Replies

There’s a number of similarites between some of these people other than calling each other “comrade” on their posts):

Edward Snowden:

Edward Snowden (?used to live in San Diego - apparently wanted to live in Japan):
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-usa-security-snowden-online-idUSBRE95D02320130614

Snowden was only in the military for 4 mths in 2004 - the military won’t release any information - only that he broke both his legs...What are the odds??
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/edward-snowden-army-file-foia/66480/

Sean Smith:

Sean Smith (orig from San Diego - lived in the Hague - Netherlands with his wife and two kids)- Benghazi:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/net-us-usa-libya-smith-idUSBRE88B1G120120912
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Smith_%28diplomat%29
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/sep/19/sean-smith-killed-libya-embassy-attack-san-diego/

Glen Doherty:

“Doherty was a member of the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that opposes proselytizing by religious groups in the United States military. MRFF founder Michael L. Weinstein said that Doherty had “helped me on many MRFF client cases behind the scenes to facilitate assistance to armed forces members abused horribly by fundamentalist Christian proselytizing...”

..”Weinstein is today a one-issue whistle-blower who has driven real change in religious policy throughout the military. Advocating for secularism in the military through the Military Religious Freedom Foundation he founded in 2005, Weinstein has fought a campaign against public prayer and proselytizing by Air Force officers, particularly at the Air Force Academy, his alma mater, where he says he and his sons experienced religious discrimination. Weinstein has been accused of tilting at windmills in his struggles, but he scored a major victory in 2011, when the Air Force suspended a training course for nuclear missile launch officers that used Bible passages and religious imagery in a PowerPoint presentation about the ethics of war. Weinstein’s public persistence continues to influence Pentagon religious policies, including new rules released in 2012 restricting the sale of Bibles adorned with military insignia...”

Tyrone SNOWDEN Woods:

Lived in San Diego: “Tyrone Snowden Woods (January 15, 1971 – September 12, 2012), of Imperial Beach,[83] was born in Portland, Oregon.[93] Woods graduated from Oregon City High School in 1989,[93] south of Portland, Oregon, and served 20 years of honorable service in the U.S. Navy before joining State Department Diplomatic Security[94] as a U.S. embassy security personnel,[75] working under a service contract.[95] Since 2010, Woods had protected American diplomats in posts from Central America to the Middle East.[96]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_S._Woods#Tyrone_S._Woods

Nothing significant other than his middle name is Snowden -

What are the odds???

Julian Assange:

Assange had been enrolled in a computer programming course at CQUniversity,[86] and from 2002 to 2005, Assange attended the University of Melbourne and the University of Canberra as an undergraduate student. He started a ‘Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree, studying physics, pure mathematics and, briefly, philosophy and neuroscience, but he did not graduate.[54][60][87][88]

The fact that his fellow students were doing research for the Pentagon’s DARPA was reportedly a factor in motivating him to drop out and start WikiLeaks.[48][54][88]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

A similar scholistic background to Snowden...is there a type that “they” seek?
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Flashback:

[Amdrews] Drake action within the NSA...

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the NSA required new tools to collect intelligence from the growing flood of information pouring out of the new digital networks like the internet. Drake became involved in the internal NSA debate between two of these tools, the Trailblazer Project and the ThinThread project.[9][22] He became part of the “minority” that favored ThinThread for several reasons,[22] including its theoretical ABILITY TO PROTECT PRIVACY while gathering intelligence.[15] Trailblazer, on the other hand, not only VIOLATED PRIVACY, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and other laws and regulations, it ALSO REQUIRED BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, DWARFING THE COST OF THINTHREAD. Drake eventually became “disillusioned, then indignant” regarding the problems he saw at the agency.[15] Circa 2000 NSA head MICHAEL HAYDEN chose Trailblazer over ThinThread; ThinThread was cancelled and Trailblazer ramped up, eventually employing IBM, SAIC, Boeing, CSC, and others.[24]

In September 2002, Roark and three former NSA officials, William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe,[26] and Ed Loomis,[27] filed a DoD Inspector General report regarding problems at NSA, including Trailblazer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

“Trailblazer was chosen over a similar program named ThinThread, a less costly project which had been designed with built-in privacy protections for United States citizens.[4][3] Trailblazer was later linked to the NSA electronic surveillance program and the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.[3]

Intelligence experts describe as rigorous testing of ThinThread in 1998, the project succeeded at each task with high marks. For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy.[1]

The Pentagon report concluded that ThinThread’s ability to sort through data in 2001 was far superior to that of another NSA system in place in 2004, and that the program should be launched and enhanced. ThinThread was designed to address two key challenges: One, the NSA had more information than it could digest, and, two, increasingly its targets were in contact with people in the United States whose calls the agency was prohibited from monitoring.[citation needed]

Trailblazer Project had more political support internally because it was initiated by Michael Hayden when he first arrived at the NSA.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread

Trailblazer ran over budget, failed to accomplish critical goals, and was cancelled. The whistleblowers (and heir families) who were apparently fighting for our Constitutional Rights and Budget were demonized.

