Leaker Reality Winner Is No Winner At Leaking!

Reality Winner before being busted by Feds for leaking classified documents.

As the self-righteous Right's paper patriots and Trumpies go bananas over the arrest of NSA leaker Reality Leigh Winner it is well to consider this:  the winsome young Millennial was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. At least when it came to the actual method of her accessing the document she leaked.  Ax reported now by numerous news sources with access to the documents, Russian intelligence agents hacked a US voting systems manufacturer in the weeks leading up to last year’s presidential election, according to the Intercept, citing what it said was "a highly classified National Security Agency (NSA) report".  (This was the selfsame report Winner leaked).

Any other savvy NSA contractor, or Edward Snowden, could have told her you do not use an NSA-tagged printer to run off anything you plan to leak.  That's like begging to be caught or wearing a sign on your back in 8 inch letters reading: "I'm the leaker! Catch me!"

But pardon me for saying that this lack of attention to detail is often a byproduct of the idealistic Millennial generation. Their hearts are certainly in the right place - and Winner's clearly was (she was also a Bernie supporter) but their heads are often in the clouds and not processing real world details, such as how to get NSA files out into the public.

Now that Ms. Winner has failed in that, the whole anti-leaker world is in high dudgeon calling for even more heads to roll. But roll they won't because I doubt any will be as dumb as Winner - who is no winner at the leaking game.  Besides, would be leakers will now be even more on their guard, taking more precautions.

Winner, 25, was arrested Saturday in Augusta, GA.  She held a top secret clearance at a government facility where she worked as a contractor - like Edward Snowden. Her contract company was Pluribus International Corporation. The DOJ alleges that Winner printed out the classified document, dated May 5th, and she admitted to removing, retaining and mailing it.

Contrast this with Edward Snowden's putative method (depicted in the movie, 'Snowden') whereby he carefully and sequentially first downloaded the files (XKeyscore, PRISM etc.)  onto an SD card, and then hid it within a tile of a  Rubik's cube. He then, on exiting the Oahu NSA Center, avoids running the Rubik's cube through security by tossing it by tossing it to a security guard who then plays with it - no remote idea it contains hidden files on an SD card. Meanwhile, Snowden - clean as a whistle - passes through the security screening without a hitch.

Had Winner seen the Oliver Stone movie, she'd have processed the extreme precautions needed to smuggle anything out of an NSA facility. Now, to be sure, the depiction in the film was just that - a fictional portrayal - and Snowden has never described how he actually did it. (Director Oliver Stone told The Daily Beast that he doesn’t actually know how Snowden smuggled out the information.) Never mind, we do have two items to work with:

1) Snowden did use a Rubik’s Cube to identify himself when he first met with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald. If he had possession of it then he could well have used it earlier.

2)  Though otherwise tight -lipped, Snowden himself hinted that there may be some truth behind the portrayal.

Most techie sites I've consulted do regard it as feasible, especially if carried out as portrayed in the film.  In any case, Snowden  - if informed of Winner's plan before she did it, would have told her in no uncertain terms to avoid using open access devices like printers. NO! NO! NO! You dummy!

Another dummy lapse: using her freaking work computer email  to make contact with the Intercept. Did she not know, or process, that all email systems on NSA - linked computers (not to mention those of most large corporations) are monitored?   My take is she may not be as stupid as her actions appear, and may simply have acted impetuously - without fully thinking her leak plan through.  This is very sad indeed, because she will now "repent at leisure", facing up to ten years in prison.

At the same time, her reckless folly has unleashed the screeching demons and harpies of the Right and the most odious, chest-pounding  Repukes (like Jason Chaffetz: "I want people in handcuffs and I want to see people behind bars!"). We will now have to listen to them as well as Trump bragging how they finally bagged a leaker(never mind an incautious one) and plan to grab many more.

The good aspect to this 'catch' of an abysmally clueless and careless leaker is that it is more than likely a one off.   Given the vile nature of the Trump presidency we need the leaks to continue now more than ever to expose these vipers as the vermin they are.  Reality Winner's foolish lapses didn't help, but I don't believe they will hurt other leaks in the long run.

Will Obama Pardon Edward Snowden? Not Bloody Likely!

Neoliberal security fetishists are unlikely to want Edward Snowden pardoned, despite the fact he's performed a public service in exposing surveillance overreach.

Today, with the opening of Oliver Stone's biopic film  'SNOWDEN', props and kudos must go out to The New York Times for its bold editorial calling for Obama to issue an executive pardon.  As the Times puts it, embodying the hopes and desires of civil liberties organizations, including the ACLU, Amnesty International and Humans Rights Watch:
------

“Edward J. Snowden, the American who has probably left the biggest mark on public policy debates during the Obama years, is today an outlaw. Mr. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed to journalists secret documents detailing the United States’ mass surveillance programs, faces potential espionage charges, even though the president has acknowledged the important public debate his revelations provoked.

Mr. Snowden’s whistle-blowing prompted reactions across the government.  Courts found the government wrong to use Section 215 of the Patriot Act to justify mass phone data collection. Congress replaced that law with the USA Freedom Act, improving transparency about government surveillance and limiting government power to collect certain records. The president appointed an independent review board, which produced important reform recommendations.

That’s just in the American government. Newspapers that published Mr. Snowden’s revelations won the Pulitzer Prize. The United Nations issued resolutions on protecting digital privacy and created a mandate to promote the right to privacy. Many technology companies, facing outrage at their apparent complicity in mass surveillance, began providing end-to-end encryption by default. Three years on, the news media still refer to Mr. Snowden and his revelations."
--------------------

This should be a veritable no brainer given it's one case, laced by so much controversy, that it literally calls out for a presidential pardon.  But as the Times also went on to document,  the grievances and retribution mindset of the Neoliberal security statists live on, and they have the memory of a metaphorical elephant.  In Snowden's case, these hard heads (including the two current presidential candidates) focus not on the man's public service but the importance of prosecuting him. Hillary Clinton, who played fast and loose with her emails - putting them on 19 different devices  - had the audacity to say Snowden "needed to face the music". This despite the fact the FBI and Justice Dept. let her off with a slap on the wrist. As for Trump,  this is a guy who - despite receiving a confidential briefing 2 weeks ago -blabbed its content to the frickin media.  All this, even - as the Times observed how  Eric Holder struck  a more measured tone in May, upon leaving office as Mr. Obama’s attorney general. He even acknowledged Snowden had performed a "public service'.

