Even as National Democrats are making noises about instituting impeachment proceedings against President Bush (and perhaps even VP Cheney), and more former intel personnel spin their CYA stories for a (thus far) compliant and helpful media (on “60 Minutes,” for instance, former CIA official Tyler Drumheller claimed the Bushies cherrypicked intel to take us to war—which doesn’t seem to jibe with the investigative finding that the Bushies did NOT apply undue pressure on the intel community to reach a certain conclusion, and that they acted on consensus info; while Ray McGovern, leader of the ex-CIA group VIPS is claiming the US is guilty of war crimes), the Mary McCarthy leak story continues to expand outside of its behind-the-scenes actors’ ability to control it.
Which is why it is essential to keep up the pressure, but to do so in a way that is careful and thorough, and that avoids wild speculation.
To that end, Politburo Diktat has put together a “matrix” of Mary McCarthy’s connections and contributions (see also, Mind in the Qatar and Sweetness and Light), to which we can add a few names and wrinkles from posts by AJ Strata, Powerline, Mark Coffey, Flopping Aces, Macsmind, and Seixon: Senators Rockefeller and Durbin, former CIA official Tyler Drumheller, former CIA (and unhinged Downing Street Memo blogger) Larry Johnson, ex-CIA Vincent Cannistraro, Rocco Martino, a former spy for Italian military intelligence (on the French payroll), and James Risen (of the NSA leak fame).
As some of our friends on the left begin finally taking serious note of this story (writes Hilzoy, “I think that leaking it is sometimes justified. The existence of a system for the classification and declassification of documents is important, but it’s not the most important thing in the world, and sometimes its importance might be outweighed” [translation: the ends justify the means, and oaths of confidentiality can be superceded when one really really really doesn’t like the duly elected CinC], and as McCarthy and her lawyer deny that she leaked the secret prison story to reporters (which could be true; but what we don’t know is what stories she did perhaps let slip during her “unauthorized contacts” with reporters), it bears repeating that the CIA is maintaining that McCarthy was fired for leaking classified information:
A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, said: “The officer was terminated for precisely the reasons we have given: unauthorized contacts with reporters and sharing classified information with reporters. There is no question whatsoever that the officer did both. The officer personally admitted doing both.â€Â
Meanwhile, even though no charges have as yet been brought against McCarthy, Flopping Aces notes that Howard Dean and others are setting up a legal defense fund for Ms McCarthy—though we’d been constantly reminded by Liberals during the Plame Affair that the leaking of classified information is not a partisan issue, but one that goes to the heart of protecting our intelligence officers. Presumably when those officers are not otherwise occupied posing for Vanity Fair spreads.
As Ace quips:
Remember, this is a nonpartisan woman. Which makes me wonder– why does the DNC want to start a legal defense fund for her?
[…]
It’s funny. Partisanship only exists on the right. We hear endlessly about the ideologues on the right—the “neocon cabal” who have hijacked foreign policy—but the media cannot even whisper the possiblity of a liberal clacque in the CIA and security apparatus.
And hints that there are six more criminal moles being investigated […]
And therein lies the crux of the matter. We can’t yet say for certain yet what McCarthy’s specific leak was; we can only note that the CIA is insisting she admitted to leaking classified information to reporters, that she failed numerous polygraphs before doing so, and that she has been fired.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t look at the dots and try to do some connecting.
Observes AJ Strata:
If I was the paranoid kind, I would think ex-CIA agents and NSC members are trying to instigate a bloodless coup d’etat. I am not there yet. But with McCarthy’s firing as the first publicized peron caught (or should we say confessing) to discussing classified matters with reporters without authorization (is that accurately worded so McCarthy lawyer Cobb can’t pull a clinton-esque spin job?) it is interesting to see who is coming out and about in the media.
Indeed. Because it could be, as former spy In From the Cold notes, that McCarthy is a bit player in all this:
There are probably some nervous folks around Langley these days. Mary McCarthy may be less the “tip of the iceberg†than another, smaller berg floating in the CIA ocean. And it looks like the “icebreaker†Porter Goss is taking dead aim at the larger berg that provided the bulk of Dana Priest’s story. Full steam ahead.
