Drake, these Pentagon officials unwittingly taught Snowden how to evade their clutches when the 29-year-old NSA contract employee blew the whistle himself."
But today The Guardian reveals a new story about John Crane, a senior official at the Department of Defense "who fought to provide fair treatment for whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake -- until Crane himself was forced out of his job and became a whistleblower as well..." Crane told me how senior Defense Department officials repeatedly broke the law to persecute whistleblower Thomas Drake. First, he alleged, they revealed Drake's identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge...
Crane's failed battle to protect earlier whistleblowers should now make it very clear that Snowden had good reasons to go public with his revelations... if [Crane's] allegations are confirmed in court, they could put current and former senior Pentagon officials in jail. (Official investigations are quietly under way.)
Meanwhile, George Maschke writes: In a presentation to a group of Texas law students, a polygraph examiner for the U.S. Department of Defense revealed that in the aftermath of Edward Snowden's revelations, the number of polygraphs conducted annually by the department tripled (to over 120,000). Morris also conceded that mental countermeasures to the polygraph are a "tough thing."
But today The Guardian reveals a new story about John Crane, a senior official at the Department of Defense "who fought to provide fair treatment for whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake -- until Crane himself was forced out of his job and became a whistleblower as well..." Crane told me how senior Defense Department officials repeatedly broke the law to persecute whistleblower Thomas Drake. First, he alleged, they revealed Drake's identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge...
Crane's failed battle to protect earlier whistleblowers should now make it very clear that Snowden had good reasons to go public with his revelations... if [Crane's] allegations are confirmed in court, they could put current and former senior Pentagon officials in jail. (Official investigations are quietly under way.)
Meanwhile, George Maschke writes: In a presentation to a group of Texas law students, a polygraph examiner for the U.S. Department of Defense revealed that in the aftermath of Edward Snowden's revelations, the number of polygraphs conducted annually by the department tripled (to over 120,000). Morris also conceded that mental countermeasures to the polygraph are a "tough thing."
in polite society its considered uncouth to execute your whistleblowers. Social execution, career execution, certainly. In this term the government already had what it wants from snowden and that is unconditional exile. Sure, having a warm body gives ample opportunity to crucify the enemy of your specific terms of freedom but if you already control major media outlets, so it doesnt matter what your enemy says. the NYT, CBS, NBC, you name it, they will all toe the line and kindly omit certain details if you ask them to avoid being 'unpatriotic' in your reporting.
Morris also conceded that mental countermeasures to the polygraph are a "tough thing."
much like countermeasures to the easter bunny are a "tough thing." the polygraph loses its mystic power once you expose it as firmly debunked pseudoscience in the realm of phrenology and tea leaf reading. The purpose of the test is to act as a chilling effect, nothing more.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"Clapper's brazen perjury before Congress..."
Except that it wasn't perjury. As a matter of course, high-ranking officials are not sworn in when testifying before Congress because -I shit you not- forcing them to open themselves up to perjury charges would "impugn their honor and integrity". #workingasintendedimsure
The problem with wars is that they come home. We've raised multiple generations to become ruthless in order to fight massive wars, and then act surprised when they treat offices, newspapers, churches, and courtrooms as battlefields, and judges, legislators, and citizens as enemies or collateral. When you are raised to be a hammer, every person that gets in your way is a nail. That's what the "team player" nonsense is all about---the US isn't the team they're talking about.
>They were built to help the people of the US.
The trouble is that it is very easy for good ideas to get turned to nefarious purposes, and this is doubly true of wartime ideas when peace comes. The CIA was born out of the wartime OSS. Not so very long after that, JFK disbanded the CIA as he recognized the threat of having such an organisation outside of the war. During the war the enemy was clear, the need was clear -and the risks of what would happen if they failed kept them focused on the right stuff. Outside the war - the combination of power and secrecy was a deadly threat.
Of course, in one of his very first acts in office, LBJ undid that and reinstated the CIA. This bit of history is revealing - and it's part of the reason why JFK's death has been the subject of so many conspiracy theories, there were just too many people who stood to lose power and privilege as a result of him disbanding the CIA. I don't know if there's any truth to any of them (real conspiracies do happen after all, but most conspiracy theories are bullshit) but I can see how this confluence of events would inspire suspicions.
