Edward Snowden, 29, is now a hunted man. The media this morning has moved from the shock over the massive surveillance of citizens to attacking Snowden as a leaker. Indeed, this morning, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst Jeff Toobin denounced Snowden as a “clown” and someone who should be denounced. Toobin and I have been disagreeing a great deal lately. While I respect Jeff Toobin, I was surprised last week when he defended aspects of the investigation of journalists and later the massive surveillance programs. However, I was taken aback by the attack on Snowden. There certainly is a basis for criminal investigation — a point no one denies. He will have to answer for any violation of his clearance agreement and national security laws. However, it is the tenor and shift of the comments this morning that so surprised me. Rather than continue the debate of the loss of privacy, political and media figures are focusing on Snowden rather than the programs. You can disagree with his methods just as you can disagree with Julian Assange. However, there is an obvious effort to (like Assange) make him look unbalanced and dangerous. The story appears more complex. This is a man who gave up a $200,000 a year job and his likely freedom to reveal something that he felt the public should know about in the interest of privacy. You can disagree with his method, but few of his critics would even consider such a sacrifice for principle. Yet, the coverage this morning is largely on how to catch him and punish him. Over the weekend, the White House said it would find the person responsible and punish him. Snowden then self-disclosed his identity.
Ironically, President Barack Obama told the public that he was happy that we could have this debate over the balancing of privacy and security. However, he wants the person responsible for that debate to be prosecuted. Without Snowden, the program would have remained secret and no debate would likely have occurred. While aspects of these programs were previously discussed in 2006, this was the first confirmation of the programs from the government.
U.S. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, called Snowden “a defector” and said “this person is dangerous to the country.” That is the new spin: the “high school dropout” and “clown” who fled to Hong Kong. Indeed, many news outlets are focusing on the fact that he allegedly had a $300 night hotel in Hong Kong before checking out. (Anyone who has traveled to Hong Kong will tell you that this expense for a room is not uncommon and it is certainly not “one of the priciest” rooms for the city). Much of the focus will be on Snowden and his case as opposed to the massive surveillance program. Many believe, like Snowden, that the greater danger to the country is the loss of privacy — as discussed in my column today in USA Today. What is clear is that this massive security state, and its contractors, are irate about these leaks, which have given critical information to the public that has long been denied to it by its elected representatives. It is a closed system that is represented vividly by Booz Allen. The current head of national intelligence (Clapper) is a former company executive. The prior intelligence head is now leading the company. It is part of a security state that generates hundreds of billions of dollars and we are the subject of their work under these and other programs. They do not like people causing the public to ask questions.
Snowden acted from within this closed system. We have a democratic system that seems entirely unconnected to the public. From the continuation of our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to warrantless surveillance, the views of the public seem entirely immaterial to our leaders. They offer rhetorical responses but largely act within a system controlled by two parties and their leaders. Congress itself has proven, yet again, to be entirely disinterested in civil liberties or privacy values. The courts have refused to hear dozens of public interest lawsuits seeking review of such programs. In this environment, whistleblowers often feel that they have no recourse but to go to the media. Of course, this Administration has not only attacked privacy but the free press in the recent scandals.
What is striking is the anger directed at Snowden from the media. He will be held accountable for any crime, but he is also someone who acted at great peril to himself. I do not believe that that makes him a “clown” and I hope that some attention will remain on the attack on privacy represented by these programs.
What do you think?
Comments aren’t posting again.
2007:
Mike McConnell, Booz Allen and the Privatization of Intelligence
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/12/mike_mcconnell_booz_allen_and_the
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, some of the programs that they’ve been involved with with the federal government have not worked out well, right? There’s some called Trailblazer and Groundbreaker. Could you talk about those?
TIM SHORROCK: Right. Well, the NSA, the National Security Agency, is really sort of the lead agency in terms of outsourcing, and this began long before 9/11. It began in the late — you know, 1998, 1999, when they realized they were getting very behind the commercial world in technology. And so, you know, basically, the NSA has been leading this.