As I’ve noted here before, Goss appears to be serious about his job—and the administration serious about plugging leaks and ending this culture of autonomy and foreign policy prescription that the lifers in the intel community have come to believe is their function and right. (As the WJS pointed out yesterday, “Paul Pillar, another former CIA analyst well known for opposing Mr. Bush while he was at Langley, appears to think this is as it should be. He recently wrote in Foreign Affairs that the intelligence community should be treated like the Federal Reserve and have independent political status. In other words, the intelligence community should be a sort of clerisy accountable to no one”).
And I’m not the only one who senses that the honeymoon is over—both for rogue intel agents and their press contacts—who have conspired, over the years, to establish themselves as an extraconstitutional branch of government, a form of information shaping and control apparatus that can be used to beat back an Executive branch with which it disagrees.
As Betsy Newmark writes:
If Porter Goss can clear out these vipers, he will be doing the country a big benefit. No administration, Republican or Democrat, wants a leaky intelligence agency. If we just shrug away McCarthy’s leaks the message will be clear: leak away if you personally think something should be known publicly. The Democrats better watch out for what precedents they’re setting. After all, they aspire to be in the White House on Inauguration Day, 2009. Would a future Democratic president look with favor on retired generals criticizing a President Hillary Clinton’s actions or CIA agents leaking anti-Clinton stories to the Wall Street Journal or Washington Times? I’m sure they have no interest in reaping what they sow, but they may have no choice.
Betsy is right. But what she doesn’t say is that, should we reach that point of see-sawing partisan subversions—where a “loyal opposition” has been replaced by raw wills to power—we will have surrendered our national prinicples and adopted a form of political nihilism, and it will take a serious shakeup (a national third party victory, a dissolving of the CIA, or some such major event) to bring us back from the brink of becoming yet another of history’s failed republics.
We need a media we can trust. But thus far (as I suspected they would), they have pulled out every stop to protect Mary McCarthy—which is nothing more than an attempt at self-preservation, really: McCarthy represents the kind of source our once “objective” media has come to rely upon to enable their shift in mandate from reporting facts to developing narratives they feel are fit for public consumption.
However, I hold out hope that pragmatism will set in, and when it becomes clear that this story is about to break wide open, the MSM will see an opportunity to rehabilitate its image, and the floodgates will open and the truth will begin spilling out like so much backed up sewage.
I’ll leave Linda Chavez with the last word, because she quite eloquently articulates many of the arguments I and others have been making ever since this story broke. From “CIA Cleanup,” Human Events Online:
[…] intelligence officials don’t give up their right to participate in the political process, but there is a big difference between merely voting and trying to influence the outcome of an election. It strikes me as unwise, even dangerous, to have members of the intelligence community actively involved in the latter.
Ever since the Watergate scandal, for example, attorneys general have stayed out of campaign activities for the administrations in which they worked, and so have most secretaries of state, and active duty members of the military are prohibited from engaging in campaign activities.
These are good rules and common practices. Do we really want the people who are charged with spying and keeping the nation’s secrets or fighting the country’s wars exercising major influence over who sits in the Oval Office? We’ve had a long tradition of separating our military and civilian functions. There has never been even an attempted military coup in our nation’s history, as there have been in many other democracies. And what are intelligence agencies except quasi-military outfits whose duty it is to protect the country?
If McCarthy actually did what she’s accused of doing—leaking classified information that she believed would be damaging to the administration—in addition to giving large sums to the president’s opponents, she was engaged in what amounts to an attempted, albeit non-violent, coup. Certainly it would have been viewed as such if conservative intelligence officers had done something similar during the Clinton years.
Ending partisan guerrilla warfare at the CIA won’t solve all the agency’s problems certainly, but it’s a start. The president, whether Republican or Democrat, must have an intelligence capability that is strictly non-partisan. It goes without saying that the CIA and all other intelligence agencies must be counted on to keep the nation’s secrets.
