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WikiLeaks’ CIA Download Confirms Everybody’s Tapped, Including Trump

March 8, 2017

WikiLeaks’ CIA Download Confirms Everybody’s Tapped, Including Trump, PJ Media, Roger L. Simon, March 7, 2017

(Please see also, Retired NSA Official: Every Phone Call You Make Is Recorded And Stored | Hannity Fox News. And we were concerned about the privacy implications of “transgender” use of little girls’ bathrooms. — DM)

Remember the old joke about the definition of a paranoid — someone who knows all the facts?

Well, we’re all paranoids now because — since Tuesday’s, unprecedented in size and scope, Wikileaks document dump of massive cyber spying by the CIA — everything we ever thought in our wildest imaginations is true… and then some.

To channel the late Preston Sturges, privacy is not only dead, it’s decomposed.  The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch, known as UMBRAGE, is capable of — or is — watching you everywhere you go, even when you think they’re not or such surveillance would seem impossible.

The question about whether President Trump was tapped has been reduced to a joke.  The real questions are how often and from how many places.  The answer would probably shock us, if we were ever to learn the truth.  (And did President Obama know what they were doing?  Either that or the CIA, FBI or NSA wasn’t telling him. You decide.)

The Wikileaks documents (everyone believes their downloads now) show how the CIA, via their eerily named “Weeping Angel” program, has devised a method of listening to us through our smart TVs.  Even when we think they’re off, they are able to keep them on — and recording — through a “fake-off” program.

Just how many smart TVs does Donald Trump — a known television addict — watch in a day?  Who is he talking to at the time?  A foreign leader perhaps?  And what is he saying in supposed confidence?

These days it’s hard to buy a television that isn’t a smart TV.  The Wikileaks documents show only the popular Samsung has been hacked, but since the agency assiduously hacks both Apple and Android cellphones, one can assume all major brands are covered.  (They’re not stupid.  We are.)

And that’s far from their only way of listening in.  Tyler Durden — considerably more tech savvy than I — expresses the amazement of that community that the CIA was able to bypass the purportedly powerful cellphone data security apps (Signal, Telegram) so many business executives, politicians and journalists rely upon, even to using our own anti-virus programs (McAfee, etc.) to spy on us.  They also, apparently, can control our cars through the latest automobile computers.  (NOTE TO SELF: Skip the Apple CarPlay upgrade.)

Further, Durden quotes Twitter star Kimdotcom’s instant observation that the DNC/Russian hacking connection is also now a joke (at least highly suspect) since the CIA also has a program, via UMBRAGE again, to imitate Russian hacking techniques and leave the Russkies’ “fingerprints”  on their own handiwork. Could the CIA have hacked the DNC and then blamed it on the Russians for some purpose?  It seems unlikely, but anything’s possible in this crazy and increasingly bizarre and alienating world.  If it is true, don’t look now, but our country just exploded.

Our hope, for now, is in the congressional investigations, but it’s hard to have much confidence in them.  The media, of course, is ludicrous.  They have clearly become the witting/unwitting lackeys of all manner of leakers from any number of intelligence agencies. It’s become dizzying as the internal contradictions mount up daily.  (Who told you there was a FISA order again? Oh, wait…)  The New York Times and the Washington Post, among others, have reached self-parody in their cock-eyed denials of what they asserted only weeks ago, while the CIA grows progressively more partisan and ominously totalitarian in its values and methods.

Pretty soon every citizen is going to need a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility) of his or her own.

Whatever the case, we all have to do some serious thinking — way beyond the general superficiality and contrived drama of congressional hearings or indeed the quick in-and-out of an op-ed.  What is being revealed here is a sea change in the human condition that is almost evolutionary in its implications. What are our lives like without the presumption of privacy?  What kind of creatures will we become in this brave new world that appears already to have arrived?   It’s not fun to contemplate. Even the medieval peasantry had moments of escape from their feudal lords.

While initially critical of the Snowdens, Assanges or, for that matter,  the mystery man behind this latest literally Earth-shattering dump, I now have somewhere between mixed and positive feelings towards them. (Well, maybe not Snowden.) With all the problems we have, having visited the Soviet Union, the Russian Republic and Communist China (when they were still in Mao suits), I know those countries are mostly little more than giant prisons and we are still (again for now) the good guys.  Nevertheless, I am increasingly concerned we are creating our own “digital prison” that will make Darkness at Noon seem like child’s play.  At least in Arthur Koestler’s novel of the Stalinist purge trials the inmates could communicate by tapping on the walls.  What do we do?