Trailblazer was a very large program that they contracted to a company called Science Applications International Corporation, SAIC. And their job was basically to, as you said before, data mining. They wanted to get all the intelligence they get from the phone intercepts, satellites, and get it into a form that their analysts can read and understand and analyze. And that’s what SAIC has been doing.
The project has cost about $4 billion, and it basically hasn’t worked at all. There are all kinds of problems with it. And this is an example of the kind of — you know, they give contractors control over huge programs, and then they subcontract. But it’s just not done very well. I mean, the government has done a very bad job of managing these programs, and, you know, Booz Allen has been involved in some of the most badly managed of these programs.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And McConnell, not only has he been involved in contracting, but isn’t he the chairman of the alliance of contractors that do business —
TIM SHORROCK: Yeah. Over the last year, he became the chairman of this organization, the INSA, which represents the largest NSA and CIA contractors. So he’s very involved in all levels of the contracting world, in terms of promoting the contractors and in terms of, you know, talking — pushing their interests in the government, within Congress. And so, you know, a guy like this running our intelligence services, as I said before, really is a serious problem.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you expect from the confirmation hearing?
TIM SHORROCK: I think that there’s going to — they’re going to ask him some pretty sharp questions, because — I mean, you mentioned this TIA program. I mean, they have about — they had millions of dollars worth of contracts on this Total Information project, you know, which was basically spying on American people, American citizens, antiwar protesters. And so, I think, you know, some of the senators — Senator Feingold, others — have been very interested, you know, want to know what exactly happened in this program. And as I had been working on this subject, writing this book and doing the reporting, I find that, you know, through the corporations you can learn a heck of a lot about the intelligence operations and communities, because they’re so involved in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim Shorrock, you write about the fact that Booz Allen is likely involved with the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.
TIM SHORROCK: Right. Well, basically any large corporation that’s contracting with the National Security Agency has been involved in this. We talked earlier about Trailblazer. They were one of the subcontractors on this. SAIC ran the whole thing. But Booz Allen was a chief advisor to another program, which was the NSA’s internal communications. This was a program called Groundbreaker. And all of these programs are analyzing, you know, the phone calls that they intercept, the government communications from abroad they intercept. And when they’re intercepting phone calls between US citizens and people abroad, the corporations are involved. They have people there working not only as just technical advisors, but also doing analysis. And so, if the NSA is listening in on our phone calls, you can bet that Booz Allen is participating in that.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And I would think that most Americans are worried enough about the fact that the government is eavesdropping on so many of these phone calls, but that it’s also actually being done by private contractors for the government would be even more worrisome to most folks.
TIM SHORROCK: Right. And, you know, I think equally worrisome is the fact that in the last year, when this became a big issue after the New York Times broke the story about the NSA, some Republicans in the Congress tried to introduce legislation to make sure that corporations would not be affected if it was deemed illegal, that they would basically be given a free pass and, you know, not prosecuted. So, you know, I think there’s a real question here about legal liability for these companies if this program is ever deemed illegal.
AMY GOODMAN: To get a sense of how large Booz Allen is, where Mike McConnell comes from, “Information Week,” you write, “reports Booz Allen had more than 1,000 former intelligence officials on its [payroll]” and that it “employs more than 10,000 TS/SCI cleared personnel.” What does that mean?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, that’s the highest level clearance that you can possibly get. And so that means they have basically an army of, you know, private —
AMY GOODMAN: 10,000.
TIM SHORROCK: 10,000 people. This was one contract that they had with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which I actually found on their website, you know, looking into different pages. But that 1,000 figure was the people actually on their payroll. And that was three years ago. And when I called them about this, they said, “We don’t confirm or deny numbers. We won’t tell you any numbers, but that number sounds reasonable.” So I think they have at least 1,000 on staff. And then, when they put together these projects, that was where their 10,000 number came from, so —
AMY GOODMAN: Who are some names we might recognize?
