Mr. Snowden, Bradley Manning and the Intelligence Corps

Let me start by saying that I am on a watch list according to the FBI or none of my family or I ever existed. Let me also say that on occasion I have intentionally messed with the FBI. I also have a friend that is retired FBI whom I greatly admire and like. Since Mr. Snowden came out, there has been a lot of information on what the NSA and others are doing, I would like to give my opinion on the matter.

Lets start with the law. The NSA has not broken the law from what I can tell. Let me explain what they have been accused of and their justification, we don't have to agree with it; but, we should understand it. The law says that the NSA can collect intelligence on basically all foreign governments and people. The same is true for most countries, their laws do not prohibit them from collecting information on other countries. Everybody in intelligence understands this. The prohibition is on collecting information on your own citizens.

Now, you may recall that Russia had warned the United States about the Boston bombers. Why do you think they did that and then refused to accept Snowden for asylum? We trade information, they collect it on us and we collect it on them. That is how the game works. Any European nation claiming to be shocked by this is flat out lying to their own people.

Secondly, no communications that go over the air (cell phones, radio) nor the internet is protected speech and has never been considered such by the courts. I have consistently said that if you want protected speech you need to use the U.S. Postal Service or land lines and if you call a cell phone from a land line, it is not protected.

Lets now ask ourselves some simple questions. If any 16 year old hacker can get into your e-mail or cell phone, why would you want the government to be unable to access the same information? There are people out there that are freaked out by the Bildergerers, the G8, G20, Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. I have a problem with those groups; but, my problem is one of legality. The lack of transparency or say by our citizens bothers me; but, not that they meet. That may seem odd to some of my readers; but, I stopped be naive at 12 when they first began tapping our families phone. I knew what was going on because my father told me. Somehow knowing that the internet is tracked doesn't stop me from saying exactly what I think and it shouldn't stop others.

Now let me go back to the Boston bombings. Was it right for the Russians to monitor their own people and when they discovered some people were going to commit acts of terrorism for them to notify us of such? If we had evidence that people in England were going to bomb them, should we not tell the English intelligence agencies? It would be wrong of us not to share the information in my opinion. This is the reality of modern communications.

General Petraeus was taken down by people within the intelligence community for not following the rules, in my humble opinion. He let intelligence assets die in Libya when they did not need to and paid the price. Good, he needed to go. We do not need our civilian intelligence agencies run by the military nor is it appropriate. Imagine having military people running the local police, that is martial law, real martial law. I wrote recently about how the military has issued rules that say they can come into local municipalities without permission and take on activities. That is wrong.

What you are seeing is a contest between the military and civilian intelligence over what happens in the event of civil disturbance and you had all better pray that the intelligence people win because they follow rules that protect our citizens. They have to, they are not military, they are sworn civilians. The military is a blunt instrument whereas the intelligence agencies are more discerning. "Kill them all and let God sort them out" is a military approach, it is not the sort of thing any self respecting intelligence officer would ever do.

You may recall that I wrote about how the military tried to start their own CIA and was stopped with their agents being put under the CIA, that is how it should be, not the other way around. In the past the CIA and others have been involved in things they should not have, such as MK Ultra; but, compare that to what the military has done in Iraq and Afghanistan and you might begin to see some differences.

Now here is the good part. Do you really believe that the NSA, CIA and FBI have not been keeping tabs on what happens at the Bohemian Grove or the Bilderberg meetings, of course they do. Do you really believe that all the evidence of corruption going on in the financial system was not noticed by the intelligence agencies, my guess is that they are the one who have been releasing the information or at least enough for others to follow up on it.

Here is the bottom line, the military reports to the President. The civilian intelligence agencies do; but, don't have to do what he says and can even arrest him. If the President ordered the military to attack citizens, the federal law enforcement officials could arrest him. It would in fact be the United States Marshall Service, the only constitutionally created law enforcement agency. If the military arrested the president, it would be a military coup.

