Jane Mayer has been reporting brilliantly on the American government’s “security” systems since the Reagan administration. She’s got a long article in the May 23 New Yorker,The Secret Sharer: Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?” that’s well worth reading in its entirety:
On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, of being an enemy of the state. According to a ten-count indictment delivered against him in April, 2010, Drake violated the Espionage Act—the 1917 statute that was used to convict Aldrich Ames, the C.I.A. officer who, in the eighties and nineties, sold U.S. intelligence to the K.G.B., enabling the Kremlin to assassinate informants. In 2007, the indictment says, Drake willfully retained top-secret defense documents that he had sworn an oath to protect, sneaking them out of the intelligence agency’s headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and taking them home, for the purpose of “unauthorized disclosure.” The aim of this scheme, the indictment says, was to leak government secrets to an unnamed newspaper reporter, who is identifiable as Siobhan Gorman, of the Baltimore Sun. Gorman wrote a prize-winning series of articles for the Sun about financial waste, bureaucratic dysfunction, and dubious legal practices in N.S.A. counterterrorism programs. Drake is also charged with obstructing justice and lying to federal law-enforcement agents. If he is convicted on all counts, he could receive a prison term of thirty-five years.
__
The government argues that Drake recklessly endangered the lives of American servicemen. “This is not an issue of benign documents,” William M. Welch II, the senior litigation counsel who is prosecuting the case, argued at a hearing in March, 2010. The N.S.A., he went on, collects “intelligence for the soldier in the field. So when individuals go out and they harm that ability, our intelligence goes dark and our soldier in the field gets harmed.”
__
Top officials at the Justice Department describe such leak prosecutions as almost obligatory. Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General who supervises the department’s criminal division, told me, “You don’t get to break the law and disclose classified information just because you want to.” He added, “Politics should play no role in it whatsoever.”
__
When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.” But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined. The Drake case is one of two that Obama’s Justice Department has carried over from the Bush years.
[…] __
The morning that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. was, coincidentally, Drake’s first full day of work as a civilian employee at the N.S.A.—an agency that James Bamford, the author of “The Shadow Factory” (2008), calls “the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has ever known.” Drake, a linguist and a computer expert with a background in military crypto-electronics, had worked for twelve years as an outside contractor at the N.S.A. Under a program code-named Jackpot, he focussed on finding and fixing weaknesses in the agency’s software programs. But, after going through interviews and background checks, he began working full time for Maureen Baginski, the chief of the Signals Intelligence Directorate at the N.S.A., and the agency’s third-highest-ranking official…
__
Drake, hoping to help fight back against Al Qaeda, immediately thought of a tantalizing secret project he had come across while working on Jackpot. Code-named ThinThread, it had been developed by technological wizards in a kind of Skunk Works on the N.S.A. campus. Formally, the project was supervised by the agency’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center, or SARC.
__
While most of the N.S.A. was reeling on September 11th, inside SARC the horror unfolded “almost like an ‘I-told-you-so’ moment,” according to J. Kirk Wiebe, an intelligence analyst who worked there. “We knew we weren’t keeping up.” SARC was led by a crypto-mathematician named Bill Binney, whom Wiebe describes as “one of the best analysts in history.” Binney and a team of some twenty others believed that they had pinpointed the N.S.A.’s biggest problem—data overload—and then solved it. But the agency’s management hadn’t agreed…
MikeJ
Is it proper for presidents to direct the DOJ to ignore lawbreaking? Was it right when nobody went down for leaking Valerie Plame’s name?
Ben Wolf
@MikeJ
The president has directed the DoJ not to prosecute Bush officials complicit in war crimes. Apparently if you’re politically well connected you get away with it, while whistleblowers revealing the crimes of our government get the full-court press.
lacp
For that matter, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
MikeJ
@Ben Wolf: So you’re happy about him not prosecuting people?
Ben Wolf
@MikeJ
Does someone who reveals that the government is breaking the law deserve to be prosecuted?
guachi
I have zero sympathy for someone who a) removes TS stuff from the NSA and then b) gives those secrets away especially when c) he doesn’t appear to have been doing any serious whistle blowing.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, Mike, that kinda depends.
To cite a fictional example, the entire Seven Days in May scenario…where absolutely illegal activity is given the cover of a state secret in the process of planning a coup d’etat.
This stuff isn’t nearly as black and white as one would like to believe. After all, in the Valerie Plame case, certain members of the Executive Branch just basically said, “fuck this classification system…we have a political problem here we need to address”, and, viola! all the sudden top secrets are no longer top secrets!
James E. Powell
If you’re going to have an empire, you’re going to have secret police. If you have secret police, you’re going to do things that are ‘legal’ but not moral. Most Americans, perhaps nearly all Americans, have absolutely no problem with it.
Amanda in the South Bay
Ah, same old national security song and bullshit.
One thing I do agree about the article, though, (and it really should be read in its entirety) is that Obama is a bit naive when it comes to national security issues. He’s simply not the strongest person to be resisting the power of the security state.
