Jan 15 2007
You’re In The Army Now
One thing people forget (as a growing part of the population becomes totally disconnected from military service – and much of reality) is that when you sign up you sign over a lot of your privacy. As do many of us who hold clearances. People worried about Uncle Sam knowing how much money you have in your bank account would be apoplectic if they understood the invasion of privacy on a Top Secret Clearance. You have to expose any and all problems with money. Any and all events with any and all drugs (including under age drinking). You must address any crimes you may know about, even if you did not participate in them. You must acknowledge all your personal indescretions. And for doing that you get the right to get a fairly low salary and work on classified projects.
So when the media goes off squealing about bank records being reviewed for possible hiddent terrorists within our military they are just showing their ignorance. The day the US government has more information on me than these bloody telemarketers is the day I will begin to worry about government intrusion. The fact is all the privately held information on me is available for a price, so its out there. But what the liberals whiners miss is we need to protect our brave men and women in uniform. And many of them know that they are prime targets here in the US and I would suspect welcome the extra scrutiny to make sure a deadly mole is not in their midsts. When you join up you lose a lot of freedoms. Fact of life. The media would do better to stop trying to change what the military is and do more to understand why it does what it does. It is 99% of the time doing it for a damn good reason and it is legal and has historic precedence. The news media needs to stop showing ignorance and start showing even an inkling of an ability to learn and expand their limited views. Funny how the one group of people that has a long record of not grasping all of the various elements that make up modern society out of stubborn arrogance is the one who claims Bush is unwilling or unable to learn new things. Thus moans the Kettle, with no Pot around to compare itself to.
Scooter Libby goes on trial this week according to Chris Wallace.
He interviewed VP Cheney on TV yesterday. Libby discussed the NYT story about Pentagon and CIA domestic intelligence gathering. He discussed how terrorists hope to break our will in IRaq so we will go home. And he wouldn’t say anything about Libby’s trial.
It was a good interview.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070114.html
Are you going to discuss this trial. I really think that Wilson and his wife are creeps. I am worried for Libby.
Speaking of clearances … It bothered a lot of us that Slick could be elected president, given the fact that his Oxford days’ activities would have normally kept him from getting a security clearance (that is, had he not been prez). What about Her Royal C?
I really think Libby will get off. First, my thinking, they will decide there was no crime. with no crime, it would be hard to try to cover it up. I actually think the spec. prosecutor that charged him is more guilty of trying to create a crime. It’s not even clear to me that Libby was trying to obstruct them in what they THOUGHT was a crime. I don’t believe the trial will last long, maybe a little longer than the Duke rape trial, which will be dismissed.
What about Her Royal C? What does that mean? I know about Clinton’s activities that would have prevented him a secret clearance.
I understand Sandy Burglar’s clearance has been restored?
If the Republicans had played hard ball like the Democrats do, instead of trying to show people what nice guys they are, a thorough investigation and expose of Clinton’s Oxford antics and other Clinton, both his and hers, questionable and illegal activities before and after taking office as President, would have shown them to be dishonarable and unworthy of public trust, and we would be rid of them and their baggage once and for all. There is no excuse for a Republican controlled Justice dept. letting Sandy Berglar off the hook. It is little wonder so many people figured it wasn’t worth wasting their time to vote because it wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. I am still waiting for some one to publicly say what we all know. Bill Clinton gave his beloved Chairman Mao’s Communist Chinese government our military secrets, and then provided them the money to finance their military build up while decimating our military with budget cuts. He even arranged grand tours of top secret military instalations to Chinese Communist Generals. Regardless of what position a government official holds, treason is still treason, and Bill Clinton was a traitor for selling out his country, both militarily and economically. The Republicans had 12 years to make their case and they helped the Clintonistas cover it all up. A pox on the lot of them.
There is no clear indication Clinton’s actions would have eliminated him from having a clearance. Clearances are given to those who had ‘youthful indescretions’ because the issue is not whether you were pure and clean, it is whether your past can be used to blackmail you. So they prefer openess and will look the other way on a lot of stuff.
Re: Berger…there has got to be a reason for the light sentence.
And I think, however, the last thing this administration wanted to do was give more press time and the limelight to His Royal C…just exactly what he would have wanted-more national debate on His Royal A–. Shameless rogue.
