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US Intelligence Community Has Lost Credibility Due To Leaks (bloomberg.com)
Two anonymous readers and Mi share an article: U.K. police investigating the Manchester terror attack say they have stopped sharing information with the U.S. after a series of leaks that have so angered the British government that Prime Minister Therese May wants to discuss them with President Donald Trump during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting in Brussels. What can Trump tell her, though? The leaks drive him nuts, too. Since the beginning of this century, the U.S. intelligence services and their clients have acted as if they wanted the world to know they couldn't guarantee the confidentiality of any information that falls into their hands. At this point, the culture of leaks is not just a menace to intelligence-sharing allies. It's a threat to the intelligence community's credibility. [...] If this history has taught the U.S. intelligence community anything, it's that leaking classified information isn't particularly dangerous and those who do it largely enjoy impunity. Manning spent seven years in prison (though she'd been sentenced to 35), but Snowden, Assange, Petraeus, the unknown Chinese mole, the people who stole the hacking tools and the army of recent anonymous leakers, many of whom probably still work for U.S. intelligence agencies, have escaped any kind of meaningful punishment. President Donald Trump has just now announced that the administration would "get to the bottom" of leaks. In a statement, he said: "The alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. These leaks have been going on for a long time and my Administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security. I am asking the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no relationship we cherish more than the Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
If there's one thing we can all look forward to under the Trump administration it is the strangling and dismantlement of our intelligence community.
You know, apart from exile or being confined to a single building for multiple years on end. I mean apart from that nothing too serious.
Keeping his mouth shut when entertaining the Russians in the Oval Office?
Intelligence agencies have lost credibility by lying all the time. It's no wonder there are leakers like Snowden: no self-aware person would feel confident following the leadership in the NSA or CIA or FBI.
Let's be honest though: there has never been a time in history when the CIA or FBI were particularly competent.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
With Trump blurting out "I'm not saying we got our intelligence from Israel, but: Israel" and "Oh and we got some nuke subs over there, look how tough I am", there are leaks at the top as well.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Also lets tell apart whistle blowers and traitors. Shedding light on unlawful practices of government agencies isn't treason. The unlawful practices themselves are the crime.
Leaks? Like what the Russian hookers were doing to him in a hotel room?
I know, right? What has breaking of Enigma ever done for us?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
We spend a lot of time and money making ourselves believe we are morally superior. Then when believers make it into the ranks of organizations that are the strong arm of the US government, they suddenly see the evidence that we aren't morally superior at all. We are bullies, using our superior weapons to bully other nations into favoring western business. Some can't deal with this reality, and try to right the wrongs. Or at least, that's how I think this keeps happening. But it's the plight of leadership. The other dogs are constantly looking for advantage, and nipping at your heals. You have to smack them down or lose your position. That also means taking food from betas to maintain your strength. I'm not saying it's right, but it's the reality.
U.S. citizens should be far more concerned about what was leaked than the fact that there were leaks. The leaks clearly show our government is out of control, spying on us citizens without cause.
No, this spying did not start with either Trump or Obama. It might have started with one of the Bushes, or it might have started even earlier. Whenever it started, it should stop.
However, Trump want this spying to continue. That is the real reason for his focus on ending the leaks.
Is the only ship that leaks from the top.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Leaks are an essential part of how the US government works. The White House uses them, Congress uses them, the military, the CIA, NSA, etc. It's an aspect of bureaucratic infighting. "Leaks" will never stop because no one who says they want them to actually wants them to. They want EVERYBODY ELSE to stop.
So, if I have this right, when they were leaking information about the executive branch on a daily basis to the press, that was cool... but now that they're leaking information to the press about terrorism, that's bad.
Howabout we call it all bad. That's not how bureaucrats should pay back the government they work for.
Also, how is it that the federal government can monitor its citizenry ala The Patriot Act, but it can't even figure out who's leaking classified information to the press?