Categories: CIA, Governmental spying on everybody, WikiLeaks
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WikiLeaks publishes thousands of documents, claims they come from CIA cyber center

March 7, 2017

WikiLeaks publishes thousands of documents, claims they come from CIA cyber center, Washington Examiner, Kyle Feldscher, March 7, 2017

WikiLeaks on Tuesday began releasing information it says is the largest ever publication of documents from the CIA, starting with more than 8,700 documents from the agency’s high-security network.

In a press release, WikiLeaks said the CIA “lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation.”

That loss of control allowed much of the CIA’s hacking capability to become public and was given to WikiLeaks.

According to the statement, Tuesday’s release shows the “scope and direction” of the CIA’s global hacking program. That program is meant to target American and European products such as the Apple iPhone, Android phones, the Microsoft Windows computer software system and Samsung TVs, which can be turned into microphones.

WikiLeaks says its source “details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.

“There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons,’ ” said Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks. “Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such ‘weapons,’ which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade.

“But the significance of ‘Year Zero’ [the first part of the release] goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective.”

Categories: CIA, Cyber attacks, Cyber security, WikiLeaks
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CIA, DOJ Sued Over Leaks of Classified Info About Former NSA Flynn

March 6, 2017

CIA, DOJ Sued Over Leaks of Classified Info About Former NSA Flynn, Washinton Free Beacon, , March 6, 2017

(Here’s a link to the Judicial Watch press release on the suit. — DM)

The CIA and Departments of Justice and Treasury are being sued by a prominent legal organization for their role in leaking highly classified material as part of an effort to undermine the credibility of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to an announcement.

Judicial Watch, known for its role in exposing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, announced on Monday that it has sued several federal agencies for information related to Flynn’s discussions with Russian officials before he officially entered the White House.

Flynn was forced to resign from the White House for apparently misleading President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about the substance of these conversations.

However, the Washington Free Beacon and multiple other news outlets have reported on a campaign by former Obama administration officials and loyalists to spread highly classified information in a bid to handicap the Trump administration.

In addition to Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House adviser Sebastian Gorka have been the subject of multiple leaks aimed at jeopardizing their positions in the administration.

Judicial Watch sued multiple agencies after they failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, which must legally be handled by these agencies in a timely fashion.

The lawsuit moved to unearth “any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the investigation of retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak between October 1, 2016 and the present,” according to a statement by Judicial Watch.

“In its complaint Judicial Watch asks the court to order the agencies to search for all records responsive to its FOIA requests and demonstrate that they employed reasonable search methods; order the agencies to produce by a specific date all non-exempt records and a Vaughn index of all withheld records; and instruct the agencies to cease withholding all non-exempt records,” the organization explained in its statement.

Categories: CIA, Department of Justice, Jeff Sessions, Judicial Watch, Leaks, Michael T. Flynn, Obama administration, Sebastian Gorka, Treasury Dept.
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Ex-CIA Officer Abandoned by Obama: Without Trump Admin, ‘I Would Be Spending Tonight in an Italian Prison’

March 4, 2017

Ex-CIA Officer Abandoned by Obama: Without Trump Admin, ‘I Would Be Spending Tonight in an Italian Prison’, Breitbart, John Hayward, March 3, 2017

sabrina-de-sousa-cia-reuters-photo-640x480REUTERS/Pedro Nunes

Former CIA case officer Sabrina De Sousa thanked the Trump administration for intervening to save her from extradition to Italy and imprisonment in a statement on Friday.

“I want to extend my deepest appreciation to the Trump administration for all their efforts on my behalf. Without their support I would be spending tonight in an Italian prison,” said De Sousa, in a statement quoted by Fox News.

“The Obama administration and former CIA Director John Brennan abandoned De Sousa the last seven years, and in six weeks, the Trump team made her freedom possible,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) told Fox News.

Hoekstra was one of De Sousa’s strongest champions and an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s conduct in her case. He laid out her case and castigated Obama for abandoning her, along with a healthy dose of criticism for the governments of Italy and Portugal, in a Tuesday op-ed and Fox News:

Originally convicted in absentia in 2009 by the Italian legal system, America, until recently, has done very little to defend and support Sabrina and her family since. They have lived under the shadow of these convictions for years. Now she’s on her way to face punishment in Italy.

