Posted on 10/07/2007 2:15:27 AM PDT by tlb
Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California.
He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists.
Details of Maziarz's case emerged after he pleaded guilty to mishandling more than 100 classified documents from 2004 to last year. The overall breach could be far larger: Investigators believe that as far back as the early 1990s, the intelligence-filching ring began taking hundreds of secret files from Camp Pendleton and the U.S. Northern Command, which tracks terrorist activity in the United States.
In a plea agreement, he received a 26-month jail sentence in exchange for detailing the spy ring. He also agreed to testify against his alleged accomplices if they are charged.
The case is an intelligence nightmare, said defense analysts briefed on it.
They also said it unmasks the military's growing role in post-Sept. 11 domestic security and confirms that U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda is active in the United States.
“It gives operational security people brain cooties to think about an incident like this,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank that focuses on emerging security concerns.
In the big picture, defense experts said, the Maziarz case isn't just about patriotism. They worry that foreign agents might find it easier to steal secret documents from law enforcement groups, which generally have fewer measures for protecting classified information than federal intelligence agencies.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
You're two paygrades off. The article identifies Maziarz as a Gunnery Sergeant not a Master Gunnery Sergeant.
The people whom Maziarz described as his accomplices include:
Larry Richards, a Marine reserve colonel and detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He co-founded the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group in 1996. On the military side, he has received a Bronze Star for developing psychological-warfare strategies during the Iraq war.
David Litaker, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and, until recently, a Marine reserve colonel.
Mark Lowe, another Marine reserve officer and a pilot for Delta Air Lines.
Lauren Martin, a Navy reservist who worked as a civilian intelligence analyst at U.S. Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
That’s what you get for thinking. I’d not be surprised if you would confiscate Buford Pusser’s stick.
I’m just not jumping to conclusions based on a story that alleges a spy ring, is told my the msm, and involves the infamous NCIS, and the United States Marine Corps.
Perhaps you’re the one who doesn’t understand the gravity of the problem.
Gee, I wish some enterprising Marines had broken Gorelicks wall BEFORE 911.
That sounds like a light sentence until you recall the Sandy Berger casee.
On one hand I understand the need for secrecy as well as the need for the control that a chain of command provides. On the other, I remember what mandated lack of sharing between government anti-terrorist efforts resulted in.
Now add to the mix that this story comes from the MSM...
In other words everyone else in this “spy” ring would have had the necessary clearances but not the “access” and the “need to know”.
They used him to gain access and decided they had the need to know because of their law enforcement responsibilities to the community.
Personally I am torn on this issue, perhaps because everyone involved knew what they were getting into and still decided that they had to do it for the sake of perhaps millions of Americans. On the other hand if such information was viewed by the wrong people it could aid in an attack that could kill millions as well.
There in lies the reasons why we have such qualifiers as access, need to know, and clearance, so those that don’t have all three don’t get to see secrets we don’t want exposed unnecessarily.
First, I agree that they are not "spies". It's a really bad choice of words.
Second, even with the MSM spin and misunderstanding, the raw facts show this Gunney having contraband weapons and body armor in locations intended to obscure his possession of them.
Third... well let's just say that the gravity of the problem has been within my AOR.
Reminds me of a film “The Fourth Protocol” in which a British Minister in his zeal to fight the Communists gives TS material to South African Intelligence. The problem is that the guy was working for the KGB and all the info wound up at Dzerzhinsky Square.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is my favorite Western (with Pale Rider a close second), both for the deeper allegory in the story, and also for the fact it unites Ford, Stewart, and Wayne with the latter two giving great performances in the type of roles they did best.
However, I’m not sure of the applicability of the movie to this particular situation. Liberty Valance’s Shinbone was a place where there was no functioning law, but these particular marines operated within the highly structured environment of our armed forces. They may have had the best of intentions, but they chose to operate outside the accepted procedures.
I think the themes of that movie may be much more applicable to a situation like Haditha. When we send our soldiers to war zones like Iraq, we send them into situations in which there is no law, free press or honest witnesses. We expect them to react instantly to deadly situations. To then treat their best decisions as potential criminal acts to be investigated using the local insurgents as witnesses is beyond absurd.