Ben Wolf
@guachi
Drake exposed illegal surveillance on numerous american citizens. This is unequivocal: the Bush administration was flagrantly violating the law.
GregB
This is OT but important.
NH held special elections today to fill 4 empty state House of Representative seats.
The Democrats swept all four including a seat in the district of the NH House Speaker who thinks he was elected Ceasar back in 2010.
The backlash begins.
lol
@Ben Wolf:
In the article, he denies being the source of the Times article that exposed the illegal surveillance.
The whole thing reeks of bureaucratic infighting and after the fact justifications.
Amanda in the South Bay
The full article does sorta portray the intelligence community (apart from technical specialists, like the mathematicians and computer scientists who do the dirty work) as being the worst sort of bureaucrats-evil, stupid, and too prone to overreacting and thinking of conspiracies. That I think is at the root of a lot of the fuckedupness in that part of the government.
Mr Stagger Lee
It is dangerous to be right, when the government is wrong-Voltaire.
I suggest that the scales of justice be torn down and replaced with a Statue of Kafka, because baby we ain’t seen nothing yet.
General Stuck
@Ben Wolf:
I believe he has stated, when asked about investigation and prosecution, that “he prefers to look forward, not backwards”/ That is way different than “directing the DOJ not to prosecutes Bush officials”, or anyone else.
And since there are investigations going on as we speak and have been for two years, his statement is a non statement, and he hasn’t made any real commitments one way or another.. Language matters, and precision often makes the difference in something being right, or very wrong.
So no, the president cannot be expected to direct the DOJ on whether to pursue any one case, or not. All the signs coming from this president since taking office points to his meaning it, when he says he will have a hands off policy of not directing the nations top law enforcement officer on how to, and what laws to enforce. Of course, something like prosecuting the Bush regime for crimes against humanity, there would no doubt be discussions on the political fallout that would entail, ergo, the stability of the nation itself.
Until Bush, this had been the basic rule for a long time, at least since Nixon, for dem and repub presidents.
That said, If Jane has all her facts on the case, which I wonder about when it comes down to detailed evidence, then it seems to me they are throwing the book at this guy, who doesn’t quite deserve that, imo. They may be angling for a plea bargain to a more appropriate criminal level, but it is a crime what he did.
edit – allegedly
The thing about the whistle blower laws, is that they suck as currently existing, but they are the legal means to report such waste fraud and abuse. Someone goes through that process with their concerns, and if nothing is done, then they did all they could. This wasn’t The Pentagon Papers exposing lies about an active war we were drowning in, and a life and death matter.
BR
@GregB:
Good to hear. I hope Debra Bowen wins the CA race, but to be honest I think she really should have run for Feinstein’s senate seat.
Guster
Seems to me that there are at least two distinct issues here.
1) Selective prosecution, whereby in practice it’s only illegal to leak secrets that the administration would prefer you didn’t, (while you’re free to leak secrets in ways that the powerful approve of), and
2) Prosecuting whistleblowers, one of which Drake very possibly is.
Lurleen
I love the greenwaldian flavor of the quote.
Cleaning up after eight years of fuckups, especially in the legal world is only going to take a couple of years?
And making the assumption that all things “whistleblower” are about transparency and they are all legit, that takes a mighty leap of faith.
GregB
@BR:
It looks like the state’s largest paper has some bad reporting.
There was apparently only one special election and it did go to the Democrat in a plus 7% Republican district. Jennifer Daler won by 59% in the seat the GOP Speaker wanted to go to a hand picked flunky.
The GOP has started spinning like a top by talking about low voter turnout, except there was massive turnout for a special election. The state GOP may be having a come to Jesus moment tomorrow. Of they’ll be true to moron form and double down on the lunacy.
Little Boots
I hate that I stopped visiting Nixonland. just saying. for no apparent reason.
kindness
I think we all knew and expected the bush43 Administration to break the law wiretapping everything and everybody without warrants. I am truly disappointed that the Obama Administration has taken on so many of bush43’s questionable constitutional interpretations. Even so we still have to try to convince conservatives that Obama isn’t a liberal and yet we are mocked for saying such.
Little Boots
and on a positive note, Gingrich is totally imploding. that is awesome.
Martin
And bucking other national trends, CA advanced a bill out of the assembly to make it easier for college students to vote. Should pass quite easily.
The bill requires that county election officials have a polling place located on all public college campuses . That would apply to all 10 UC campuses, 23 Cal State campuses, and 112 community college campuses.
Ben Wolf
@lol
The article aslo says Drake was feeding information on the illegal surveillance programs to Congress, while filing complaints with the IG.
Yet, if we assume for the purpose of your thought experiment that Drake is telling the truth regarding the Times leak, we must also conclude the DoJ is lying in charging him with it. The administration would therefore be guilty of prosecuting a man it knows is innocent.
Little Boots
@Martin:
that’s the only good thing I’ve seen today, well, other than the Gingrich implosion.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
True. So either he lied, or he chooses to exert no authority within his own administration.