Roughly eighteen months ago Sabrina took a risk returning to Portugal. During her trip, Sabrina was arrested and instructed not to leave.

Portugal has detained her ever since.

The Obama administration did nothing for seven years following Sabrina’s conviction. They did nothing while she was detained in Portugal.  Meanwhile, President Obama released prisoners from GITMO. The White House handed out pardons. Not a finger was lifted to assist Sabrina.

CIA Director Brennan visited Portugal twice in 2016. Sources in the Portuguese intelligence community indicate that Sabrina’s case was never even discussed.

De Sousa, 61, was working undercover for the CIA in Italy when Egyptian cleric Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, a.k.a. Abu Omar, was plucked from the streets and returned to Egypt in an “extraordinary rendition” operation. He was believed to have been involved in a plan to bomb a bus full of school children in Milan.

The case against Omar turned out to be thin. He was interrogated — he says “tortured” — by the Egyptians and released, then he was convicted in absentia by Italy for “criminal association for the purposes of international terrorism” and given a six-year sentence. He has never actually served time in an Italian prison for this conviction.

One might argue that De Sousa bears no responsibility for the Egyptian government’s conduct in the case, but the maddening truth of the case is that she did not even have anything to do with his rendition. She has documentary evidence in the form of phone records that she was over a hundred miles away when the operation occurred. She and 25 other Americans, mostly CIA employees, were convicted in absentia by an Italian court.

As Newsweek chronicles, De Sousa was en route to visit her mother in India in October 2015, having long since left the employ of the CIA, when she was detained at the Lisbon airport. To her astonishment, she ultimately found herself in a Portuguese prison awaiting extradition to Italy for what remained of a five-year prison sentence. Her mother, sadly, passed away while she was detained in Portugal.

She says she was scapegoated for the operation, which she has been highly critical of, expressing puzzlement that everyone from President George W. Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to the Egyptian government was so eager to move against Omar. In one interview, she suggested the “ambition” of the CIA station chief to impress his superiors might have played a role.

According to the Washington Post, Italian law enforcement somehow became convinced De Sousa was secretly the head of CIA operations in Milan rather than a case officer and that Omar’s rendition was “close to the hearts” of both De Sousa and the CIA chief in Rome.

Rep. Hoekstra compared De Sousa’s case to President Obama’s abandonment of Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who played a crucial role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In his Fox News op-ed, he lambasted everyone from Italy and Portugal to Bush and Obama administration officials for allowing De Sousa to suffer, even though everyone knew she was merely “a political pawn in a much larger dynamic.” He bluntly accused the Italian government of cowardice for going after De Sousa instead of the high-ranking Bush administration officials — possibly including former President Bush himself — who actually authorized and executed the rendition of Abu Omar.

Hoekstra told Newsweek about his campaign to get help for De Sousa from the Trump administration:

He had a number of friends in the national security apparatus from his time on the House Intelligence Committee—people like Michael Flynn, the recently departed White House national security adviser, fellow former Representative Mike Pompeo, now director of the CIA, and former Senator Dan Coats, the new director of national intelligence. And it didn’t hurt that he had chaired Trump’s Michigan campaign.

“I just said this was terrible that she should go to jail for something that was approved by the National Security Council and probably President Bush himself,” Hoekstra said. “They recognized this had to be a front-burner issue,” he said. “The optics” were bad. “You don’t want a CIA case officer sitting in an Italian jail.”

Hoekstra said he kept administration officials apprised of De Sousa’s situation “in real time” as the day, and then hour, for her extradition grew near. “I was convinced that Wednesday morning she would be transported back to Lisbon and onto a plane to Italy,” he said. And so was she. Her husband, a retired Department of the Army employee who had joined her in Portugal, packed her suitcases with only the light clothing she had. “It was warm here,” she said, “and I dreaded freezing in Milan.”

Newsweek described De Sousa as “bitter at Obama administration officials” because they did not invoke diplomatic immunity to defend her (she was nominally a State Department diplomat while on CIA assignment to Milan). She even sued Hillary Clinton’s State Department for abandoning her to suffer “significant emotional, professional and economic harm, including, but not limited to, possible criminal or civil liability.”