TIM SHORROCK: Among the corporations?
AMY GOODMAN: Among the top 1,000 officials that Information Week says are on the staff.
TIM SHORROCK: Oh. Well, we all know about James Woolsey, who is the former director of the CIA. He works at Booz Allen, a very well-known neoconservative who was one of the people who really pushed the Iraq war for years. They have all kinds of people that have come — names that most Americans won’t recognize.
AMY GOODMAN: George Tenet, they do.
TIM SHORROCK: Tenet’s not with Booz Allen, but Tenet is an intelligence contractor now. He just joined up, in fact, with a Carlisle company called Kinetic, which is one of the UK’s largest intelligence companies now here.
AMY GOODMAN: But, Joan Dempsey?
TIM SHORROCK: Joan Dempsey is the former executive director for Tenet, and she was hired last year by Booz Allen. They have all kinds of high-level officials working for them.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are the expectations, in terms of what McConnell will do in the position differently?
TIM SHORROCK: I don’t think he’ll be very much different. You know, what I’ve heard from people — and most of my sources are people inside the industry, inside the corporations — and they basically tell me he’s a Yes man. He’s somebody who’s — they got him in because basically they want him to push their own programs.
But I think it’s very important for your listeners to know and to understand that when talking about the intelligence office, 85% of the intelligence budget is controlled by the Pentagon. So we’re talking about a military program here. Everything — the NSA is under the Pentagon. The National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency, which does mapping and imagery, they’re under the Pentagon. The National Reconnaissance Office, which launches satellites, they’re under the Pentagon. And when the budget — when the Intelligence Reform Act passed, you might remember, there was a big fight. You know, the 9/11 Commission wanted to have these national agencies put under the DNI and taken out of the Pentagon, but there was a fight led by people in Congress, who basically represented the contractors, who didn’t want to be taken out of the Pentagon.
AMY GOODMAN: So, is there a huge exodus of people from within government intelligence to these private contractors?
TIM SHORROCK: Oh, absolutely. It’s been going on, you know, since the ’90s, you know, ever since, when in the early ’90s, they cut the intelligence budgets. Lots of people left, and they went into the contracting world. And then —
AMY GOODMAN: Because it pays more.
TIM SHORROCK: It pays three or four times more. And a lot of these people — they call them “green badges,” because a contractor has to wear a green badge when they work inside the agency — they go in the agency, and they’re sitting next to someone making, you know, $45,000, $50,000 a year, and they’re making $200,000, $250,000, $300,000. And it became such a problem that the last year the DNI actually put out a report saying, ’We’re in trouble, because we’re in competition with the contractors for our own jobs.’
AMY GOODMAN: Where is the accountability?
TIM SHORROCK: Where is the accountability? Hopefully, the Democrats are going to do some real oversight in this congress, and I think they’re talking about it, and I think that’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim Shorrock, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Tim Shorrock is an independent reporter. His articles have appeared in The Nation and Mother Jones and Harper’s, currently working on a book on the privatization of intelligence.
2007:
Mike McConnell, Booz Allen and the Privatization of Intelligence
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/1/12/mike_mcconnell_booz_allen_and_the
JUAN GONZALEZ: And McConnell, not only has he been involved in contracting, but isn’t he the chairman of the alliance of contractors that do business —
TIM SHORROCK: Yeah. Over the last year, he became the chairman of this organization, the INSA, which represents the largest NSA and CIA contractors. So he’s very involved in all levels of the contracting world, in terms of promoting the contractors and in terms of, you know, talking — pushing their interests in the government, within Congress. And so, you know, a guy like this running our intelligence services, as I said before, really is a serious problem.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you expect from the confirmation hearing?