What about Barack Obama? Can he strike a similar tone to Mr. Holder's?  Alas, the man who eight years ago defined "hope and change" has now devolved (evolved?)  to become basically a keeper of the Neoliberal state establishment - and is unlikely to be so gracious.  Meanwhile on Wednesday Snowden thanked supporters who launched a campaign for his pardon and affirmed that for the sake of democracy, future whistleblowers must not be silenced.

Again, this ought to be a no-brainer but to the Neoliberal state and its gate keepers, information keepers, it bears the mark of a treasonous contempt.  The "contempt"  of a genuine citizen who demands transparency from his government and doesn't seek to keep its people in the dark- or to use various rationalizations to spy and catalog their every move. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/between-skeleton-key-and-cog-how-close.html


Speaking by video link from Moscow, where he has been in exile since 2013, Snowden said that while the Founding Fathers created checks and balances to guard against government abuses, “whistleblowers, acting in the public interest, often at great risk to themselves, are another check on those abuses of power, especially through their collaboration with journalists.”


Snowden addresses supporters at video conference.

He said whistleblowing “is democracy’s safeguard of last resort, the one on which we rely when all other checks and balances have failed and the public has no idea what’s going on behind closed doors.”

The 33-year-old addressed a New York City news conference where advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International announced an online petition drive to urge President Barack Obama to pardon Snowden before he leaves office. The supporters called Snowden a hero for exposing the extent of government surveillance by giving thousands of classified documents to journalists. The documents disclosed the extent of unconstitutional mass surveillance conducted without adherence to the 4th amendment's demand for individual warrants.

Meanwhile, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi has insisted:

"It is important to remember Mr. Snowden is not a whistleblower. He is accused of leaking classified information, and his actions have inflicted serious harm on our national security."

But, truly, if a citizen - even under contract with the NSA-  reveals the government has committed serious constitutional violations (in this case of the Fourth Amendment) clearly that must be whistle blowing and the violation itself must trump in importance the means used to expose it. Indeed, our Constitution's Fourth Amendment states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Clearly showing that only individual warrants are acceptable and one cannot have mass warrants issued out of laziness, disrespect for the Constitution or mere expedience and efficiency provided by technology. Moreover, Snowden was ultimately vindicated when a  300-page report     was released last year by a commission appointed by Obama himself .

The very issuance of that report by an Obama-appointed commission, I would argue, shows unimpeachably the whistle blower status of Snowden.

As for Raimondi's claim of "harm to our national security", I would argue that emerged not with the Snowden disclosures but with the egregious use of the Stuxnet computer worm over a year earlier to create havoc with Iran's centrifuges - used in its nuclear program.  Sean McGurk - former head of cyber defense at The Department of Homeland Security, in charge of protecting critical infrastructure in the U.S.  interviewed on a March 4, 2012 '60 Minutes' pointedly remarked:

"You can download the actual source code of Stuxnet now and you can repurpose it and repackage it and then, you know, point it back towards wherever it came from."

And that has undoubtedly been done, as evidenced in the recent DNC hacks as well as others, e.g. of Colin Powell, attributed to "Russians" - but in any case with the aid of a repurposed and redirected Stuxnet code.

Edward Snowden was not responsible for wreaking any of the havoc later caused by Stuxnet's repurposing, and hence is not culpable for any measurable national security harm. The only "harm" was to programs (e.g. PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore) that never should have been implemented to  begin with, given they trampled on 4th amendment rights.

These facts also should be processed by the misnamed House Intelligence Committee - dominated by fascist Reeptard lackeys-  which sent a strong letter to Obama insisting he not pardon Snowden. But they approved wholeheartedly when Bush Jr. let Luis Posada Carriles have safe haven in Miami ten years ago. Recall Posada Carriles, eg.

was the Venezuelan terrorist who - along with Orlando Bosch - engineered the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 just off Barbados' SW coast on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 innocents aboard, in the worst plane terror act before 9/11.

Posada is still wanted by VZ authorities for his role, as he was ten years ago, when Bush Jr. let him live freely in Miami's "Little Havana"  as the Reepo House Reeptards cheered. So, I'd say they've lost all credibility over any security matters now.

Speaking more cogently after the Snowden video conference was ACLU Executive Directot Anthony Romero, in whose words:

“Cases like Edward Snowden’s are precisely why the presidential pardon power exists, There is widespread consensus that Edward Snowden’s actions catalyzed an unprecedented debate about the proper limits of government surveillance, and his actions resulted in widespread reforms both in law and in technology that protect Americans and individuals across the globe.”

If George Bush Sr. could pardon a terrorist like Orlando Bosch, responsible for planning the bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 off Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976 - killing all 73 on board- then certainly the least Obama could do is commute the sentence of a man who followed his conscience and constitutional law with respect for the highest moral imperatives.  The question then becomes  whether Obama has the cojones to do it and transcend his fear of wingnut narratives, e.g.  "extending his apology  terror tour" .  He'd also have to dismiss the concerns of dim-witted advisors whispering in his ear about being seen as "weak on national security".  In addition, what would Hillary and her campaign  think if he did it? This,  given she wants Snowden to "face the music" - never mind she won't for her own security failures with her personal email server.

Those imperatives have also made nations and peoples more aware of their rights and the threat of surveillance in violating them. As Naureen Shah, Amnesty International's Director of Human Rights for the U.S. put it:

"I think it's no exaggeration to say this man has changed the world"

Indeed, and for the time being - more people are freer in their web surfing, emailing, Google searching  than they had been before Snowden.  TO lend your voice in support, go to:

www.pardonsnowden.org


See also:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/would-obama-pardon-edward-snowden/500105/

Melissa Harris -Perry Allows Her Ego To Betray Her Common Sense

By now most MSNBC viewers know that Melissa Harris -Perry is no longer with the network and her weekend morning show is gone. Since 2012 this self-titled show "had a small but loyal audience averaging 400,000 viewers" according to a Feb. 29 WSJ piece by Joe Flint ("MSNBC - Host Part Ways After Pre-Emptions').  This referred to her pique on learning her opinion show (from 10 a.m.- 12 noon ET on Saturday, Sunday) would be pre-empted in parts for the Dem SC primary.

