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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
When I was a math teacher and such things got brought up, I wold just say, "Shoot 'em all" After the Rove administration was inaugurated, I became chicken and would just say "Gallows in the Rose Garden". I've either got to go back to "shoot 'em all" or "Gallows in the mall"-"I'll pardon fellow Ohioan Kichinich".
Bill Carli
Alliance Ohio
Thursday 7/24 11AM-Noon PST
A conversation with Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire: Inside the Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing and as it happens - just released Salon expose on “Main Core”–
Call-in questions or email your questions in advance!
KALW San Francisco 91.7
Listen online live or archive later that day on-demand
http://www.yourcallradio.org/
Here’s a thought. We have vast, unwieldly bureaucracies, huge ‘black’ programs and accompanying unaccountable budgets. We have ever-changing political leaders to head the various departments. It is only a short step to create a private permanent political spying organization that swims submerged, doing its work and delivering results only to the top Republican party operatives only, whether the party is in office or not. The organization would be dedicated to furthering the political and economic aims of the party, or even of a interest group within the party. It would also be dedicated to defeating the political and financial aims of any opposition, thus giving a permanent advantage to Republicans.
Think of it. Few employees would have to know the ultimate purpose and destination of the gathered information; it would all be ‘national security’. There would be a culture of ‘need to know’ built-in, so few people could make the necessary connections. This family jewel could be passed on from political generation to generation, funded by the public, covering its tracks, using the information sparingly but intelligently at key points and on key people to avoid suspicion. The internal security could be very tight, using the usual tools of spycraft to catch leaks and weaknesses.
If the leaders managed to avoid hubris and over reach, we would never know.
Bernbart, well said.
I think it was in Federalist #97 where they wrote: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, really shouldn't be violated, but the government is too busy and incompetent anyway so it's kewl."
I too wondered about TIA.
I was in a position to intercept US communications when I worked for the government, many years ago. However, at the time, we were told quite definitively that it was AGAINST THE LAW to "roll tape" on US conversations. Essentially, we were told, if we heard an American accent, treat it as a "no value" target and move on.
I did not, ever, roll tape on an American, nor did any of the other hundreds of people I worked with. I am proud of the people I worked with. We were law-abiding citizens. I deeply loathe what that profession has come to at the hands of the pants-poopers in the Maladministration.
http://www.itsyourworld.org/assnfe/ev.asp?SnID=1768888882&ID=2271
The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing
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Event Date
* 7/24/2008 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Please arrive early for registration
Location
* World Affairs Council Auditorium
Address
* 312 Sutter Street
Second Floor
San Francisco, California 94108
Speaker(s)
Tim Shorrock, Investigative Journalist
Tim Shorrock is an investigative journalist who has devoted a quarter-century of research to the intersection of national security and business, specifically researching intelligence contracting for the past four years. His work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Mother Jones, Harper’s, Inter Press Service, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Progressive, The Journal of Commerce, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on US-Korean relations and US intelligence and foreign policy, and has been interviewed on Pacifica’s “Democracy Now,” Air America and CBS Radio. Tim Shorrock grew up in Japan and South Korea.
Event Details
Outsourcing has become par for the course in business and increasingly in government intelligence gathering as well. In recent years, intelligence contracting has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry, with privatization often blurring the lines between public and private sectors. Examples of private contractors can be found in places like Abu Ghraib, and in American intelligence centers throughout the world. Similarly, former high-ranking national security officials can be found in various consulting roles throughout the private sector intelligence industry. Yet, the size, scope, and influence of this intelligence outsourcing has been largely unexamined, and sometimes at odds with congressional oversight and public accountability. Join the Council for a conversation with investigative journalist Tim Shorrock as he discusses this topic in depth in his new book, Spies for Hire.
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For the record, the real battlefield today is not abortion. It is not homosexual marriage. It is not Social Security. It is not al Qaeda. It is not taxes. It is not inflation. It is not electing conservatives. It is not posting the Ten Commandments. It is not even the high cost of gasoline. That is not to say that those issues are not important and not deserving of our best efforts and attention, because they are. But those issues do not represent the major battlefield today.
The battlefield where the devil has amassed his greatest forces and is thrusting his deadliest armies is the surrender of our national sovereignty and independence, and the creation of global government. And it is our own political and corporate leaders that are facilitating this chicanery.
Furthermore, by refusing to oppose this surrender, our Christian leaders are complicit as well.
Obviously, the surrender of our independence has been ongoing for some time. However, under Bill Clinton and especially under G.W. Bush, the pace has quickened exponentially.
Doubtless, the biggest reason President Bush has more aggressively hastened the pace of America's merger into supranational government is because he enjoys widespread support among evangelical Christians. Absent opposition from Christian leaders, G.W. Bush has virtually had a free hand. And please know this: before Bush was a Republican, before he was a "conservative," before he was a Christian, he was and is a globalist, as was his father and grandfather before him.
Because our national Christian leaders are content to revel in the lap of political cronyism with President Bush (and the Republican Party), they have abandoned their positions as watchmen on the wall. Instead of being watchmen and heralds of truth, they have become political lackeys and toadies for the GOP.
Now, just yesterday, James Dobson declares that he "might" support John McCain. This in spite of the fact that only a few months ago Mr. Dobson promised, "I cannot and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain as a matter of conscience."
Ah, but that is just the problem: when it comes to groveling before the GOP, our Christian leaders have no conscience. Hence, James Dobson is now publicly saying he "might" support McCain. That in itself tells us James Dobson has no conscience.
The ones who are doing the yeoman's work in trying to warn the American people to what is happening in regard to the surrender of our country's liberties and independence are people such as Congressman Ron Paul and Dr. Jerome Corsi.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
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