The Five Eyes intelligence alliance is a group of Anglophone countries which operate under a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Effectively neutralizing leaks, which are a thing of the past, since both the United States and United Kingdom are both members of the Five Eyes alliance.
I'm inclined to cut Snowden some slack for two reasons. First, he took pains to release the information in as responsible a way as possible. Second, what he exposed was a pile of crimes against the American people (whether technically legal or not). It has been a long time since I studied the Manning incident, but my recollection is that he was trying to hurt America by casting wartime battlefield events as if they should be held to peaceful homeland standards.
If I were President, I'd offer Snowden a deal where he can return home and serve 13 months under house arrest for stealing secrets in exchange for a pardon of everything else.
If I were Emperor, or had an agreeable Congress, I'd also make it a capital offense to abuse government against the American people as a whole or American citizens individually - including spying, IRS bullshit, etc.
See that "Preview" button?
The leadership of the intelligence community has been using their authorized secrecy to do terrible, evil things, and cover it all up.
The low-level functionaries that must facilitate this evil are mostly ordinary people with something of a moral backbone. They aren't paid nearly enough to sell their souls, and feel an obligation to protect the people whom they purportedly serve from all the evil that their bosses are perpetuating.
So, the culture of evil leadership has created the culture of perfidious employees.
If they want the leaks to stop, the must either:
1) cut all their employees in for a much large slice of the pie (everyone who touches anything secret gets a 0.5 million dollar a year salary, to start). Buy their silence.
2) Clean up their act, so people stop feeling morally obligated to leak information.
Ya, and what did el Presidente Tweetie do it for? Yucks? Payoff the Russians for services rendered? Stupidity?
... and yet leaking is almost never punished, much less prosecuted.
If you want to see why, look at one of the few cases of leaking that *was* prosecuted: Scooter Libby's leaking of the fact Valerie Plame was an active CIA agent. Note that his sentence was commuted by the president he served.
That's because despite leaking being characterized as disloyal, often it's the exact opposite. I'm not just talking about planted information, I'm talking about leaks that arise out of internal differences in strategy and policy. The insiders who do this aren't trying to sabotage the administration, they're trying to steer it using public pressure. And while embarrassment is often part of that pressure, leaks by insiders are usually carefully measured to limit damage. And given the infrequency with which they are punished I have to assume that insider are also careful about choosing their battles.
What's coming out of the Trump Administration feels different, more disloyal, and gratuitously embarrassing. It smacks of people out to personally undermine their colleagues.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The organizations have ZERO ability to self correct and probably less ability to institutionalize ALL their employees (increased privatization greatly undermines this as well as lowering morale.)
Their poor actual credibility is why their employees are forced to the extreme of leaking their evil deeds or even to the point of creating disgruntled employees who just dump out their secret tools because Snowden proved that even responsible leaking has changed nothing (other than more lies about the tiny reforms that have been claimed to have been made.
Trump has no credibility; to make them credible in his eyes would make them even worse than they are. If they stole the Pee tape from Russia at great costs trump would brag about it to the wrong people... Then get mad over his leaking (but not mad at himself; that's impossible.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
When you prioritize people who enjoy shoving their head up your ass over people who know how to do their jobs, then this is the result.
If Trump actually manages to hang on for the full four years, I think the US will be completely unrecognizable by the end. And not in a good way.
"President Donald Trump has just now announced that the administration would 'get to the bottom' of leaks."
Because we already know where it happens at the top.
He's the President. He's the highest level classification authority in the U.S. It even says in the Executive Order (possibly an old one):
(a) Top Secret. The authority to classify information originally as Top Secret may be exercised only by:
(1) the President;
Then for Secret and Confidential it's folks appointed by the Pres.
In Section 3.4 it even states that the President is exempt from the declassification process. The real argument is would any sane person give away that kind of information to a country that has been an antagonist for decades.
But Manning, who harmed his country to impress a boyfriend, and Snowden, who did it for some "greater good" (which never materialized), were traitors. The sooner we stop glorifying the two assholes, the sooner the healing will begin.
