Former CIA Director James Woolsey has one wish for the holidays: for Edward Snowden to be tried for treason and “hanged.” That was Woolsey’s response to the suggestion of amnesty for Snowden.Of course, the National Intelligence Director can commit perjury and CIA officials can lie to Congress without nary an investigation let alone prosecution. Intelligence officials can run a torture program in violation of treaties and international law without punishment. CIA officials can openly destroy evidence so that it cannot be used against them in a criminal case and continue in office without penalty. The CIA director can even reveal classified evidence to a filmmaker working on a pro-torture movie. All of that is perfectly correct, but Snowden must die.
Woolsey was appearing with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton when he proclaimed that Snowden “should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead.”
Of course, Woolsey’s attitude toward holding CIA officials accountable is a bit more generous. When Congress demanded repercussions after the Aldrich Ames disaster on Woolsey’s watch, he refused and said “[s]ome have clamored for heads to roll in order that we could say that heads have rolled. Sorry, that’s not my way.” No, your way is hang whistleblowers while shielding intelligence officials.
After the Snowden disclosures, Congress has pledged reforms. The White House has admitted abuses. Now a federal judge has declared the entire program to be unconstitutional. Yet, Woolsey wants Snowden dead. Welcome back to America’s Animal Farm.
While the rest of the world calls for a certain ex-CIA director to be hanged by his balls until he is dead.
AP, thanks, Snowden should receive the Medal of Freedom, as should Asange and Manning. If we lived in a moral country they would too.
From Wikipedia:
“The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors”.[3] The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform.”
Never mind I just posted it in my WordPress Private Hole here:
http://sotb1.wordpress.com/?p=5/trackback/
Comment lost! Can someone dig it out of the spam filter – PLEASE???!!!
According to Oliver Barr McClellan, admitted JFK conspirator, he says that VPOTUS LBJ was the mastermind. He said that Jackie KNEW it was LBJ and said so on AF1 during the swearing in ceremony. The shooters were a mix of snipers from varied backgrounds, none of which was Oswald.
Some where Cubans, Corsicans, Italian hit-men, and 3 alleged hobos one of which fired the fatal grassy knoll shot. There is proof that George HW Bush stood at the foyer of the Book Depository. He claims he was never there. George was an active CIA operative at that time, which he denies today.
So to respond to you that CIA did it? The answer is yes and no. A faction of the CIA which ran it’s operation from New Haven CT at a famous university, may have “planned” and assisted with logistics. But many enemies of JFK were behind it. The main one his own Vice President.
JFK made an enemy of the “faction” by his comment that he was going to “…break them up and scatter them into the wind”. He pissed off the mob by his actions in Cuba, his brother’s meddling with Organized Crime, and reneging on his promise to “scratching the mob’s back” for helping him win Illinois. Oil men just despised him for various reasons. He pissed off Castro for obvious reasons. He pissed off “good” CIA men because of the Bay of Pigs fiasco which the still today blame on him despite new revelations by DCI Tenet that he didn’t.
The hit was supposed to take place at Miami but it went sideways. J. Edgar Hoover was in on it as he knew it was going to happen from his many illegal surveillances and inside tips, but did NOTHING to stop it. USSS was getting drunk the night before but they might not have been in on it.
So it’s difficult to just say “the CIA did it” when it was much more complex than that.
@AP – Very well worded manifesto by Mr. Snowden. Oddly a bit too eloquent for his intellectual acumen I think. The whole “boo-hoo” for Brazil reminds me of Christopher Boyce’s manifesto re: how CIA was abusing Australia.
General Alexander never said he wasn’t doing Total Information Awareness on foreign countries. He just said he wasn’t doing it to his fellow citizens. How does Mr. Snowden get to speak for our IC’s mission statements? They do what they do for a reason. We don’t get to second guess them.