TIM SHORROCK: I think that there’s going to — they’re going to ask him some pretty sharp questions, because — I mean, you mentioned this TIA program. I mean, they have about — they had millions of dollars worth of contracts on this Total Information project, you know, which was basically spying on American people, American citizens, antiwar protesters. And so, I think, you know, some of the senators — Senator Feingold, others — have been very interested, you know, want to know what exactly happened in this program. And as I had been working on this subject, writing this book and doing the reporting, I find that, you know, through the corporations you can learn a heck of a lot about the intelligence operations and communities, because they’re so involved in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim Shorrock, you write about the fact that Booz Allen is likely involved with the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.
TIM SHORROCK: Right. Well, basically any large corporation that’s contracting with the National Security Agency has been involved in this. We talked earlier about Trailblazer. They were one of the subcontractors on this. SAIC ran the whole thing. But Booz Allen was a chief advisor to another program, which was the NSA’s internal communications. This was a program called Groundbreaker. And all of these programs are analyzing, you know, the phone calls that they intercept, the government communications from abroad they intercept. And when they’re intercepting phone calls between US citizens and people abroad, the corporations are involved. They have people there working not only as just technical advisors, but also doing analysis. And so, if the NSA is listening in on our phone calls, you can bet that Booz Allen is participating in that.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And I would think that most Americans are worried enough about the fact that the government is eavesdropping on so many of these phone calls, but that it’s also actually being done by private contractors for the government would be even more worrisome to most folks.
TIM SHORROCK: Right. And, you know, I think equally worrisome is the fact that in the last year, when this became a big issue after the New York Times broke the story about the NSA, some Republicans in the Congress tried to introduce legislation to make sure that corporations would not be affected if it was deemed illegal, that they would basically be given a free pass and, you know, not prosecuted. So, you know, I think there’s a real question here about legal liability for these companies if this program is ever deemed illegal.
AMY GOODMAN: To get a sense of how large Booz Allen is, where Mike McConnell comes from, “Information Week,” you write, “reports Booz Allen had more than 1,000 former intelligence officials on its [payroll]” and that it “employs more than 10,000 TS/SCI cleared personnel.” What does that mean?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, that’s the highest level clearance that you can possibly get. And so that means they have basically an army of, you know, private —
AMY GOODMAN: 10,000.
TIM SHORROCK: 10,000 people. This was one contract that they had with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which I actually found on their website, you know, looking into different pages. But that 1,000 figure was the people actually on their payroll. And that was three years ago. And when I called them about this, they said, “We don’t confirm or deny numbers. We won’t tell you any numbers, but that number sounds reasonable.” So I think they have at least 1,000 on staff. And then, when they put together these projects, that was where their 10,000 number came from, so —
AMY GOODMAN: Who are some names we might recognize?
TIM SHORROCK: Among the corporations?
AMY GOODMAN: Among the top 1,000 officials that Information Week says are on the staff.
TIM SHORROCK: Oh. Well, we all know about James Woolsey, who is the former director of the CIA. He works at Booz Allen, a very well-known neoconservative who was one of the people who really pushed the Iraq war for years. They have all kinds of people that have come — names that most Americans won’t recognize.
AMY GOODMAN: George Tenet, they do.
TIM SHORROCK: Tenet’s not with Booz Allen, but Tenet is an intelligence contractor now. He just joined up, in fact, with a Carlisle company called Kinetic, which is one of the UK’s largest intelligence companies now here.
AMY GOODMAN: But, Joan Dempsey?
TIM SHORROCK: Joan Dempsey is the former executive director for Tenet, and she was hired last year by Booz Allen. They have all kinds of high-level officials working for them.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are the expectations, in terms of what McConnell will do in the position differently?
TIM SHORROCK: I don’t think he’ll be very much different. You know, what I’ve heard from people — and most of my sources are people inside the industry, inside the corporations — and they basically tell me he’s a Yes man. He’s somebody who’s — they got him in because basically they want him to push their own programs.