What about that fellow who leaked classified intel to the Kremlin just to impress his Russian pals? I guess it's as Richard Nixon liked to say, if the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.
are those that are friendly with Russia. Obviously, America has a traitor in office and the GOP continues to put their party over our nation and our security, as well as our allies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Or for Manning.... Who Obama pardoned...
If you want to stop the leaks, we have to actually punish the leakers in some meaningful way...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
As Sir Humphries most capably put it, "the Ship of State is the only ship that leaks from the top." Be it the White house or the appointed heads of the intelligent organizations. Leaks happen when they are beneficial politically to the leaker usually.
Right... IF either major party puts forth a less than 35 year old as their candidate or someone not a natural born US citizen, you can bet I'd not vote for them...
The ONLY requirements in the Constitution is that a president be a natural born citizen who is 35 years old. That's it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
1. Story presents no new information
2. Fails to provide any statistically significant context to the reader
3. Cherry picks very different incidents then lumps them all into the same context.
4. Invokes good old fashioned FUD (e.g. "What if we're spreading lies, and what if we're putting people in danger by publishing what these anonymous sources tell us?" )
5. Is a bit ridiculous on it's face. US Intelligence community lost its credibility for years to come on Feb 5th of 2003 when Colin Powell squandered his in front of the world.
Saying US intelligence has lost credibility due to "leaks" is like saying Trump lost credibility because he lost the popular vote. Both true statements and both completely irrelevant.
Trump has installed extra-departmental poitical advisers to each branch of government, including the TLAs, and you claim it was Obama? And why are Rs so busy trying to get Assange and Manning if they're both uncovering Obama's duplicity?
Whose fault it that? It's the Times. You know there was a time when the press genuinely considered if there was a social good to publishing secret information. Now the only question is, could this possibly make the administration look bad? Print it.
Whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the United States of America.
This is a problem with the press, with their knowing, deliberate and systematic distortion of events, their malignant omission of facts , their supression of any counter-argument which happens to be effective, their misuse and abuse of unnamed sources, the total elision of local, natinoal and world events which would in any way contravene their preferred narrative.
What we're witnessing is the death throes of the MSM. The New World Order looks like citizens exposing fake documents based on a font. It looks like citizens hunting down terrorist professors by their eyebrows. It looks like people deserting the organs of officialdom, the universities and the MSM with their Fake ledes and their Fake social sciences, and their Fake degrees and their Fake labor shortages, their Fake immigration numbers, their Fake crime statistics, their Fake voter registrations , their Fake accusations of racism and sexism and nazism, their Fake phobias, and their Fake polls.
People are choosing to put the time and effort into educating each other, informing each other, and committing to a disintermediated, disinterested pursuit of truth, previously knowns as Western Civilization.
The NYTimes, like the rest of the MSM. like the university system , the entire industrial-liberal complex , which cannot say Islamofascism, which cannot say clash of world views is an adult-free cult of groupthink committed only to hurting this administration, even if it means a terrorist attack is made more likely by their actions, even if it means little girls get blown to bits.
They are a self-hating death cult and they need to need to have their deepest wish fulfilled.
So the US intelligence community can't keep a secret, but they want backdoors in all IT gear and encryption algorithms.
Yeah, that will end well...
How about loosing their cyber weapon arsenal to hackers?
How about having hired Snowden as a contractor?
How about missing every single terror attack?
How about missing the Russian infiltration of Crimea or move into Syria?
How about rendition, secret torture camps, public exposure of torture?
How about perpetually killing civilians with drone strikes based on their "intelligence"?
How about missing the fact that Bin Ladin was living around the corner in an allied country for 10 YEARS?
How about not finding WMD?
And they are losing credibility due to leaks? Please.
It doesn't explicitly define natural born though. I choose to believe that phrase means through vaginal birth... NO CESAREAN PRESIDENTS!