According to the WSJ report, Harris-Perry blew a gasket and asserted in an email she wasn't going to tolerate appearing "for four inconsequential hours" - when she could, of course,  be opinionating on this, that and the other. She instead demanded the network "return editorial control and authority that makes MHP distinctive".

Adding for effect in her staff email (ibid.)  that she "would not be used as a 'tool for their purpose' nor would she be 'a token mammy or little brown bobblehead"

Seriously? A "little brown bobblehead"? You are, or were, one of the few black women to have her own show and now want to piss that away out of some misplaced pique at election coverage pre-emption of your precious show? Really?

I admit I watched Harris-Perry on occasion and she sometimes hit the right notes at the right time, as in the case of the Baltimore cops beating up on Freddie Gray and also the bogus voter ID laws in many states, used to set up roadblocks to many black voters (especially older ones who may lack the credentials, i.e. birth certificates, to establish  a basis for a state ID. A fact many of the voter fraud boneheads don't get)

On the downside, Melissa - like other media blacks (Joy Reid, Michael Eric Dyson) -  often carried water for Obama and the Neoliberal state. This frequently caused mixed feelings in many African-Americans who on the one hand found the defense of Neoliberalism offensive (especially to justify SNAP cuts in the Obama-promoted "sequester" program) but on the other hand found it comforting to see a popular black commentator on the tube.

As one blogger (Margaret Kimberly) on smirkingchimp.com put it:

"Like Obama, Harris-Perry marketed herself as a progressive but spoke against the interests of black people in order to keep the rulers from feeling uncomfortable. While doing a story on the closing of public schools in major cities like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia she and her guests debated the role of race in this policy. They did so without ever mentioning the elephant in the room. The very goal of the Obama administration Race to the Top initiative demanded that public schools be closed and replaced by charters. The woman who now says that she isn’t a “token” was very happy to be one if doing so would relieve the president of any blame."

Harris-Perry also aroused my ire and that of many 4th amendment defenders (who are as avid in our own way as 2nd amendment defenders) when she came down on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.  I was especially enraged after "MHP" -  adopting the indignant pose of a Neoliberal security state fetishist -  insisted that Snowden should turn himself in and face a long prison sentence.  It was at that point I realized she was no liberal but rather another Neolib mouthpiece shilling for the elites and their hacks.

At the same time, unlike her denying and trashing Snowden's rights (such as not to have to face a rigged, kangaroo court) I allowed that Melissa had the right to bloviate on her show. I applauded that a well-educated, university prof African -American had such a stage as few do - especially to editorialize on events.

Alas, MHP took one step too far and the network took her up on her desire to instantly vacate - making it mutually acceptable- as in saying 'Hasta la vista!'

Margaret Kimberly in her article noted that MHP was likely hired in the first place because of attracting viewers during the reign of the first black President.   But she added that given this is Obama's last year in office, "the pressure to keep token black supporters on as talking heads has dropped."    Thus, if they erupt like MHP did - at having election coverage preemptions (which MSNBC said have occurred with all its various shows) - then they can expect quick exits. At least MSNBC host Al Sharpton understands which side his media bread is buttered on and is not going to make the same rash move as Harris-Perry.

  Harris-Perry ought to have exercised  more forbearance and caution and not yielded to her elitist sense of entitlement as a black prof. . She'd have fared better by not being so demanding about her official air time, or its supposedly inviolate content, realizing that shows like hers were rare in the corporate media firmament. Thus, preserving her voice and show ought to have trumped her irritations at election interruptions.

But Melissa H-P evidently let her ego and sense of entitlement get the better of her, as the campaign season heated up and more and more interruptions (especially after primaries) occurred.


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/margaret-kimberley/66262/bye-melissa

Unhinged Rhetoric Does This Nation No Good - Now James Woolsey Wants to Execute Snowden?

Former CIA head James Woolsey said the 'blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands'. No,  the blood of those citizens is on ISIS' hands, you fool!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

Let us admit in a time of hyped terror, with robed lunatics barking threats on almost every TV screen in a 24/7 medium, it takes courage for a citizen not to become petrified and hide under his or her bed. It also takes courage and character, as well as confidence in one's own positions, not to surrender to hysteria and especially political fear-mongering, to give these slime what they want, which is to change who and what we are as a nation,

So it's been disconcerting to hear the recent insane rhetoric coming out of assorted yapping mouths lately, mostly those who we knew were already detached from reality.

Such as Donald Trump now calling for a database to track all Muslims, and Ben Carson comparing the Syrian refugees (mainly women and children) trying to escape their war torn country to rabid dogs. Then there was former CIA head James Woolsey who actually said "the blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands" in a debased pop off that rivals those of even Trump and Carson.

What is this lunatic thinking? Where does he pull this from? Is he even remotely aware that the end-to-end encrypted devices and apps (like 'Whats App') used by the ISIS bugs weren't even around when Snowden made his revelations in 2013? (On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in their TextSecure application into each WhatsApp client platform. Prior to this there were numerous security holes and issues). Of course, it's all insanity ratcheted up and made to sound rational. It isn't. It's nutso talk. (Especially as it is the Tech companies which are now most adamant about not removing encryption for their apps because they believe it will degrade the devices' usefulness.)

Snowden then was absolutely correct to expose the violations of our 4th amendment rights which even a subsequent   300-page report  by a commission (appointed by Obama himself)  found to be infringing on our civil liberties with dragnet collection of our personal information and data. What are we even worth as a country and a people if we succumb to so much fear that we're prepared to sacrifice our principles and liberties which is precisely what these fucktard terrorists want?

But given that the CIA also believed JFK was guilty of "treason" - and so had him terminated in an executive action- the words out of Woolsey's mouth perhaps aren't surprising.  In JFK's case, he earned the company's wrath by refusing to support their ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion with air power, and then fired Allen Dulles as CIA Director in the aftermath. Worse, he commenced a year's long secret rapprochement with Fidel Castro - certainly which would be viewed as a stab in the back, just like Snowden's revelations are now by Woolsey.

