On 31 January 2011 Secrecy News returned to a subject that had been discussed earlier: the federal investigations of former NSA employee Thomas Drake for revealing classified information and of a former congressional intelligence committee staffer, Diane Roark, for assisting him. This latest article essentially quotes former NSA Deputy Director Barbara McNamara as saying Roark fell into the category of staffers that were, “overly intrusive and vindictive” and employed NSA employees as her personal informants. Since I personally know something of this business, I would like to add my own observations on the subject.
FRIDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) — New research shows that obesity is on the rise worldwide — it's doubled since 1980 — but people in the wealthiest nations are managing to reduce their blood pressure and cholesterol level.
Childhood obesity has been steadily rising in the U.S. in the past 30 years, and a new study from American University in Washington, D.C. has found that a child’s weight may depend on how much their mothers were away at work growing up.
Quietly but steadily Central Asia’s basic human and physical
infrastructure – the roads, power plants, hospitals and schools and the
last generation of Soviet-trained specialists who have kept this all
running – is disappearing. The equipment is wearing out, the personnel
retiring or dying. Post-independence regimes made little effort to
maintain or replace either, and funds allocated for this purpose have
largely been eaten up by corruption. This collapse has already sparked
protests and contributed to the overthrow of a government.
1. He quotes Madison, as we have, on the importance of public knowledge as the basis for the Republic keeping the government accountable and in check.
2. He points out that the defense budget has never been audited, cannot be audited, and is both totally “out of control” and irresponsibly chaotic and grotesquely excessive.
3. He proposes regular persistent cuts in the defense budget until such time as it can actually pass an audit.
Anyone who thinks we ought to stay in Afghanistan and that the Afghanis want us to stay should carefully read and think about the information in this important report.
Phi Beta Iota: Highly recommended long article that illuminates both the lack of intelligent strategy, operations, and tactics in Afghanistan, and the lack of ethical, informed, strategic leadership in Washington.
Following a week of political unrest, capped off by Friday’s organized pro-democracy uprising across the USA, President Barack Obama dismissed his Cabinet on Saturday and stepped before television cameras calling for an end to the protests.
But he stopped short of resigning—as his people were demanding. They blame him for poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and police brutality including over a dozen internment camps for “disobedient citizens” carried over from his predecessor's “homeland security” program.
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On Saturday, protestors throughout the world including outside the United Nations in New York were also calling for Obama's resignation. By day’s end, dozens of protestors had been killed and dozens more injured. Then the military stepped in closing roads and sending F-16 fighter jets over downtown Washington. Ron Paul, while refusing to talk to Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney or anyone else, asked the crowd to remain non-violent but persistent.
“My impression is that a revolutionary process has begun that might be impossible to stop—so I believe that the 30-year two-party tyranny has outlived its pretensions,” said Dr. Alfred Gerteiny of Westport, a retired professor of American studies and author of The Terrorist Conjunction (Praeger Security International). “It took the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt to lead me to posit that a domino effect will probably ensue, involving America as well.”
In related news, a US inquiry on Thursday found that the 2008 financial crisis could have been prevented and that many of the conditions that led to Wall Street's near collapse have yet to be addressed. The findings could also lead to some people in the financial world facing criminal charges for the failures that led to the turmoil. The 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created in May 2009 by…read more
Extract: ‘Our financial system is, in many respects, still unchanged from what existed on the eve of the crisis,' the report said. ‘Indeed, in the wake of the crisis, the US financial sector is now more concentrated than ever in the hands of a few large, systemically significant institutions.' While much of its findings have already been well documented by others, the panel painted a gloomy picture of questionable ethics, irresponsibility and incompetence by Wall Street bankers who dabbled in the US housing market using complex financial products that few of them could understand.
In a review of nearly 2,500 pages of documents released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, EFF uncovered alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices. The documents consist of reports made by the FBI to the Intelligence Oversight Board of violations committed during intelligence investigations from 2001 to 2008. The documents suggest that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. In particular, EFF’s analysis provides new insight into:
Number of Violations Committed by the FBI
From 2001 to 2008, the FBI reported to the IOB approximately 800 violations of laws, Executive Orders, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations, although this number likely significantly under-represents the number of violations that actually occurred.
From 2001 to 2008, the FBI investigated, at minimum, 7000 potential violations of laws, Executive Orders, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations.
Based on the proportion of violations reported to the IOB and the FBI’s own statements regarding the number of NSL violations that occurred, the actual number of violations that may have occurred from 2001 to 2008 could approach 40,000 possible violations of law, Executive Order, or other regulations governing intelligence investigations.1