.
.
glasnost
This report documents absolutely fucking disgusting behavior, and you people excusing it are Villagers in the worst sense of the term.
The thing about the whistle blower laws, is that they suck as currently existing, but they are the legal means to report such waste fraud and abuse.
What fucking bullshit. Waste, fraud, and abuse is … see if you can follow this… ILLEGAL. You can’t be prosecuted for leaking information on illegal behavior. It’s up to the courts to decide if the behavior leading up to blowing 1.2 billlion dollars, or 12 billion, or whatever it was, on a totally worthless boondoggle rises to the level of fraud, but it’s in no way open and shut.
Oh wait. Who am I kidding? The courts won’t be looking at that, because that would require the executive branch to investigate… itself! In order to bring that case. Which would vindicate the people it’s trying to prosecute. So justice will absolutely and certainly not be done here. An open question is a shut one.
The system is totally fucking broken, and the outcome will be that illegal behavior won’t even be leaked next time. We will never *know* about the next program, maybe one that dissapears Americans instead of just illegally wiretapping them, because it will be well established that you’re legally required to keep copies of your complaint, and your complaint concerns classified stuff, and you’re legally required not to keep copies of classified stuff, so you are catch-22 fucked. It’s perfectly Orwellian, and the outcome is absolutely a one hundred percent fucking disaster for this country, especially when you throw in that the defense / intel / criminals can classify anything they want.
But Glenn Greenwald is fat! Oh, I’m sorry. I mean he’s a hypocrite.
I can’t stand the apathy and excuse making here. This guy dared to let the public know that we were corruptly blowing billions of dollars, and our bureaucracy is all but ending his life for it.
Who did this leak killl? What soldiers did it put in harm’s way? When you choke off the information flow about waste and fraud, you encourage it. But we have laws making it illegal to report that, except through chain-of-command procedures whose failure is documented in exquisite detail, and the response is ‘suck it up, criminal!’.
Who the hell are you people to make fun of the Washington Post for frowny facing about how bad the problem is and then condeming any attempt to solve it? You are the Washington Post.
mr. whipple
@Little Boots:
What happened with the Newtster?
Mike Kay (Team America)
This is silly.
Does the professional left want to free Jonathan Pollard, as well?
Dollared
I read the whole story. it is horrifying. I think what the story lacks, and what most people don’t understand, is the sense of just how huge the NSA is. I’m in the tech industry, and I am familiar with the R&D budgets of the 10 biggest US tech companies, and the NSA is about equal to that spend, on computer stuff alone.
Remember, NSA is ~50B/year. Per. Year. All by itself, never mind CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, DoD.
What becomes obvious? That across this $60-80B/year for secret work in those department there are two things that are awful: 1) it must be 25% waste and fraud – there is zero financial oversight, and everybody makes $150k+. and 2) it’s an incredible waste of some of the best computing talent in the world.
People, we are sending someone to Mars every year. But instead of doing actually doing something exciting like that, or providing clean water and immunizations for every human, we’re using the world’s most sophisticaed equipment and software to eavesdrop on every human on the planet talking to each other about what a loser their brother/son/wife/dad is.
Seriously. And every single one of these $40B in outside contractors is a campaign donor.
It.needs.to.be.torn.down.
Martin
@glasnost:
Um, the courts are the judicial branch, not the executive.
Forget it, you’re rolling.
Little Boots
@mr. whipple:
he hurt Paul Ryan’s fee-fees. hilarity ensued.
Little Boots
oh, come on. you people cannot be asleep. you are not eschaton. this is why I come here. Wake UP you goobers!!!!
aisce
@Ben Wolf:
good thing a prosecutor’s never done that before! nuh uh, never.
mr. whipple
@Little Boots:
I heard about that yesterday. I take it today was backlash/butthurt day?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Ben Wolf:
Slow down. it doesn’t necessarily mean the DoJ is lying, but that they have reason to believe he’s lying.
We can agree to terms concerning the theoretical, but that doesn’t mean the attorneys handling the case do.
Little Boots
oh, you are awake. you are awesome. and I so love you all.
Little Boots
@Little Boots:
seriously, I do.
Chuck Butcher
@Mike Kay (Team America):
So you’re a fan of the national security/secrecy apparatus of this nation? Mostly you’re a firebagger douche who concerns his two live brain cells with people who don’t matter.
It doesn’t matter in the fucking least to you that fraud, waste, and outright illegal activities are covered over by “national security secrets”?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Chuck Butcher: so you support releasing Pollard? After all he was only a “Whistleblower”.
aisce
@Mike Kay (Team America):
mike, i support our president against the professional left as much as anybody, but if jane mayer is the professional left, then everybody is the professional left.
and if everybody is the professional left, then nobody is. let’s try and keep that powder dry.
Ben Wolf
@General Stuck:
We have this, where Rahm Emmanuel states the administration will not seek prosecutions.