But I think it’s very important for your listeners to know and to understand that when talking about the intelligence office, 85% of the intelligence budget is controlled by the Pentagon. So we’re talking about a military program here. Everything — the NSA is under the Pentagon. The National Geospacial-Intelligence Agency, which does mapping and imagery, they’re under the Pentagon. The National Reconnaissance Office, which launches satellites, they’re under the Pentagon. And when the budget — when the Intelligence Reform Act passed, you might remember, there was a big fight. You know, the 9/11 Commission wanted to have these national agencies put under the DNI and taken out of the Pentagon, but there was a fight led by people in Congress, who basically represented the contractors, who didn’t want to be taken out of the Pentagon.
AMY GOODMAN: So, is there a huge exodus of people from within government intelligence to these private contractors?
TIM SHORROCK: Oh, absolutely. It’s been going on, you know, since the ’90s, you know, ever since, when in the early ’90s, they cut the intelligence budgets. Lots of people left, and they went into the contracting world. And then —
AMY GOODMAN: Because it pays more.
TIM SHORROCK: It pays three or four times more. And a lot of these people — they call them “green badges,” because a contractor has to wear a green badge when they work inside the agency — they go in the agency, and they’re sitting next to someone making, you know, $45,000, $50,000 a year, and they’re making $200,000, $250,000, $300,000. And it became such a problem that the last year the DNI actually put out a report saying, ’We’re in trouble, because we’re in competition with the contractors for our own jobs.’
AMY GOODMAN: Where is the accountability?
TIM SHORROCK: Where is the accountability? Hopefully, the Democrats are going to do some real oversight in this congress, and I think they’re talking about it, and I think that’s going to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Tim Shorrock, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Tim Shorrock is an independent reporter. His articles have appeared in The Nation and Mother Jones and Harper’s, currently working on a book on the privatization of intelligence.
Just finished listening to National Pentagon Radio on the subject. Did you know that no one has ever found there was any abuse of citizens by govt. surveillance powers? We’ll bless their hearts!
Occupy anyone? I seem to remember info coming out about illegal surveillance of peaceful protesters. If you’ve been involved in a Bradley Manning protest or Occupy you’ve seen LRAD in action and you’ve seen homes broken into by law enforcement that was working with Federal Agencies who were working with private companies such as GS. You’ve seen the govt. have knowledge of where people were and what they said “privately”.
So how is it that NPR just had no memory of these events?
Concepts such as the “greater good of the public interest” are no longer relevant in today’s budding Police State. What is important is the power of the Police State, and if people aren’t going to respect a budding Police State, how can we expect them to actually be in favor of a full-fledged Police State to replace our outmoded Constitution? Our media does an important service by protecting the interests of those in favor of the Police State, while ignoring or shunning that who criticize the Police State.
It’s called “The New World Order.” Learn to love it. It’s coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
I don’t even watch CNN as it is full of clowns and histrionic character who consider themselves as journalists or legal experts ..
“Cloak-and-dagger: Snowden self-identifies as a spook.” More spin in the mix. He worked for the NSA since 2009. He’s not self-identifying.
What we know about NSA leaker Edward Snowden
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/10/18882615-what-we-know-about-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden?lite
The 29-year-old computer whiz who divulged details about National Security Agency’s data-collecting programs has also revealed specifics of his life story, from an upbringing in North Carolina to a top-secret contract in Hawaii.
Speaking from a Hong Kong hotel that he has since left, Edward Snowden told The Guardian that he had enjoyed a “very comfortable life,” but one marked by mounting disillusionment with what he views as government intrusion into the private lives of American citizens.
“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under,” he said.
