BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label US govt domestic surveillance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US govt domestic surveillance. Show all posts
31 July 2018
26 April 2013
8 Things You Won't See at the WAR CRIMINAL George W. Bush Presidential Library 25APR13
FROM Mother Jones, thank God there are journalist out there who aren't afraid to tell the truth....
W.
| Thu Apr. 25, 2013 3:05 AM PDT
W.
"Eight years was awesome and I was famous and I was powerful."—Former President George W. Bush, July 2012
On Thursday, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will be officially dedicated at Southern Methodist University, a school attended by the likes of former first lady Laura Bush, actor Powers Boothe, and Kourtney Kardashian. The invitation-only event will be attended by President Obama, before he visitsa memorial at Baylor University for victims of the West, Texas, plant explosion. A spokesperson says attendance at the library dedication is expected to be in the thousands.
A presidential library is one way for an ex-POTUS to attempt to shape his long-term legacy. The historical assessment of Bush's 96 months in office remains as harsh as ever (a few of the strikes against him: endorsing torture, launching war on convoluted make-believe, jumping the gun on "mission accomplished", decimating a record budget surplus, politicizing NASA and the DOJ,wiretapping, ditching Kyoto, bungling Katrina,restricting stem-cell research, and getting all pissed off at the South Park creators). Yet the former president's supporters insist that he wants to address criticism of his administration head-on. "He really wants people to go in [the library and museum] and get a sense of what it was like to be president during that time and to use that to make an informed decision about his presidency," longtime Bush adviser Karen Hughes told Yahoo News.
How thoroughly the library and exhibits (as well as the George W. Bush Presidential Center encompassing them) handle and document history has yet to be fully evaluated. However, here are eight things we are confident visitors won't see at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum:
1. Bush's Pre-Invasion Plan for Governing Post-War Iraq
Because it didn't really exist.
2. The American Flag Put on the Toppled Saddam Statue
Because former Lieutenant Tim McLaughlin, the man who possesses the flag used for the iconic moment, refuses to lend it for use as pro-war propaganda.
3. The World's First Monument to Shoes Thrown at Bush's Face by an Iraqi Journalist
Uploaded on Dec 14, 2008
An Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at President Bush during a news conference Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president was not hurt in the incident. (Dec. 14)
Because such a monument was already built—a six-foot-high sculpture depicting footwear chucked at Bush's head was unveiled at an Iraqi orphanage in 2009. (The shoe monument was, however, removed one day after its unveiling.)
4. The Time George Bush Fist-Pumped About Making the Planet Worse
Because as Bush prepared to depart Japan on the last day of his final G8 summit, he "signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets," and reportedly told his fellow leaders, "Good-bye from the world's biggest polluter"—a dark joke that he followed by "punch[ing] the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock."
5. 12 CIA Torture Tapes
Because the CIA destroyed them in late 2005.
6. An Exhibit Dedicated to the George W. Bush National Park
Because of course it doesn't exist…unless Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who recentlysecured $25,000 to study converting Bush's childhood home to America's next national park, gets his way.
7. These Will Ferrell Clips
Probably because the former president and the comic actor disagree so sharply about foreign policy.
8. Evidence of WMD
Come on, you know why.
09 June 2011
Ex-NSA official Thomas Drake to plead guilty to misdemeanor 9JUN11
THIS is a victory for whistle blowers and the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, and more justification for the alleged actions of Bradley Manning. The American people have the right to know of corruption, mismanagement, and violations of our constitution of and by our government, the Obama administration is wasting time and taxpayer dollars by prosecuting honest, patriotic whistle blowers and should be prosecuting the government officials, military commanders and corporations guilty of breaking the law.
In exchange, Drake, who could have faced 35 years in prison if he had been convicted of violating the Espionage Act, will plead guilty to a misdemeanor of misusing a government computer to share information with a person unauthorized to receive it.
He will pay no fine, and the maximum probation time he can serve will be capped at one year.
The deal is a victory for Drake, 54, who was indicted in May 2010 for willful retention of “national defense” or classified information, obstruction of justice and making a false statement.
Drake plans to appear in U.S. District Court in Baltimore Friday morning before Judge Richard Bennett to formally enter the plea.
The government’s case against Drake had greatly weakened, and on Wednesday he twice refused to accept offers of a plea bargain, according to people following the case. The trail was set to begin Monday.
Drake turned down a deal to plead guilty to unauthorized retention of classified documents. It was a deal similar to the one accepted in 2005 plea by former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger after he removed and shredded classified material relating to the Clinton administration’s record on terrorism from the National Archives.
“Why should you plead to something you didn’t do?” said Bill Binney, a friend and former colleague who, with Drake, tried to raise concerns about what they saw NSA corruption and constitutional violations. “That’s the whole point. People of character don’t do that.”
Prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett this week that they would withhold documents they had planned to introduce as evidence to keep from disclosing sensitive technology. Drake is charged with unlawfully retaining classified information at a time when he was in touch with a Baltimore Sun reporter who later chronicled mismanagement at the agency.
The government had used the 1917 Espionage Act, which has been criticized as vague and overbroad, to charge Drake, one of five such cases against alleged leakers under the Obama administration. Drake was not accused of spying, but the law’s provisions criminalize the unauthorized retention of classified material.
The government’s decision to withhold certain documents appeared to complicate prosecutors’ efforts to prove a violation of the act, suggesting that the government might have overreached in using an espionage law to target a suspected leaker.