Thankfully more of the background details of this will be brought out in David Talbot's new work, “The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government,”  which extends out from JFK’s murder to investigate the rise of the whole shadowy network that Talbot holds ultimately responsible for the president’s assassination, and which metastasized in its wake. This is a work long since needed, and particularly how Dulles kept his little operations going on sub rosa even after JFK ditched him. (Dulles was later appointed to be on the Warren Commission by LBJ. Two real traitors working in league with each other to cover their foul tracks.)

As for the Reepo presidential candidate clowns popping off with their own whacked out rhetoric on the refugees, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson had this to say on Chris Hayes' All In last night:

"It doesn't surprise me coming from the right wing blather of the Republican Party. It's the kind of talk that surrounded the internment of the Japanese who were loyal to a fault. But we put them in concentration camps. It's the kind of talk that's extremely dangerous. It's the kind of talk that plays right into the hands of Al Baghdadi and Al Zawarahi, Al Musra and so forth.

Because that's what they want...they want us to act to bring about our own suicide".

That suicide, of course, also extends to killing our own constitutional principles in the interest of trying to get absolute security. But as Benjamin Franklin put it: "Those who would sacrifice liberty to gain a temporary security deserve neither liberty or security."

He didn't mince words. And why should he have? Liberties once lost, as Woolsey would have wanted us to do, are difficult if not impossible to win back. Once you give them up - say in the midst of combating these asshole terrorists (the latest attack was in Mali last night) you surrender to them, without even firing a shot.

Most citizens, indeed, aren't even aware our liberties (including the right to own guns) hang on a metaphorical knife edge. This concerns Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, which has remained in effect since and was actually activated after 9/11. The order stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001.  Later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

 According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes past protest movements like Occupy Wall Street and anyone who currently protests the Keystone XL pipeline, chemical toxins in water or fracking. (No surprise this meme is still lurking - ready to spread- as we learned in the Denver Post (Nov. 18) that certain citizens of Thornton, CO had their names and home locations placed in red on a city council map as "opponents to fracking". )

How much did Snowden reveal or confirm that we didn't know or realize before - bordering on coming this [[ close to a totalitarian state? investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham disclosed the extent of the spying :

"The following information seemed to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Are Americans really ok with all that indiscriminate snooping in a terror war? If so, they merit neither liberty or security. They are prepared instead to surrender their most precious rights to the ISIS or other rats at the drop of a hat. Blaming the French deaths on Snowden also shows Woolsey has his head where the Sun doesn't shine, just like the CIA's earlier mutations (e.g. Allen Dulles) who orchestrated Kennedy's executive action then blamed it on a patsy they set up.)

Former NSA code breaker Bill Binney  delivered the sane view after the Snowden disclosures emerged and those like James Clapper and Keith Alexander were making noises about the need for mass warrant, dragnet searches.

"First of all I don’t understand this being bamboozled into thinking that you have to do this to find bad guys. That’s false. There’s very simple principles you can use to find out who is the bad guy and who isn’t and you can do this without violating anybody’s privacy”.

Americans need to keep things in perspective as this current terror epoch continues and not surrender their brains and balls to the hysterical, unhinged voices spouting off on the tube. Better yet turn the tube off - as well as other media access- and reclaim your gray matter by doing some serious reading.  As author Harold Bloom put it:

"If we fail to read conscientiously and seriously we risk becoming lost in the visual media"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/64867/the-republicans-rhetoric-of-hate-and-fear


Excerpt:

"In the history of the United States, just the members of the white-hooded Protestant-professing fire-and-brimstone Klan killed and maimed more Americans than all the murders by non-Christian terrorists—and that includes 9/11. Add in the number of serial killers, the racists who killed children in churches, the zealots who killed health care personnel because they performed legal abortions, and the people like the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber, and the number of pretend-Christians killing Americans rises to hundreds of times greater than any Muslim attack."

The Dem Debate: Bernie Sanders Wins 'Hands Down'

Bernie Sanders was confrontational when he had to be and showed he had the better grasp of issues and solutions than Hillary

One thing that quickly distinguished the CNN Democratic debate from its Reepo predecessors is that it was emphatically not a clown cavalcade. There was no bombastic carnival barking a la "The Donna" Trump, or wicked mud slinging or insulting female questioners with nasty, personal references to intimate body processes. Nor did we behold knuckle dragger aversion to real and serious issues like climate change. One instantly could see, indeed, the average I.Q. of those on stage was at least 30, maybe 40 points higher than the Reepos demonstrated.

Of course, the Reepo clown followers wouldn't see that, why would they? Give their I.Q.s are at or near the level of their clownish heroes.  

Interestingly, the moron Neolib media punditocracy in general yucked it up and most thought Hillary "dominated" as she did in 2008 against Barack Obama (and we saw how that turned out!). But I had to wonder if those morons, as on 'Morning Joe',  saw the same debate that I did.

Taking the whole debate in context, I was happy to concur with MSNBC's Chris Matthews (in his post-debate show) that Bernie Sanders won, if it can be likened to a contest (which I believe it can) or perhaps better a boxing match in which points are awarded for each hit. In this case Sanders scored more hits in the time than his main competition - Hillary - while the other three (O'Malley, Chafee, Webb) ended up largely as bystanders. Lincoln Chafee, in fact, basically disqualified himself with the lamest response when he tried to defend one vote (to abolish Glass-Steagall) using "he only just arrived in the Senate". Sorry, doesn't wash, doesn't work.

Sen. Sanders, meanwhile, at once showed he was of presidential caliber especially by not falling into Anderson Cooper's "go to war" trap in the Middle East. Bernie wisely stipulated any American response in the Middle East would not be based on a "Pax Americana" - following JFK's ideals- and would have to be done cooperatively (with emphasis on the Arab states involved to defend their own region, e.g. against ISIS). Further, he would not have any "no fly zones" in Syria (as Hillary has advocated but which risks accidental altercation with the Russians) nor send in ground troops. "War must be a last resort!" He insisted. And he's right, given too many neocons, especially still ensconced at State, have too quickly adopted the mode of conflict (like in the Ukraine).