Here’s some of what we know about the bespectacled self-proclaimed “spy” who is being called both a traitor and a hero:
Background: Born June 21, 1983, he grew up in Wilmington, N.C., but later moved to Ellicott City, Md., he told The Guardian. His mother, Wendy, is the chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology at the federal court in Baltimore, a court official told NBC News. His father, Lonnie, is a former Coast Guard officer who lives in Pennsylvania, the Allentown Morning Call reported. Edward Snowden said the only thing he fears from outing himself is the “harmful effects on my family.”
Education: He did not complete high school. He told The Guardian that he studied computers at a community college and obtained a general equivalency degree.
Military service: He spent four months in the Army reserves, from May to September 2004 as a special forces recruit to a 14-week training course, the Army said. “He did not complete any training or receive any awards,” an Army statement said. No other details were given, but Snowden told The Guardian he was discharged after breaking his legs in an accident.
Government work: His first job with the National Security Agency was as a security guard, and the next stop was an information-technology job with the CIA, which stationed him in Geneva in 2007, he claimed. He said he left the CIA in 2009 to work for private contractors, including Dell and Booz Allen. Through his job with Booz Allen, he was assigned to NSA offices in Japan and, more recently, Hawaii. Booz Allen said he has been an employee for about three months. He told reporters he made about $200,000 a year.
Hawaii: He briefly lived in a 1,559-square-foot rented home on Oahu, where neighbors said he and his girlfriend, who has not been named, kept to themselves. “They just say, ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’ in the morning,” Angel Cunanan told NBC station KHNL. “He mentioned that he worked for the government.” Local residents said the couple never really unpacked before they moved out May 1, after the owner decided to sell the house, the Associated Press reported.
Exit plan: When he decided to go to Hong Kong to await the fallout from the leaks, Snowden told the NSA that he was taking a leave for treatment of epilepsy, a condition he told The Guardian he was diagnosed with last year after seizures. He said he didn’t give his girlfriend a specific reason, just saying he had to go away for a few weeks.
Politics: A public records search shows Snowden was a registered voter but did not declare a political party affiliation. Someone with the same name who lived in the same places and at one point worked for Dell made two $250 donations last year to libertarian-leaning GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Cloak-and-dagger: Snowden self-identifies as a spook. “I’ve been a spy almost all of my adult life,” he told the Washington Post. In his communications with a reporter, he used a code name — “Verax,” or truth-teller in Latin. He’s worried he’s being watched and puts a red hood over his head and laptop when he enters passwords, The Guardian reported.
On a different tack: This is politics, and yes, we can change things. There are some authoritarian-oriented politicians who actively want this kind of surveillance. They sell themselves as “tough against terrorism” – a spin on good old “law and order” politics. And there are politicians who have been working to oppose what’s been going on.
But in the middle are a large number of politicians who know we shouldn’t be doing this, but are afraid that they will be accused of being “soft against terrorism”. Fingers will be pointed at them when the next terrorist attack happens. They need support and political cover. They need Americans to stand up and say “yes, terrorism is a risk, but we are not willing to give up our traditional Constitutionally protected privacy and rights because of it.”
Currently, only about 0.5% of Americans donate $200 or more in political contributions. There are 240,000,000 Americans of voting age. If only 5 million of us donate only $200 to candidates who will fight against this surveillance this cycle, that would be One Billion Dollars. Not only would this have a lot of direct impact, it would scare the crap out of a lot of establishment politicians and political consultants in DC. It would provide a lot of cover and support both to the champions of privacy, but would bolster the politicians who have been on the fence about supporting what we all know is right.
In addition to political donations, please consider supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff dot org) and the ACLU.
As soon as Mr. Snowden’s identity was revealed this weekend, there was talk that his character would be smeared in order to discredit the revelations that came with his leaking. Sure enough, a couple of hours ago, I watched Tim Pawlenty on MSNBC jumping on the ad hominem train – sadly, no one on the panel called him out for such attacks. People who don’t want to talk about what has actually been happening with the government (and the huge corporate contractors who actually do all the work, and lobby to expand the surveillance machine they build and run) will be hot to smear this guy with ad hominem attacks.