In any event the president sets policy for the various agencies under its purview, and the lack of any prosecutions against Bush officials strongly indicates that this is policy. There is no way one can honestly argue this is entirely up to Eric Holder and the president is just along for the ride.
Hundreds of documents have been released detailing how senior officials authorized lawbreaking, yet no prosecutions. We know, not suspect, know for a fact that the law was repeatedly violated, yet no prosecutions.
It seems odd for you to suggest Drake should be prosecuted based on the government’s rather nebulous evidence, while suggesting the administration’s reticence in prosecuting lawbreakers with their signatures on the documents is somehow right and proper.
Is it just to decline prosecution of those who break the law, while vigorously prosecuting those who expose the lawbreaking?
Chuck Butcher
@Mike Kay (Team America):
You’re a fucking idiot to conflate the two and there probably aren’t two people here that don’t think so. You’ve got a hobbyhorse to ride and you’ll be damned if it takes you off the stupid cliff, gotta ride…
Chuck Butcher
@Ben Wolf:
It’s not as though there aren’t people publicly bragging about torture on their watch.
Mike Kay (Team America)
btw, why do people assume he’s a whistle blower?
there’s no foundation or support for that claim.
glasnost
Um, the courts are the judicial branch, not the executive.
You may have noticed that the courts only rule on cases presented to them by someone. Who has the required authority to prosecute the executive branch – namely, the Trailblazer guys at the NSA – on charges related to corruption? Maybe the ACLU can do this, eh? Perhaps the electronic frontier foundation?
It requires the FBI to prosecute the NSA, but to do so would mess up the FBI’s prosecution of Thomas Drake, so it’s a laughable idea.
If you can get a whistleblower to illegally leak your crime, you are home free. Admitting that you committed a crime would complicate the government’s efforts to fry your leaker, so your relatively minor crime of enriching yourself and your friends in exchange in which competence is sacrificed on the taxpayers’ bill will be waved aside.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@aisce:I wasn’t referring to Jane. I was referring to the usual suspects and their superficial and inconsistent whinging.
Chuck Butcher
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Other than the part where what he was doing was providing info for an expose and is the basis?
Nah.
I cannot believe I’ve responded to this twit, that’s like kicking over a ten year old wheelchair bound kid to demonstrate your toughness.
WTF is the matter with me?
burnspbesq
@glasnost:
I suspect that Bradley Manning would find your legal theories a bit peculiar. As do I.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
There’s a lot of ground between the opposing positions being offered here that’s going unexplored. I work in a public agency, one where I’ve seen hiring discrimination, misappropriation of resources, all sorts of waste and some illegal activities and I participated in the process of whistleblowing them. None of those things went unaddressed. Policies changed, people were fired, some were arrested. In some cases my supervisors, or the people I first reported incidents to didn’t take them as seriously as I thought they should be taken, so I pushed harder either higher up, or with a different group. In one case I went to six different administrative groups to get attention paid to a problem, one that resulted in an arrest.
There are procedures for dealing with these things. There are policies protecting whistleblowers. There are ways of doing it anonymously. And in two cases I was resigned to losing my job over my actions because of how hard I was pushing. But the process is honestly engaged. I was even the subject of an investigation, initiated by a disgruntled coworker, and while it was stressful, I have to say it was handled fairly and professionally.
I’m not saying that there aren’t cases when you need to step out of the bureaucracy and go to the media, but the federal government, particularly Homeland Security is HUGE. I’m having a hard time accepting that this individual exhausted the options for whistleblowing before stepping out of government. Sure, some of the internal options would have dented that security clearance, but nothing like leaking information to the press.
Before determining whether Drake’s actions were courageous or lazy, I’d need to know more about how he worked internally through the system.
glasnost
btw, why do people assume he’s a whistle blower?
there’s no foundation or support for that claim.
Read the motherfucking article, you damn troll.
Do you know what “whistleblowing” means? It means “filing a confidential complaint with the Pentagon’s Inspector General”.
Even Megan McCardle wouldn’t engage in such bald failure of reading comprehension to assert the opposite of the point of the link.
In conclusion, your contribution to the discourse is to brazenly state the opposite of the truth. I award you no points, and suggest you to simply read the article, or failing that, assume you have no idea what you are talking about and shut up for a while.
Dollared
@glasnost: Yup, you’re right, and these people are authoritarians from the Democratic Tribe.
But that’s OK, America can afford to waste $300B/year on military and secrecy bullshit.
And these people wonder where the wingnuts get their data and their campaign contributions…..
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Chuck Butcher: Rahm was right, you are a fucking retard.
Whistleblower in the context of the article was defined as someone revealing waste, fraud, or abuse.
there’s no evidence of he was revealing any underlying abuse or illegalities.
Just because he objected to something doesn’t mean it was illegal or abusive. For all we know the NSA was spying on Israel. Like Jonathan Pollard, he may find that objectionable and wish to reveal it, but that activity in itself is not illegal or abusive.