Sanders also scored points against "Hill" on capitalism though - granted - seeing it required viewers to  not only know their recent history but recognize pretentious BS when presented. Thus, when Hillary responded to Bernie's stout representation of Democratic Socialism, e.g. in reference to models in Denmark, Norway and Sweden by saying:

"It's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amuck and cause the kind of excesses we're seeing in our economic system".

At that juncture one had to be able to pause and ask: "And what, pray tell, might that 'job' be?" She didn't say - she merely launched vacuous words into the media ether and hoped enough dummies would swallow cheap rhetoric and nod heads. Bernie meanwhile was clear that such a control of capitalist  excesses would require nothing short of a political revolution. By which he meant - not military revolution (as dumbo Jim Webb seemed to think) but rather along the lines of consciousness raising as first proposed by Charles Reich in his classic, The Greening of America,  nearly 44 years ago.

Hillary then played upon Americans' general ignorance of economic history by actually saying:

"But we would be making a grave mistake by turning our backs on a system that built the greatest middle class in the history of the world."

Seriously?  In fact, the American Middle class was built after WW II by a series of programs, including the G.I. bill which empowered affordable home ownership (enabling my dad to help buy his first place) as well as paid for college education.  THAT built the Middle Class along wikth the earlier New Deal of FDR - by which oldsters could finally attain a measure of financial independence and didn't have to move in with the "kids".   But Hillary, as she often does, played 'Muricans for dunces  - betting on their weak historical memories.

Sanders was also spot on with his consistent emphasis and application of the inequality argument, and especially the need to break up the three biggest banks which, let us recall, received their bailout money 7 years ago by claiming they were "too big to fail". When Hillary suggested a congressional route to solve the problem, including reference to Dodd-Frank (which Maul Street is already plotting to blow up) Sanders retorted with one of the quotes of the night:

"Congress does not regulate Wall Street, Wall Street regulates congress."

Hillary lost primarily on several counts, not the least of which were accentuated by her almost shouting and strident monotone - which more resembled a droning harpy than a hard core, no nonsense candidate. Her attempts to knock Bernie's record on guns were also misplaced,  especially for any Sanders' supporters aware of the basis for his gun record in Vermont - and that if he had not voted against certain gun restrictions (as in the Brady Bill)  in that rural state - he'd never have become Mayor of Burlington, VT, far less a congressman then U.S. Senator and now Presidential candidate.

By those cheap shots alone, Hillary likely lost 60 percent of  potential Sanders' supporters, i.e. moving to her side if he fails to win the nomination. (Btw, Sanders' take that rural and urban citizens need to come together to effect significant gun law changes was spot on, all Martin O'Malley's inept blathering to the contrary. And O'Malley seemingly forgot how the eastern shore of MD was actually up in arms against his anti-gun actions as MD governor.)

Other Hillary misfires, not necessarily in the order they transpired:

- Trying to defend her changed TPP vote by resorting to the trope that she "had time to rethink it"

- Trying to defend her (then) vote for the Patriot Act - expecting somehow the Bushies wouldn't skew it toward loss of civil liberties as they did with Sec. 215.

- Clinton falsely claimed that Snowden could  have returned and sought whistleblower protection when she ought to know damn well (as former Secretary of State) that such protection is only for government employees, not a contractor as Snowden was. 

- Asserting she'd teach Putin a lesson, without really saying how she'd manage that trick.

Sanders, by contrast, delivered sober answers such as that (if he returned to the U.S. for trial)  Edward Snowden deserved to have taken into consideration the fact that he did expose illegal wiretapping by the NSA. (A subsequent Obama commission as well as a federal judge actually reached this conclusion). Also, he exposed the clear violation of the 1978 FISA law by the Bush bunch, which required actual signed warrants for EACH violation. Then negated under Sec. 215.

But the biggest laugher was when Hillary claimed she was a "progressive" when she is and always has been a Neoliberal centrist. It's easy, of course, to be a progressive when it suits your fancy or convenience - and is done for political expediency.  Say anything to rip off some of Bernie's left base.

However, the real badge of courage is wearing that label via your actual convictions and actions - even when the Reepos are snarling non-stop and hurling all manner of epithets at you and the clueless corporate media treats you like a pariah (as it mostly does Sanders).

The clear sign that Sanders was the winner "grown up" and Hillary the "child" that needed his protection?  When Cooper fired a question at him about Hillary's email troubles and Sanders immediately referred to the 27 million in poverty, the immense inequity of wealth distribution and then thundering in Hillary's direction: "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails!"

He received a standing ovation for that, and to me, that won him the night. Hillary immediately came over to his lectern and shook his hand as if to say "Dear God! Thanks Bernie, for saving my bacon!"

The idiot 'Monday morning' quarterbacks in the media, of course, considered it a "gift" from Sanders, but it shows how stupid they are. Peeling away the superficial appearance and going to the subtext it revealed a gentleman with tons more magnanimity than his opponent and also a ferocious sense for what our political discussions should really center on: the issues that matter most to ordinary Americans - as opposed to the asshole elites, and the rich donor class  of the Repuke party.


That instant of Sanders' focal outburst, beyond any others, also encapsulated Sanders' graciousness toward his primary  competitor while projecting him as superior to that competitor.  The whole audience knew it, even the moderator, although they may not have said it. But that was the winning moment.

The last element that showed me that Sanders conquered the night was giving the only correct response to the question on the most serious security threat facing us: climate change. (see e.g. http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate/climate-change-security-risk-pentagon-0563675/ .  The others mentioned ISIS, Middle East war etc. - and while serious, none come close to climate change in posing the risk to extinction (other than nuclear war with the Russians, of course).

Also catapulting Bernie's stock was the post - debate news that Google searches on "Bernie Sanders" trumped all the others by a two to one ratio. People who may not have heard of him before, have now seen him on a national media stage. In that glaring venue they have also seen he can not only hold his own with the Dem front runner, but display such noblesse oblige toward her that one can only picture him in that Oval Office - with perhaps her as his Veep.

It would be the generous thing to do. We will see. But to many of us, Bernie felt the "Bern" and won tonight.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/13/this_was_bernie_sanders_night_the_candidate_of_anger_and_honesty_won_the_democratic_debate/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/64301/the-first-democratic-presidential-debate-had-adults-on-the-stage

The French Islamic Terrorists: Is Their Aim To Provoke the West Into Over-reaction?