Either way - JFK's reasoning for disbanding the CIA was solid. There was no reason for the CIA to exist in peacetime - even with the cold war ongoing. The same could be said of the NSA.
The FBI, not being military was a lesser threat and I would argue has actually improved over time. Hoover's FBI had files on *everybody* today's FBI is a lot more restrained. You could argue it should be even moreso, or maybe even that it should not exist, but it's the one case where the trend seems to have been towards greater transparency and less intrusive behavior - perhaps because the FBI's very mandate is to deal with citizens, they operate more in the public eye and under public scrutiny. Their targets also get a day in court where flagrant 4th amendment violations are case-losers. Instead, you see a different kind of corruption there - like FBI lab-techs flagrantly lying to courts over the strength of DNA evidence for example.
In all cases, government organisations ought to be kept tightly focused and face real and serious repercussions for bad behavior, in some cases (like a wartime intelligence operation) these can come from circumstances, in the rest it must be written into legislation... and some of them should never exist.
I wonder sometimes, how much better a country the USA would not be, if defense budget was cut to 1/6th of what it is (which would still be 3 times bigger than any other country) - and that money spent instead on scientific research and the social safety net (which in total amounts to less than 0.05% percent of government spending yet we are constantly told is unaffordable).
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Here's the problem:
A two-person election in November, Hillary will almost certainly win. Indeed, if history is anything to go by - it will be a massive landslide - every time Republicans have nominated an angry demagogue like Trump in the past the democrats got a landslide victory (see Barry Goldwater for example).
But if it's a three person election - then Trump may very well win, regardless who the third person is. Lets say Bernie Sanders decides to run as an independent. While he lost on maths, the man got a LOT of votes, and even in the states where lost his margins were narrow. One could easily see him taking several states that would otherwise have gone to Hillary, and just one or two states could make all the difference. I would prefer Bernie over Hillary but right now I hope he drops out after the convention - because if he runs then Trump wins.
Now what if say Kassich or Rubio runs ? You know, classic establishment republicans ? Well the landslide is definitely off the the table - since a lot of the independents who will gladly choose Hillary over Trump would not choose either over Kassich or Rubio. That would take votes from both of them - and the maths will get very complicated. It's unlikely this mainstream republican candidate could win but which of the other two does is suddenly a gamble, and Trump's odds look a lot better.
Okay, what if we one of the republican crazies ran ? Cruz or Paul maybe ? Well the trouble with those guys are - they always only appealed to the same brand of wingnuts that Trump drew... and he is better at it than they are. But a lot of independents will, yet again, choose their brand of crazy over Hillary - and that may be enough to give Trump a victory.
That's the problem right now - you got the republicans having gone full retard and nominated a man whose speeches are identical to those of fascist leaders and nazi's through the ages - but the democrats responded by nominating the woman with the worst unfavorables in years. Trump is probably the only candidate in history so terrible that Hillary could beat him (I don't think she could have won against either McCain or Romney... well maybe McCain if he had kept Palin). But that ability to beat him utterly depends on a two-candidate race. Any third candidate who splits the vote and the orangutang son of the NAZI gets the nuclear launch codes.
This pattern has been prevalent for a while. Quite a few candidates have lost because a third-party got just enough votes they would otherwise have gotten to cost them a win (Gore for example). But I think this is the most stark example ever.
So the question is, how badly do you NOT want a world where Goldwater won ? Can you imagine if that froth at the mouth lunatic had been president during the Bay of Pigs ? When the world was on the verge of a nuclear war, most of the credit for it not happening came down to a president who managed to keep his cool. JFK earned respect that day. Trump is the goldwater of our generation and make no mistake, there will be Bay of Pigs like events in the next 8 years, there always is... when they come, you need somebody making the calls who is known for acting calmly and keeping his cool and making careful, calculated decisions. You do not want an angry demagogue who never thinks before he speaks, let alone acts.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *