Category Archives: Intelligence

Government Gone Wild

Government, Individual Rights, Intelligence, Liberty, The State

Government Gone Wild
By Myron Pauli

If there is one thing that I can guarantee, it is that “the government” does not listen to ME! In 1988, I was at an “intelligence community meeting” where they wanted a consensus over doing “engineering-level-drawings” of everything that “the Soviet Union” would be deploying 62 years later in 2050, when some dissident in the rear (me!) pointed out that 62 years ago, we did not know of “…the neutron, jets, transistors, computers, lasers, DNA, penicillin, inertial navigation ….” In frustration, I said, “We don’t even know if there will be a Soviet Union in 10 years!”. A USAF Colonel responded eloquently with “shut up!”

In fact, the government cannot be listening to most Americans. It certainly did not pay any attention to Major Nidal Hasan who was carrying on for months about killing Americans. The government could not even monitor that a buck private, Bradley Manning, was downloading 750,000 documents! Did they think he was a speed-reader?? Nor can the government listen to over 300,000,000 Americans – but it CAN archive everything – to be searched later, on any pretense. The odds of some nutcase Adam Lanza posting on FACEBOOK “I am going to shoot up P.S. 84” is remote and the odds of the NSA picking that up is even remoter.

After the fact, of course, they can datamine Tsardaev, Lanza, Ron Paul, Pope Francis, Glenn Greenwald or anyone of interest. And will millions of people having who-knows-what access to these databases, who-knows-what mischief can happen. The crucial issue, in my opinion, about Edward Snowden, who “outed” himself, is: Who else has access – how do we know that Putin and Xi are not accessing the American database on Americans – what could be more convenient to China but to tap into the database that the NSA updates – if Bradley Manning can do it, why not Xi? And since Uncle Sam shares intelligence with “our allies” – do they let the Germans spy on Americans while our government spies on Germans and share the data?

Keep in mind the old movie “All the Kings Men,” where corrupt Governor Willie Stark wanted this reporter to “get the dirt” on his enemy, Judge Stanton. How much easier with billions of dollars of computers and trillions upon trillions of bytes of information to access? Remember J. Edgar Hoover who had the goods on Presidents, Congressmen, and Martin Luther King? What a field day he would have nowadays.

But the ultimate tragedy is that most Americans care not a hoot for the Fourth Amendment or the rest of the constitution. Feeling safe is what counts. Arguably, locking up drunk drivers or all black men aged 14-34 might reduce drunk driving or reduce inner-city crime. But what is more appalling is how many Americans would support such odious rubbish in the name of “safety.”

“It can’t happen here? Ask the over 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent who were locked up in “concentration camps” (FDR’s words!) without a shred of evidence and in clear violation of the 14th Amendment and supported by a Supreme Court decision, Korematsu v. US.

TSA, NSA, DEA, DHS, HHS, IRS, whatever – it is all an unaccountable bureaucratic maze – keeping track of the American subjects who vote for the same Congressmen and Presidents who promise use everything from “health care” to “security” to “world leadership” – everything but liberty (an abstraction that few have any understanding of). The problem is not Bush or Obama or Pelosi or Graham or “federal employees” or “contractors” but the Americans who empower this government gone wild.

As for monitoring “the enemy”: Walt “Pogo” Kelly said it best. “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

P.S.: I recommend that everyone watch “Judgment at Nuremberg.”

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Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

Man Up, World! Give An American Patriot Asylum

English, EU, Europe, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Intelligence, Morality, Terrorism, The State

The USA is still the biggest bully in the world. The BBC reports that “Mr. Snowden has already asked 21 countries for asylum, most of whom have turned down his request.” (This is the Queens’s English? I would have written, “Most of which.”)

The US has been blamed for being behind the decision by France, Portugal, Italy and Spain to close its airspace to Bolivia’s president, whose plane was grounded in Austria for 13 hours as a result. …Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro said it would give asylum to the intelligence leaker, who is believed to be holed up in a transit area of Moscow airport.

Let this young man live out his life in Venezuela, instead of in a US cage.

Those who’re not suspended in the moral abyss with mainstream media already know that Edward Snowden is the best of America. Let us prove ourselves worthy of his sacrifice. Come every Memorial Day—more aptly called “Dying For Nothing Day”—we direct a commonplace saying at members of a military that has not defended authentic American liberties for decades. It is, however, to a young man such as this that we should say:”Thank you for your service, Mr. Snowden.”

Like son like father:

Edward Snowden’s father Lon Snowden, in an open letter co-authored with his lawyer, compared his son’s leaks to Paul Revere warning of incoming British troops, “summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one branch government.”
The letter, released to news organizations, lauded Edward Snowden as following the “honorable tradition” of “brave men and women refusing to bow to government wrongdoing or injustice, and exalting knowledge, virtue, wisdom, and selflessness over creature comforts as the North Star of life.”

UPDATED: Trayvon Martin’s Girlfriend Is Kind Of … Cool ( World Stupidity Title Still Held By White American Girl)

Crime, English, Intelligence, Multiculturalism, Pop-Culture, Race, The State

In looks, Rachel Jeantel, Travon Martin’s girlfriend, reminds me of the poor, grotesque Precious from the eponymous (horror) film. However, Jeantel has attitude. She’s sly, wily and she’ll cut you (ghetto for dangerous).

A lot of predictable pixels have been spilled on explaining a dah factor: why, in race obsessed America, “Black People Understand Rachel Jeantel,” whereas “White People Don’t.”

How boring. Especially when Rachel is so interesting.