The French terror attacks, which have now left 18 dead, have been summarily described by one French official as "the French being at war". No, I don't think so. That fulsome rhetoric embodies precisely the memetic mistake the U.S. made after 9/11 which enticed us into nearly bankrupting ourselves by two useless 'wars' (I call them occupations) that have merely left us with $4 trillion in debt (when all the medical costs are finally toted up). Rather than treat the al Qaeda imps as what they were - criminals- we inflated them to the level of another superpower just like us, as demonstrated by the military response in Afghanistan (now 13 years and counting) and the debacle in Iraq.

Anyway, Juan Cole has some insightful words on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. He points out that the shooters were neither "attacking free speech" nor "defending Mohammed"; they were using a time-honored tactic of radical extremists (of all stripes): "sharpening the contradictions," hoping to provoke an overreaction that would lead to repression and persecution of Muslims in general -- thus helping the extremists recruit new members. 

This is similar to  what bin Laden did with such spectacular success with 9/11: provoking an endless global war, with Western "interventions" and "targeted assassinations" and drone strikes that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- all of which, as our own security services tell us, have fed the flames of extremism and made the situation worse.

Much of this was highlighted in my blog post of May 4, 2011, referencing Rachel Maddow's excellent analysis from the night before.  Maddow showed, using assorted news releases, past documented video quotations and third party reports how we'd all been had in a classical 'rope a dope'. While we had our eyes and minds focused on the DEATHS brought by Bin Laden from his 9/11 terror attacks, we lost sight of his hidden goal: to bring the whole American Republic to its knees by making it spend itself into oblivion. Which is damned near what we have succeeded in doing, by erecting an entire security -defense establishment (much of it contracted out) in addition to an expanded military -industrial establishment.

In the meantime, most of our civil liberties have been extirpated or at least seriously compromised by the Patriot Act and other provisions exposed by Edward Snowden.

According to Maddow, in her then introductory remarks:

"When we think about Bin Laden we think about murder, mayhem and perverted, pseudo-theology. But Osama Bin Laden himself always thought about money. Money was always how he explained what he was doing, and what al Qaeda was up to. One month after the September 11 attacks, gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he said, quote:

"The losses on Wall Street amounted to 16 percent, and they have said this was a record loss that had never happened in the market's history in 230 years. The capital in circulation in this market amounted to $4 trillion. If we multiply 16 percent by $4 trillion to find out the losses their shares suffered, that is $640 billion. This is what they lost in one hour. The national income in the U.S. is $20 billion.

Bin Laden, in Maddow's quote from Al Jazeera, then goes on to brag about the hidden economic costs latent in the "psychological shock" after the attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

Maddow then played the infamous Bin Laden video that emerged just on the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential elections. In this video he's heard to state

"Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the attacks but America in the incident and the aftermath spent more than $500 billion"

So even three years after the horrific 9/11 events, Bin Laden wasn't bragging about the deaths or physical damage inflicted on New York or Washington but the financial costs to the country. Obviously, as Maddow pointed out, that was where his head and major purpose were, though Americans always believed it was about death, destruction.

Juan Cole's insight and suggestion is that, like the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11, the aim of the French terrorists might well have been the same - to provoke France and the West into a disproportionate response that will cost blood and treasure.

Do the French have the good sense not to fall into the trap that we fell into, set by bin Laden? (Who must still be laughing from his watery grave)?  Only time will tell, but when one hears any kind of "war" rhetoric the future doesn't appear very auspicious.

American Optimism is Fading? Of Course!

The news according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this month "put an exclamation point on Americans’ lost optimism" in the words of WaPo columnist Dana Milbank
.
When asked if “life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us,” fully 76 percent said they do not have such confidence. Only 21 percent did. That was the worst ever recorded in the poll; in 2001, 49 percent were confident and 43 percent not.

But the question in many social critics' minds is why the numbers aren't even lower. Given the aggravation of two misbegotten invasions launched for little gain, and in fact lots of debt, plus the financial meltdown of 2008 (and many people still trying to catch up) the confident percentage ought to really be no higher than 15 percent.

According to Milbank:

" I called Fred Yang, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey along with Republican Bill McInturff, and he told me the pessimism was universal. The wealthy were as down as the poor (75 percent and 73 percent, respectively) and even those who felt that they were doing well personally didn’t think their children would do as well (61 percent). Women are as grim as men, and there’s little difference according to race (whites are slightly more pessimistic and Hispanics slightly less) or by region (Westerners are slightly less gloomy than the others).

The young are relatively less pessimistic than the old (64 percent to 86 percent) but still plenty discouraged in absolute terms. Republicans (88 percent) were more dour than Democrats (61 percent), "

So he concludes that "the gloom goes beyond wealth, gender, race, region, age and ideology." In other words, it's systemic and pervasive. But the question remains: Why? According to Milbank:

Americans are reacting, in part, to the breakdown of the political system, which leaves people quite rationally worried about American decline and the nation’s diminishing ability to weather crises.

But I fail to process this one at all.  The "breakdown of the political system" is a suspect reason and here's why: In a recent similar poll 71 percent blame gridlock in D.C. as the main reason for the nation's political paralysis. Yet - get this - 46 percent of those polled want the chief culprits - the Repukes - to remain in power in the House and almost as many want them to take the Senate. If the same pukes have only a 16 percent approval rating, why would anyone want them dominating even one house of congress? It makes no sense and shows Americans to be the biggest idiots ever, or suffering from some psychosis manifesting as intense and inexplicable cognitive dissonance,

It's as if Americans know what ails them but prefer not to deal with it. Or, to quote one guest that appeared on Melissa Harris Perry last Sunday: "Americans want the Democrats in to be able to get things, but they want the Republicans to ensure they don't have to pay for them."

Which again discloses stupidity or perhaps more a childishness borne of consumer culture that keeps most Americans at the level of infants. (As demonstrated yesterday morning when a WIRED magazine cover image of Edward Snowden was shown cradling the American flag, and nitwit Bimbo Nora O'Donnell spouted: "Do we get to toss tomatoes at newsstands?" Uh no, missy, you suck it up and then stop editorializing when reporting news items. Hint: Follow the professionalism and lead of Charlie Rose, your co-anchor!)