Years later, she felt compelled to officially disclose she had been working for the CIA as well as the State Department, which did not please the CIA. She has flatly accused Obama and his CIA director, John Brennan, of throwing her “under the bus.”

It turns out that one of the things De Sousa has been doing since escaping from her legal entanglements in Italy is reading Newsweek because she used her Twitter account on Friday to swiftly dispute a nameless Obama official’s claim that she was not abandoned by the previous administration:

Sabrina De Sousa @Sadiso

Fmr Obama off. failed to mention that in 2014 @CIA had excluded me from getting a pardon by Prez of Italy http://www.newsweek.com/trump-cia-sabrina-desousa-italy-portugal-rendition-pete-hoekstra-hassan-563225 …

9:40 AM – 3 Mar 2017 · Lisbon, Portugal

The arrangement reached by the Trump administration involved reduction of her sentence, so there was no longer any reason for Portugal to extradite her to Italy, and the 11-year-old warrant against her is finally nullified.

“I had an arrest warrant issued against me 11 long years ago that prevented me from seeing members of my immediate family in Europe,” she told Fox News. “Finally, I can rest with the assurance there is no warrant hanging over my head.”

“In six short weeks, the Trump administration has given me more hope and support than I ever received in the past eight years from the Obama Administration or the CIA, my former employer. I had feared that the country I signed up with in good faith to serve had abandoned me,” De Sousa said.

Categories: CIA, Obama administration, President Trump, Sabrina De Sousa
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The CIA’s affront to Trump

February 16, 2017

The CIA’s affront to Trump, Washington Times, Angelo M. Codevilla, February 16, 2017

(It is absurd for the CIA to have control over whom President Trump can appoint to the National Security Council by refusing — for no stated or apparent reason — to grant the required security clearance. — DM)

ciatrumpstrumpCIA Bullies Trump Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The CIA has denied a security clearance to Trump National Security Council (NSC) official Robin Townley without any allegation, much less evidence of disloyalty to the United States. Quite simply, it is because the CIA disapproves of Mr. Townley’s attitude toward the agency, and this is unprecedented. President Trump appointed Mr. Townley to coordinate Africa policy at the NSC. The CIA did not want to deal with him. Hence, it used the power to grant security clearances to tell the president to choose someone acceptable to the agency, though not so much to him. This opens a larger issue: Since no one can take part in the formulation or execution of foreign or defense policy without a high-level security clearance, vetoing the president’s people by denying them clearances trumps the president.

Hence, if Mr. Trump does not fire forthwith the persons who thus took for themselves the prerogative that the American people had entrusted to him at the ballot box, chances are 100 percent that they will use that prerogative ever more frequently with regard to anyone else whom they regard as standing in the way of their preferred policies, as a threat to their reputation, or simply as partisan opponents. If Mr. Trump lets this happen, he will have undermined nothing less than the self-evident heart of the Constitution’s Article II: The president is the executive branch. All of its employees draw their powers from him and answer to him, not the other way around.

Using security clearances for parochial purposes — usually petty ones — while neglecting security, never mind counterintelligence, is an old story at the CIA which I got to know too well during eight years overseeing the agency as the designee of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s budget chairman. Because I did my quality control job vigorously, and because I placed on the budget cut list some of the many outside contracts that seemed corrupt, the agency made repeated attempts to withdraw my top-level, cross-cutting security clearances. After I left the Senate staff for Stanford, when the Naval Postgraduate School asked me to teach a highly classified course on signals intelligence, the school’s security office asked the CIA for my clearances. The bureaucrats there said they had never heard of me. I had to call Director of Central Intelligence Bill Casey, who ended up phoning them in personally to a startled Navy chief.

The CIA uses pretense about security to insulate itself from criticism, to protect its own, and to intrude into policymaking. Security against foreign intelligence ranks low in its priorities. For near a decade, its bureaucrats refused to look into obvious evidence that their own Aldrich Ames had sold out America’s entire agent network in the Soviet Union. Moreover, according to its inspector general, they continued to pass reports from that network to the president because they happened to agree with the direction in which these KGB-produced reports were pushing U.S. policy. The CIA also uses secrecy to avoid responsibility. It crafts the conclusions of its reports specifically to be leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post, while making sure that the thin or nonexistent facts behind those conclusions never see the light of day.

