Ms. McCann is also most definitely not guilty.
I tried to tried this post but got a headache trying to wade through the authors babbling verbosity.
Nothing new, and won’t be the last time.
This problem is exacerbated by a DOJ and IC that has been turned inward (i.e. collecting on citizens) post 9-11 but where the leadership of all these government entities are still just political appointees and those loyal to those appointees.
Watergate wasn’t anything new (it was just the first one where the media played it up), and the FBI acting as it did wasn’t new either: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/04/archives/new-jersey-pages-fbi-is-accused-of-political-acts-for-6-presidents.html
Now, there is one critical/key difference between today and pre Internet and Patriot Act, today the ease and ability to collect, the extent of collection is simply put AWESOME!!! The average citizen carries a tracking system on their hip (cell hone), all of the calls, emails, text messages are considered in the public domain as far as the IC is concerned, toll roads, cameras everywhere, data bases that collect everything about every behavior (private business, health care, Internet activity, financial, education, transportation...), smart appliances, your car (mic and GPS tracking). In the days of Nixon it often required physical entry into a building, whereas today it’s with the push of a button and the ease of obscuring ones identity, avoiding detection is far easier as well.
Why do we act surprised every time this happens?
As soon as government had the power, the misuse began, already under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When you have these sort of powers, it’s sort of like Lord of the Rings (pardon the corny analogy), it’s very tempting and all the ramblings about professionalism and policies are simply bullshit because it merely takes a few folks at higher levels to approve or push for this and the rest all falls into place because you will always find some low level government nug willing to do “ANYTHING” to get the attention and favor of his superiors. Then you just stamp “Secret” all over it and pretend it’s for “national security.” In America you can suspend the US Constitution when it’s for spies, terrorists, foreign nation threats (FISA courts/NSLs...), Global Warming, Social Justice and egalitarianism.
Everyone always has this fake outrage when it happens, but no one wants to fix the problem even though it’s been happening for 70 years! It’s only a bit more pronounced today and in fact IMHO American society has just sort come to accepted this behavior.
When you give government these powers, they will use them.
*** The Flynn story is the story of the most breathtaking abuse of power in our nation’s history ***
I think Julian Assange’s persecution is more breathtaking. Our government’s latest superseding indictment relies on the testimony of a pedophile FBI informant, Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson, who was convicted of fraud, embezzlement (of $240,000 from WikiLeaks), theft, and impersonating Assange. Thoradson was also found guilty of numerous sexual offenses.
The other FBI informant is a convicted petty thief and conman whose Lulzsec hackers group was an FBI entrapment front headed by Hector “Sabu” Monsegur.