In any case, any realist would be able to inform the pundits as well as Milbank that the "lost optimism" would have to go far beyond our fucked up political system - at least for those paying any attention. The reasons include:

1- Rampant climate change catastrophes already beginning to ravage most of the planet and even our own nation as we see massive floods in the east and south, and we know one predicted outcome of more CO2 in the atmosphere is greater long term precipitation. (As well as drought in other regions, such as the West).

Thus, as climate change forcing increases,  Americans will suffer ever more in property losses, and indeed I predicted such a hellacious year months ago, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/2014-year-global-warming-deniers-will.html

2-  1/2 percent of the global populace controls nearly 87% of its wealth, including access to key resources. Four fifths of the world population remains malnourished and this will worsen as the Green Revolution collapses from loss of topsoil etc.

3-  Most Americans sense they've been played on the much ballyhooed "energy independence" theme pushed by their reps - by way of oil and gas fracking.. Those with eyes to see (and noses to smell) observe the devastation to the natural environment and realize their properties and health, as well as water, may be next.

4- Sensible and intelligent Americans observe and see their country is in massive decline, and all the soft soaping and PR by politicos that endorses refuting one's "lying eyes"  won't change that. Any dummy can see the latest massive water main breaks, and bridge collapses and knows that his or her  burg is next. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/04/now-we-know-american-decline-is-no-myth.html

Milbank is correct that:

 "For much of U.S. history, optimism was a given. The Post’s polling analyst, Scott Clement, came up with a 1942 survey by Princeton University’s Office of Public Opinion Research that found U.S. parents, by 43 percent to 27 percent, expected their children to be better off in 20 years. A Roper poll in 1983 found that 54 percent thought it likely that children would have a better life than their parents, versus 44 percent who didn’t.."

But in fact, optimism for American realists dived after the assassination of John F, Kennedy in November, 1963. Most of us from that date understood more powerful forces were in charge of the government (a 'shadow' government comprised of the national security state and its minions) and thus the outward political promises and displays were all a sham. A Potemkin portrayal of truth. A lie. And in the ensuing years we beheld the lie played on fellow citizens, even as they were engulfed by consumer culture - and devolved to "consumers".

By the time of May-June, 2013 and Edward Snowden's revelations of the excesses and overreach of the NSA, with so many calling for his head- we knew too many had fallen prey to the propaganda and were even willing to forego their own civil liberties if they could retain their nappies and feel "safe", thanks to the all-seeing "Pappy state". (Never mind the Pappy state has eviscerated all their 4th amendment rights.)

That a few more now are somewhat pessimistic simply means that political reality may be beginning to enter their thick, impermeable craniums, or maybe not. We will have to see.  That means seeing the pessimism numbers increase and grow in proportion to how we are all being mind-fucked by the PR manipulators and media. If instead,  another clown politico like Ronnie Reagan enters the scene with his 'Morning in America' BS, and the happy numbers go back up - we will realize Americans still haven't digested or ingested reality. One cannot, at the same time, be a happy -go lucky buffoon and have assimilated the existing reality.

And reality is always a bitch! In that sense, Chris Hedges' words are perhaps most trenchant (p. 143):

“Cultures that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion die."

Vanity Fair Poll Shows Most Americans Remain Brainwashed Idiots

"America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat"- blogger writing on SmirkingChimp last July

"It is a fact that every democracy that's existed  has committed suicide." - John Adams


The recent Vanity Fair poll results on ethics, disclosed this morning on CBS Early Show, is enough to drive the true citizen into permanent depression. In one poll question, to do with Edward Snowden's ethics in disclosing NSA surveillance overreach, 54 percent asserted he was in the wrong, only 27 percent that he was right to do so. Meanwhile, even more atrocious, nearly one fifth of respondents (19%) said they "had never heard of Edward Snowden". That means a total of 54% + 19% = 73% of those polled are either dolts or brainwashed morons. That's essentially three-fourths of all Americans, assuming this sample is in any way representative, which I believe (from past polls) it is.

The VF hack who released the results on the air said it showed "Americans' opinions had evolved from when they first thought he was a hero."

No, that's not it at all. It shows these fools have been brainwashed by the steady,  anti-Snowden media portrayals and drumbeat! And the people were too damned dumb to see through it, and how their minds were being manipulated. Worse, a fifth of the morons were so detached from their responsibilities as citizens - to protect their 4th amendment rights - they didn't even know who Snowden was.  It boggles the rational mind to comprehend how a people who once valued liberty and had enough education to see through vapid media PR, now can't tell their asses from holes in the ground

Sickening! Do the people of this nation even deserve their civil liberties? I doubt it.

If we take common sense for granted in this sampled population (and that is not a foregone conclusion by any means) then one would expect people who are reasonably educated to be aware that their privacy rights are bound up intimately with their 4th amendment rights - to be free of lawless search and seizure. As I noted in previous blogs to do with this issue, while the specific right to privacy isn’t specifically listed in the Constitution,  the Founders understood that as time went on new rights would emerge which they might not be able to think of (e.g. to health care), hence bundled these into the unenumerated rights under the 9th amendment..

We also expect them to be informed enough to grasp the extent of NSA's unconstitutional mass data collection. And hence to realize that if NSA can snatch their email address books, Google searches and content, web browsing histories, Twitter messages, and cell phone calls as well as all telephone call logs, they are in the condition described by Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, who described the NSA programs to the Guardian thusly:

"The Snowden revelations have made clear that there has been an intrusion on our right to privacy of unprecedented scope, yet the government is dismissing any complaints about our right to privacy as irrelevant."

Roth said: "I used to be a prosecutor – I used to put pen registers on people's phones, collecting the numbers that you dial – but I had to manually compile the numbers. It was very labor intensive, and hence self-limiting. Today, the computer can piece together your entire personal life in a matter of seconds."

These damned "Americans" who polled against Snowden make me want to puke. I also know they'd make my Revolutionary War ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh puke, and believe he'd wasted his blood fighting for independence and liberty. Why do it for a bunch of ninnies, sissies and parasites who'd give their freedom away for a song, just to feel "safe"?  They are a waste of space and remind me of the "good Germans" who looked the other way as their friends and neighbors were trotted into camps for criticizing Hitler, the Third Reich or harboring Jews. Those "good Germans", after WWII. had to be dragged into the concentration camps to be shown first hand what their passive compliance engendered during Hitler's reign.