I voted for no one, because I am not American.
And I am not acting "passed over Einstein,The Dalai Lama, and Mother Teresa to elect him.".
The fact of the matter is, despite her own obvious faults, Hillary would *still* have been a better choice than Trump. Trump is absolutely and categorically unfit to be president. Hell, he's unfit to run *anything*, for reasons to numerous to bother stating here. A couple of google searches can easily show how bad of a business man he actually is.
Hillary is a manipulative dishonest cunt in her own right, but she at least has *some* measure of competence. Trump has turned the US into a laughing stock, is destroying international relationships faster than he can build them, and the US tourism industry is *already* hurting badly, and he hasn't even finished his first year yet.
You had a choice between a pile of shit, and a barrel of a rotting, bubonic-ridden mixture of diarrhea and vomit. And you guys picked the latter cause you thought vaccinations were the tools of big brother keeping you down.
Yeah, because what they intend to do once you hire them is COMPLETELY irrelevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
they were corrupt and lawless under Obama, and they are corrupt and lawless under Trump, i doubt much has changed "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
It's not that. They are a bureaucratic power unto themselves, completely unelected, but who believe that they have to do what's best for the country, elections be damned. Hence them accusing Russia of trying to influence the elections, despite there being no evidence to back that up.
A week ago, people were all over Trump for having 'leaked' something to the 2 Sergeis, except that Trump was just discussing w/ them something that was already common knowledge in the West: laptops rigged to be bombs. Israel had no issues w/ that, given that a ban on Middle Eastern (& later European) flights carrying laptops w/ carry-on luggage was bound to give that away anyway.
But now, the US intels - one of those 17 agencies that identified Russia - now happily goes about its merry leaky ways, and this time, UK is pissed, and actually does suspend intelligence sharing. People were all over the president on being leaky, but in fact, it was his enemies in the intelligence agencies that did that, and to the detriment of an ally.
Under that hack Comey, the FBI refused to investigate leaks of what was going on in the government. Now, maybe, under a new head, they'd investigate all leaks - starting from the ones from Jan 20th onwards to this day. That would be separate from the Special Counsel investigation into 'Russia', and hopefully, they'll get to the bottom of it. Oh, and while they're at it, they should also investigate the NSA surveillance that was ordered under Obama since almost 2008
The White House Staff wouldn't know the name of the Libyan suicide bomber: that had to come from one of the TLA agencies. The White House staff leaks have been about each other - Jared about Bannon, Priebus about Jared & so on
So, basically, never tell the President (Top)Secret/Classified information, because it becomes declassified the moment it exits the President's mouth?
I am not even kidding. I know it sounds like trolling, but Obama's administration did set up this time bomb. They issued an executive order forcing all 17 agencies to share information. Since it's much more difficult to track who has access to the information, it's much more difficult to prevent leaks. And Obama only issued this order 3 months before leaving office. Trump can't rescind the order just yet because of all the spurious accusations of Russian connections. The idea that information was always leaked is preposterous. It was always compartmentalized. So the leaks were limited in nature and they much easier to track. This de-compartmentalization was done specifically with the purpose of undermining the incoming administration of an opposing political party. It was never about any principles other than hurting the incoming administration. This goes well-beyond removing all the furniture from the White House that the Clinton administration did to troll the incoming Bush administration. This was actually a policy implemented to hurt the incoming administration. There will always be some people, who work in DC in professional capacity, who oppose the President politically. They just couldn't do quite so much damage before.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
...with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear ambitions.