If everyone in congress was bought and paid for, if everyone in congress was a crook and was selling us down the river. Who would you want to stop them, the military or the federal law enforcement operatives? The elimination of the Posse Comitatus Act was disgusting in my opinion; but, not unconstitutional, it is not part of the constitution. The congress could not however authorize the military to take actions within states without local approval, that violates the constitution. The only time the military could operate within the nation was when their was a civil war, a war between state militias if you will. Civil disturbance and civil war are different. If California attacked Nevada, the military could step in to protect a state.

Please don't let emotional responses to finding out that everything is monitored cause you to lose track of our priorities and options because having privacy on the internet or over the airwaves is not an option. Having the military supersede local authority is a bad option.

So how did this all come up. Well, a couple of days ago some students at a college took some NSA recruiters to task, I didn't bother posting on it and then one of my children sent me a link to the audio of the exchange. I listened to it and will post a link at the end of this post. The YouTube went international and people are cheering for the students. Here is what they missed, imagine asking an army recruiter about things done by the generals, they would be no better off than the NSA recruiters. LOL, do you really believe the best in the NSA are sent from college to college, to be filmed, watched, talked to and recorded? They are sent because they are better at talking to college students then in collecting and analyzing information. You don't send James Bond to recruit at some college, it doesn't work that way.

YouTube - Students Show NO MERCY, Pin NSA Recruiters Against Wall - OneTruth4Life.

I am going to try and answer their questions and I want you to consider my answers.

1. Do you (the NSA) consider Germany and the other countries that we spied upon to be adversaries? The correct answer is that they are potential adversaries including England. The truth is that we have contingency plans for dealing with any foreign country that might take actions that were contrary to the interests of the United States. Which country do you not want us to keep an eye on would be my question.

2. The lady then asks whether or not we consider everyone an adversary. She didn't understand the answer. An adversary is one who has interest that may conflict with those of the United States and our sovereignty. Someone who wanted to eliminate our sovereignty is "our" adversary. Someone wishing to change our government through voting is not our adversary.

3. The young lady responds to the NSA referring to congress as their "customers" and says she finds that strange. She just doesn't understand modern governmental approach. For the past 20 years there have been efforts made to train government to be more like business and look at the people they serve as customers. Government Executive Magazine explains this, pick an issue of it.

4. The lady asks what qualifications you need to become a whistle-blower "because that sounds like a more interesting job". I shall give my answer, you need to be a liar if you violate your clearance. I have a woman that works with me, she knows things about the place she used to work and when she came to work for me, I promised her something. I promised her I would never ask her to give up things she learned in confidence from her prior employer even if it would benefit my organization and I have never asked her to do so. I also asked her to never give up anything she learned in confidence about our organization to another. That is what it means to be part of the decision making of any organization.

A few years ago I became aware of a mistake that my organization made, it wasn't intentional, it was stupid. I attempted to correct it; but, had no authority to. An auditor caught the mistake and I told him that I thought he got it right. In certain jobs we have certain confidences and responsibilities, in certain jobs it is our job to try and convince our organizations to correct their mistakes; but, what is given in confidence must be kept within the realm of responsibility. Never lie if asked legally; but, give your organization a chance to self-correct.

5. The NSA agent tries to explain that they take the information to policy makers very seriously and try and give the appropriate context so that better decisions can be made because we all have to live with the congresses decisions. Yep, that would be about right. What would the young lady like the NSA to hide from our elected officials?

6. The students then ask the NSA agents how they feel about General Alexander lying to congress. Well, go back and read what I wrote, they shouldn't be under the military and the military lies.

7. The young lady claims that we cannot opt out of being under surveillance. She is not quite accurate. They don't have the resources not the concern to read every e-mail, that is simply foolish and naive. They look for very specific things and will continue to, same as foreign governments will continue to monitor everything that is posted on the internet in the United States. There is no opting out from China watching you.

I ask my readers to look beyond the obvious, I ask them to consider what the options are in given situations. I ask them to analyze the world around them and not just have emotional reactions to things that surprise them, it is not for everyone to understand how the world works. It is not always pretty and sunshine and simple, it is about balancing interests and trying to find where the right balance is.

I am on a Watch List, I have no knowledge of why and don't worry about it. We are all watched, just some more than others. We are watched for more reasons that you comprehend and I would not give those away and I don't know them all. I am not a member of any of those organizations by choice.