It is simply unacceptable for individuals to decide which secrets they think are important to keep and which they choose to share. Agents who have moral qualms about what they are doing should get out of the business, and those who violate the law by revealing secrets should be aggressively prosecuted.
It’s unclear at this point whether the Justice Department will pursue prosecuting McCarthy, but to ignore what appear to be flagrant violations of her oath of office and intelligence laws would send a very bad message to others at the agency. With federal prosecutors still pursuing leaks of far less damaging information in the Valerie Plame incident, it sets a troubling double standard not to prosecute McCarthy.
[My emphases]
****
related: From Pajamas Media:
Riehl World View thinks that the Pulitzer Price-winning Washington Post story by Dana Priest on the CIA secret prisons in Europe looks too similar to another one she co-wrote -more approvingly- back in December 26, 2002; he has a thorough comparison of both.
Italian rogue agent in the pay of the French? Tastes like yellowcake to me.
Mmmmmmmm. Yellowcake.
But can’t you neocons see the obvious difference between leaking cherry-picked lies that led us to a false war for OIL! OIL! OIL! and the patriotic CIA who hugs puppies when it is not overthrowing brown socialist democracies for strong men who keep the spigots full-throated and open?
Oh, and ignore the World’s Most Fucking Stupidest Commenter, actus. And Hilzoy, too, in case the Moonbat Nation gets done blowing each other and pulls their pants off their cankles for a quick rumble.
Just ran across an old article about the “Satanic Conspiracy” loons. Their claims—and “reasoning”—reminded me of the BDS sufferers of today.
This is good, Jeff: “see-sawing partisan subversions”. But you gotta admit we’ve been at a 45 degree tilt for years, now, without the other side having any fun.
Also like “claque” and “Clintonesque.” Someone (like you) should compile a funny political dictionary of terms generated and favored by the press and pundits along party lines. Such as claque vs. cabal.
I was hoping that the great new book Rope. Tree. Justice. How to respond to the Democratic party’s treason and stopping the Liberal/Islamic/Homosexual threat against our children and house pets would be Amazon’s #1 but instead this “book” was.
Sometimes I think this country doesn’t deserve the GOP.
Liberal/Islamic/Homosexual
The oddest compound of loosely allied antagonists ever.
Again, why aren’t you bothered at all about multiple members of the WH leaking classified information? You complain about a double standard, then argue, it’s not a leak if we do it!
So which is it: Were you for leaks before you were against them. Or vice versa?
Whaaa waaa. On the left column, Georgie-poo, there is a button called “search”; check it out. Look through the archives and when you accomplish both that and fucking off, get back with us.
A claque of macaques threw a slew of poo.
And who the hell writes a book that is 146 pages long? My god, I’ve wrote term papers longer than that. That’s not a book, its a pamphlet.
But on a more serious note, if you bought Greenwald’s book together with Markos’, you might actually make a full screed. And at 146 pages, a liberal might actually be able to finish it, depending on the font.
We just leak much better than you guys. I mean, National Security Issues like NSA and such. All you guys can come up with is a washed up tart and dope smoking 3rd husband.
Sincerely,
DNC
The “Tough” party (and everybody knows it)
I’ll be very disappointed if this isn’t the start of some serious fumigation over at Langley. That’s one organization that has been screwing the pooch for YEARS without serious reprecusions. There like the weatherman over there: dead wrong half the time but still employed.
Coupled with the leaky sieve of bitter partisan bullshit and you’ve got one rank pile of goo that needs to be powerwashed down the national political sewer. Get to it, Goss.
Ol’ cut & paste Ben could had added 60-70 pages for Glenn like he did for my book about how it’s cool to round up infidel Arabs without cause just like we did to the dirty Nips during WWII.
Vercingetorix,
Amazing the amount of sheer stupidity that one person can write when they hide behind a mask. If this is the best you can do, I suggest you read more. Almost anything would help. Perhaps you should start with cereal boxes and work your way up to sugar packets.