All this crap about “he’s a high-school drop out” crap is sad. One of the great things about the current state of the IT world is that people with brains, talent and hard work can work their way up based on merit. I know a guy who dropped out of college (as a dance major), but has worked his way up to the point that he keeps the computers running for a hedge fund that makes multiple billions of dollars a year in profits (I have no idea how much they have under management). Over time, the industry will change to be more like the rest of the business world – where an MBA from a prestigious school goes further than actual intelligence.
The Guardian
Editorial
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-conscientious-objector?INTCMP=SRCH
Edward Snowden: more conscientious objector than common thief
US members of Congress ought to be seeking the earliest opportunity to learn what this brave whistleblower is saying
President Obama made much this week of the constitutional oversights of the intelligence infrastructure from both Congress and the courts – even if the secret proceedings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts offer limited comfort to the general public. If this oversight is to be at all meaningful members of Congress ought to be seeking the earliest opportunity to learn what Snowden has to say – by video link, if necessary. Snowden is self-evidently not a common thief. He is more like a conscientious objector. It is not enough for Congress to outsource his interrogation to the FBI. It is vital, above all, that elected representatives test the truth of what he is saying – and not simply the ones who, it seems all too possible, have been asleep while minding the shop.
Elaine M., I have long thought a trio must pass before we get the whole story: Cheney, Rummy and Barbara The Quaker Oats Man Bush.
George W Bush’s story has not yet concluded, and the best days are far behind him now.
Bron, we stick together when any American is called a Nazi or we’re done.
Jill Says, “Many in the MSM have proven again and again to be willingly complicit water carriers for powerful wrongdoers. Toobin appears to be one of those.”
Here’s another corner of the universe where it’s happening:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/edward-snowden-leaker-of-nsa-data-mining-stories-steps-forward/
The “calm, reasonable” types seem to be calling for, well, nothing. Move along. Nothing to see here. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Wave the white flag. Accept it. Privacy is never coming back. We’re at war in secula et seculorum.
Strong encryption to a person would solve much of this. Even in 2013, not even mail programs employ it. It cuts into the very lucrative eavesdropping bidness, as evidenced by Snowden’s ridiculous salary, a demand created by paranoia and fear.
Actual demand for secure communications provides us with a stepping-stone to a different future. We have to demand it, every day.
I am sitting here trying to grasp the state in which we live. One in which Americans are needing to seek refuge and asylum in countries other than America. Mindboggling.
Now how do we get the blinders off the rest of the citizenry?
The Carlyle Group Has Made $2 Billion Off Of Booz Allen
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/06/10/the-carlyle-group-has-made-2-billion-off-of-booz-allen/
========
Gotta love Birgitta Jonsdottir:
Icelandic Legislator: I’m Ready To Help NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Seek Asylum
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/06/09/icelandic-legislator-im-ready-to-help-nsa-whistleblower-seek-asylum/
That info about Rumsfield is appalling (as is everything else which is going on). We have documents outlining crimes by the highest officials in this nation. No one can get justice no matter the evidence they present, nor the suffering they have endured. This nation is unrecognizable.
Clearly, you have to order/commit a war crime to be free of the DOJ. You expose one, you’re going down.
“Whenever we had a debate in the office on how to handle crimes, they do not defend due process – they defend decisive action. They say it is better to kick someone out of a plane than let these people have a day in court. It is an authoritarian mindset in general.”” from the interview linked…
————
due process IS DECISIVE ACTION. Which means that those ‘spyshits’ or ‘authoritarians’ have become anti-American. Our ChARTER IS BUILT ON DUE PROCESS.
phuckers….
How on earth can yo ube surprised at the Media turning its back on the real story to pursue the one the empire wnats them to promote. You can’t actually believe in an honest press any longer can you ?
Another take on the extradition/asylum of Snowden:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/10/hong-kong-edward-snowden-asylum