I suspect that's the policy going forward. As it stands, the UK has already now decided it will not be doing any free information sharing over the Manchester suicide attack, and so far as I'm aware, that's the first time that such a suspension between these two allies has ever happened, or at least has ever been publicly acknowledged. This is the damage the leaky Trump administration is doing, so my assumption going forward is that the three letter agencies, to maintain critical intelligence links with close allies like Britain and Israel, will now know longer be making such information readily available to the President. In other words, the process of sidelining President Trump has begun. Within a few months, impeachment will likely be irrelevant, as he'll be left with little real power, and he'll be like Ronald Reagan and Woodrow Wilson were in the final years in the presidency; figureheads while subordinates take on the role of the functional presidency.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The news is a business, and "shocking new details!!!!" is how that business makes money. Blaming the media for publishing the leaked information is essentially trying to pass the buck. The US's allies freely share intelligence with US police and intelligence agencies with the understanding that the information is to remain confidential, and if some fuckwad somewhere who has access to that information decides for profit or kudos to phone up a newspaper and say "Guess what I got!" then that IS a US Government problem.
I think this whole "blame the media" is just starting to get tiresome
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
He's the President. He's the highest level classification authority in the U.S.
That just means his leaks are legal. It doesn't mean they're good, or that Americans shouldn't be upset about them.
One of the deepest principles of intelligence handling is that however valuable the intelligence itself is, the sources and methods are even more important. Except in very, very rare circumstances, any intelligence shared with anyone not an extremely close ally (and even them, generally) should be very carefully edited to ensure that it does not disclose sources and methods. This is especially important when the sources and methods belong to an ally, because if those are burned, the ally may well decide to stop providing any intel.
Sharing information with the Russians about a common enemy is a perfectly good thing for the president to do. However, a president who is not a narcissistic, insecure idiot would do this by directing his staff to provide intelligence appreciations. Said staff contains professional intelligence officers who are very good at identifying and excising details that might expose sources and methods, and would be perfectly capable of delivering the information, including solid estimates of its reliability that Russian intelligence professionals would correctly understand, without endangering intelligence gathering operations or alliances.
So, yeah, Trump was perfectly within his legal rights to leak this information to the Russians. But it's still perfectly correct to call it a leak, because he screwed it up so badly and in the process revealed more information than he intended.
We have to hope that the intelligence agencies have schooled Trump on the issue and that it won't happen again.
Oh, wait...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
TFA conflates Manning and Snowden with the Manchester bomb info leakers which is a big mistake. There is a huge difference between leaking in the public interest like Manning and Snowden and doing it to sell newspapers because you think the public are interested. I can't imagine why the editors of the NYT thought it was a good idea to publish info that harms an active investigation. It's pretty obvious that finding the bomb maker is important. It's also pretty obvious that you shouldn't tell them what the police know. For all they know everything went up with the bomb, showing them the fragments gives them big clues about the lines that the police will be following. How is that OK? Is it because the funny little people in Manchester are a long way away? The NYT really need to answer for their appalling editorial decision.
This is, of course, simply a turnabout of how the system worked in the 1950s and 60s, when the British services were so totally infiltrated by the Soviets that the US couldn't trust them with anything at all.
Where's the evidence that he revealed the city, thereby compromising the source? Were you there in that meeting? Or was that another leak by the same intel that couldn't keep its mouth shut about Salman Abedi's identity?
Within a few months, impeachment will likely be irrelevant, as he'll be left with little real power, and he'll be like Ronald Reagan and Woodrow Wilson were in the final years in the presidency; figureheads while subordinates take on the role of the functional presidency.
How would it reduce his power?
He'd still have it and use it to make uninformed decisions due to the three letter agencies withholding information from him.
Have a leaking problem?
DEPENDS!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
First of all, thank you for agreeing/conceding, Snowden and Manning really were traitors. Most refreshing...
I don't remember taking a position on that...
Why would they — after gleefully reprinting WikiLeaks for years — be so reserved all of a sudden? To protect the secret from spreading further? Nope — if Putin knows it already, there is no point in keeping quiet any more.
I would guess that in the wikileak case they are sharing information that is already publicly available. It would land a journalist in jail if they publicly shared code word classified intelligence.