JAIOTR!
This whole “they can leak, why can’t me” makes as much sense as, “a cop can shoot someone, why can’t a burglar”. Oh, they do believe that, that’s why they hold candlelight vigils for mass murderers.
Whaaa waaaa…oh, the irony…
How’s that research going, Georgie-poo? Look at the page, and go left, S-E-A-R-C-H, right there. Put in “leak” and “CIA” and whatnot. When you figure it out, let us know how the Play-doo tastes.
Jeff, you answered my prayers for another blog war…The Averni salute you!
Somehow, I don’t think this will be covered with the same ferocity as Plamegate. But, damn–its gonna be hard to live with that “Culture of Treason” tag.
Oh, my word, was that a Domenech sighting? Can a Gannon GAY PRON COCK OF LIES be far behind? Pun not intended, ouch!
Everybody that cares anything about this country, left right and in between, should stand up and applaud this statement.
But, rls, the President does it!!! Who does that cat think he is!?!
Not surprized with the stance of that ignorant cunt Hilzoy. I disageed with and eventually was banned from her site because I disagreed with her outlandish contention that the Bush admin is responsible for the fact that China has accumulated large amounts of US debt securities because Bush failed to institute policies that would appropriately adjust the US personal savings rate!! She needs to pet her kitty more!
Interestingly, its my understanding this was one of Porter Goss’s tasks when Bush named him Director- clean out the partisan swamp and get back to intelligence work. Goss has obviously been doing that and as Jeff has pointed out, my guess is this sucker goes much deeper than Mary McCarthy.
My other “thought”, such as it is, is I’d like to think alot of this “fight the power” bs in our government services will be phased out as the children of the 60’s retire from the senior positions in these agencies. I grant you, indoctrination by institutes of higher learning may have turned future generations of intelligence officers into raving moonbats but I’d like to think we have about a 20 year window where sense can overcome emotion.
Were he alive today, I think Orwell would revise so that fascist liberals would quit abusing his message. Big Brother is NOT the elected guvmint in the US so much as it is the Fourth Estate corporate/partisan press and Steal Your Estate Democrat Party, Inc. Both have insinuated themselves into bureaucracy, academia and news&entertainment, and exert inordinate influence over Message and Meaning in order to control us.
Illegal leaks for their cause are noble, and official “leaks” on the defense are prosecutable. Demonstrably false information for their side is still essentially true, and mistaken information for the other are lies. Completely negative news coverage is the press’s right to disseminate, and government-funded publicity regarding its successful efforts is propaganda.
Verifiable facts are “cherry-picked” if a Republican uses or benefits by them, whereas the Dems are felling the cherry trees wholesale. Orwell would have a field day with today’s Democrats.
Related:
Original is link-heavy.
Oh, for a WYSIWYG commenting system that lets you post text with embedded links!
Hilzoy also said this:
I don’t think she was voicing approval of what McCarthy had done so much as allow for the possibility that the leak was something that ought to be leaked. And I do think there are categories of information that fall into that bucket. Whether what McCarthy leaked fits that description or not, well, we’ll see.
As for me, if she leaked info that’s legitimately classified, to the clink with her.
Just so you don’t get me wrong, here.
And TallDave gives us “coterie” to add to clique, claque and cabal.
25+ posts and no actus…tis a beautiful thing.
corpus and collectanea, reader…it is a bit off base, but, might work nonetheless
Fartfast, why don’t you ask cunt Hilzoy if she thinks leaks are justified as a last resort only or if other avenues of complaint should be exhausted first?
(I suspect those avenues were not exhasted in this instance because patriotism didn’t have much to do with it).
Noah, if you’re any older than 14 or so, you have a great deal to be ashamed of.
V, I would try to impersonate acthole…but my heart would not be in it and furthermore I doubt that I could imitate his peculiar mix non-cartesian logic and bafflegab.
^ that’s WORD.
If the CIA wants to operate under a set of rules and then ignore them in favor of independentness when it suits, I am hoping the DNC will then expand their defense fund to include Scooter.
