Corruption – Page 845 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/08/06

“The Plain Truth” (video clip)

04 Inter-State Conflict, Corruption, Ethics, Journalism/Free-Press/Censorship, Misinformation & Propaganda, Open Government, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

“The government needs to be exposed because it cannot be trusted to expose itself, the light of day and the light of truth are the best disinfectants for the government”

Freedom Watch: on Wikileaks and it’s importance.

2010/07/302010/08/16

Journal: Wikileaks Afghan Collection Assessed

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

Below is a good summary of the wikileaks database. It is also a good example of how the secretive conspiratorial mind, trained in the wilderness of mirrors that is the US intelligence establishment, conjures motivations out of the ether. The author builds a an inferential case to insinuate the massive leak of intelligence data via the wikileaks website was an orchestrated info-operation aimed at influencing the American polity by building the case for leaving Afghanistan. Left unsaid, but dangling tantalizingly in the last two paragraphs, is a subtle (and unsubstantiated) suggestion that this leak came from very high levels, perhaps the highest level, of the Obama Administration. Too clever by a half?????? Chuck

Thousands of reasons to leave

By George Friedman, Asia Times, 29 July 2010

On Sunday, The New York Times and two other newspapers published summaries and excerpts of tens of thousands of documents leaked to a website known as WikiLeaks. The documents comprise a vast array of material concerning the war in Afghanistan. They range from tactical reports from small unit operations to broader strategic analyses of politico-military relations between the United States and Pakistan. It appears to be an extraordinary collection.

Tactical intelligence on firefights is intermingled with reports on confrontations between senior US and Pakistani officials in which lists of Pakistani operatives in Afghanistan are handed over to the Pakistanis. Reports on the use of surface-to-air missiles by militants in Afghanistan are intermingled with reports on the activities of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who reportedly continues to liaise with the Afghan Taliban in an informal capacity.

FULL APPRAISAL ONLINE

2010/07/302010/07/30

Wyly Brothers, Top Republican Bankrollers, Accused of Massive Fraud

09 Justice, Commerce, Corruption, Open Government, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

By Dave Levinthal on July 29, 2010

Charles Wyly Jr. and Samuel Wyly, Texas businessmen and brothers who are among the nation’s most generous campaign donors to Republican political candidates and causes, were today hit with a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing them of fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The SEC accuses the Wylys of pocketing $550 million in undisclosed money over 13 years.

“The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws,” Lorin Reisner, the SEC’s deputy enforcement director, said in a statement this afternoon. “They used these structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of the disclosure requirements for corporate insiders.”

Beneficiaries of Wyly brothers cash together compose a who’s who of the decade’s most notable Republicans, with dozens of top GOP partisans’ campaign coffers touched by Wyly money.

Together with their wives, the Wyly brothers have donated nearly $2.5 million to Republican candidates and committees during the past 20 years, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis reveals. Continue reading “Wyly Brothers, Top Republican Bankrollers, Accused of Massive Fraud”

2010/07/282010/07/28

Reference: IC-Zilla Epitaph

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, DHS, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Law Enforcement, Media Reports, Military, True Cost

The Final Word from a Three-Agency SIS

28 July 2010

In my opinion the Washington Post series that exposed the exponential increase in the size and cost of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) was not taken seriously by official Washington and is considered a minor nuisance. That is why the only response to the series, as crafted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), was largely vintage intelligence agency boilerplate with a few bizarre additions such as the claim that the collection and analysis of intelligence are not essential government functions of intelligence agencies and so can be left to contractor personal. The series did not merit a serious response in the thinking of the Executive Branch and Intelligence Community.

In fact the series, although much touted, was a huge disappointment to readers expecting a more deeply researched and in-depth look at the IC. Clearly the craft of investigative journalism has fallen on hard times.

Also it is the case that in this country quantity always trumps quality. The growth in the size of the Intelligence Community is taken by official Washington as a priori evidence of the value it has provided since 9/11. The facts that the current IC is ruinously expensive to operate, is producing largely worthless intelligence, and has frequently failed even in the most basic warning functions are irrelevant. A bloated IC serves as ‘proof’ that political Washington is serious about protecting American citizens from terrorist threats. As with quantity, in the political arena form always trumps substance.

Continue reading “Reference: IC-Zilla Epitaph”

2010/07/262010/07/26