I have to post this again by a psychologist who was featured in Registered Rep magazine:
Rogue Behavior (paraphrased)
1. inability to feel genuine remorse and guilt- can only imitate these emotions
2. they “hit and run”
3. they blame the victim
4. They are skilled at manipulation and are very charming
5. The jig is never up!
6. They will exploit anyone – family, friends, co-workers
7. They are very comfortable asking/demanding what they want-they are entitled!
8. They are expert at inducing feelings in others-“take care of me”
9. They view people as objects-can do serious damage and often leave a long trail of destruction behind them.
10. They never developed a sense of moral conscience
11. They are articulate and are persuasive in the appearence of conscience and pity.
12. Their psychological bank book registers only deposits-no withdrawals
True, it is more likely Clinton would have been denied a clearance for his antics in Arkansas, both as Attorney General and other times, when he raped at least one woman and lots of stories. Plenty of things there he could easily have been blackmailed for. His activities at Oxford and in Russia were only anti-American and he was actually proud of them and didn’t try to cover them up. (many people like that get security clearances, look at Jon Carry)
Aj,
I’d agree with you that active duty and anyone with a clearance is subject to these sorts of investigations, I did not see in the article where the program is targeted at those groups.
I’m all for counter espionage sorts of things, but I also worry that giving bureaucrats too much power to do this stuff can be a problem.
Steve_LA,
The article doesn’t say a lot. But to investigate someone outside these parameters requires a warrant – a FISA warrant most likely. As usual it is all legal and being hyped by an ignorant news media.
AJ..
No worries then.
There is a point where the President’s team seems to not like going to the FISA court for some reason however. I can understand the need to do that in a crisis, but not as a routine sort of thing.
Steve_LA,
You have fallen for the big media myth regarding FISA. The truth surrounding that entire story is just the opposite – per the judges’ comments. What Bush did was to stop NSA from throwing away leads they had on US based contacts with Terrorists and Al Qaeda (like the ones they had on 9-11 and the terrorists here in the US) and instead, pass those leads to the FBI which would look into them and decide if they needed to get a FISA warrant for serious, full up surveillance.
The NY Times is a lying rag or an idiots paradise, but either way it misreported the facts. The judge who resigned did so not because the administration bypassed FISA – but because they were USING FISA.
Few people know that prior to 9-11 NSA leads were not considered valid probable cause for FISA warrants. If a lead was predicated on an NSA lead it was tossed out – so no one even attempted to follow up on the leads we HAD on the 9-11 highujackers because the all came from monitoring Al Qaeda overseas (which we do religiously and legally).
Even today, after the changes, a FISA warrant cannot be let for a lead that is based on NSA intercepts – no matter how compelling or urgent (damn stupid if you ask me). That is why the FBI gets the leads, they must demonstrate some independent link to terrorism.
I have 90 posts on this, all linked to statements by the FISA judges themselves who worked the changes to allow NSA leads to be followed up and optionally lead to a FISA warrant. The problem was not going around FISA – it was FISA did not want to see leads from intelligence agencies. Bush changed that to open FISA’s scope (and which is why Specter and others, once they learned what happened, shut up and stoppped pushing).
BTW, all this means the NSA CANNOT go to FISA for permission to listen to terrorists overseas – another media myth. Here are all my postings – suggest you start reading up on the truth, per people who know. I suggest you start from the beginning in December 2004.
IRS also has enough privacy information from our dang income tax forms. And when you apply for a loan, the bank does a credit history check on you…
Our military deserve all the protection we can give.
The democratic politicians, liberal advocacy groups and their parrots in the “common” media, delight in expressing “concern.” If they expressed more “concern” about the enemy and our vulnerabilities resulting from being an open society, they might have some credibility.
I’m not concerned about their “concern.”
The Bush administration has gone to FISA more than Clinton ever did.
And this program is not illegal, so why did the press feel the need to make an issue of it?
On the subject of security clearances, let’s not forget the world’s greatest ambassador – Mr. Wilson. As a highly placed member of the State Dept. he would have had to acquire a TS in order to ascend to the Ambassador rank. Of course, he also was one to brag about his prior drug usage, which if he had told the truth on his application, would have eliminated him from consideration for any post in the State Dept.
There is not one area of our lives the government does not know about. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves. They not only have all the things listed above but they also have everyone’s full medical history. This is the place insurance companies go to get the low-down on prospective clients. There is no such thing as privacy and who cares anyway?
I certainly don’t care if the government keeps up with who I call or what book I take out of the library. This is foolishness. The govenment does not have the manpower to keep up with everyone’ s lives in this country.
Yea, there are a bunch of people that thinks ‘intelligence’ can keep up with every little detail of every Americans lives, but can’t keep up with just 10 million or so illegal immigrants. Too Funny.
Too many people took “Big Brother” to heart.