Had they told you the contents, you would've shrugged and lost the outrage
Apparently Israeli intelligence officials were outraged - shouting at their American counterparts in meetings. Israel changed their intelligence sharing with U.S. after Trump disclosed the top secret Israeli intelligence to top Russian officials . That puts American lives at risk. People ought to be outraged.
The US dollar is quite strong relative to other currencies. That is a more plausible explanation for the drop in tourism. Do you really think people going on vacation care who occupies the White House?
Okay, you really just hurt my head.
A competent mass murder is not a better choice than
You in fact DID say she was a mass murderer. Are you sure you're not Trump himself, typing writing under a synonym? You completely ignored something that you exactly said less than 30 minutes prior.
Setting aside the hilarity of calling Trump a misogynist
O_o Seriously? Did you miss the whole "grab her by the pussy" thing?
Or the "I'd fuck my daughter if she wasn't my daughter" thing?
Or the countless other examples of blatant misogyny?
And who and where is *anyone* defending Clinton? You have to be a troll, because your reading comprehension is so poor that I'm amazed you can interact with Slashdot at all.
Obama didn't pardon Manning, he reduced Manning's sentence, which was still a fair number of years behind bars. I fail to see why years of imprisonment is meaningless.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That's part of what he exposed, and I'm cool with that. He also exposed intelligence operations outside the US, which I'm not.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Not in the US; publicly sharing classified material is legal once it's been leaked to you. That was established in the 1960s.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The use of "she" recognizes Manning's gender dysphoria, which acknowledges her problems. Also, what do you mean by rejecting as opposed to catering to mental illness? Are you saying we shouldn't allow the mentally ill to get treatment? Manning is getting treatment for her problem. Personally, I never intended to have sexual relations with that person, so I don't really care what pronoun gets used. What's your problem with it?
The biological situation is also a lot more complicated than you realize.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well, I'm of the opinion that you're delusional, so I guess that evens out.
Your use of Clinton is ambiguous here. How many people are defending Bill Clinton from accusations of misogyny?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
My mistake, but STILL, the message was loud and clear over the objections of Obama's secretary of defense... We don't punish leaking classified information any more...Comey did the same thing with Clinton...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Sure he will. You better believe it, because Trump never fails on his words!
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
That doesn't protect the source of the leak. I'm certain that Trump's staff are on better legal footing having shared the fact that Trump leaked classified intel than if they had leaked the intel itself.
The fact is, with the self-justification that "well, trump is evil" a number of people in the bureaucracy of the administration have come to feel they get to determine who gets to know what, to hell with any other concerns than their own personal agendas or desires.
Now it will bite these narcissists in the ass, as they've just handed the tangerine tyrant a PERFECT excuse to go on a draconian house cleaning and make a nasty example of whomever he catches (and the public, by large will agree).
-Styopa
if there was any evidence it would have been run up the flag pole like a pair of skid marked boxers by now.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
... and yet leaking is almost never punished, much less prosecuted.
If you want to see why, look at one of the few cases of leaking that *was* prosecuted: Scooter Libby's leaking of the fact Valerie Plame was an active CIA agent.
It was leaked by Richard Armitrage. Libby was convicted of lying to investigators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Novak had learned of Plame's employment, which was classified information, from State Department official Richard Armitage."
"The scandal led to a criminal investigation; no one was charged for the leak itself. Scooter Libby was convicted of lying to investigators. His prison sentence was ultimately commuted by President Bush."
Do you have ESP?
All your Russia are belong to Trump henchmen
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The source is already in jeopardy after your publishing the allegation of the fact of the link. There is no additional danger to them from you also publishing the contents.
So, once again, we know, that either the leakers or the media do not consider that content damaging to Trump. Otherwise they would've printed it just as gleefully, as they printed the juicier bits of the earlier WikiLeaks document-dumps.
You replied to my post, where I called them both traitors. You didn't object to that in the slightest, saying instead: "What about Trump?". In any reasonable conversation that is sufficient to conclude, you agreed with my assessment of the two traitors, and wish to switch the topic...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You are too cynical. They will pull punches to help a good cause — examples skipped for brevety...
