Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says of the Drake case, “The government wants this to be about unlawfully retained information. The defense, meanwhile, is painting a picture of a public-interested whistle-blower who struggled to bring attention to what he saw as multibillion-dollar mismanagement.” Because Drake is not a spy, Aftergood says, the case will “test whether intelligence officers can be convicted of violating the Espionage Act even if their intent is pure.” He believes that the trial may also test whether the nation’s expanding secret intelligence bureaucracy is beyond meaningful accountability. “It’s a much larger debate than whether a piece of paper was at a certain place at a certain time,” he says.
Jack Balkin, a liberal law professor at Yale, agrees that the increase in leak prosecutions is part of a larger transformation. “We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national-surveillance state,” he says. In his view, zealous leak prosecutions are consonant with other political shifts since 9/11: the emergence of a vast new security bureaucracy, in which at least two and a half million people hold confidential, secret, or top-secret clearances; huge expenditures on electronic monitoring, along with a reinterpretation of the law in order to sanction it; and corporate partnerships with the government that have transformed the counterterrorism industry into a powerful lobbying force. Obama, Balkin says, has “systematically adopted policies consistent with the second term of the Bush Administration.”
Ya gotta love that hope and change. Sorry, I just had to. Lefties are waiting on Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantonimo, and some more Obama money I suppose. I’m starting to agree on the first two.
The last paragraph says it all:
Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.”
meet the new boss, same as the old boss. -now with extra ebil.
-s
A very interesting case.
5 June 2013: Pres. Obama, “…you’re either with us, or against us.”
The message isn’t clear?
True American citizenship isn’t easy. You have to want it. (Note to NSA – :p )
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Hope and Change was a PR campaign. Transparency was a PR campaign.
Smoke and Mirrors is the new reality.
I hate cowards who try to stifle free speech.
It always makes me wonder how far up my butt they’re trying to see.
The die-hard liberals who are still clinging to Obama’s bullshit are like little children who deny their own child abuse.
Idiots all.
Good article.This is consistent with the Cheney administration’s convincing the American Sheeple that safety will cost us liberties we took for granted.
The ACLU was vilified as unAmerican, liberal terrorist lovers when they challenged those policies. Now the same sheeple are figuring out the ACLU was right with the slippery slope we’re on.
Welcome to the new normal. It gets worse..wait till the Republican installed Supreme Court transfers power to corporations. Now your fucked two ways : (1) Fewer liberties and (2) STFU and be a good consumer of Chinese goods.
Various non- disclosure agreements, secrecy act acknowledgements or state information security agreements are manditory in all government employment terms of service in all western countries. Whether they are postal workers or senior directors, they are all required to be discreet with ALL information, not just that information they find agreeable. It has been this way since the 7th century. That an officer of the State is betrust of public and government and state information that normally does not meet public perview.
#8. And just in time to prove my point, Thanks Dallas, I knew I could depend on you.
He shoots…he SCORES!!!!!
Drake, who left the N.S.A. in 2008, and now works at an Apple Store
That must mean something.
N.S.A.- Applestore, same thing.
#10 Thanks 🙂 My ability to see throughthe fog of Republican rhetoric is impressive indeed.
A simple “thank you for your clairvoyance is sufficient”!
Good to see that Dallas is still blind. We consider his way of thinking a jobs program.
Let’s see. Dallas getting ragged on as usual. Let’s parse:
#8—Good article. /// Well–yea, it raises very troubling issues of governmental secrecy, waste, fraud, constitutional erosion of right, etc.
This is consistent with the Cheney administration’s convincing the American Sheeple that safety will cost us liberties we took for granted. /// Too true.
The ACLU was vilified as unAmerican, liberal terrorist lovers when they challenged those policies. Now the same sheeple are figuring out the ACLU was right with the slippery slope we’re on. /// I don’t think so. We are a nation of sheep–much easier to thump your chest and “put em’ in jail” because when you reveal a multi-million dollar fraud in computer procurement you know you are putting our boys in the field at risk. Don’t go supporting those terrorists by taking the suck rag out of a Corporate Executive’s Bonus Package. Thats unamerican as I fight for health care coverage!
Welcome to the new normal. It gets worse..wait till the Republican installed Supreme Court transfers power to corporations. /// Al ready done and compelted. Unlimited spending by Corps on Congress Creeps bribery and no requirement to ever report who what when where how. Probably unAmerican to boot don’t ya know.
Now your fucked two ways : (1) Fewer liberties and (2) STFU and be a good consumer of Chinese goods. /// Yea, thats true.
Dallas I must agree after close review with your critics. You don’t understand what is going on. You are way to easy on the Pukes, on the right track, but still have not communicated just how putrid our opaque/corporate controlled government HAS ALREADY BECOME and only getting worse. Amusing though the PUKES responding here can’t tell their criticisms of Obama are that he is Bush light. What a bunch of bozo’s.
Well done. Please keep it up.
So we have become the enemy….Welcome to the U.S.S.A.
Didn’t the president, when he was a senator, vote to give immunity to telcos for participating in this? or something to that effect.
Or maybe the above-mentioned vote just included the fines on the telcos.