John Perkins was a NSA “Economic Hitman”. He now also lives in exile in South America. He too feels that the NSA does try to control the economic status of foreign countries. I believe they have a good reason for it. It’s above my pay grade to question or check General Alexander’s hand on that. The CIA got the bad rep for that now it’s on NSA.
I still question Snowden’s motives. I’d sure like to know how Perkins feels about this. I’m disappointed in my hero Daniel Ellsberg as I thought he’s smell a rat but he doesn’t. I also would like to hear what Chomsky feels about him too. But I’m afraid he too has been duped by someone “handling” Snowden.
AP the thing that’s really stickin’ in my craw is that here’s this HS & Com College dropout who fakes his way into NSA under their very watchful radar. They give him some NSA IT administrators global password and he goes to town doing his Julian Assange wannabe’ activity. No one was watching him or key logging his work. The guys in NSA Information Security where just asleep in the Ops Center while all these documents where being downloaded to his flash drive or portable hard drive. The “reality alarm” is ringing off the hook here! Something about Snowden is just too goofy! Even a half-azz CIA case officer would see through this obvious gambit.
Snowden’s letter was published on the 17th, I believe. Thanks to the person who posted it.
Comment “lost”.
NSA Surveillance Is about Power, Not “Safety”
An open letter to the people of Brazil
by Edward Snowden
The following letter was published today in the Brazilian newspaper A Folha in Portuguese and this original text was provided via the Facebook page of Glenn Greenwald’s husband David Miranda:
Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government’s National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist’s camera. I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say. I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live.
My greatest fear was that no one would listen to my warning. Never have I been so glad to have been so wrong. The reaction in certain countries has been particularly inspiring to me, and Brazil is certainly one of those.
At the NSA, I witnessed with growing alarm the surveillance of whole populations without any suspicion of wrongdoing, and it threatens to become the greatest human rights challenge of our time. The NSA and other spying agencies tell us that for our own “safety”—for Dilma’s “safety,” for Petrobras’ “safety”—they have revoked our right to privacy and broken into our lives. And they did it without asking the public in any country, even their own.
Today, if you carry a cell phone in Sao Paolo, the NSA can and does keep track of your location: they do this 5 billion times a day to people around the world. When someone in Florianopolis visits a website, the NSA keeps a record of when it happened and what you did there. If a mother in Porto Alegre calls her son to wish him luck on his university exam, NSA can keep that call log for five years or more. They even keep track of who is having an affair or looking at pornography, in case they need to damage their target’s reputation.
American Senators tell us that Brazil should not worry, because this is not “surveillance,” it’s “data collection.” They say it is done to keep you safe. They’re wrong. There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate spying, legitimate law enforcement — where individuals are targeted based on a reasonable, individualized suspicion — and these programs of dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever. These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.
Many Brazilian senators agree, and have asked for my assistance with their investigations of suspected crimes against Brazilian citizens. I have expressed my willingness to assist wherever appropriate and lawful, but unfortunately the United States government has worked very hard to limit my ability to do so — going so far as to force down the Presidential Plane of Evo Morales to prevent me from traveling to Latin America! Until a country grants permanent political asylum, the US government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak.
“These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.”
Six months ago, I revealed that the NSA wanted to listen to the whole world. Now, the whole world is listening back, and speaking out, too. And the NSA doesn’t like what it’s hearing. The culture of indiscriminate worldwide surveillance, exposed to public debates and real investigations on every continent, is collapsing. Only three weeks ago, Brazil led the United Nations Human Rights Committee to recognize for the first time in history that privacy does not stop where the digital network starts, and that the mass surveillance of innocents is a violation of human rights.
The tide has turned, and we can finally see a future where we can enjoy security without sacrificing our privacy. Our rights cannot be limited by a secret organization, and American officials should never decide the freedoms of Brazilian citizens. Even the defenders of mass surveillance, those who may not be persuaded that our surveillance technologies have dangerously outpaced democratic controls, now agree that in democracies, surveillance of the public must be debated by the public.