Because we need the true truth.
Kiss my ass, Fartfast. You are the one that associates yourself with the fake “civil” comments section at OW and defends that ignorant cunt.
who said Im a beautiful hting? Im a law student after all
“corpus and collectanea”
Well, Verc, they are “c” words. Guess they can be added to the poli-pundit dic, as in:
corpus- verb used to denigrate Cheney’s post-shooting newspaper of choice
collectanea- term for the yellowed and torn clippings of Molly Ivins’ oeuvre on actus’ wall
I’m sure you can do better.
noah, chill out. You’re embarrassing yourself. Pissing and moaning about a completely different blog is nothing more than trolling by proxy.
TW: first. I’m disappointed in Jeff’s commentariat that I’m the first person to ask you to stop acting like that.
I seriously object to calling Hilzoy names. Her piece was surprisingly well written and was not the usual leftist tripe.
Well, that being said let’s get to is really disturbing about Hilzoy’s statement. She claims that leaks can be justified, and then proceeds to use some unbelievably far-fetched and strained examples to justify “leaking”. Example: “If Chimpy McHitlerburton and the Eeeeevil Dr. Rove were planning on taking over the world, then a leaker would be justified….” etc., etc., yadda yadda.
Later in the comments she admits what she truly believes. She states (essentially) that the public cannot be trusted to elect someone to handle our foreign policy. After all, they elected Chimpy right? They are too stupid, obviously. Is it possible that Hilzoy and those like her actually cannot see the totalitarian aspects of their beliefs? Leaking to Hilzoy and going individuals destroying the objectives publicly elected officials is alright as long as it is for “good and right and justice”. Of course Hilzoy assumes that she will be the one making the determination of what is “good”.
What a frightening concept. No matter who is elected it is o.k. for one individual to determine what is “good policy” for the rest of us, based on their moral perspective.
I’m constantly amazed at how “progressives” are stuck in philosophical mode of totalitarian philosphy while claiming to represent the value of freedom.
“25+ posts and no actus…tis a beautiful thing.”
And 24+ of the posts were inane rants from Vercingetorix…maybe people went where the commenting was more interesting.
Eno: “Later in the comments she admits what she truly believes. She states (essentially) that the public cannot be trusted to elect someone to handle our foreign policy. After all, they elected Chimpy right? They are too stupid, obviously.”
I did? Where?
Personally I might be bothered by it, could you be bothered to be more specific? What classified information was leaked by what members?
I’ve been part of Jeff’s commentariat since he had one, practically, so you’re in good company.
Eno, sorry emotions running a little high with me but you and Phil Smith are right.
But in one breath her piece is well written (I haven’t read it) but then it’s totalitarian. Well great Marx and Lenin were good writers too and what came of their beautiful scribbling?
Sorry I just got here, what did I miss?
The orgy, Todd, the orgy.
TOOD – and the pie.
Oooooooo…burn. Can’t rant under a paragraph AND they were pointed insults at george “can’t use Google” orwell…but whatever.
Don’t know you, pilgrim. Why don’t cha leave your own inane rant so we can communicate a la Close Encounters?
Reader, farrago. It is still a bit off base…and not a ‘c’ word!
There was pie?
There’s pie? Where?
Verc, “farrago”- great word, but I never see it in opinion pieces. Maybe the compendium should include not only used and abused terms, but alternatives.
“Blogger, reformed professor, writer and pundit **** ********* of Colorado expects the DNC platform this election to be yet another farrago of group grievances, mawkish manipulation, special interest pay-offs, soft socialism, and impossible promises.” [Disclaimer: based on a purely fictional person who would never prejudge like this, nor use so many adjectives.]
Or, “Ryan O’Neal and Farrago to Democrat functions in Hollywood to try to recapture some of the hipness they never had.”
Don’t worry, boys. Mary McCarthy will bake you all the pies you’d like. Just knock on her door or steal one off her windowsill, she won’t mind. That is just the kind of lady she is.
Reader…must you break my fragile heart again?