The CIA’s denial of a clearance to a presidential appointee minus good cause, however, breaks new ground and shows truly revolutionary boldness. Traditionally, bureaucrats have used sticks and carrots to convince political appointees to play along lest they suffer unpleasantness. Thus, presidents have ended up having to choose between suffering appointees who have “gone native” or replacing them. Now, the CIA’s denial of Mr. Townley’s clearance removes all subtlety by demanding that Mr. Trump appoint only “natives.” If Mr. Trump indulges that demand for self-emasculation, the message will go out to all agencies: They need pay no attention to what political appointees tell them, and they need fear no retribution for this or for pressuring appointees in any way they want. The message to the people who Mr. Trump has appointed or who are considering working for Mr. Trump is just as clear: You have no choice but to make yourself acceptable to the bureaucrats because, if you don’t, they will hurt you and the president will not help you. This cannot help but skew the pool of potential members of the Trump administration.

We cannot know nor does it matter why Donald Trump seems to be deferring to bureaucrats who have gone out of their way to delegitimize him. But we can be certain about the kind of dynamic engendered by deference in the face of assaults.

Categories: CIA, CIA and politics, National Security Council, Robin Townley, Security clearance, Trump agenda, Trump and CIA, Trump appointments
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CIA broke the law to take out its critic General Flynn

February 14, 2017

CIA broke the law to take out its critic General Flynn, American Thinker, Thomas Lifson, February 14, 2017

Make no mistake, we have just witnessed an operation by members of the CIA to take out a high official of our own government.  An agency that is widely believed to have brought down democratically elected governments overseas is now practicing the same dark arts in domestic American politics.

Senator Chuck Schumer, of all people, laid out on January 2nd what was going to happen to the Trump administration if it dared take on the deep state – the permanent bureaucracy that has contempt for the will of the voters and feels entitled to run the government for its own benefit:

New Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities.

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

“So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Or, as the old rueful saying has it, “You’ve got to go along to get along.”  Which means that we the people had better acknowledge that the bureaucrats have turned into our masters, and the old expression “public servant” is as ironic as anything Orwell came up with.  Schumer knows this and likes it, because the deep state wants a bigger more powerful government, just as he does.

Note that the law was broken by whoever leaked the transcripts to the media. Not only is the crime underlying the “scandal” being ignored, the criminals are being hailed. On Morning Joe’s first hour today, the host, a former congressman (i.e., a lawmaker) himself, called the leakers “heroes.”

This interference in domestic politics by the CIA should be regarded as a major threat to our democracy, but of course our Trump-hating domestic media are reveling in a major point scored against the new president.

David P. Goldman (aka, Spengler), writing on PJ Media, explains the level of hatred the CIA has for Flynn for daring to take on its spectacular failures:

gen-flynn

…the CIA has gone out of its way to sandbag Flynn at the National Security Council. As Politico reports: “On Friday, one of Flynn’s closest deputies on the NSC, senior director for Africa Robin Townley, was informed that the Central Intelligence Agency had rejected his request for an elite security clearance required for service on the NSC, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation.” Townley held precisely the same security clearance at the Department of Defense for seventeen years, yet he was blackballed without explanation. At DoD, Townley had a stellar reputation as a Middle East and Africa expert, and the denial of his clearance is hard to explain except as bureaucratic backstabbing.

…Gen. Flynn is the hardest of hardliners with respect to Russia within the Trump camp. In his 2016 book Field of Fight (co-authored with PJ Media’s Michael Ledeen), Flynn warned of “an international alliance of evil movements and countries that is working to destroy us….The war is on. We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.” The unsubstantiated allegation that he presides over a “leaky” National Security Council tilting towards Russia makes no sense. The only leaks of which we know are politically motivated reports coming from the intelligence community designed to disrupt the normal workings of a democratic government–something that raises grave constitutional issues.

Flynn is the one senior U.S. intelligence officer with the guts to blow the whistle on a series of catastrophic intelligence and operational failures. The available facts point to the conclusion that elements of the humiliated (and perhaps soon-to-be-unemployed) intelligence community is trying to exact vengeance against a principled and patriotic officer…. The present affair stinks like a dumpster full of dead rats.