Trailblazer contract went to -
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC - http://saic.com.) today announced a contract award from the National Security Agency (NSA}

The NSA selected the SAIC-led Digital Network Intelligence Enterprise team that includes Northrop Grumman Corporation...”In TRAILBLAZER, NSA is capturing the best of industry technology and experience to further their mission,” said Marty Hill, Booz Allen Hamilton vice president. “Booz Allen is proud to continue our partnership in assisting the Agency with its vital national security mission.”
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SAIC+Team+Wins+National+Security+Agency+TRAILBLAZER+Contract.-a093081931

2006 - Trailblazer leaks:
In 2006 and 2007, Siobhan Gorman, a highly regarded intelligence reporter for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a series of articles about how the National Security Agency was (mis)managing a highly sensitive, very expensive collection program known as Trailblazer. Relying on interviews with current and former senior intelligence officials as well as internal documents, Gorman was able to show that the NSA’s “state-of-the art tool for sifting through an ocean of modern-day digital communications” was a boondoggle of sorts — and that the agency had removed several of the privacy safeguards that were put in place to protect domestic conversations and e-mails from being stored and monitored...

Drake began to interact with Gorman after a friend of Drake’s, described as a former congressional official with whom Drake had an “emotional” relationship, suggested that he contact Gorman. Drake then set up an account with the “Hushmail” e-mail service, and using a pseudonym encouraged Gorman to do so as well. The e-mail accounts served as a mechanism to facilitate the exchange of information. Drake also met with Gorman six times, the indictment alleges. Drake also allegedly helped Gorman in:

- researching stories for the reporter to write in the future by e-mailing unwitting NSA employees and accessing classified and unclassified documents on classified NSA networks;

- copying and pasting classified and unclassified information from NSA documents into untitled word processing documents which, when printed, had the classification markings removed;

- printing both classified and unclassified documents, bringing them to his home, and retaining them there without authority;

- scanning and emailing electronic copies of classified and unclassified documents to the reporter from his home computer; and

- reviewing, commenting on, and editing drafts of the reporter’s articles....
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/nsa-employee-indicted-for-trailblazer-leaks/39006/

“Within the NSA, the primary advocate for the ThinThread program was Richard Taylor, who headed the agency’s operations division. Taylor who has retired from the NSA, did not return calls seeking comment.

Officials say that after the successful tests of ThinThread in 1998, Taylor argued that the NSA should implement the full program.

He later told the 9/11 Commission that ThinThread could have identified the hijackers had it been in place before the attacks, according to an intelligence expert close to the commission.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0518-07.htm

Don’t have time to find out who owned the ThinThread Program.

2007 - Revamping the NSA System:
Under the reorganization, technology developments at the NSA will be consolidated under Winter, whose priorities are expected to include getting Turbulence under control and resolving the agency’s growing problem with limitations on power available to run its expanding information technology systems, according to the memo and other internal documents obtained by the Sun.

Turbulence, which is mostly classified, is the successor to Trailblazer, a five-year program to modernize the agency’s Cold War surveillance technologies. When Alexander arrived, Trailblazer was experiencing cost overruns in the hundreds of millions of dollars and an overall price tag in excess of $1 billion, and he canceled the program. Science Applications International Corp. performed most of the work on Trailblazer.

Alexander initiated Turbulence as a conglomeration of smaller programs pursuing similar goals as Trailblazer. Only 18 months old, it already is considered troubled, but because its budget is not consolidated, some lawmakers wonder if the problems have been fully vetted.

The Senate Armed Services Committee raised that issue in a March 27 hearing: “NSA’s transformation program, Trailblazer, has been terminated because of severe management problems, and its successor, Turbulence, is experiencing the same management deficiencies that have plagued the NSA since at least the end of the Cold War,” states a document of prepared questions published by the committee staff for the hearing. The prepared questions also asked if Turbulence’s budget should be consolidated...

“We are well into a technological age where the pace of development and availability of software, machinery and innovation are outpacing the intelligence community’s old model of acquisition; threatening capabilities and operations,” said Timothy Sample, president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a bipartisan advocacy and research group. “IARPA, NSA’s new CTO and Al Munson, the new DDNI for acquisition, are just a few of the indicators we are seeing that the intelligence community’s leadership is beginning to get the message.”
READ MORE:
http://washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2007/06/09/Hard-sell.aspx

Another general - Michael Hayden made the decision to opt for Trailblazer. It’s interesting to go back especially when one has a short memory such as yours truly...

There had to have been billions spent on this program (Solyndra et al)- there had to have been kickbacks - who got the money and what did it fund?