Government – Page 509 – Public Intelligence Blog

Here is the proof — in the form of a just released reputable survey — of the point I have been making. Large numbers of Americans see their government as the problem. It reminds me of conversations I had with Russians and others in the Soviet Union before its fall. Click through to see the charts that accompany this report.

Government Itself Still Cited as Top U.S. Problem
LYDIA SAAD – The Gallup Organization

2014/01/162014/01/16

WInslow Wheeler: Congressional Deception on Pentagon Pork [PBI: Until DoD Down to $400B a Year, 50% Waste is Order of the Day]

Corruption, Government, Military

“Omnibus” Information and Commentary Paper: What Did the Appropriators Really Do to Defense Spending?

Bottom line: At $600B plus, DoD is a pig — easily 40% waste.

Summary of Findings:

Continue reading “WInslow Wheeler: Congressional Deception on Pentagon Pork [PBI: Until DoD Down to $400B a Year, 50% Waste is Order of the Day]”

2014/01/162014/01/16

Greg Palast: Why are Christie and the Kochs in my driveway? It’s time to subpoena the Committee for Our Children’s Future

Civil Society, Corruption, Government

Why are Christie and the Kochs in my driveway?

It’s time to subpoena the Committee for Our Children’s Future

By Greg Palast for Truthout
Thursday, 16. January 2014

Far more insidious, more corrosive and dangerous than the Governor of New Jersey playing traffic warden is the story of Gov. Chris Christie's secret meetings with a gaggle of billionaires –– and the legality of the spending by the front organization set up following these hidden hugger-muggers.

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2014/01/16

Marcus Aurelius: SSCI Unclassified Report on Benghazi Slams State, CIA, CJCS, and CINCAFRICOM

Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) today released a declassified report on Sep 2012 attack on Consulate Benghazi. Invite your attention to SSCI press release, first below, and report's assessment of CJCS's performance as a leader, second below. Actual declassified and redacted report attached in PDF format.

NB: Key findings and recommendations, and complete downloadable PDF, below the line.

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2014/01/16

SchwartzReport: USG Deals with Cartels, Lets Billions of Dollars of Drugs Be Smuggled

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement

When you read this think of the hundreds of thousands of individuals, particularly young people and, most particularly, Black and Brown kids whose lives, and the lives of whose families, were derailed by arrest and incarceration for years or decades for tiny amounts of drugs, while this government supported dope trade was going on. You have to ask yourself: who are the real crimi! nals?

Is it any wonder that American's now see their government as the country's leading problem.

U.S. Deal With Cartel Let Billions of Dollars of Drugs be Smuggled
NATASHA LENNARD, Assistant News Editor – Salon

In a shady deal to garner informants, the government has been working with the notorious Sinaloa cartel since 2000

Read full article.

2014/01/15

Rob Dover: The NSA, Snowden and the Media

Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Media, Military

The NSA, Snowden and the Media

By Robert Dover

e-International Relations on January 15, 2014

As Michael Goodman and I tried to whimsically note in the sub-title of our edited collection on intelligence and the media – media needs intelligence and intelligence needs the media. The symbiosis of this relationship can be partly found in common expertise and practices (investigative zeal and tradecraft around weeding out hidden empirical detail), but also in the political or normative function of intelligence agencies, namely to constrain and repel certain forms of political discourse and activity deemed to be abhorrent to the majority, but more particularly which is abhorrent to the established political elites. So, at a very basic level media outlets learn much from the activities of intelligence agencies and the business they engage in. Similarly the agencies have both used mainstream media to shape debates (the Cold War and the War on Terror were notable examples), and to position adversaries in a particular way (and this might apply to every conflict since the printing press was invented). But what I want to rehearse here are the particular ways in which mainstream and parallel media sources – with a particular emphasis on the UK – have coalesced and acted within the NSA/Snowden furore, and the lessons we can learn from this.

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2014/01/152014/01/23

2014 Intelligence Reform (All Others)

Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, IO Secrets, IO Sense-Making

SHORT URL:

http://tinyurl.com/2014-Intel-Reform

Under Construction – Send Nominations to robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

Updated 23 Jan 2014 14:58 E

Phi Beta Iota: The current literature on intelligence reform is underdeveloped and under-specified. An example of this under- or mis-specification can be seen in the treatment of 9/11. The dominant position that 9/11 was an intelligence failure is correct in principle. It was, however, a failure of counterintelligence not of warning. Ample warnings had been provided, including from 9 different nations warning the White House and the CIA in advance. George Tenet had a clear role in positioning the intelligence community away from these warnings, including ABLE DANGER. Keith Alexander seems to have shared this misplaced analytical view, along with the Acting Director of the FBI who was not able to lever influence when the actual Director resigned. 9/11 was – in effect – enabled by Dick Cheney, who ordered a national counter-terrorism exercise for “the day,” months in advance, despite the numerous and clear warnings — not to stop 9/11, but to allow it, embrace it, enhance it, and leverage it. Today's US Intelligence Community is dedicated to moving money — nothing more — and of course this is all Congress wants, with its eye on the standard 5% kick-back to sponsoring Members. It is not in any way, shape, or form committed to producing ethical evidence-based decision support applicable to national strategy, national policy, national acquisition, or national operations. Intelligence with integrity is not to be found in the US Government (good people, bad system — this is a meta-challenge). Most intelligence scholars are currently serving to bolster this system rather than to stand as critical friends to challenge and help in the reform of it.

Below the line is an integrated list from the past several years. This is everybody else. For an alternative perspective on intelligence reform, see 2014 Robert Steele on Intelligence Reform.

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Category: Government

SchwartzReport: Americans See the US Government As Top Problem