Fortunately, it's like ants; when it's time to do something about them, you can always follow the trail back to the mound. If only we, and our intelligence services, had the willpower to do so.
Posted on 06/17/2013 7:49:58 AM PDT by Bill Russell
In The Art of War, Chinese strategist Sun Tsu tells the story of how one ancient warlord toppled his most dangerous rival by offering a condemned prisoner a reprieve if he successfully delivered a secret message to the rival’s most capable and loyal general. The prisoner swallowed a wax ball containing the message and was sent into the enemy’s territory. When he was caught, he told the enemy warlord of the message for his general. The wax ball contained the promise of payment to the general for his proposed betrayal of his warlord. Believing his general was plotting against him, the enemy warlord had him killed. The ruse effectively destroyed the trust between the enemy warlord and those who protected him, leaving him alone and vulnerable to whoever wished to attack him.
The scandal over the National Security Agency and the PRISM program disclosed by “whistle blower” Edward Snowden is similar. Whoever is responsible for Snowden's ball of wax being passed to the American people, has timed it perfectly. This story has broken at a time when Americans of all political views are already most distrustful of our government and has cemented in the minds of millions that our most capable spy agency is the enemy of our freedoms. Our enemies may have just achieved a fait accompli in the destruction of our intelligence communities.
This ploy would not have been possible without the actions of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who have undermined our trust. They consistently refuse to name people who are actively at war with the United States as enemies. Deliberate Islamic terrorist acts are labeled as “work place violence.” People who enter the United States illegally are given special status while people who speak out for the protection of our Constitution and founding principles are labeled as potential terrorists. The Prism scandal follows the revelation of the use of the IRS in targeting the TEA Party. The picture that has developed is one of a government using the apparatuses designed to ensure the political, economic, and territorial sovereignty of the United States to target the very groups of citizens who most often rise to protect our nation.
In the complicated mix of foreign and domestic defense of our nation, the NSA plays a crucial role in intercepting enemy communications. The NSA’s focus is on foreign intelligence gathering. It can only assist the Justice Department (FBI) and Homeland Security domestically when requested by those agencies and approved by the President or his designee, the Secretary of Defense. A special court provides oversight to this process.When tracking foreign sponsored terrorists and spies operating within the United States, there has to be an interface to allow the foreign intercepts to be tracked down to operations networks operating within the US. We paid the price for the Clinton Administration’s overzealous interpretation of the requirements for separation between these systems when Jamie Gorelick’s wall did not allow for the identification of Mohammed Atta to be passed to the FBI until after he flew a plane into one of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.[1]
The fall out is not just domestic. Snowden has severely damaged the intelligence relationship with our closest ally, Great Britain. The revelation of Britain’s most secret and diplomatically sensitive surveillance of the G20 Summit by a junior US contract analyst has shattered their trust in our organization. For the Brits, the revelations can be likened to an intoxicated, loud-mouthed betrayal by an alcoholic brother whom you still love. You know he will stand beside you in fist fight, but you cannot trust his judgment to help you protect your family’s most intimate secrets and help keep you out of fist fights.
It will take decades to rebuild the trust of our allies. In the shorter term, this incident has the potential to lead to the dismantling of the NATO defense alliance and the destruction of US efforts to enhance our Pacific-centric coalition in the face of rising Russian and Chinese economic, diplomatic, and military aggression.
Right now, Congressman Alan Grayson leading the charge to change the laws in order to “reign-in” the NSA. This plays directly into the hands of our enemies and will destroy the single greatest asset we have to roll up the networks of Islamic terrorists and Chinese, Russian, and other foreign spies operating in the United States.
The end result of this incident could well be America alone and vulnerable.
We are well on our way to another Church Committee.
It will do untold harm to our security. But the public demands are trending in an irresistible direction.
Intel community in the end has itself to blame for ham-handed fumbling, reliance on unreliable contractors, and caving to Democrat demands to politicize absolutely everything.
Yeah. I wonder how that happened???
America will be no better than a dismantled old truck on the side of the road. Sure the engine turns over, one of the plugs is dead, so it doesn’t accelerate real well, the transmission seems to slip a lot in second gear and skips third gear altogether, the driver-side door doesn’t close all the way, and there’s Visqueen plastic sheeting where the rear window used to be, but Hey! She runs!
Our federal investigative agencies are ignoring the true existential threat to America - Islam and focusing on internal “enemies” - those who would defend the Constitution. If you think the NSA is on the side of our safety, freedom, and security after all that Obama has shown himself to be then I think you are sadly mistaken. All the damage done to America has been self-inflicted.
Why did Obama and DHS want an Internet off switch when they already have complete control over the Internet ? Why did the Obama Admin claim that the Chinese stole all US military secrets when it appears that it’s the Obama Admin are the ones spying on the World
>> Intel community in the end has itself to blame for ham-handed fumbling, reliance on unreliable contractors, and caving to Democrat demands to politicize absolutely everything.