My act of conscience began with a statement: “I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded. That’s not something I’m willing to support, it’s not something I’m willing to build, and it’s not something I’m willing to live under.”
Days later, I was told my government had made me stateless and wanted to imprison me. The price for my speech was my passport, but I would pay it again: I will not be the one to ignore criminality for the sake of political comfort. I would rather be without a state than without a voice.
If Brazil hears only one thing from me, let it be this: when all of us band together against injustices and in defense of privacy and basic human rights, we can defend ourselves from even the most powerful systems.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/17-1
“These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.” -Edward Snowden
And this is the man that some would hang.
Woolsey was director of an agency that assassinated their Commander in Chief on November 22, 1963.
Meanwhile, the civilized world has abolished the death penalty.
@Mike Spindell – Patrice Lumumba was murdered by a “bunch of people”. Albeit, with CIA assistance and arguably POTUS Eisenhower’s sanction. There’s a great movie about it and another by Robert DeNiro’s, THE GOOD SHEPHERD delves into it too. But if you look it up there’s an example of a CIA Case Officer (a NOC and Station Chief named Larry Devlin) who grew a conscious over killing Patrice a lot earlier with some poison toothpaste invented by Dr. Sydney Gottlieb (CIA Technical Services now called DS&T). He threw the sh*t into the Congo River at Brazzaville where it lies on the bottom this day. Patrice made too many enemies and they did not want Communism to take over Zaire (aka DR Congo).
Also Mosadegh and Guatemala (mentioned in DeNiro’s movie) where private “wet dreams” by Allen Dulles and friends (George HW Bush – who claims it wasn’t him but another George Bush)… It was a get rich scheme using the new CIA. Even the Castro thing was their idea. That “bad” CIA faction wanted to keep the MOB in action in Cuba but Castro ruined it for them. Also little is known about the natural gold found in Cuba by the Americans (using geosats) and Fidel & Raoul still haven’t found it yet. Maybe that’s why we won’t give up Gitmo to Raoul? I still don’t know how we even got Gitmo from Fidel 🙁
SOTB
@Art – I agree “plausible denaibilty” is not a legal defense. It was never supposed to be. When the CIA came up with that phrase they meant that PD means you NEVER get caught red-handed so you don’t have to face the music. It’s like saying: “Hey did you do that?” and they say “Who me? No it was that retarded contractor I hired. He did it without my authorization!”
Remember that minister’s wife that got shot down in a CIA plane over Peru? Guess who got blamed for ordering that FUBAR mess? Yup… a CIA contractor. They use PD like a Ninja. They don’t have to worry about Congressional Hearings with PD as “they never do nutin’ “. These guys remind of this cartoon character on The Simpsons “Johnny TightLips”:
@Personanongrata – I never denied being a voluntary non-paid NSA apologist. Maybe I am trying to polish a turd. I just want to give General Alexander the benefit of the doubt. However, when my friend Mike Spindell tries to compare the NSA to J. Edgar Hoover and the black world of CIA Directorate of Ops (now called National Clandestine Services) I have to take pause.
Yes Jose Rodriguez Dir of CIA DO with his best little schemers, John Brennan, and those two woman, I will not identify here, were the backbone of EIT (torture) and Drone Strikes under the Bush2 Admin. And yes they did destroy that video tape in direct defiance to a presidential order. But there malfeasance can not be put upon the NSA. NSA is really a very different animal from old FBI and present CIA. Maybe their NSA-CSS is a little rough though. The CIA is really not 100% bad either. There are arguably 2 factions there since 1947. The one Ollie North was with was the same mindset of Jim Clapper. He is DNI like CBS’s Miller was (but assistant DNI). Ollie never went to jail neither is Jim. And Ollie arguably INVENTED al Queda and UBL for George HW Bush!