Chuck Butcher
Martin (edit)
I’m not proposing that he’s innocent of wrong-doing but the difference between open agencies and ones that operate in secrecy or utilize secrecy to protect themselves is huge. I’m more than willing to admire your efforts and risks, but we’re talking about the NSA here.
The downward spiral in the nation in regards to “national security” and the actual Constitutional interests of this nation is scarcely a closely held secret. I don’t know how it will actually play out but we’re paving a real bad road with this shit. I’ve noticed few governments give up acquired powers. We gave up a whole bunch of assumed governmental powers with the Constitution and BOR, we seem to be taking them back pretty rapidly.
glasnost
I suggest, when you look up Bradley Manning’s story on Wikipedia and thus learn the first thing about it, that you will find that his leaks were not confined to illegal behavior.
I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t cite caselaw, but do you understand the problem with making it a crime to report that crimes are being committed? I’m pretty sure we haven’t officially okayed that type of prosecution yet, which is why the criminal behavior Drake was whistleblowing on will never be prosecuted, or even investigated.
General Stuck
@Ben Wolf:
Wow, you sure put a lot of words in my mouth.
First off, Emmanuel didn’t say as best I can tell that Obama absolutely would not prosecute Bush officials, only his opinion they should not be prosecuted.
Nope, I clearly stated when it comes to the possible prosecution of Bush for war crimes, that discussions of politics would certainly be in the mix. At least I would hope so, as such an undertaking would turn our politics and country upside down. I don’t think Obama has anything to do personally on a case like the Drake one though.
Yes, it seems open and shut that Bush broke international law regarding torture of prisoners. As for no prosecutions, you almost certainly will not see them. There are other ways to deal with what Bush did in a public, official and national way. One way would be a truth and reconciliation commission. I don’t equate an administration of one party trying to jail the leaders of the other party, in the same realm as the case on this thread. These things were mostly known, such as waterboarding, while Bush was still president, and the founders gave us a method to deal with that case, impeachment and removal from office. That wasn’t done, when it maybe should have been done.
I suggested Drake was alleged to have broke the law, nothing really more than that, other than the crimes listed in his indictment appear to me to be way too harsh.
And I certainly don’t think there is anything “right and proper” about not prosecuting Bush and Cheney. I would love to see those assholes frog marched into court, but there are other ways to skin those skunks, and Obama certainly will not employ them, until he gets reelected and is free from public dismay at spending precious time calling out the bushies for things most Americans didn’t and don’t disapprove of. ie torture of terrorist suspects. Sad but true.
glasnost
See, the funny thing about that apparently true statement is that, since everything about Trailblazer is fucking classified, and Thomas Drake’s Inspector General report is classified, and you don’t know anything about what was in either, and neither do I, and neither does anyone in this forum, the fact that “no evidence has come up” doesn’t mean a fucking thing.
But when you spend > 1 billion dollars and get nothing beyond the schematics level, and you ignore cheaper potential solutions, doesn’t that seem like a potential indicator that maybe the contract bidding wasn’t quite on the level? You know that when you award contracts based on reasons other than merit, that’s illegal? How are you so damn sure that there was no illegal behavior at work here? Because no one walked into the New Yorker’s office with a confession?
salacious crumb
hey ABL,
Did you know Jane Mayer of New Yorker criticized Obama, in her latest piece, for his departments prosecution of an NSA agent who leaked some documents? OMG! what shall we do now? She was quoted by Glenn Greenwald! Hater of all black people! Dear Leader Obama has been criticized!…is Jane Mayer racist? Does she hate black people? I don’t know…she must be! Your literary knives must be out to rally all O-Bots against all those who mildy criticize a black man! oh the horror!
Mike Kay (Team America)
@glasnost: are there any facts that ThinThread was abusive or illegal? No.
complaining about a waste of money does not permit someone to reveal classified ongoing operations. There’s big difference btwn revealing “the bridge to nowhere” and the existence of penetrating a foreign signals network.
that’s the bottom line. why do you assume he was doing the right thing? He may well have been doing the right thing, but we don’t know.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
I’ll make you a bet:
You will never see those skunks skinned in any way by any governmental action.
Martin
@glasnost:
Um, when you’re arrested for running a red light, pointing out that you properly used your indicator when doing so is not a defense.
Further, when you look up Bradley Manning’s story, you’ll find that he didn’t do jack shit to report criminal activity via proper channels.
I’m sorry, but this nullification of whistleblower policy and procedure is no less absurd than the nullification of federal laws that the wingnuts propose. Only when policy is exhausted can you argue that policy needed to be violated for the public good. I don’t even find the case of Binney to be particularly pursuasive since there are other checks against the NSA besides the Inspector General. For programs of that scope, going directly to members of Congress would be appropriate, for example.
Chuck Butcher
@Martin:
And their clearance is…..
And they’ve demonstrated exactly jack shit interest in going up against the national security apparatus. OK.
patrick II
@Martin:
I think part of the problem is that those who worked through the ig system had their names made available to their bosses through that system, and all ended up being interrogated and prosecuted.
