NSA Leaker's story has sprung a leak

[expandspanos]

Naomi Wolf:

*Naomi Wolf* - "My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be …" (naomiwolf.org)

submitted 7 hours ago by privatejokerOnly fuck the ones who cough
I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to America that US media is not performing at all. It is just to raise some cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging.

Some of Snowden’s emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state objective, rather than to challenge them.

a) He is super-organized, for a whistleblower, in terms of what candidates, the White House, the State Dept. et al call ‘message discipline.’ He insisted on publishing a power point in the newspapers that ran his initial revelations. I gather that he arranged for a talented filmmaker to shoot the Greenwald interview. These two steps — which are evidence of great media training, really ‘PR 101″ — are virtually never done (to my great distress) by other whistleblowers, or by progressive activists involved in breaking news, or by real courageous people who are under stress and getting the word out. They are always done, though, by high-level political surrogates.

b) In the Greenwald video interview, I was concerned about the way Snowden conveys his message. He is not struggling for words, or thinking hard, as even bright, articulate whistleblowers under stress will do. Rather he appears to be transmitting whole paragraphs smoothly, without stumbling. To me this reads as someone who has learned his talking points — again the way that political campaigns train surrogates to transmit talking points.

c) He keeps saying things like, “If you are a journalist and they think you are the transmission point of this info, they will certainly kill you.” Or: “I fully expect to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.” He also keeps stressing what he will lose: his $200,000 salary, his girlfriend, his house in Hawaii. These are the kinds of messages that the police state would LIKE journalists to take away; a real whistleblower also does not put out potential legal penalties as options, and almost always by this point has a lawyer by his/her side who would PROHIBIT him/her from saying, ‘come get me under the Espionage Act.” Finally in my experience, real whistleblowers are completely focused on their act of public service and trying to manage the jeopardy to themselves and their loved ones; they don’t tend ever to call attention to their own self-sacrifice. That is why they are heroes, among other reasons. But a police state would like us all to think about everything we would lose by standing up against it.

d) It is actually in the Police State’s interest to let everyone know that everything you write or say everywhere is being surveilled, and that awful things happen to people who challenge this. Which is why I am not surprised that now he is on UK no-fly lists – I assume the end of this story is that we will all have a lesson in terrible things that happen to whistleblowers. That could be because he is a real guy who gets in trouble; but it would be as useful to the police state if he is a fake guy who gets in ‘trouble.’

e) In stories that intelligence services are advancing (I would call the prostitutes-with-the-secret-service such a story), there are great sexy or sex-related mediagenic visuals that keep being dropped in, to keep media focus on the issue. That very pretty pole-dancing Facebooking girlfriend who appeared for, well, no reason in the media coverage…and who keeps leaking commentary, so her picture can be recycled in the press…really, she happens to pole-dance? Dan Ellsberg’s wife was and is very beautiful and doubtless a good dancer but somehow she took a statelier role as his news story unfolded…

f) Snowden is in Hong Kong, which has close ties to the UK, which has done the US’s bidding with other famous leakers such as Assange. So really there are MANY other countries that he would be less likely to be handed over from…

g) Media reports said he had vanished at one point to ‘an undisclosed location’ or ‘a safe house.’ Come on. There is no such thing. Unless you are with the one organization that can still get off the surveillance grid, because that org created it.

Seeing these diligent attentive free-speech attorneys for another whisleblower reinforced my growing anxiety: WHERE IS SNOWDEN’S LAWYER as the world’s media meet with him? A whistleblower talking to media has his/her counsel advising him/her at all times, if not actually being present at the interview, because anything he/she says can affect the legal danger the whistleblower may be in . It is very, very odd to me that a lawyer has not appeared, to my knowledge, to stand at Snowden’s side and keep him from further jeopardy in interviews.

Again I hate to cast any skepticism on what seems to be a great story of a brave spy coming in from the cold in the service of American freedom. And I would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there are some news stories that they create and drive — even in America (where propagandizing Americans is now legal). But do consider that in Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of surveillance that people believed watched them at all times — rather than the machine itself — that drove compliance and passivity. From the standpoint of the police state and its interests — why have a giant Big Brother apparatus spying on us at all times — unless we know about it?

[CID1990]

OMG you are weeks from eating your own peanutty sh!t. I give you 2 months max


Sent from the center of the universe.

