via Timeless Tips for ‘Simple Sabotage’ — Central Intelligence Agency.
Timeless Tips for ‘Simple Sabotage’ — Central Intelligence Agency
21 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, organisational economics, personnel economics, war and peace Tags: sabotage
Edward Snowden Is No Hero – The New Yorker
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism, war and peace Tags: Edward Snowden, leaking versus dumping, narcissism, national security, oppositional identities, treason
Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications…
What makes leak cases difficult is that some leaking—some interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified information—is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press.
It’s not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning.
Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden’s…
The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work.
But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that he’s right.
Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, war and peace Tags: conspiracy theories, Edward Snowden, Left wing paranoia
Greenwald likens Snowden to Daniel Ellsberg, who revealed the Pentagon Papers to The Post and the New York Times more than four decades ago.
Not quite. The Pentagon Papers proved that a succession of U.S. presidents had lied about their intentions regarding Vietnam — Lyndon Johnson above all. In 1964, he had campaigned against Barry Goldwater for the presidency as virtually the peace candidate while actually planning to widen the war.
As the Times put it in a 1996 story, the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”
In contrast, no one lied about the various programs disclosed last week. They were secret, yes, but members of Congress were informed — and they approved.
Safeguards were built in. If, for instance, the omniscient computers picked up a pattern of phone calls from Mr. X to Suspected Terrorist Y, the government had to go to court to find out what was said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act established a court consisting of 11 rotating federal judges. These judges are the same ones who rule on warrants the government seeks in domestic criminal cases. If we trust them for that, why would we not trust them for other things as well?
via Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does – The Washington Post.
Some people are still shocked when they learn that governments spy on people. What next? Will people be shocked to learn that the police investigate innocent people in the course of routine enquiries.
The Story of the Only American Not on Earth on September 11th – The Atlantic
12 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, war and peace Tags: 9/11
Foreign policy in an uncontrollable world alert: Who was Obama arming today?
03 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in politics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: interventionist foreign policies, Obama foreign policy, The fatal conceit, unintended consequences
HT: Helen Dale
What the UN didn’t show with their maps of Gaza – Whale Oil Beef Hooked
27 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in laws of war, war and peace Tags: Hamas, UN bias, war crimes
Live launch of missile right behind him forces journalist to discover Hamas war crimes
12 Aug 2014 Leave a comment
in laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Hamas, war crimes
The most damning footage came on August 5 from Gallagher Fenwick of the TV network France 24. Several days prior, he had been reporting live when a Hamas rocket whooshed over his head.
Returning later to scene, he revealed that it had been a densely populated area 100 meters from a U.N. facility and 50 meters from a hotel frequented by foreign journalists.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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