"I think the blood of a lot of these French young people is on his hands."
ADDED: Who appointed Woolsey? Bill Clinton. Oddly:
Never once in his two-year tenure did CIA director James Woolsey ever have a one-on-one meeting with Clinton. Even semi-private meetings were rare. They only happened twice. Woolsey told me: "It wasn't that I had a bad relationship with the president. It just didn't exist."Woolsey once made this joke: "Remember the guy who in 1994 crashed his plane onto the White House lawn? That was me trying to get an appointment to see President Clinton."
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Nothing quite like a good public hanging is there? Object lesson and all that dancing at the end of a rope.
How does he correlate the two incidents? It would be easier to correlate those deaths with an unsecure server in the home of a high level government employee.
The first attack on the World Trade Center, the embassy bombings, Khobar Towers, USS Cole.
Priorities.
Oh, look! Woolsey is once again trying to cover up his own incompetence by blaming everyone else. Never mind that Snowden's revelations were about domestic, not foreign surveillance. Or that the terrorist stopped using most digital communication a couple of decades ago. There's civil liberties to crush!
Clinton's appointment of Woolsey was a sop to the neoconservative support Clinton received against Bush, Sr. in '92. The neoconservative wing had always been critical of Bush, Sr.'s more realist-oriented foreign policy and his more hardline stance towards Israel. These same resentments flared up briefly during Jeb's campaign due to the inclusion of James Baker on his foreign policy team. Neoconservatives loathe Baker, who they see as overly deferential to Arab interests. Neoconservatives were also supportive of Clinton's commitments to meddle in the Balkans.
As it turns out, Snowden wasn't the altruistic whistle blower some have made him out to be. He should have never been hired. He should have never gotten anywhere near classified material. He should be captured and returned to the US.
But he clearly (to me) didn't commit treason:
From the Constitution: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
"Adhering to an enemy, giving them Aid and Comfort." It's not just aid and comfort; there has to be "adherence" or a working with or being in concert with.
Is there any evidence at all that Snowden "adhered" with the terrorists? There is no evidence that he even knew these people much less "adhered" or worked with them.
And we have to have two witnesses to show that he "adhered" to ISIS AND gave them aid and comfort. How did he give them specifically aid and comfort?
Woolsey is grossly irresponsible here.
Woolsey didn't stop the Boston Marathon bombing. They were told by two governments to watch the tsarnaev brothers.
It isn't the powers the NSA has, it is the willingness to prosecute that holds us back.
The person who needs to be hung by the neck, is the one who gave away everyone's security clearances on the governments database they connected to the internet.
No one was fired, and everyone with a federal security clearance is screwed for life.
Actually modern, long-drop, hanging is a more humane and neater form of execution than all others.
"adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort"
We just infer the adherence, ipso facto, from the aid and comfort given to all enemies whatsoever.
If we can find SSM in the 14th, surely we can hang Snowden for treason.
A huge amount of material was released as part of the Snowden breach. It is a lie to say he merely revealed the presence of certain domestic spying programs. In fact, his stolen documents revealed many of the sources and methods we used to track terrorists. This included what forms of encryption our government had broken and odd things like the fact that we had backdoors into the World of Warcraft to track terrorists coordinating through online games (http://www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games).
All indications are that the terrorists who pulled off the Paris attacks used none of the encryption methods the Snowden documents indicated were NSA-compromised.
Draw your own conclusions as to whether that constitutes "aid."
"Woolsey didn't stop the Boston Marathon bombing."
? Wasn't he out of the CIA by '95?
Farmer,
Do you have a comment relevant to the article's discussion? If you feel he was a bad appointment, who's fault is that? To me, if it's true Clinton shut him out..seems incredibly stupid and dangerous.
Coupe said...
"The person who needs to be hung by the neck, is the one who gave away everyone's security clearances on the governments database they connected to the internet.
No one was fired, and everyone with a federal security clearance is screwed for life."