@Art – UBL used a simple POS PC computer running MS Windows. He opened Notepad.exe and typed up his coded commands in Arabic. Saved them to 3.5″ diskettes, labeled them, and had his runners deliver them to dead drops around Abbotabad. When the al Queda field agents picked them up they simply read the commands in coded Arabic and went to a Internet Cafe in Lahore or some other POS city in Pakistan and sent innocent looking EMAILS to cohorts worldwide with UBL’s nefarious instructions. Since they were using throwaway email addresses from say Yahoo, nobody noticed what was going on. But Yahoo decided to climb into bed with the IC and now that’s going to be a lot harder to do without noticing now.
They also may have used that JPEG trick with porno photos with coded words embedded. They could attach them to the email. The NSA geeks have people a lot smarter than Snowden working on stuff you couldn’t imagine. So Snowden was a light-weight in their world. I mean the video I posted above showed a NSA geek that could solve Rubik’s Cube right in front of Miller’s face in about 3-seconds. I look at a Rubik’s Cube and want to use it for target practice with an MP5. 😎
Changing the subject: Did anyone notice the nevuses or moles on Snowden’s face and neck? I hope he is on Russian Healthcare Program as he may have a surprise awaiting him at the doctor’s office.
SOTB
sonofthunderboanerges is an apologist for the unconstitutional abuses of the US surveillance state.
Nothing like trying to polish a turd.
Somehow I think you old-timers are remembering some old school NSA shenanigans that just make it easier for you to vilify them again in this scenario. I am referring to their early tactics of trying to suppress certain mathematics education in US public schools. And there are other things like the clipper chip debacle and others. All that was an effort to allow NSA not to have any real future challenges from within domestically to their cryptological efforts. I imagine they thought that if they could suppress mainstream academia from teaching certain things related to cryptography then they wouldn’t have to deal with it in the future. Did it work? The jury is still out on that one.
Then there was Echelon. Someone releases a story about this cyber-vacuum cleaner that listens for Americans saying or typing the word “bomb” and everybody believes it. That’s just science-fiction IMO, as How could supercomputers slow down slow enough to listen to 330,000,000 people talking all at once and still be able to capture keywords and phrases at light-speed? The truth was that NSA was only pointing this thing at specific targets and mainly foreigners not every American. And the thing broke down once.
The same is true of it’s foreign-friends who use Echelon too. They have to aim at specific American POI targets not everyone. (POI=Person of Interest).
Then there is the lunatic-fringe stuff that NSA has been rumored to be involved in (i.e. Staring at Goats movie?). That is a bit much and it’s not just NSA that was doing it. It was our military, our IC, and our foreign counterparts that fooled around with that foolishness. That stuff has all but been abandoned as it never really worked.
So the NSA may have gotten a bad-rep from the old days, but I feel General Alexander allowing CBS and Miller into the inner-sanctum was the right move. I totally thought that Black Chamber would look like something from another world. It looked like a typical insurance company cubicle-office just like the CIA HQ in Langley VA. Nothing unusual. Just people trying to protect our country in very isolated and secret ways. Can you blame them for wanting to exclude you from their secret world?
SOTB
OK Nate “I feel ya’ ” on that one. I too hate to be lied to or manipulated by someone who thinks they are smarter or craftier than myself. It’s basic human nature. However, if you need to identify or label who is your enemy, try and pick the “correct” targets of your angst.
I know you are probably referring to the Clapper incident in Congress as a typical example of the USG “lying” to it’s people. First of all Clapper is NOT with the NSA. His lie was one of OMISSION not COMMISSION. There’s a difference. Clapper is from the old school of thought that Oliver North is from. Lies are a matter of degree with them. He probably thought he was being loyal to his mandate to protect national security. He overstepped it and either goofed up or really consciously did it on purpose. He’s now trying to fix it. Good luck on that Jimbo…
The NSA’s role in domestic spying is really complex. They are NOT supposed to do it but they do it “kinda’ sorta'” when needed (i.e. metadata), but legally and Constitutionally. It’s a gray area. Then they try to separate themselves from the USA audio-intercepts their foreign partners are doing abroad. However, General Alexander NEVER lied to the American public. He just tried to explain his complex point of view to people who have trouble understanding complex things.