I am not "blaming the media" here. I'm merely pointing out, that, if Trump really did communicate something he should not have to Lavrov, you would've heard all of the damaging details by now. Many times over. From newspapers in the mornings to Rachel Maddow in the evening. That we still do not know, what the supposedly "outrageous leak" consisted of, is a good indicator, Trump did nothing wrong...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Except none of the outed were "traitors" — not in the traditional "aiding a hostile foreign power" sense of the word.
Yes, they are supposed to uphold the Constitution — but breaking that promise, however wrong, is not treason...
Now, if you wish to continue, reply under your own name to undo the downmodding you've caused me.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If there is enough evidence for a conviction, and there are enough aggravating factors to bump it up to first degree, then yes. Keep in mind that this is essentially the threat that police work under, except that there is no need to convict a policeman to (approximately) end his life.
See that "Preview" button?
source is already in jeopardy after your publishing the allegation of the fact of the link
Can you show me a source on that one? Sharing with journalists that there was a leak of top secret intel is just as bad as leaking top secret intel? Seems to me the first would get you fired, the second would land you in prison.
You didn't object to that in the slightest, saying instead: "What about Trump?". In any reasonable conversation that is sufficient to conclude, you agreed with my assessment
In the future you may consider that if your points are ignored, possibly it is not worth a response, or just not interesting to the responder. What I was really curious about was whether you applied the standard evenly.
Use logic — it helps. If the leaker is found out, he will be dismissed from the White House for disloyalty.
But there is legal jeopardy, because — and his defense lawyer will seize on that — in releasing information to Americans, that the President himself has already disclosed to Putin.
But, hey, if no one really knows the content, why are we taking such amorphous anonymous accusations of the "leaks" as valid at all? Imagine a newspaper article accusing Hillary Clinton of intentionally leaking secrets — with the accuser being anonymous and the exact nature of the leaked information unknown... You'd be the first to ridicule such smearing... Now apply that principle evenly...
You did respond. You just didn't address the sole point made in the post you responded to. Which means, you accepted it.
Did you say "evenly"? Wow... Even if we stipulate, that Trump really did disclose something important to the Russians, he simply could not in the short time the conversation took, disclose as much, as Snowden and Manning disclosed. If we were to apply the same standards to all, that Guardian article you cited would've dripped with deadly poison in its reports about the two — and called for capital punishment for both. Instead, the paper — and others like it — consider them heroes. "Evenly" my tail...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You can put your hyperbole gun down. No one seriously believes she was going to start WWIII or build death camps.
Uhm... I do. She sacrificed her dignity on the alter to power. People who are miserable look either for salvation or for revenge. Since she didn't find religion nor tried to piece her life together to gain some measure of happiness, I am going under the assumption that salvation was not what she picked. So I am pretty sure that we dodged a bullet by not getting a bitter ex-wife who couldn't even get a divorce and who called a quarter of the voting public deplorable even before getting into office. You can hope that she is calculating all you want, but I think a good number of people (and I do count myself among them) considered the election-time Hillary scary. Not that she has to cope with the loss, she might finally settle for something to be at peace with (after the first 4 stages of grief are through).
rump won, and now every moronic thing he does is down to him
Yeah, his lack of clarity is disconcerting. But, then again, that's what he promised. As for why I attacking Hillary, I really wasn't per se. It was a general point. A competent villain is not better than an incompetent bumpkin. I wasn't saying that Trump is a bumpkin or that Hillary was competent. I was only saying that the more competent she turned out to be, the harsher world she would have created. Whereas Trump can, at worse, mock things up (which is not as bad as setting the world on fire in a competent and methodical way of someone on a long revenge spree).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
We have no idea what he shared with Russia or why.
It's fucking idiotic that the security services can do something wrong, and people are so tied up in their "everything Trump does must be bad" thing that they turn it into an attack on Trump.