Let’s assume for a moment that the people named in the ig report did not, as they claim they did not, leak to the times. Yet it is clear that they were selected for search, interrogation, and eventually prosecuted because they were suspect the moment they went through legal channels. In their position I would never have gone to the ig. As an ex government employee, I have seen what happens to people when their opposition to a policy is known.. If you have a serious problem with a policy, do not speak out against it because you will be the one they come looking for.
The most significant problem they were concerned with — warrantless intrusion of privacy — is immensely important. And the reason why it is important — the replacement of principles of law and constitution with the principles of power — is directly displayed by their own situation. They tried to play by the rules, with congress, with the ig, and with the constitution, and they got hit with the reality of power.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Maybe, maybe not.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher: Their clearance is guaranteed to be higher than that of a reporter at the Baltimore Sun. Furthermore, it’s their constitutionally defined role to deal with this kind of issue. Congress controls the budget. Financial waste is by definition a congressional responsibility.
Shit, bring it to Obama’s biggest enemies in Congress if you want. Sure, maybe nobody will want to take up the charge, but you have to make the effort. Nobody promised this shit would be easy – its fucking hard to step up and say your organization is fucking up and the leadership either isn’t paying attention, or doesn’t care, or is covering it up – and it’s impossible to not introduce one of those options. But if you’re serious about trying to fix this behavior, then you step up and make the effort. In many of these whistleblower cases, it seems as though the whistleblowers simply don’t want to make the effort, aren’t willing to put their name on the line, or have some secondary motivation that is steering their decision making.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@GregB:
THIS.
General Stuck
There is something called prosecutorial discretion for all prosecutors, including Holder. And one of the criteria for deciding to prosecute someone, or not, has to do with a judgment they could win the case. Happens all over America everyday, for all sorts of alleged crimes. So it is simplistic to claim that Bush and torture are cut and dried, and failure to prosecuted is some kind of major breach of duty. For either Holder or Obama.
RL
Man, the O-bots swarm. I voted for the guy, I’m a solid D – but man, I’m feeling about O like I did the Big Dog about two years into term two. The brazen Wall Street / Villager / authoritarian support is almost too much to take. I’m no fool. I don’t want a primary challenge, because I don’t want president Bachman /Palin etc. But if O is the best we can muster in these times, I’m feeling a bit wobbly.
mclaren
Remember: Obama is infinitely better than a Republican! No Democrat would ever cover up corruption by prosecuting a whistleblower under an obscure 1917 law!
Anyone who criticizes Obama is a racist firebagger!
Duh law is duh LAW! You just want to lynch that uppity black guy in the Oval Office!
[Continue mindless Obot rationalizations in defense of Obama’s indefensible destruction of the constitution until the critics have been drowned out by name-calling and ad hominem insults]
glasnost
I’m well aware of that. When you look up… the thread you’re commenting on… you’ll find that, rather than defending Bradley Manning, I am in fact defending Thomas Drake against bad, stupid equivalencies between him and Bradley Manning.
As for
.
seriously, laugh out loud. That worked great for the illegal wiretap program, huh? Like a fucking charm!
You know, this is sort of beside the freaking point! He didn’t leak anything classified to the media! He’s not even being *accused* of having done so at this point! He’s being accused of, effectively, having kept copies of the material he used to file his whistleblower complaint in his own house!
You think everybody who makes that kind of document storage mistake gets 35 years? Well then I should draw your attention to the fact that Sandy Berger got a fucking misdemeanor. It’s selective prosecution for the intent of punishing the guy going to the press with UNCLASSIFIED material.
It’s disgusting. The guy’s a whistleblower, the public deserved to know, and you are whistling in the dark. Leave the law aside- this has stupid and ugly consequences for the country. Your stolid apathy to that is impressive.
Chuck Butcher
@RL:
Given Congressional realities and the electorate I’d say the Pres is an outstanding representative of the best we can do.
Yes, that is a real mixed evaluation.
How about “values war is over” Daniels? urgh
Dollared
@Mike Kay (Team America): You obviously didn’t read the article. Thinthread was legal ONLY if it applied to foreigners, and the specific concern of all of the people harassed by the Feds is that Thinthread was “borrowed” over to a domestic surveillance project. Clear violation of law.
Read the article.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
Maybe?
Heh, OK – I wasn’t going to wager anything of real significance anyhoo
Chuck Butcher
@Dollared:
He’s got firebaggers to worry about and limited ‘ammunition’ to do it with.
KG
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Pretty sure in the “intelligence” business, that’s a feature, not a bug.
FlipYrWhig
I wonder what Obama could have been working on that he would be very concerned about earning and maintaining the favor of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Oh well, I guess we’ll never know.