Alexander is trying to protect his country from a NEW blended threat that you and others are not familiar with. Sometimes it involves American citizens who are either working with the true enemies or ARE the enemies themselves. He’s not talking about John Q. Public. He is referring to people a bit higher on the social scale.
Snowden is either a dupe at the hands of a puppet-master (either home or abroad) or he is running with a misguided sense of honor and duty. Either way he is sitting on MILLIONS of pages of unreleased data that very well could “screw the pooch” if it gets into the wrong hands. He was never really NSA material yet somehow he excelled at getting access to their crown jewels. Somebody is lying here but it’s not the NSA.
And if I got my facts mixed up please help me get them straight…
SOTB
“Alexander is trying to protect his country from a NEW blended threat that you and others are not familiar with. Sometimes it involves American citizens who are either working with the true enemies or ARE the enemies themselves. He’s not talking about John Q. Public. He is referring to people a bit higher on the social scale.”
SOTB,
Nice try but I just don’t buy it. I’m sure in Alexander’s mind and in the minds of his minions that is what they think they’re doing. however, when J.Edgar Hoover taped MLK in bed with a woman, When the CIA plotted to kill Castro, when Patrice Lumumba was murdered, when Mosadegh was overthrown in Iran and so on and so forth it was done by people who thought they were protecting America, when in fact they were actively destroying it as a country with values. Much of that was done to protect American industrial interests that in the end stopped considering themselves American when they got big enough. How many COINTELPRO’s and Church Committee hearings do we need to realize that our country’s intelligence apparatus is out of control and under the aegis of men whose thought processes were the type that led to massacring Vietnamese, Afghani and Iraqi villages….to save them? Game try, delivered in measured tones, but in my opinion simply not credible.
The enemy are those that lie to me.
But they’re not really enemies, they just don’t interest me.
For your information. This one time.
@Anonymously Posted – Oops your right. There is another here named Anonymously Yours. I got yo two sideways I guess. My bad…
BTW I’m not attacking you. I really do believe you are a bit too paranoid. Why do you think Americans need to be wary of it’s NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY? They aren’t the enemy. I can think of OTHERS that are so called FRIENDS who spy on US and do US harm who should be moved up to enemy status.
OK. I’ll bite, what facts do I need to “get straight”? I’m open-minded enough to admit error when pointed out to me. But I need details and not just allusions.
SOTB
@Nate – What if you found out he’s just being “handled” by Putin, Xi Ping, Tamir Pardo, or believe it or not by John O. Brennan? You do know that Christopher Boyce (1977 Falcon and the Snowman- TRW infamy?)was just a “disinformation-delivery-boy” for DCI George H. W. Bush (1977)? They just wanted to feed USSR some bogus satellite codes so they could feed IVAN more disinfo. Ivan bought it and probably still doesn’t know what really happened. Boyce got a LIFE SENTENCE. Guess where he is now? Not in jail.
Same could be true of Snowden. I mean he didn’t finish high school nor community college because some say he so brilliant he didn’t need to. They say he hacked his way into the most secret intelligence agency ever who is more paranoid then people like AY. He goes to Booz Allen while Woolsly was its VP and some how they just GIVE him the keys to the kingdom? I mean to me he’s a functional retard. I don’t see the brilliance or genius in knowing how to write HTML front-ends for NSA? Who does that anyway? Can you smell a rat in your hero – just a bit?
SOTB,
Well, that was predictable — if one can’t attack the message, go after the messenger.
Get your facts straight. And your names.
“AY thinks I blowing smoke but I’m not.” -SOTB
SOTB,
As I said before, you’re blowing smoke. You need to get your facts straight.
(And that should be “ap”, not “AY”.)