Gee, didn’t want to break anything, Verc. Is that sentence completely wrong, or did I do your word an injustice? I cant rite real good, so take that into consideration, please.
no, reader, my snarkometer misfired…maybe
Okay, still clueless after all these seconds. AND you took all the good emoticons!
Ooooh, Verc, you must mean ‘farrago’ is a ridiculous, pretentious word? My bad, I just never see it used (to death) in political commentary. Naturally, you’re too nice to feel a little Schadenfreude (ugh a thousand times) over my embarrassment at completely missing it.
Bedtime.
-30-
I am sick to death of this crap. When you sign on and take your first poly, you take an oath to protect classified data. If you have ethical concerns, there are mechanisms to deal with that in every agency. If your concerns are NOT ADDRESSED THRU LEGIT CHANNELS, then you can become a whistleblower and the law will protect you.
NOT A SINGLE LEAKER/TRAITER HAS PROCESSED THRU CHANNELS.
There is no such thing as “something that ought to be leaked”.
Slart, you and Hilzoy are unrepentenant morons that have never held a clearance, obviously.
Jeff, please be clear that this is CIA whitetrash-leaking.
NSA don’t play that.
Slart, you and Hilzoy are unrepentenant morons that have never held a clearance, obviously.
I’m fairly certain Slarti actually holds a clearance now.
What a SECRET? Or perhaps a CONFIDENTAL?
I mean a clearance requiring at least one poly.
A real clearance.
Don’t worry, boys. Mary McCarthy will bake you all the pies you’d like. Just knock on her door or steal one off her windowsill, she won’t mind. That is just the kind of lady she is.
I don’t knonw, MayBee,
I stopped over and asked her if she could launder my dress shirts – y’know light starch, good crease, basic stuff – she told me to “eat a dick”.
Exact words.
Hmmmm,
You guys are slipping as a commenting group.
Not one of you brought up the fact that Ms. McCarthy made DAMN SURE that whatever she did didn’t imperil her six-figure government pension.
It’s not like she values her belief’s QUITE THAT HIGHLY.
Or perhaps he has a business clearance?
I’ve hear of those.
A business clearance is like business calculus.
And anyways, even just a SECRET is more than enough reason to understand that “the possibility that the leak was something that ought to be leaked” NEVER HAPPENS.
If I was his progam security officer and read that I’d have him debriefed.
Slart does hold a clearance now. A DoD clearance, as it happens. Slart has held a clearance at the Secret level or higher for over a quarter of a century. You may disagree that this places Slart in a position to know right from wrong, security-wise, but I think it places me roughly six sigma above the mean level of awareness. If you’d been paying attention for more than a millisecond or so, blog-time, you’d have known this already.
Which probably makes me full of shit as far as some folks are concerned, but, like I care.
JFTR, not that it’ll do any good, because previous statements to this effect have apparently bounced off the crystalline carapace of some, I think McCarthy’s firing is absolutely justified, and that if she’s divulged classified information to those without proper need-to-know, she should be tried for that.
Maybe he didn’t see it the first time:
It is not a rhetorical question.
I trust that question isn’t being directed at me, B Moe.
I’m sure it’s directed and georgeorwell, Mr. Slart.
And I’ll answer:
Duh Moe,
Valerie Plame ring a bell? She was this close (thumb and forefinger 1/2 inch apart) to blowing the lid off the Bush Machine’s systematic price-gouging on Jackie-O sunglasses and head scarf ensembles, when they outed her.
OUTED HER MAN!
Yes, I knew where it ought to have been directed, but I’d thought that maybe there was a case of mistaken identity.
Will Plame be polygraphed? Will Joe Wilson? Will the machine explode?
I’m sorry, it was one of Hilzoy’s commenter’s I quoted, not Hilzoy herself. But I don’t back down from what I said about her post. If leaking is o.k. on “moral” grounds, then who gets to pick what is “moral” or “good” or “right”?