So really, Americans ought to be getting on their damned knees and THANKING Snowden for revealing what he has about the disgusting trampling of their 4th amendment rights.

Sadly, this farce shows how easily people in this country can be led by the nose, and I warrant it's mainly because they don't read enough. They don't read history, don't read economics or politics, or even the news. They certainly don't go to the next level in separating what's sold them via PR, from facts. No, it's easier to stay mired in the vapid, solipsistic virtual "friend" world of Facebook, or Twitter.

They remind me of the same buffoons and passive nincompoops who willingly allowed their polling to be gamed and "moved" via media propaganda back in 2003 - ultimately allowing Bush Jr. to launch the Iraq War, and our congress critters to meekly agree (so terrified were they of the polling).

These "Americans" are a disgrace, and don't warrant the appellation of citizen!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tom-engelhardt/57357/the-fourth-branch-the-rise-to-power-of-the-national-security-state

Stanford Mathematician Calls Out NSA on "Betrayal of Trust"

After having found out in the past week (thanks to a WaPo investigation) that nine of ten ordinary internet account holders were targets of the NSA mass surveillance,  but not the intended surveillance targets,  has justifiably amped up criticism of the super secret agency. Even before this latest incident, voices (including the authors of the Patriot Act). have called out for the NSA to back off and for congress to do something about the overreach.

One of the best recent articles - though not in the mainstream media - appeared in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (Vol. 61, No. 6, p. 624). Entitled 'The NSA: A Betrayal of Trust - by Keith Devlin of Stanford University - it basically summarized in an articulate and coherent manner why so many of us object to the mass collection called "data mining".  Thus, in his piece, Devlin concentrates on the  indiscriminate  vacuuming up of personal information that Edward Snowden released.

Devlin's own background entailed examining the problem of data mining in depth and whether dragnet surveillance that required  "mass" warrants was really effective and justified. Thus, from early 2002 to 2006, he worked on a Defense Department research project called NIMD (Novel Intelligence from Massive Data, e.g.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Novel_Intelligence_from_Massive_Data

funded by the Advanced Research and Development agency.

Devlin undertook this work under a contract to Veridian Inc. and the project was non-classified (he never sought or had security clearance - but his group was asked not to make public statements about its involvement. He acknowledged at the time he was "happy to go along with it".

Which brings us to why he's now gone into print. According to Devlin (ibid.):

"The only reason I am putting these words down now is the feeling of intense betrayal I suffered when I learned that my government and the leadership of my intelligence community took the work I and others did over many years with a genuine desire to prevent another 9/11 attack, and subverted it in ways that run totally counter to the founding principles of the United States, that cause huge harm to the U.S. economy, and that moreover almost certainly weaken our ability to defend ourselves"

(Devlin goes on to emphasize that "what my words express below is my considered and informed opinion that I never had, nor do I now have, any information beyond what is publicly available." Which is a justified aside to make, given how Obama & Co. have used the 1917  "Espionage Act" against those revealing anything)

Leaving out all the details I will just touch on several of Devlin's most important points and findings:

- The "significant human part" of the decision chain tends to be totally overlooked when intelligence leaders and politicians talk in glowing terms about the massive data processing of huge trawls of information.

- Data mining systems don't identify and take out terrorist groups, people do. And those people require not only accurate information but sufficient meta-information to have confidence in any decision that make. ('Meta-information' is information concerning the quality of the information -or lack thereof)

- The bigger you make the dataset, the wider the information trawl, the more unlikely it will lead to an effective counter measure. (Thus, not only did NIMD fail to meet its goal, but as the data collection grew the more inaccessible the goal became.)

- The methods and tools developed via NIMD could be of real benefit if used in a highly targeted way.  Hence the real NIMD message: Use of the search and analysis methods should be narrow and deep.

- The best way to identify the high likelihood targets is via HUMINT (human intelligence). This is not only the most effective way known but "it does not require breaking laws and trampling on the U.S. Constitution. You get a court order and proceed lawfully, it's supposed to be the American way."

The last is a point I've echoed in multiple blog posts since July last year, to the point it's damned near a refrain. The point is what the NSA has now done, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/is-there-no-one-prepared-to-collar-nsa.html

has veered into totally Un-American ways, more emblematic of what the Gestapo used during the brief reign of the Third Reich. The American way, by contrast, respects the rights of citizens enshrined in the founding document - the Constitution and specifically, the Bill of Rights.  It doesn't "go rogue" because technology allows facile snatching of data and personal info. Oh, and it doesn't go ape shit nuts and hyper-fascist because a true patriot called the misbegotten methods used out via file release to selected media.

Devlin's most telling statement echoes those I have also repeatedly made, in regard to the extend to which freedom should be compromised for a temporary security:

"Personally, I would not trade freedom in order to prevent terrorist attacks, even if they were more frequent than the current de facto frequency of every ten years or so. If you do that, the terrorists have won."

Indeed, because the 'bad guys' have manipulated the so-called "protectors" to do to us what they could not: gut our civil liberties and make a mockery of American freedom and rights aspirations. This is exactly why the contest between security and liberty must err on the side of the latter, no matter what. NO matter if ISIS poses a big threat to us, or al Qaeda in Yemen comes back strong, or Iran gets a new bomb...or whatever. All of those threats are insignificant to the preservation of American founding principles.

Once we allow the spooks to gut everything, snatch everything they want with bogus warrants under a bogus FISA law,  we will cease to be the nation founded on the Constitution and the one my ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh fought for. We become instead a fascist mutation.

Devlin leaves his most stinging remark for last:

"As things currently stand, I would not collaborate further with any of the U.S. intelligence services. They have betrayed all of us who were glad to do what we could for the benefit of the free world and have used our work to trample over the Fourth Amendment, to do immense harm to U.S. economic competitiveness, to weaken the Internet on which modern society depends, and to expose us to increased danger from our enemies.

I urge all my fellow citizens to make a similar stand."

 Alas, his final statement requires we stand up as truly free citizens, and reject the 'security blankets' offered us by the security state. "Live free or die" - the motto of one of our states (I believe New Hampshire) - should be our personal motto too!