RL
@Chuck Butcher: God, I’m tired of being told how great he’s doing. Congress and all, you know. He’s a moderate Republican from a different era – not much of a progressive. I DO realize he’s the best we can do right now – which is very depressing. Not sure what you’re getting at with Daniels, as I stated I’m a solid D vote. Knowing O is the only sane one of the whole lot doesn’t make it any easier to see what’s happening. Doesn’t make it any easier to have to line up behind the guy who refuses to prosecute wall street, doubles down on war, and prosecutes whistle blowers. But hey, I guess we’re all lucky.
Chuck Butcher
@FlipYrWhig:
Ah, courtiers eh?
FlipYrWhig
@RL: Once progressives are something like a majority in the US, or at least among Democrats, we’ll have a more progressive president. Fifty years, over or under?
Chuck Butcher
@RL:
Keep up, I’m a racist for criticizing the Pres.
Daniels was about crazy Bachman – that may be their best and that’s scary, too.
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
cripes, I’m not a fan of a lot of Bill Clinton’s legacy either, much less how things are going now.
Chuck Butcher
@FlipYrWhig:
That would be a fool’s bet
Dollared
@Chuck Butcher: And so 1) it’s OK for you to spend your night posting instead of reading? 2) and it’s OK for Obama to prosecute somebody trying desperately to end a systematic violation of the 4th amendment rights of every American?
I guess I care more about the latter. You should care about both.
Dollared
@Chuck Butcher: On that we agree. Remember, Flip, here on BJ are a bunch of active liberals, and they don’t give a shit about prosecuting banksters, war criminals, contract fraudsters and domestic spies.
Those who care really are the leftmost 15% and that little tiny sliver of principled conservatives.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Dollared:
Are you sure? Is it illegal to gather intelligence domestically without a previously issued warrant? Under FISA, isn’t there a 15 day grace period in which the government can legally obtain a warrant after it’s already gathered intelligence?
FlipYrWhig
@Chuck Butcher: Well, that’s the kind of thing that’s a potential tradeoff. I have no idea about the particular case, and I haven’t read the article. It just seems like if on the one hand you’re drawing up plans that require special forces and spies to fight their way out of Pakistan, you might get a little more cooperation if you also stick out your neck to protect classified information with extra zeal.
Is it worth it, on principle? Depends on how you feel about the principle. I’m not that concerned about warrantless wiretapping and that sort of thing, frankly, not because it isn’t a valid concern for many people, but because I personally have many, MANY greater concerns. That’s why I’m not a civil libertarian.
Dollared
@General Stuck: And another criteria is to reinforce the rule of law. But you don’t care about that.
FlipYrWhig
@Dollared: Yeah, I think I just outed myself as one of the people who doesn’t care as much about the “civil liberties” suite of issues. I think they’re sort of vaguely bothersome. Some smart, sensitive, eloquent people feel more strongly about it. Great! Let me know how that goes.
General Stuck
@Dollared:
Piss off. You don;t know what I care about
Chuck Butcher
@Dollared:
Um, I’d suggest that you go back and read what I posted rather than kick me about reading. I never came close to what you’ve attributed to me. Not horseshoe, not hand grenade, not even H-bomb close.
You asked if Obama was the best we could do. I asserted he is. I made no representation that I thought that was a good thing. I’m quite willing to entertain that ‘better’ if you care to note one. Sure, I can name a couple who would neither run or would not get nominated, but that’s not what you asked. And yes they are actual real and responsible pols.
Chuck Butcher
@FlipYrWhig:
Since the BOR has been pretty much gutted it probably is a bit late to worry…
Maybe violent bloody revolution within a police state isn’t all that bad,
maybe it would be.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Dollared: Drake didn’t reveal ThinTread.
So it looks like he revealed nothing to the baltimore sun about any illegalities or 4th amend abuses.
Now, like I said before, I don’t know what he did, but I don’t know why people automatically jump to defend him. Maybe he did do something admirable, but then again, maybe he didn’t.
You know when Manning was first arrested, I didn’t think it was a big deal. From various accounts, it looked like he was only releasing innocuous and embarrassing state department cables. While that’s wrong, it’s not a big deal. Yet lefty bloggers (in the neutral sense of that phrase) were rushing to defend and hail him. I have no idea how stealing random files and posting them on a bulletin board makes you hero. Now it turns out he actually revealed substantial information, including elements that would have alerted bin laden to flee.
as I’ll say again, I don’t understand why people (especially those who think of themselves as rational) jump to a conclusions before all facts become available.
I’m gonna wait to see if this is a good guy or bad guy.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Chuck Butcher: who would be better than obama?
and be honest, we’re all anonymous here, who did you support during the 2008 primary season?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Dollared:
rule of law is overrated. Abortion used to be the rule of law. Jim Crow used to be the rule of law. Literacy tests used to be the rule of law. slavery used to be the rule of law. The draft used to be the rule of law.