“By withdrawing several of the exhibits, at least a couple of the counts against Drake will almost certainly need to be dismissed,” Steven Aftergood, a national security expert with the Federation of American Scientists who has followed the case closely since Drake was indicted last year, said before the plea agreement was reached. “It changes the whole dynamic of the prosecution and may even set the stage for settlement or dismissal.”
Aftergood added, “What’s striking is that the government now seems more eager to reach some kind of resolution... It seems like right now the prosecutors are doing more pleading than Mr. Drake is.”
Transparency activists and media experts warn that such prosecutions could stanch the flow of information the public needs to judge policy, and George W. Bush administration officials see the prosecutions as selective — ignoring high-level officials who release sensitive information to advance their personal or policy agendas.
Justice Department spokesman Laura Sweeney declined to comment on the case.
Drake was a senior executive at the NSA — a “senior change leader” — who professed an ambition to change the agency’s insular culture. He became disillusioned with the agency’s handling of major technology programs and concerned that the NSA was needlessly violating Americans’ privacy through a massive surveillance program adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He raised concerns with officials and the inspector general, and later with the reporter, before leaving the agency in 2008.
Leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act had been relatively rare until the Obama administration. Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the Pentagon Papers to a reporter, was the first leaker indicted under the law, but his case ended with a mistrial after government misconduct.
The Obama administration is presiding over five cases involving the act, including those against Pfc. Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst accused of passing State Department and military war data to the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks; Stephen Kim, a former State Department analyst accused of leaking to a television reporter; and Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA analyst accused of passing classified information to author and New York Times reporter James Risen.
“Obama is prosecuting whistleblowers who made the kinds of disclosures that he said he wants — contractors bilking the government of billions of dollars,” said Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department whistleblower and director of national security at the Government Accountability Project. “That’s what Drake did.”
By Ellen Nakashima
Former National Security Agency manager and accused leaker Thomas A. Drake onThursday accepted a plea deal from the government that drops all charges in the indictment, absolves him of mishandling classified information and calls for no prison time.In exchange, Drake, who could have faced 35 years in prison if he had been convicted of violating the Espionage Act, will plead guilty to a misdemeanor of misusing a government computer to share information with a person unauthorized to receive it.
He will pay no fine, and the maximum probation time he can serve will be capped at one year.
The deal is a victory for Drake, 54, who was indicted in May 2010 for willful retention of “national defense” or classified information, obstruction of justice and making a false statement.
Drake plans to appear in U.S. District Court in Baltimore Friday morning before Judge Richard Bennett to formally enter the plea.
The government’s case against Drake had greatly weakened, and on Wednesday he twice refused to accept offers of a plea bargain, according to people following the case. The trail was set to begin Monday.
Drake turned down a deal to plead guilty to unauthorized retention of classified documents. It was a deal similar to the one accepted in 2005 plea by former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger after he removed and shredded classified material relating to the Clinton administration’s record on terrorism from the National Archives.
“Why should you plead to something you didn’t do?” said Bill Binney, a friend and former colleague who, with Drake, tried to raise concerns about what they saw NSA corruption and constitutional violations. “That’s the whole point. People of character don’t do that.”
Prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett this week that they would withhold documents they had planned to introduce as evidence to keep from disclosing sensitive technology. Drake is charged with unlawfully retaining classified information at a time when he was in touch with a Baltimore Sun reporter who later chronicled mismanagement at the agency.
The government had used the 1917 Espionage Act, which has been criticized as vague and overbroad, to charge Drake, one of five such cases against alleged leakers under the Obama administration. Drake was not accused of spying, but the law’s provisions criminalize the unauthorized retention of classified material.
The government’s decision to withhold certain documents appeared to complicate prosecutors’ efforts to prove a violation of the act, suggesting that the government might have overreached in using an espionage law to target a suspected leaker.
“By withdrawing several of the exhibits, at least a couple of the counts against Drake will almost certainly need to be dismissed,” Steven Aftergood, a national security expert with the Federation of American Scientists who has followed the case closely since Drake was indicted last year, said before the plea agreement was reached. “It changes the whole dynamic of the prosecution and may even set the stage for settlement or dismissal.”
Aftergood added, “What’s striking is that the government now seems more eager to reach some kind of resolution... It seems like right now the prosecutors are doing more pleading than Mr. Drake is.”
Transparency activists and media experts warn that such prosecutions could stanch the flow of information the public needs to judge policy, and George W. Bush administration officials see the prosecutions as selective — ignoring high-level officials who release sensitive information to advance their personal or policy agendas.
Justice Department spokesman Laura Sweeney declined to comment on the case.
Drake was a senior executive at the NSA — a “senior change leader” — who professed an ambition to change the agency’s insular culture. He became disillusioned with the agency’s handling of major technology programs and concerned that the NSA was needlessly violating Americans’ privacy through a massive surveillance program adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He raised concerns with officials and the inspector general, and later with the reporter, before leaving the agency in 2008.
Leak prosecutions under the Espionage Act had been relatively rare until the Obama administration. Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the Pentagon Papers to a reporter, was the first leaker indicted under the law, but his case ended with a mistrial after government misconduct.
The Obama administration is presiding over five cases involving the act, including those against Pfc. Bradley Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst accused of passing State Department and military war data to the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks; Stephen Kim, a former State Department analyst accused of leaking to a television reporter; and Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA analyst accused of passing classified information to author and New York Times reporter James Risen.
“Obama is prosecuting whistleblowers who made the kinds of disclosures that he said he wants — contractors bilking the government of billions of dollars,” said Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department whistleblower and director of national security at the Government Accountability Project. “That’s what Drake did.”
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