BTW Noah, Marx wrote pretty well. So does Noam Chomsky for that matter, but it still is totalitarian b.s. I thought Hilzoy’s piece was much better than anything Arianna Huffington has ever posted, and most of the Kos nonsense. It still concluded with the assumption that SHE (not you or me) will determine the moral value of a leak.
You misunderstood. Good laundry ain’t free, so the lady named her price. You should see what it takes to get Pulitzer out of her.
’kay, slart, i’ll bite.
Just when is leaking justified? Give me a plausible scenario.
And yes, I do think you’re full of crap and in violation of your oath too. And if I was your prog sec off I’d read you out on the spot.
I don’t htink you could pass a poly with that attitude, so I won’t ask about tickets.
feh.
Good laundry ain’t free, so the lady named her price.
You don’t think she actually keeps human weenies in her fridge, do you? Whose?
………and I never asked her for the ‘ol Pulitzer, just to be clear.
I hear she gives great Pulitzer. Sensitive and generous with a happy ending.
And yeah, slart, i think six sigma should get you better than some mealymouthed “leaking can be justified” crap.
FYI for the rest of you, Slart’s DoD is nowhere near a SAR, SAP, SBI, or SCI.
Incredible.
B Moe,
That Joe Wilson’s wife was a NOC. That the company she supposedly worked for was a front company created by the CIA.
Which individuals: Rove and Libby, we’re sure of. The rest are still being investigated.
And while we’re at it: We’re all complaining about the leak of supposedly classified information, but tell me, how does it hurt our national security if we (we being the public) know about Secret prisons run by the CIA in far off countries? And again, how does it hurt National Security for us (us being the public) to know that the WH has authorized illegal domestic wiretapping? The only way knowing about these programs effects these programs is to point out that our government, which supposedly is to uphold our laws, sees no problem in breaking our laws.
But I’m sure someone here will find a justification for that.
Well george, I know it hurts my sense of security knowing that there are boobs like you in the population. Please tell me that you don’t handle foodstuffs.
stop! stop! I’m trying to drink here!
New post classification: NSFD
alppuccino,
Ah, such wit! You must be the genius of your pre-school!
Kind of like, spying is illegal here, but we send people to far-off countries to spy? We are such hypocrites.
george, I am deadly serious here. You don’t work with food, right? ANSWER THE QUESTION!
And sadly, I’m 3rd in my class at the pre-school. I won’t mention the name of it. You couldn’t get in anyway, george. Strict no-drooling policy.
Whaaa waaaa…hell of a non-cover cover working for The Firm within Langley itself…
How’s that research going, Georgie-poo? Do I need to break out the crayons to draw the ‘search’ button?
marybee,
Well, the secret prisons, to me anyway, are just an embarrassment, but I do find the concept of the Gov’t listening to my phone calls, to say the least, a bit disconcerting. As I know how data-mining software works, I can see quite a few mistakes being made concerning future actions based on phone calls. Also, I don’t believe it does any good, because, unless you’re the most incompetent spy or terrorist in the World, you’re not going to say anything in a phone conversation that’s going to raise much suspicion anyway.
So I would say, one: its ineffective and two; its illegal. Pretty much sums up the Bush Administration.
Hence the NOC label…tangled web and all.
In all my six minutes of experience…
Translation: I likey the James Bond, and those guys are like ROCKS, man. They never let slip that Eagle one has landed! Brown sparrow has the band set up!
True. But if you send the NOCs off to Langly to spy, it just gets tangleyer.
I have a problem with the whole prison outrage anyway, because I guess I always assumed we put people we were interrogating somewhere.
I miss the CIA I grew up with, the one that would just off people when they got in the way. Or they’d mess up your life and your wife wouldn’t even know who you were when you got home from work and stuff.
Suddenly there’s this kinder, gentler CIA and everyone’s all emo about it.
Don’t misspell MayBee’s name george. It sickens me.
How many calls from Al Qaeda do you get per week?