I just got my letter in the mail. They have offered me free "identity protection" through some company that is likely owned by a contributor to a lot of campaigns. I am sure my identity would be safe with them.
I am dismayed of course. The federal bureaucracy has betrayed my trust. Almost every person who has had a clearance in the last couple decades feels similarly.
I encourage everyone to think about this group of people. I know them. Every one of us is ready for some change.
Woolsey is a liar, to the extent he says the Paris attacks occurred because of Snowden's revelations that our government is spying on everything we do without out knowledge or permission...and we have the added insult of paying them to do it.
"All indications are that the terrorists who pulled off the Paris attacks used none of the encryption methods the Snowden documents indicated were NSA-compromised."
All indications are that that did not use much or any encryption methods at all.
It is atrocious of Woolsey to use mendacious fear-mongering to justify the unConstitutional violations of our rights and to try to convince us it is for our own good.
There are bad men in he world. Snowden is not one of them; Woolsey is.
Another government pig, mouthing off to cover his own massive incompetence. So what's new?
Defenestrate him wherever he is.
Oh, bilge. US intelligence was "tracking" half of the scumbags who carried out the Paris attack (Daily Mail). But since US intelligence, and EU intelligence, was utterly unwilling to DO anything about the threats they were tracking, they might just as well have not bothered. You can't win a war with tactics derived from Peek-a-Boo.
"The vast majority of the documents that Snowden ... exfiltrated from our highest levels of security ... had nothing to do with exposing government oversight of domestic activities. The vast majority of those were related to our military capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures."
"...some terrorist groups had altered their communications to avoid surveillance techniques revealed by Snowden..."
"...Snowden's disclosures has a "material impact" on the NSA's ability to "generate insights as to what counterterrorism, what terrorist groups around the world are doing."
"...a report claiming that Snowden's intelligence leaks negatively impacted Britain's ability to fight terrorism and organized crime."
"...Snowden took 900,000 Department of Defense files, more than he downloaded from the NSA."
etc etc Domestic programs, my a**.
No one can definitely say whather Snowden's actions had an impact on the Paris attacks. But he deserves to be strung up, shot, whatever, for the damage he has done, which stands irrespective of the actions of anyone else.
@walter:
"Do you have a comment relevant to the article's discussion? If you feel he was a bad appointment, who's fault is that?"
No; it was Ann who mentioned that he was appointed by Clinton and that they did not have much of a relationship. I was expounding on why that is. CIA directors are not all that important to how the agency runs because it is an entrenched bureaucracy. Woolsey was only there two years. As to your second question, what makes you think I believe it was anyone's fault other than Clinton's?
As for the content of the article, I put next to no stock in James Woolsey's opinion on anything. Immediately after 9/11, he was running around making wild accusations about Iraqi involvement, and he continually made scaremongering claims about Iraqi weapons systems and the dangers they posed to the US that turned out to be wrong by orders of magnitude.
Jupiter said...
Oh, bilge. US intelligence was "tracking" half of the scumbags who carried out the Paris attack (Daily Mail). But since US intelligence, and EU intelligence, was utterly unwilling to DO anything about the threats they were tracking, they might just as well have not bothered. You can't win a war with tactics derived from Peek-a-Boo.
11/21/15, 1:07 AM"
They don't act on their own (thank God). They act on orders from their masters. The problem lies at the top. Apparently Clinton was too busy diddling interns- a much important duty of a president as far as Democrats are concerned than doing what used to be considered a presidential duty such as being personally informed of intelligence matters by the head of the central intelligence agency. And yet there are fools who think electing Hillary will be the third Clinton term as if that would be a good thing. Yes let's bring back Bill to the oval office to run things as Hillary plays pretend President. Besides she will be plenty busy in suppressing new bimbo eruptions, with Bill that would be a full time job. Then she will also have to deal with the money laundering of all the bribes they will get. That is not an easy job either and very time consuming. She will have a lot on her plate if the country is crazy enough to elect her.
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