I don't like Trump. The fact that I'm defending him here means I am not being baised.
Unless you're going to claim to be a Trump supporter, then you are clearly the biased one here.
That is the dumbest thing you've said in your comment. That is quite an impressive feat considering how idiotic the rest of the comment was.
But there is no legal jeopardy, because [....] Duh...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
But there is legal jeopardy, because — and his defense lawyer will seize on that — in releasing information to Americans, that the President himself has already disclosed to Putin.
That is not a complete sentence. "There is jeopardy because in releasing information to Americans, that the president himself has already disclosed to Putin"... Because what???
I think what you are trying to say is "I am not a lawyer but I think it would be just fine to share top secret information with the world because the president discussed the information with the Russians."
I think it is good you are not a lawyer.
But, hey, if no one really knows the content, why are we taking such amorphous anonymous accusations of the "leaks" as valid at all?
"This was unconfirmed officially until Trump himself seemingly let it slip while speaking in Israel on Monday, ironically while attempting to defend himself on the issue to the media."
You did respond.
I asked you a question. You can infer from this that I was interested in whether you would exhibit cognitive dissonance and how you would attempt to reconcile that. It is thought that the attempt to maintain cognitive consistency in the face of conflicting attitudes can give rise to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior. You seem to think that it was just fine for Trump to share top secret information with the Russians. Many thanks for answering the question.
Please don't infer from my lack of further responses that I have any interest in, opinion on, or have even read anything further you may write. Please only infer that I have the answer to my question.
TL;DR. Whatever, dude. Until the accusers can state their accusation and provide anything like evidence, this is all politics. Dirty politics.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Inadvertantly mishandling classified information will get you unfavorable attention from your superiors, and might get you fired and/or get your clearance revoked or suspended. I'm unaware of people who did that and served time. Deliberately doing it will probably get you a few years in prison, no matter how innocuous your motives. Sharing it with journalists pretty well establishes intent, but I don't know that it's any worse than that. It might affect the length of the sentence. The journalist, once given classified information, can publish it in the US perfectly legally.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We don't? Years in prison does seem to me to be a punishment.
As far as Clinton goes, it appears she mishandled classified information without intent, and nobody's prosecuted for that. Manning deliberately mishandled it, and received a prison sentence. That's how things have worked as far back as I've found out.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
That's actually a good point, and one that I've been waffling on myself.
The primary reason I'm still preferring Hillary to Trump, is because of what Trump has already demonstrated. The polite way of saying it, is that he is causing "uncertainly".
More bluntly, he is obliterating America's reputation on the world stage faster than anyone could have dreamed possible, with the risk of completely tanking the US economy in process. American tourism is already in a nosedive. Other trade may easily follow. And if the US economy collapses, who else will they take with them? Anyone who has very dependent economic ties to the US (eg Canada), may well suffer badly as well if they don't decouple themselves quickly enough.
Hilary has already demonstrated that she's as corrupt as the next cliche politician, but she can play the game better. People already know US politics is ridiculous, but I believe if Hillary was in power, the turnaround would be less painful. Of course, we'd have had the same problem as with Obama, where a republican dominated house would prevent her from really accomplishing anything, and the republicans would use her as a scapegoat for their incompetence like they did with Obama, but at least the US wouldn't be considered quite as much of a psychotic laughing stock as it is now.
TL;DR . Trump is putting a big honking spotlight on the corruption and general ridiculousness of American politics and society, but if it's too much too quickly, they're going to hurt a heck of a lot more countries than just themselves.
Some leaks will be tactical moves politically by factions within the government. Other leaks are because the government is lying and people need to know. Leakers have often come to see their masters as criminals who need to be held to account. I'm glad the US government is having trouble hiding it's lying and bad dealing and full on murder.
Only boring people are ever bored.
How many people are defending Bill Clinton from accusations of misogyny?
That would be essentially everyone who is now accusing Trump of misogyny. At least everyone with a public voice.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.