On the streets of Fulija or Anbar province, I want our soldiers to be Tom Doniphon and John Wayne. When it comes to the operation of our military intelligence network, I want Jimmy Stewart and Rance Stoddard in charge.
“Nothing’s too good for the Man who shot Liberty Valance.”
When we get the UN carbon tax, I bet Aruba and the Caymans will be exempt.
This is the kicker; had he not tried to enrich himself with booty then his claim of righteousness could be more believable. Unless this guy and his teammates were planning on starting a revolution and they were all in concert with the weapons and equipment thefts, then it's likely he used the espionage to cover his true nature -- he was a thief. What would the sentence have been without his expose, or if he had not hidden (supposition based by the MSM, and you know how inclusive they are!) other classified materiels in his bunkers?
Then you intuitively understand how many persons of ill repute have been placed into positions to classify previously unclassified material, seize control of operational information, and deny those authorized previously from access, including those who generated the information had had been working with it for decades and continue to work with it as required in their duties. You should also well understand that the percentage of personnel in the chain of command who have been advanced by outside brotherhood associations outnumber those whom have been advanced by simple competition in above the board selection processed. Added to the mix is a lack of recourse at one, two, and three tiers above most pay grades, as well as alternative routes such as IGs, NCIS, and other policing mechanisms.
In 90% to 98% of daily work, business appears as usual, until the decisions requiring wherewithal and actual competence are required, then their weaknesses are not only apparent but obvious to all who are honest and honorable. However those who have been so escalated in authority have gotten away with so much corruption for so long that they return to their conspiratorial brethren, reassuring one another in their continuing lust for more control and authority.
IMHO, the gravity of the problem within your AOR far exceeds that reported in the article and the issues which are larger, by several orders of magnitude, have been manifest since Clinton first assumed the Presidency. What we are witnessing today is merely the degeneracy of a previously well established system by that unchecked corruption.
The response of penalizing the infraction assumes the system works and is workable. 20 years ago I would concur.
When those who conspire in the occult become a majority, their conspiracies are no longer so hidden.
The issues of the article would have been investigated by CounterIntel several decades ago. Today, there are more risks of international contractors placed in positions of operational security than the few remaining intel positions could even respond to operational requests, let alone investigate potential malfeasance.
IMHO, our main strategy in the war on terror as advanced by brotherhoods, has been to allow all enemies of the Constitution to become the operators of our government, so long as they remain obedient to the pecking order of the brotherhood in question or which brotherhood happens to be the flavor of the month.
IMHO, it is easier to grasp the complexity of the problem by looking at the dual of the problem. The real issue isn't how many co-conspirators the GySgt may have known, it's how many in the chain of command outside of the GySgt and his group are NOT corrupt. That might actually be a smaller number. This reflects much more about the true nature of the problem.
It gives me a headaches thinking about Berger.
I'm trying to imagine whether a retired Col. Berger, and former adjutant to a Chairman Of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Clinton, would be doing time in jail or not, if caught doing "espionage" and classfied document destruction for that former Chairman.
I think the answer is "Hello Leavenworth."
In other words, a military officer caught in the same circumstances as Berger would have received a jail sentence.
And quite clearly, they do go to jail.
Exceeded, not exceeds. I'm no longer in that line of work, nor do I want to be.
As for "the brotherhood, the occult" and etc., I know nothing about those topics but .... and this is a big "but" ... money is certainly a catalyst and a strong persuader for some (many) of the issues you raise.
And I think that sums it up... on a purely pragmatic level.
But it remains morally reprehensible.
“All of these individuals knew they were throwing away their careers and more. There’s no apparent financial gain and they are not working for the enemy. Perhaps Islamic terrorism in the US is a far greater threat than the government is acknowledging.”
It is
Looks to me like he might have been getting ready for something.
Respectfully I disagree, when the “powers that be” fail to do their jobs and there is a breakdown and conflict of interest where the agenda is counter to the constitution (see just about everything about the congress and senate) then the old adage about “evil triumphs when good men do nothing” Sure he may have violated some BS security reg. but the reason he did it is because of the failure of our elected officials to quit playing stupid games with our safety.
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