All true, and let me add one other important thing: with all of their intrusive rights-trampling, THEY HAVE NOT PROTECTED US from death at the hands of our foreign enemies!
Make no mistake.
Right. Obama and his team are the enemy.
I beg to differ. During the Cold War in the 1970’s the Soviets were reading all of our Naval messages thanks to the Walker Spy ring. They knew what we were doing, and yet they still lost the Cold War. The entire Government, Media, and Academia have been taken over by Liberal/Progressive/Communist “enemy within”. What Snowden has done is expose their framework for total control and tyranny to the American people and the world. Those of us who took an oath the the US Constitution now have the job of getting the Government, Media and Academia back to those founding principles.
This ploy would not have been possible without the actions of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who have undermined our trust. They consistently refuse to name people who are actively at war with the United States as enemies.
Whether on purpose as I believe, or simply a by-product of their arrogance and hubris, do not forget those who have put US into this position.
Whether you know it yet or not, you and yours have been harmed by what's been done and it ain't over yet. Not by a damn sight.
Nervous Tick ~:” All true, and let me add one other important thing: with all of their intrusive rights-trampling, THEY HAVE NOT PROTECTED US from death at the hands of our foreign enemies! “
Its worse than that !!
Now they will bring in non-vetted foreigners with wide-open immigration , especially from Islamic countries .
Soon , we will not have foreign enemies , because THEY ARE ALREADY HERE !
If the NSA doesn’t want to be scrutinized they should have considered the consequences before they decided to violate the privacy of every American citizen, storing all their data, phone calls, and credit transactions.
If there is some sinister conspiracy here, it’s not to take down the NSA. It’s to solidify the legitimate fear of blackmail for those who oppose it.
And when the next major terror attack happens, which it inevitably will, the NSA will purposely point to any restrictions put on the violation of Americans’ privacy and hope to ride a wave of public opinion after to completely embed itself in every aspect of our lives.
And that is just an intermediate stop toward The Won's goal of the absolute destruction of freedom and Western Civilization in general and this country in particular.
Fortunately, it's like ants; when it's time to do something about them, you can always follow the trail back to the mound. If only we, and our intelligence services, had the willpower to do so.
If we did not have a leader who has appointed political hacks to key offices associated with national security and defense, the NSA would never have reached and the ethics of Snowdown would not have made him feel compelled to leak the information.
As long as the US keeps electing people like Obama, it will be distrusted by its allies and weak in the eyes of China and Russia.
This is not a problem of NSA information leaded, it is a far more significant problem of the American people electing someone who can’t lead. The fear about a strong China, Russia and disolving NATO is not really about what information about NSA has been leaked, it is about the lack of professional leadership in key US government positions and how they are not inspiring government workers with a mission of excellence, ethics, and trust.
I believe that NSA over reached. I believe that NSA should be reinged in to focus on foreign intelligence intercepts and those within the USA that are communicating to evil people outside the USA. NSA should not be involved in capturing data on honest US citizens communicating domestically with other honest US citizens.
Ronald Regan shook Russia and China to their core. He inspired our military and our NATO allies. This country longs for a new and inspirational leader. It is not Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, or Mark Rubio. We need the best to lead.
Give up more of my dwindling freedoms to protect bankrupt America, land of the free stuff, where the cities burst at the seams with brown imports that replace aborted Americans? No thanks. Let the terrorists terrorize the city dwellers day and night. It's what they do. Likely 90% of those on the ground that died in 9/11 were free-stuff voters. Terrorism is a Democrat problem, not mine. Let them choose how they want to handle Islam and leave me out of it.
YES.
“...ham-handed fumbling, reliance on unreliable contractors...”
Really? How about they were doing what they ought not be doing?
Agree with you.
What has Snowden leaked that was not known already in intelligence circles and suspected by most informed people both here and in Europe (and assuredly in Russia and China). This stuff has been going on for years.
All he has done has brought the DOMESTIC spying without warrants on US citizens onto the radar screen of more of the average and low info voters. It’s a public relations issue more than a true intelligence breach.
He has publicized something that has already been talked about by others in the intelligence community (I think William Binney is a former NSA head that talked about this several years ago.)
Snowden has done a great service by getting these abuses out into the public consciousness.The fact that this increased level of awareness by the public came at a time when the current admin has shown their hand at being willing to unfairly target and harm their political enemies just shows what a great breach of trust we rightly should have in our government.
I see the almost unlimited hacking/surveillance/data storage abilities as the great Ring of Power of our age.
I side with Frodo and Gandalf - not with Boromir. Ultimate power (omniscience in the electronic data world) will corrupt absolutely, and so far it has performed horribly in protecting Americans from terrorist attacks.
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