Note that the suspicions eagerly being raised by the media center around Trump being a pawn of Putin and Flynn secretly pledging fealty or some such absurd subordination. In other words, suspicions of treasonous behavior by the new president are being cultivated in the general public. We can expect the media to fan these flames at every opportunity.

He also explains why the Logan Act references are insulting:

Senior officials speak to their counterparts in other countries all the time, and for obvious reasons do not want these conversations to become public. The intelligence community, though, was taping Flynn’s discussions, and the transcripts (of whose existence we are told but whose contents we have not seen) were used to embarrass him.

This last point is critical. The entire “scandal” is based on innuendo. Flynn tripped over his own feet by misinforming Vice President Pence on the nature of his call, and allowing the veep to issue a too-sweeping denial of any discussion. If Flynn had said in his conversation with the Russian Ambassador that we will discuss the sanctions after Trump takes office, he might well have told Pence that they did not discuss the sanctions. And the CIA leakers could have used the appearance of the word “sanctions” in their transcript to brand Pence a liar. We don’t know, and for some reason, nobody is gaining access to the actual transcripts so that we may see the content. Perhaps the Congressional investivartions to come will gain access. But Flynn is now gone and media memes have been firmly planted int he public mind.

The Flynn Affair is a huge scandal, all right. But the media are misdirecting our attention toward the lesser dimension while they studiously ignore the real threat to our democracy.

Categories: CIA, General Flynn, General Flynn and Russia, Leaks, Russia and U.S.
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Trump’s game in Saudi Arabia

February 13, 2017

Trump’s game in Saudi Arabia, American Thinker, James Lewis, February 13, 2017

Mike Pompeo, the new CIA head, just flew to Riyadh to give a medal to the reigning son of the king (who is said to suffer from dementia).  While some conservatives regard this as a travesty (e.g., a “Not the Onion” commentary from Zero Hedge), I think this is meant to be an open signal to support the House of Saud, whose help is needed against the Iranians anyway and who support President El-Sisi against Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

saudiaward

It’s not clear what the Saudis did in exchange, but they have been under the gun, fearing that Western media would expose their role in support of violent jihad.  So this looks as though the Saudis have done a lot to settle those debts.  It’s not the kind of public gesture the CIA does a lot.

The Saudis can shut down ISIS/AQ/Al Nusra, or whatever the worst gang of maniacs calls itself today.  They also have no problem with selected assassinations.  SecDef Mattis has a long record of talking about morality and immorality in warfare, and he does not like sadistic monsters.  I think the moral dimension of defensive war has been missing during the Obama years.

These moves may signal both domestic and foreign agreements to calm things down.  The Saudis know that their control of OPEC is waning, since Trump is aggressively opening up domestic traditional and shale energy production (again, something Obama never would do).  But the Saudis need to make a “soft landing,” which is not going to be easy.  So they have been talking peace with Israel, on the assumption that Israel can communicate with the U.S. – at least under Trump.

These are all calming moves in a very agitated international situation. I believe that Trump is going to move aggressively against Muslim Brotherhood infiltration, probably with Saudi backing.  The Saudis are ideologically aligned with ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the M.B.s, but tactically, they could abandon them.  Violent jihad arose with OPEC, and now that OPEC is declining, it would be smart to convince the Saudis that the jig is up.

We can see if there is a marked decrease in jihadist violence.  If not, then the hypothesis is wrong.

The possibility of public exposure of their role in 9/11 is still very real and can be used to ensure their good behavior.

This is Kremlinology, but it’s falsifiable.  There are many dangerous enemies in the world, including George Soros domestically, and the intelligence agencies can torpedo a lot of stuff.  It is smart for Trump to calm things down and focus on the hard parts first.

 

Categories: CIA, Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia, Saudi royal family, Trump agenda, Trump and Iran, Trump and Middle East
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Obama Allies Working to Undermine Trump’s National Security Team

January 21, 2017

Obama Allies Working to Undermine Trump’s National Security Team, Washington Free Beacon, , January 21, 2017

CIA Director-designate Rep. Michael Pompeo, R-Kan. is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2017, prior to testifying at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

CIA Director-designate Rep. Michael Pompeo, R-Kan. is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2017, prior to testifying at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. (AP

Democrats loyal to former President Barack Obama are waging a behind-the-scenes effort to undermine President Donald Trump’s national security team by blocking key appointees, according to multiple sources familiar with the outgoing administration’s efforts.

