Tag Archives: security

Snowden: Case Against Him Grows Stronger

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

There are those who believe that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is a patriot. I think not.

It is just too vast a leap of faith to believe that his thievery and treachery were of noble intent, done to protect the Republic and my privacy, and that he exhausted all other avenues to his end before decimating our national security and running off to Russia.

So it was with some satisfaction that I listened last weekend to Sunday talk show guests House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers of Michigan, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Diane Feinstein and former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who made these observations: Continue reading →

“Enemy of the State” Foreshadowed Snowden

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Everything I know about the National Security Agency, I learned by watching the movie Enemy of the State.

Will Smith stars as a labor attorney who mistakenly gets caught up with a whistleblower who knows too much about the nefarious activities of a high ranking NSA official, played by the always villainous Jon Voigt.

Voigt, parenthetically, is the father of Angelina Jolie, who apparently is a huge Ayn Rand fan. But I digress. Continue reading →

Security Leaks Are Not Us

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

A 29-year-old kid, and I can call him a kid because I’m a 66-year-old grandparent, decides he should strike a blow for liberty and release highly classified information to the media and maybe directly to our adversaries.

So we’re again having an emotionally, politically, and ideologically charged debate over government secrets, national security, the public’s right to know, and the peoples’ right to privacy. It’s a good debate to have and keep having until we resolve some of the serious questions these incidents raise. Unfortunately, it will peter out soon after the next crisis erupts in the headlines.

It would be helpful, though, to break down those questions and focus on the most relevant.

The first question can be dispensed with rather quickly. Is Edward Joseph Snowden a hero or a criminal? Here’s a hint: Socialist filmmaker Michael Moore, libertarian Senator Rand Paul (who is already exploiting the incident to raise money), technology terrorist Julian Assange, the Russians and the Chinese think he’s a hero. Most legal and intelligence experts we’ve heard from think he’s a criminal. Senator Diane Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee called him a traitor. Continue reading →

A Changing World

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

The National Security Agency’s Prism revelations have contributed to America’s growing ambivalence and fear around privacy and personal data. Who knows what legislation may result from it all.

I know that, like many fellow citizens, I was not alarmed by our government’s data-gathering practices. I am more alarmed by what private enterprise can and may do with my data. But, for me, that’s an old saw.

Author Mitch Joel released a book, Ctrl, Alt, Delete, that attempts to establish a certain level of fear and foreboding in us by offering up some staggering statistics indicating how our world has changed, transformed by the digital revolution. It’s yet another police siren the digerati persists in blowing and I’m not sure why.

We know the world is changing, for God’s sake. Rather than dish facts, how about demonstrating some traction and results? Continue reading →

Tracking My Calls

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I am trying to get spun up over the story about the National Security Agency tracking every phone call made by every customer using a cell phone over the Verizon network. But, I can’t.

I don’t think it’s a big stretch to think that the NSA is also tracking your calls if you are on AT&T’s network, T-Mobile, Sprint or the Harry’s Cell Phones & Discount Beer network.

As I understand it, the NSA isn’t listening in to our phone calls – or at least they haven’t been caught at it yet. They are tracking the number called, the calling number, the duration of the call, and the location of the calling and called phones. Continue reading →

Privacy in the Age of Exhibitionism

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Privacy is over-rated.

We say we want our privacy, but we really don’t care that much about it. The government wants the privacy to invade our privacy in order to sniff out terrorists. Despite the best efforts of Rand Paul and the ACLU, most Americans are just fine with that.

Polls show that when there is a competition between privacy and security, the American people pick security every time. Continue reading →

Romney’s Olympic Moment

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

One thing we know for certain is that the British can’t handle the truth, especially coming from an American.

Mitt Romney repeated what has been widely reported in the news, even to folks who haven’t been paying much attention, and you would think he said that Queen Elizabeth wears Army boots.

We will see how this Olympics turns out.

Private security couldn’t handle the security, so David Cameron had to mobilize his troops to provide back-up. There were questions if the Immigration Service was going to go on strike.

And let’s face it. London is very crowded and very expensive and pretty broke.

Romney didn’t sugar-coat things. And that caused quite a stir amongst the British tabloids. Continue reading →

Presidential Advance a Different World

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I have no idea what happened, or didn’t happen, in Cartagena last week when at least 11 Secret Service Agents were suddenly sent home and replaced by a different team. You’ve read the headlines: “Agents Procure Prostitutes While Waiting for Obama” or words to a like effect.

A hundred years ago I did a few advance trips for Vice President Quayle. You can argue, and successfully, that the whole notion of putting about 100 people in place up to two weeks ahead of a visit by a President isn’t so much presidential as it is as it is imperial, but that’s a discussion for another day.

This is not something President Obama invented. I’m not sure when it started but it was the Presidential advance staff that arranged events at which Franklin Delano Roosevelt was appearing such that the public couldn’t easily see that he was unable to walk due to having contracted polio. Continue reading →