[BDKJMU]

I find it interesting that even so early in his brief tenure he already had enough damaging information to cause the NSA to have to address this. Was he not properly vetted as a security risk in the interview process?

That's an interesting question. How did the government investigators gauge him when he took his Polygraph for the TS clearance? I'm sure nothing he had done or said years ago would give cause to question his loyalty. Was something happening that caused him to suddenly act? Robert Hanssen needed money and that prompted him to sell secrets to the Soviets and then Russians. Something tells me that he had this information and the plans to do this longer than 3 months. It just doesn't make sense to me that someone is loyal for 10 years, working with the CIA and NSA and within 4 weeks of being on a new job he suddenly turns as a "leaker" or "whistle blower."

He definitely had a polygraph? Reason I'm asking is I know there are some agencies that grant TS clearance's without requiring a polygraph.

[Ibanez]

That's an interesting question. How did the government investigators gauge him when he took his Polygraph for the TS clearance? I'm sure nothing he had done or said years ago would give cause to question his loyalty. Was something happening that caused him to suddenly act? Robert Hanssen needed money and that prompted him to sell secrets to the Soviets and then Russians. Something tells me that he had this information and the plans to do this longer than 3 months. It just doesn't make sense to me that someone is loyal for 10 years, working with the CIA and NSA and within 4 weeks of being on a new job he suddenly turns as a "leaker" or "whistle blower."

He definitely had a polygraph? Reason I'm asking is I know there are some agencies that grant TS clearance's without requiring a polygraph.

I highly doubt that someone going into an intelligence field, with a TS and probably TS/SCI would not be given a polygraph.

[Ibanez]

Naomi Wolf:

*Naomi Wolf* - "My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be …" (naomiwolf.org)

submitted 7 hours ago by privatejokerOnly fuck the ones who cough
I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the story, and the gutsiness of the Guardian in showcasing this kind of reporting, which is a service to America that US media is not performing at all. It is just to raise some cautions as the story unfolds, and to raise some questions about how it is unfolding, based on my experience with high-level political messaging.

Some of Snowden’s emphases seem to serve an intelligence/police state objective, rather than to challenge them.

a) He is super-organized, for a whistleblower, in terms of what candidates, the White House, the State Dept. et al call ‘message discipline.’ He insisted on publishing a power point in the newspapers that ran his initial revelations. I gather that he arranged for a talented filmmaker to shoot the Greenwald interview. These two steps — which are evidence of great media training, really ‘PR 101″ — are virtually never done (to my great distress) by other whistleblowers, or by progressive activists involved in breaking news, or by real courageous people who are under stress and getting the word out. They are always done, though, by high-level political surrogates.

b) In the Greenwald video interview, I was concerned about the way Snowden conveys his message. He is not struggling for words, or thinking hard, as even bright, articulate whistleblowers under stress will do. Rather he appears to be transmitting whole paragraphs smoothly, without stumbling. To me this reads as someone who has learned his talking points — again the way that political campaigns train surrogates to transmit talking points.

c) He keeps saying things like, “If you are a journalist and they think you are the transmission point of this info, they will certainly kill you.” Or: “I fully expect to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.” He also keeps stressing what he will lose: his $200,000 salary, his girlfriend, his house in Hawaii. These are the kinds of messages that the police state would LIKE journalists to take away; a real whistleblower also does not put out potential legal penalties as options, and almost always by this point has a lawyer by his/her side who would PROHIBIT him/her from saying, ‘come get me under the Espionage Act.” Finally in my experience, real whistleblowers are completely focused on their act of public service and trying to manage the jeopardy to themselves and their loved ones; they don’t tend ever to call attention to their own self-sacrifice. That is why they are heroes, among other reasons. But a police state would like us all to think about everything we would lose by standing up against it.

d) It is actually in the Police State’s interest to let everyone know that everything you write or say everywhere is being surveilled, and that awful things happen to people who challenge this. Which is why I am not surprised that now he is on UK no-fly lists – I assume the end of this story is that we will all have a lesson in terrible things that happen to whistleblowers. That could be because he is a real guy who gets in trouble; but it would be as useful to the police state if he is a fake guy who gets in ‘trouble.’