I could not get enough of her. The fake bangs and bun, the authentic eff-you attitude, the honest, sad, unapologetic admission of ignorance. The soft voice, so different from the staccato, tart tones emitted by so many of the nation’s white girls. How many of the latter can even use the word “cursive” in context? (Rachel admitted she could not read “cursive,” when asked to read a letter she had allegedly penned as an account of Martin’s shooting.)

As I said, Rachel rocks, in a grotesque kind of way.

Celebrity chef Paula Deen was accused of being a relic from the Old South. I doubt that blacks in the bad old days were as lost, as in on a road to nowhere, as poor Rachel is.

Rachel Jeantel holds up a mirror to American culture. To the men who questioned her, she is like an alien from Deep Space. A stranger.

America is a nation of strangers. It has become a mass of writhing, competing, combative and rather miserable factions, motivated by resentments and envy, and lacking in any common core, other than the State. The State manages and fuels this misery.

UPDATE (6/30): WORLD STUPIDITY TITLE STILL HELD BY WHITE AMERICAN GIRL. Rachel Jeantel is not nearly as stupid as Lauren Caitlin Upton of the 2007 Miss Teen USA fame. Caitlin was asked why so many “Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map.” Her reply included references to “U.S. Americans,” “South Africa,” “Eyeraq,” “Asian countries,” “our children,” each prefaced by the “sophisticated” phrase “such as.” Here’s the full answer. It won Upton the “World Stupidity Award”:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future [for our children].

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UPDATED: Snowden In Search Of Pockets of Freedom

China, Foreign Policy, Government, Intelligence, Media, Propaganda, Russia, Technology, Terrorism, The State

You should have long since said adieu to the quaint idea of absolute freedom. With the triumph of the suprastate over the individual, achieved by rigid central planning and the harmonization of laws across the globe—only pockets of freedom remain. Robert Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal counters mainstream media’s backward reasoning, according to which Edward Snowden is no freedom fighter because he has been protected by two other unfree powers (one spent; the other nascent).

That ridiculous notion has found expression in Henry Blodget’s smarmy tweet:

Snowden flees one paragon of freedom and privacy, China, for another–Russia

The Blodget conceit amounts to thinking in aggregates, reasons Robert Wenzel:

[Blodget] writes as though the circumstances for freedom are the same for everyone in a given country. This is far from the truth. I have written many times that even in a heavily totalitarian state some may be able to live just fine, a surfer dude for example. For others, in the US, time may be already up for some in the financial sector. Anyone putting deals together for very small companies, say, may find it much more attractive to work outside the constraints of US securities laws, which benefit no one other than major established players.

Pax Dickinson, contends Wenzel, is closer to the mark, tweeting sarcastically that, “Snowden should have fled to a noble & free country like the USA where we hold whistleblowers naked in solitary confinement without trial.”

Read Robert’s EPJ post (where you can also catch up on my latest weekly column, “Trying to be neighborly in the Evergreen State”).

Yesterday I heard a legal expert based in Hong Kong venturing that the imperative to hand Snowden over to US authorities was “not within the ambit of the American-Chinese extradition treaty.”

Yippee.

Today came the news, via the intrepid Guardian, that “Edward Snowden heads for Ecuador after flight to Russia leaves authorities in various countries amazed and infuriated”:
Snowden was five hours into his flight from Hong Kong, having already been served one of two hot meals, when news of his departure to Moscow began to electrify media organisations all over the world.
The Hong Kong authorities waited until Snowden was safely out of Chinese airspace before sending out a short press release that confirmed the intelligence whistle-blower had been allowed to leave on Aeroflot flight SU213, bound for Russia.
The 30-year-old had not been stopped on his way to Chek Lap Kok airport, and was allowed to slip away on a hot and humid morning, despite American demands that he be arrested and extradited to face trial for espionage offences.
The reason?
The Americans had mucked up the legal paperwork, the authorities claimed in a statement released at 4.05pm local time.
Hong Kong had no choice but to let the 30-year-old leave for “a third country through a lawful and normal channel”.
If the sudden “discovery” of a flaw in legal proceedings prompted sighs of relief around the island and across the rest of China, there would have been sharp intakes of breath in Washington and London, where diplomats and intelligence officials had been hoping the net around Snowden was finally tightening.

MORE.

UPDATE: Via The New York Times:

…Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, said in an interview from his own refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London that he had raised Mr. Snowden’s case with Ecuador’s government and that his group had helped arrange the travel documents. Baltasar Garzón, the renowned Spanish jurist who advises WikiLeaks, said in a statement that “what is being done to Mr. Snowden and to Mr. Julian Assange — for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest — is an assault against the people.”
Obama administration officials privately expressed frustration that Hong Kong allowed Mr. Snowden to board an Aeroflot plane bound for Moscow on Sunday despite the American request for his detention. But they did not revoke Mr. Snowden’s passport until Saturday and did not ask Interpol to issue a “red notice” seeking his arrest.
Legal experts said the administration appeared to have flubbed Mr. Snowden’s case. “What mystifies me is that the State Department didn’t revoke his passport after the charges were filed” on June 14, said David H. Laufman, a former federal prosecutor. “They missed an opportunity to freeze him in place.” He said he was also puzzled by the decision to unseal the charges on Friday rather than waiting until the defendant was in custody. …
…While officials said Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, it was not clear whether the Hong Kong authorities knew that by the time he boarded the plane, nor was it clear whether revoking it earlier would have made a difference, given the Ecuadorean travel document that Mr. Assange said he helped arrange. When Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow, he was informed of his passport revocation.
Mr. Assange said he did not know whether Mr. Snowden might be able to travel beyond Moscow using the Ecuadorean document. “Different airlines have different rules, so it’s a technical matter whether they will accept the document,” he said.

MORE.

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