The centerpiece of this obstruction is the recent refusal by Senate Democrats to quickly confirm incoming CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Democratic leaders—including Sens. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Patrick Leahy (Vt.)—postponed Pompeo’s confirmation, claiming they need more time to debate the pick, which is widely supported by a majority of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The decision to stall Pompeo’s vote, a move that will leave the critical post of CIA director vacant as Trump takes office, is part of a wider effort by the outgoing administration and its allies to hamstring Trump on the national security front, according to multiple sources, including those close to the Trump administration.

Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA director who served under former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, told the Washington Free Beacon that he is “puzzled by the objections recently raised” by Senate Democrats.

“It’s hell being the political football,” Hayden said Saturday afternoon, ahead of a visit by both Trump and Pompeo to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Democrats cited Hayden’s role under Bush and Obama as a precedent for Pompeo’s holdup.

“Just as Director Hayden served as a bridge between the Bush and Obama presidencies eight years ago, Director [John] Brennan could play the same role for the incoming and outgoing administrations, if the President is willing to keep him on,” Matt House, a Schumer spokesman, said in a recent press statement.

Democrats opposing Pompeo have expressed concerns about his desire to combat terrorism by boosting the collection of personal data in the United States. They also have raised concerns about Pompeo’s stance on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Hayden dismissed these concerns, saying Democratic talking points on the matter are unconvincing.

“With regard to interrogations and surveillance, Congressman Pompeo said that he would follow the law. If his intelligence professionals advised him that current law denied him intelligence opportunities that would be otherwise available, he would so advise the Congress so that they could discuss and debate whether changes in the law might be indicated,” Hayden said. “That is the essence of a professional carrying out his duty within the American political context.”

There is nothing abnormal about Pompeo’s desire to potentially strengthen the interrogation techniques available to the U.S. military, Hayden said.

“No one could reasonably argue that the current army field manual exhausts all legally available interrogation techniques,” he explained. “If director Pompeo and his professionals judged that America was measurably less safe because of the current limitations, their duty would be to inform the president and the Congress of that judgment. They of course would live with the decision of their political and policy masters.  What could possibly be controversial about that?”

The campaign to delay Pompeo’s confirmation appears to be just one piece of a larger effort aimed at undermining Trump’s national security team, multiple sources told the Free Beacon.

There is evidence Obama’s outgoing administration took steps to complicate and delay the building of Trump’s new team, according to one veteran foreign policy insider who has been in close contact with Trumps’ national security transition team.

“Something strange is going on,” the source, who is not authorized to speak on the record, said. “The Trump folks keep loading up accounts and looking at specific jobs, and they’re not finding anything like what should be there. It’s like the Obama national security team went out of their way to cripple the transition on the way out.”

A senior congressional aide familiar with the efforts to hold up Pompeo’s confirmation vote told the Free Beacon that Democrats are playing politics with America’s national security.

“This is nothing more than an exercise in partisan showmanship,” the source said. “Senate Democrats know Pompeo is wholly qualified for this job and that he’ll eventually be confirmed.”

“Playing politics with this confirmation only jeopardizes our national security at a time when the United States faces a multitude of security challenges,” added the congressional source, who asked not to be named so he could speak freely. “They should drop this charade and confirm him.”

Categories: CIA, CIA and politics, Michael Pompeo, National secuity, Obstruction, Trump appointments, U.S. Senate
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Deep Cover Democrats | SUPERcuts! #420

January 13, 2017

Deep Cover Democrats | SUPERcuts! #420, Washington Free Beacon via YouTube, January 13, 2017

 

Categories: CIA, Democrat Party
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Ishmael Jones: From Russia With Doubt

January 5, 2017

Ishmael Jones: From Russia With Doubt, Power Line, Scott Johnson, January 5, 2016

(Please see also, Hmmm: FBI, CIA never examined DNC servers? — DM)

Ishmael Jones is a former CIA case officer and author of The Human Element: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. He writes with a timely comment on the current intelligence controversy that is reaching a fever pitch. Mr. Jones indicates that his commentary has been reviewed and approved by the CIA’s publications review board:

CIA intelligence reporting stating that the Russian government hacked the presidential election in order to elect Donald Trump is false. It is merely a political attack against Donald Trump with the goal of delegitimizing his presidency.