e) In stories that intelligence services are advancing (I would call the prostitutes-with-the-secret-service such a story), there are great sexy or sex-related mediagenic visuals that keep being dropped in, to keep media focus on the issue. That very pretty pole-dancing Facebooking girlfriend who appeared for, well, no reason in the media coverage…and who keeps leaking commentary, so her picture can be recycled in the press…really, she happens to pole-dance? Dan Ellsberg’s wife was and is very beautiful and doubtless a good dancer but somehow she took a statelier role as his news story unfolded…

f) Snowden is in Hong Kong, which has close ties to the UK, which has done the US’s bidding with other famous leakers such as Assange. So really there are MANY other countries that he would be less likely to be handed over from…

g) Media reports said he had vanished at one point to ‘an undisclosed location’ or ‘a safe house.’ Come on. There is no such thing. Unless you are with the one organization that can still get off the surveillance grid, because that org created it.

Seeing these diligent attentive free-speech attorneys for another whisleblower reinforced my growing anxiety: WHERE IS SNOWDEN’S LAWYER as the world’s media meet with him? A whistleblower talking to media has his/her counsel advising him/her at all times, if not actually being present at the interview, because anything he/she says can affect the legal danger the whistleblower may be in . It is very, very odd to me that a lawyer has not appeared, to my knowledge, to stand at Snowden’s side and keep him from further jeopardy in interviews.

Again I hate to cast any skepticism on what seems to be a great story of a brave spy coming in from the cold in the service of American freedom. And I would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there are some news stories that they create and drive — even in America (where propagandizing Americans is now legal). But do consider that in Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of surveillance that people believed watched them at all times — rather than the machine itself — that drove compliance and passivity. From the standpoint of the police state and its interests — why have a giant Big Brother apparatus spying on us at all times — unless we know about it?

Who is Naomi? Pics or STFU.

[CID1990]

He definitely had a polygraph? Reason I'm asking is I know there are some agencies that grant TS clearance's without requiring a polygraph.

I highly doubt that someone going into an intelligence field, with a TS and probably TS/SCI would not be given a polygraph.

Military and DoS don't.


Sent from the center of the universe.

[houndawg]

Wow.. very nice Glad you know about Bohemian Grove now.. curious if you've asked you friends if they've ever heard of it? I bet they haven't..

anyway, funny comic related to this NSA garbage:

Actually, I've known about Bohemian Grove for almost 20 years. A fellow Marine gave me the book Behold a Pale Horse and insisted I read it. It was entertaining, but boy, what a load of patchworked bullshit! That's a sort of make or break book. There's 98% of the population that can read it and laugh. Then there's the other 2% who get sucked in and start saying that Sandy Hook and 9/11 were Government drills.

A marine that can read.

Nice try.

[kalm]

Even IF Snowden's is embellishing details of his story, it appears that the capabilities and what governments are illegally spying on is not. As mentioned previously, we are all Spandos now...

According to the material seen by the Guardian, GCHQ generated this product by attacking both the computers and the telephones of delegates.

One document refers to a tactic which was "used a lot in recent UK conference, eg G20". The tactic, which is identified by an internal codeword which the Guardian is not revealing, is defined in an internal glossary as "active collection against an email account that acquires mail messages without removing them from the remote server". A PowerPoint slide explains that this means "reading people's email before/as they do".

The same document also refers to GCHQ, MI6 and others setting up internet cafes which "were able to extract key logging info, providing creds for delegates, meaning we have sustained intelligence options against them even after conference has finished". This appears to be a reference to acquiring delegates' online login details.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/1 ... :Position3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ibanez]

I highly doubt that someone going into an intelligence field, with a TS and probably TS/SCI would not be given a polygraph.

Military and DoS don't.


Sent from the center of the universe.

You know that isn't 100% true. I have a friend who is an intel officer with the Air Force and he went through a polygraph test for this TS/SCI. As did my uncle, who has TS/SAP and works for Dept. of State. (We talked about this over the weekend.)

[CID1990]

Military and DoS don't.


Sent from the center of the universe.

You know that isn't 100% true. I have a friend who is an intel officer with the Air Force and he went through a polygraph test for this TS/SCI. As did my uncle, who has TS/SAP and works for Dept. of State. (We talked about this over the weekend.)

I mean generally. There are special circumstances where people get a polygraph, but those are very specific.

There is no poly for TS at DoS and DoD, and in many cases SCI doesn't require them, either.


Sent from the center of the universe.

