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Exclusive: Courage, like cowardice, can grow when an action by one person influences decisions by others, either toward bravery or fear. Thus, the gutsy whistle-blowing by some NSA officials inspired Edward Snowden to expose mass data collection on all Americans, recalls ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
When Edward Snowden in early June 2013 began to reveal classified data showing criminal collect-it-all surveillance programs operated by the U.S. government’s National Security Agency, former NSA professionals became freer to spell out the liberties taken with the Bill of Rights, as well as the feckless, counterproductive nature of bulk electronic data collection.
On Jan. 7, 2014, four senior retired specialists with a cumulative total of 144 years of work with NSA – William Binney, Thomas Drake, Edward Loomis, and Kirk Wiebe – prepared a Memorandum for the President providing a comprehensive account of the problems at NSA, together with suggestions as to how they might be best addressed.
The purpose was to inform President Obama as fully as possible, as he prepared to take action in light of Snowden’s revelations.
On Jan. 23, 2015 in Berlin, Binney was honored with the annual Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. Ed Snowden was live-streamed-in for the occasion, and said, “Without Bill Binney there would be no Ed Snowden.” (Binney had been among the first to speak out publicly about NSA abuses; apparently that emboldened Snowden to do what he did.)
Snowden had already said when he fled to Hong Kong in June 2013 that he had learned an extremely important lesson from the four years of government persecution/prosecution of Tom Drake; namely, that he, Ed Snowden, had to leave the country in order to fulfill his mission – and to have some reasonable chance to avoid spending the rest of his life behind bars. (Eventually, all the felony charges against Drake were dismissed.)
An important take-away lesson from Binney’s and Drake’s boldness and tenacity is that one never knows what impetus courageous truth-tellers can give to other, potential whistleblowers – like Ed Snowden.
(full article here)
Edmund D. Fountain, Times
Wednesday, November 25, 2015, in the Tampa Bay Times.
Sen. Bill Nelson is right. Those responsible should be fired if a Pentagon investigation of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa finds classified intelligence was manipulated to downplay setbacks in the fight against the Islamic State. The Obama administration and Congress have to be given the unvarnished truth about efforts to fight terrorism in order to make the most informed decisions about protecting the nation.
The Pentagon is investigating serious allegations by CentCom analysts who say supervisors have changed intelligence reports to make it appear the United States has been more successful fighting ISIS than the original assessments indicated. Investigators are reviewing electronic files that recount the rise of the terrorist group, and a congressional committee is widening its review to include CentCom reports about Afghanistan and other areas. The New York Times reported this week there are concerns that some emails and documents were deleted before the documents were given to investigators, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is comparing CentCom’s reports to those generated by the Central Intelligence Agency and other government agencies. Anyone attempting to slant intelligence reports for political reasons or to protect the military or intelligence community from criticism should be rooted out and removed.
In an environment that requires secrecy and respect for the chain of command, the CentCom analysts who took their concerns to the Pentagon’s inspector general this summer performed an important duty. Lives can be lost when decisions about foreign policy and military strategy are made based on bad information, and it’s even clearer since the Paris attacks that the Obama administration and Congress were not anticipating the rapid rise of ISIS and its expanded reach. It would be one thing if intelligence information was off base; it’s another if those assessments by the analysts were altered by their superiors to create a false impression of success.
CentCom analysts say that supervisors changed some conclusions to minimize U.S. failures in training Iraqi troops and to enhance the result of bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria. The New York Times reported, for example, that revisions were made to a report detailing the retreat of the Iraqi army battling ISIS fighters last year to suggest the Iraqis had just been “redeployed.” While military analysts should debate their findings and voice disagreements, their ultimate conclusions should not be rewritten by their superiors who may have ulterior motives.
Bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist in Iraq led this nation into an unnecessary war that cost thousands of lives. It took decades for the American people to learn the full story of what happened in Vietnam, and a more accurate account of events from the government and the military at the time would have ended that war much sooner. With the situation changing quickly in the war on terrorism against a brutal and nimble foe, it is imperative that intelligence reports be as accurate and candid as possible.
The investigators for the Pentagon and Congress should conduct a thorough review of the allegations at CentCom, and anyone found to be rewriting intelligence reports to create a false sense of success or to minimize setbacks should be removed.
Four former service members – including three sensor operators – issue plea to rethink current airstrike strategy that has ‘fueled feelings of hatred’ toward US
Ed Pilkington in New York and Ewen MacAskill in London
Guardian, 18 November 2015
Four former US air force service members, with more than 20 years of experience between them operating military drones, have written an open letter to Barack Obama warning that the program of targeted killings by unmanned aircraft has become a major driving force for Isis and other terrorist groups.
The group of servicemen have issued an impassioned plea to the Obama administration, calling for a rethink of a military tactic that they say has “fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like Isis, while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool similar to Guantánamo Bay”.
Related: Drones may predate Obama, but his resolute use of them is unmatched
In particular, they argue, the killing of innocent civilians in drone airstrikes has acted as one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world”.
The letter, addressed to Obama, defense secretary Ashton Carter and CIA chief John Brennan, links the signatories’ anxieties directly to last Friday’s terror attacks in Paris. They imply that the abuse of the drone program is causally connected to the outrages.
“We cannot sit silently by and witness tragedies like the attacks in Paris, knowing the devastating effects the drone program has overseas and at home,” they wrote.
(Read more here)
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence is a movement of former CIA colleagues of former intelligence analyst Sam Adams, together with others who hold up his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. SAAII confers an award each year to a member of the intelligence community or related professions who exemplifies Sam Adam’s courage, persistence, and devotion to truth – no matter the consequences. Read more about the history here.
The annual Sam Adams Award has been given in previous years to truth tellers Coleen Rowley of the FBI; Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance, former US Army Sgt; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson, Col., US Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks: Thomas Drake, of NSA; Jesselyn Radack, formerly of Dept. of Justice and now National Security Director of Government Accountability Project; Thomas Fingar, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Director, National Intelligence Council, and Edward Snowden, former contractor for the National Security Agency; Chelsea Manning, US Army Private who exposed (via WikiLeaks) key information on Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as State Department activities; and to retired National Security Agency official William Binney, who challenged decisions to ignore the Fourth Amendment in the government’s massive — and wasteful — collection of electronic data.