The depth and quality of the CIA reporting is too good to be true. A December 16 NBC report states, for example: “Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used.” Everyone knows that a great deal of hacking comes out of Russia. But evidence of hacking does not lead to the conclusion that there was a Russian government conspiracy to get Mr. Trump elected.

Such a conclusion would require access to Putin’s inner circle and knowledge of Putin’s plans and intentions. Any spy that close to Putin would be one of the best intelligence sources of all time.

If such a source existed, he doesn’t exist any more. The leaked reporting would have put him in grave danger, and he would already have been imprisoned or executed.

The reporting instead reflects the political opinions and agendas of bureaucrats. CIA bureaucrats are a big blue voting machine with a long record of creating information harmful to Republican presidents. The danger to Mr. Trump is ratcheted up because the recent election influenced many people at the CIA to believe that Trump is the second coming of Hitler. And to stop Hitler, anything is ethical, even treason. CIA bureaucrats have chosen to attack Mr. Trump before he even takes office.

The CIA is meant to spy upon foreign countries. The secrets we seek are located in foreign countries. Yet the bloated CIA bureaucracy exists almost entirely within the United States. CIA bureaucrats appear to find foreign service disagreeable. They enjoy their lifestyle and will fight with aggressive passivity to keep it that way. More than 90% of CIA employees spend their careers living and working entirely within the United States.

James Bond would periodically come in from the field to report to the chief of British intelligence, “M.” On the way into M’s office he would joke around with M’s secretary, Miss Moneypenny.

When I reported to CIA Headquarters, there were thousands of these people – thousands of M’s and thousands of Miss Moneypennys. The CIA cafeteria looks like a great herd grazing peacefully upon the plains.

The incoming CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, will be astonished by how many of his senior leaders have not had an overseas assignment in decades. Brief junkets and TDY’s to foreign countries do not count. CIA boss John Brennan’s 40 plus years of CIA service have occurred almost entirely within the Headquarters building. During a 20 year career, the Left’s favorite spy, Valerie Plame, spent less than two and a half years in foreign operational assignments, mostly during an initial tour in Europe.

The CIA has a military origin, and in the military, huge staffs are required for planning and logistics. There are relatively few actual fighting infantrymen – at the point of the spear – because to send that infantryman to combat requires support from tanks, artillery, aircraft and so on, which need massive expenditure and meticulous planning. The CIA has the massive expenditure and the huge staffs, but the CIA’s equivalent of the infantryman is the case officer, and the best case officers require only a passport and an airline ticket to get half a world away and produce.

Michael Morell, author of the New York Times op-ed column “I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton” inhabited the Washington DC area for nearly all of his 33 years in the CIA. In the article, he writes: “I will do everything I can to ensure she is elected”.

While at the CIA, Morell’s top goal was to promote greater inclusiveness and diversity. The CIA has come a long way since the days of the polygraph question, “Have you ever held another man’s penis in your hand?” Today, we have more employees working in encouraging diversity, and as of recently, more transgender employees, than we do case officers operating under cover in Russia, China, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and North Korea combined. We should try to do both. Let’s be dedicated to diversity and also spy on our enemies.

Mr. Pompeo’s staff may wish to contact the staff of former CIA chief Porter Goss. Goss was the last Republican appointee to attempt change at the CIA and his staff will be able to provide valuable insights, especially former staffer Patrick Murray

Gritty foreign countries with their strange ways and pungent smells are not the only reason for bureaucrats to live in the United States. CIA Headquarters is also the place to make deals. Fighting fraud will be a real challenge to Mr. Pompeo. Most bureaucrats retire and become contractors, wheedling contracts from their pals still at the CIA. I hear many tales from colleagues about waste, theft, and great riches accruing to phony contractors. The CIA paid $40 to contractors to review documents to help prepare the Senate torture report, according to ABC News on December 10, 2014, for example. Had Hillary won, Michael Morell’s support may have put him on track to be a billionaire. Forty million here and forty million there really starts to add up.

It may be possible to make great progress in draining the swamp by firing or prosecuting just one leaker – just a single one. And by imprisoning just one phony contractor – just one. Word will spread that there’s a new sheriff in town and Mr. Pompeo may be pleasantly surprised to see that the swamp starts to drain itself.

Categories: Allegations of Russian hacking, CIA, CIA and politics, CIA and President Elect Trump, Democrat National Committee
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