[Ibanez]

You know that isn't 100% true. I have a friend who is an intel officer with the Air Force and he went through a polygraph test for this TS/SCI. As did my uncle, who has TS/SAP and works for Dept. of State. (We talked about this over the weekend.)

I mean generally. There are special circumstances where people get a polygraph, but those are very specific.

There is no poly for TS at DoS and DoD, and in many cases SCI doesn't require them, either.


Sent from the center of the universe.

There you go.

[Ibanez]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01415.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That's an interesting article on Polygraph tests and the headaches that are associated with them.

[93henfan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01415.html

That's an interesting article on Polygraph tests and the headaches that are associated with them.

Polygraph tests are junk science. Without getting into too much detail, I took one and failed while telling the complete truth.

[Ibanez]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01415.html

That's an interesting article on Polygraph tests and the headaches that are associated with them.

Polygraph tests are junk science. Without getting into too much detail, I took one and failed while telling the complete truth.

I agree, but it's a tool that is utilized. If you read the article, the guy says it's more "art than science."

[CID1990]

They can be used in employment matters to build a larger picture, but they aren't kosher in criminal matters usually.


Sent from the center of the universe.

[kalm]

John "I'm not a neocon" Bolton is MAD at Snowden.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/bl ... s-20130613" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Wow.. very nice Glad you know about Bohemian Grove now.. curious if you've asked you friends if they've ever heard of it? I bet they haven't..

anyway, funny comic related to this NSA garbage:

Actually, I've known about Bohemian Grove for almost 20 years. A fellow Marine gave me the book Behold a Pale Horse and insisted I read it. It was entertaining, but boy, what a load of patchworked bullshit! That's a sort of make or break book. There's 98% of the population that can read it and laugh. Then there's the other 2% who get sucked in and start saying that Sandy Hook and 9/11 were Government drills.

Its the thing that always amazes me about spanos. He thinks he's bringing us things that we don't already know about and have not already discussed (like the water vehicle thing that I had posted a couple of years prior to his "bombshell"). It's like someone that didn't see Pulp Fiction in 1994 coming and telling you all about it and you just look at the and thing "This poor fucking idiot".

Jesus Christ, people haven't heard about Bohemian Grove? He can't be fucking serious.

[Ivytalk]

John "I'm not a neocon" Bolton is MAD at Snowden.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/bl ... s-20130613" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So is Dick Cheney.

And thanks for the Taibbi.

[93henfan]

Actually, I've known about Bohemian Grove for almost 20 years. A fellow Marine gave me the book Behold a Pale Horse and insisted I read it. It was entertaining, but boy, what a load of patchworked bullshit! That's a sort of make or break book. There's 98% of the population that can read it and laugh. Then there's the other 2% who get sucked in and start saying that Sandy Hook and 9/11 were Government drills.

Its the thing that always amazes me about spanos. He thinks he's bringing us things that we don't already know about and have not already discussed (like the water vehicle thing that I had posted a couple of years prior to his "bombshell"). It's like someone that didn't see Pulp Fiction in 1994 coming and telling you all about it and you just look at the and thing "This poor fucking idiot".

Jesus Christ, people haven't heard about Bohemian Grove? He can't be fucking serious.

Pulp Fiction you say? I gotta check that out. It's not violent is it?

[Ursus A. Horribilis]

Its the thing that always amazes me about spanos. He thinks he's bringing us things that we don't already know about and have not already discussed (like the water vehicle thing that I had posted a couple of years prior to his "bombshell"). It's like someone that didn't see Pulp Fiction in 1994 coming and telling you all about it and you just look at the and thing "This poor fucking idiot".

Jesus Christ, people haven't heard about Bohemian Grove? He can't be fucking serious.

Pulp Fiction you say? I gotta check that out. It's not violent is it?

No, non violent and language safe for all ages. I'll try and avoid any spoilers for you.

[93henfan]

Pulp Fiction you say? I gotta check that out. It's not violent is it?

No, non violent and language safe for all ages. I'll try and avoid any spoilers for you.

As long as there's no drug usage/overdoses, armed robberies, gory shootings, messy cleanups, butt sex, or gimps, I'll be fine.

[houndawg]

No, non violent and language safe for all ages. I'll try and avoid any spoilers for you.

As long as there's no drug usage/overdoses, armed robberies, gory shootings, messy cleanups, butt sex, or gimps, I'll be fine.

No sweat. You'll be fine.