In fact it’s kinda hard to champion the rule of law and all acts of whistleblowing.
that’s the problem with absolutism.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Mike Kay (Team America): oops. should read, “the ban on Abortion used to be the rule of law”. And while I’m at, so did laws banning contraception.
patrick II
@Mike Kay (Team America):
The problem is that people don’t understand legal conflict. N.S.A. is legally bound to report to congress. It did not. The N.S.A. was constitutionally and legally bound not to spy on Americans — it did anyway. When the people in the article reported to congress they were obeying one law — while breaking N.S.A. policy. I find it a stretch to say they were treasonous when they reported to congress.
It is against the law to jaywalk, yet if you see a child in the traffic you get him out of there jaywalking be damned.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@RL:
What does that make Nancy Pelosi?
Was Ted Kennedy a moderate Republican?
Tell me how obama and pelosi and teddy differ?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@patrick II:
it is against the law. that’s why the rule of law is overrated.
dollared
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): No attempt was made to comply with FISA. Read the article, it is genuinely scary.
dollared
I shouldn’t say scary, your mileage may vary. Let’s just call it J.Edgar’s wet dream. Hmmmm…actually, his mileage did vary. Let’s call it “J. Edgar’s surveillance vision, fully realized.”
dollared
@Mike Kay (Team America): It is not against the law to go get that child. You cannot commit the crime if you have justification for the act. But you don’t get to plead justification unless you go to a court and show your reasons.
In jaywalking, you talk to the municipal court. In surveillance, you use the FISA court.
Of course, if you’re a gullible promilitary fascist, you think the rule of law is overrated. I suggest you get your mortgages only from credit unions. Get one from B0fA, and you may find that the rule of law is ignored, and you’re broke and homeless.
Chuck Butcher
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Anonymous you asshole? Right. Check if you care to. You have no idea what you’re talking about or who you’re talking to. And there’s no reason for it beyond your stupidity.
dollared
@Mike Kay (Team America): Obama and Teddy? You are that ignorant? How about single payer versus RomneyCare? How about 50% marginal rates versus the Bush Tax cut extension? How about cutting the defense budget versus growing it?
How much more do you need? Try Wikipedia.
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
By rights that should read “beyond your deliberate ignorance”
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Chuck Butcher: Oh gawd, you suffer from delusions of grandeur. Am I supposed to know your name, well sorry to break it you – nope, never heard of you. Am I supposed to click on you name – sorry, you’re too boring to rate a mouse click.
and like sarah palin being asked what does she read, you’re not smart enough to form a reply.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@dollared:
are you saying Teddy opposed Romneycare?
http://www.anyonebutmitt.com/post/2011/04/11/Who-Thought-RomneyCare-Was-A-Good-Idea.aspx
How ignorant.
50% vs extending the bush tax cuts? if you let the bush tax cut expire they only go up to 39%.
how ignorant.
Teddy wanted to cut defense? Funny considering he voted for the defense appropriations bill
http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00433
how ignorant.
Digya know Teddy voted for NAFTA, and led the deregulated the airline and trucking industries?
how ignorant.
A Humble Lurker
Okay. The whole ‘Obama is a Republican’ meme? Here’s what I want to know: when Republicans hate you, and will do whatever you don’t want just to spite you, is there a benefit to be had in going right, knowing they’ll be jumping even farther right to out-right you? Thus capturing their base (who also hate you) but scaring the crap out of everybody else?
I think it’s not unlikely Obama’s positioning himself to the right to drive all his political opponents so right they fall off the cliff.
I’m not going to argue any other points (one way or another) because I don’t know crap about this stuff, but I look around at how the Republican party seems to be falling apart and I wonder…
Mike Kay (Team America)
@A Humble Lurker: but where is he positioning to the right?
He’s withdrawn 100,000 troops from Iraq with the rest coming out at the end of the year. McCain opposed withdrawing a single soldier.
He repealed DADT. McCain opposed the repeal, even resorting to homophobia on the Senate floor.
He negotiated a nuclear arms treaty. McCain opposed the treaty.
He voted for the new GI bill. McCain voted against it.
He increased SCHip funding by 50%. McCain voted against it.
we could go on and on.
dollared
@Mike Kay (Team America): look up Edward Kennedy in wikipedia. Read for 5 minutes before you act like a jerk on a blog without any knowledge.
Your knowledge of politics and history equals your understanding of the law. Go get some sleep.
someguy
I think it’s bad to prosecute Drake because then there won’t be any more whistleblowers under the next Republican administration we’re stuck with.
Oh wait, did I suggest nakedly partisan prosecution of leakers, and no-prosecution of leakers that help my side out? Why, yes! Yes I did.
lol
@dollared:
We do know that Ted Kennedy got a chance from Nixon to pass a universal health care system and turned it down because it wasn’t good enough in his eyes.
Unlike the Firebaggers though, Kennedy later realized that was a massive fucking mistake.
Dollared
@someguy: Aren’t you kind of young to be…..
dollared
@lol: Yeah. How much less screwed up we’d be…..probably 5 points of our U-6 rate right there.
dollared
@lol: Yeah. How much less screwed up we’d be…..probably 5 points of our U-6 rate right there.