They were using the phone, george. Now they’re not because of your leak. A hit to our ability to find, interrogate, and ultimately stop terrorists? I can’t believe this has to be explained to you. I’m not arguing, mind you. I’m just pointing out that your last comment has caused me to rescind my annual contribution to the Mental Retardation Education Society. Obviously they’re blowing the money on Pulitzers.
Verc,
1: She was a NOC. She worked for a front Co.
2: You keep proving that there just isn’t much in that head of yours except what other uninformed people tell you.
3: Not much here about leaks, other than to try to disparage them when they don’t fall into the party line and to defend them when they do.
But keep trying. Someday you may actually say something worth listening to (but I won’t hold my breath).
Go ahead and hold your breath george, I’ll time you. On my mark 3..2..
If she was—after having previously worked OC at an embassy, as I’ve read—then whoever put her under NOC ought to be cashiered with extreme prejudice.
When you work OC (so I’ve read), the whole world already knows you’re CIA.
Which makes the whole “she was outed in 2003” meme just a tad silly.
alppuccino,
The “They were using the phone before it was reported in the news and then they stopped” story was discredited months ago. Google it if you don’t believe me (which I’m sure you don’t).
But you won’t, will you. Because that would mean that your precious rightwing outrage at the press would cause your head to explode. JAFIOTR!
McGehee,
Could you provide a citation? Thanks.
georgeorwell- “because, unless you’re the most incompetent spy or terrorist in the World, you’re not going to say anything in a phone conversation that’s going to raise much suspicion anyway.”
well, you gotta believe the terrorists communicate somehow. Computers, phones, guys traveling to and fro on planes…I don’t know. Somehow, they are telling each other stuff and we’ve got to cover the bases.
People are only as embarassed about the prisons as they want to be. Other countries are all participating. Either that, or they’ve got their own prisons to rival what we’ve got. It isn’t a case of “they do it too!”, but neither are there any easy choices. Please don’t pretend there are.
You don’t have to like it, but I ask you to at least imagine yourself as the President of the US having to make decisions about safety for your citizens. The terrorists will go where it’s easiest.
Oh, please. First, I never claimed that it was. Second, I have in fact been cleared for SAR at various times. Third, you are an idiot. Not only do you have any idea what you’re talking about, you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. It’s best to reserve comment until such time as you understand at least half of the conversation.
How about this, princess orwell:
There are no secret prisons. Safe houses might be the closest, likeliest, analog but that is a far cry from ‘prisons’.
Moreover, if you capture a terrorist, you do not announce that capture to the world. Why, the genius asks? Glad you asked, sparky. Because terrorists operate in something they call a ‘cell’.
No, this isn’t your usual dominatrix pleasure pit, georgie; it’s a small group of operators, terrorist A’s buddies, and they don’t know that terrorist A has been captured right off the bat…because they are just a small group of operators with limited resources. See how this stuff kinda works? I know it’s blowing your mind like an NRA calendar-girl, but bear with me.
That’s, like, why we need secresy, bra. When you take away that secresy, you destroy our ability to capture terrorist B and C and D and Epsilon and Aleph and 10. That ‘hurts’ our national security.
Keep repeating it and it might come true. One day. On the other hand, if that was the least bit wrong, exposing other secret programs (with the NOCs undoubtedly involved in each of those cases: CIA airplane tail markings and front companies anyone? ‘secret prisons’ anyone?) are wrong for exactly the SAME REASONS.
Don’t get mad at me because your argument sucks. It’s your damn argument.
Maybee,
I’m sure your position would comfort the family of the german man who was kidnapped and reditioned to a secret prison in Algeria for 8 months, then released when they realized he was not, in fact, a terrorist.
Or even the Canadian gentleman who was rnditioned to Syria for 6 months, even though the CIA realized within a month that it was case of mistaken identity.
I’m sure their families and other who this has already happened to would be happy to know that you believe we should just kill them all and let God sort it out.
“They were using the phone before it was reported in the news and then they stopped†story was discredited months ago.
Are you talking about satellite phones? I’m not.
Your characterization of my state as “right wing rage” is unjustified. I called you a boob, that’s not rage, that’s restraint.