On June 7th, just a few days after the world became aware of the existence of former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, the editors of the New York Times published the following comments about the then-rapidly-diminishing credibility of the administration’s statements on the entire NSA affair:
…Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue…
(Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.)
Today (Tuesday), in a lead editorial, the Times’ editors take their criticisms a few steps further…
The White House on Spying
New York Times Editorial
October 29th, 2013 (Edition)
The White House response on Monday to the expanding disclosures of American spying on foreign leaders, their governments and millions of their citizens was a pathetic mix of unsatisfying assurances about reviews under way, platitudes about the need for security in an insecure age, and the odd defense that the president didn’t know that American spies had tapped the German chancellor’s cellphone for 10 years.
Is it really better for us to think that things have gone so far with the post-9/11 idea that any spying that can be done should be done and that nobody thought to inform President Obama about tapping the phone of one of the most important American allies?
The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, kept repeating that Mr. Obama ordered a review of surveillance policy a few months ago, but he would not confirm whether that includes the tapping of the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, or the collection of data on tens of millions of calls in France, Spain and elsewhere. It’s unlikely that Mr. Obama would have ordered any review if Edward Snowden’s leaks had not revealed the vacuum-cleaner approach to electronic spying. Mr. Carney left no expectation that the internal reviews will produce any significant public accounting — only that the White House might have “a little more detail” when they are completed…
As I noted in my post here on June 24th:
…Look at the America seen by those observers throughout the world that are looking at us now. (Kossack pluto published a brilliant piece in the community that may be the best article, to date, anywhere, concerning how the rest of our planet views our country's extreme behavior these days.)
In recent weeks, at least if you've been paying attention and you understand the full concept of "crisis mode public relations," the reality is that U.S. propaganda has gone completely off the rails.
At this point, it's all about a pyrrhic public relations victory for those very serious people in Washington. But, no matter how hard our government tries to spin matters to the contrary, as the NY Times' editors noted just two weeks ago: "The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue…"
More than four months have passed since I wrote those words.
Adding insult to injury, Tuesday’s NY Times, contrary to a post currently on this community’s “Recommended List” regarding earlier reports, Monday, on a related story on all of this, tells us that at least some of Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Diane Feinstein’s comments are “not accurate.”
Obama May Ban Spying On Heads of Allied States
By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times
October 29, 2013 (Edition)
WASHINGTON — President Obama is poised to order the National Security Agency to stop eavesdropping on the leaders of American allies, administration and congressional officials said Monday, responding to a deepening diplomatic crisis over reports that the agency had for years targeted the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
The White House informed a leading Democratic lawmaker, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, of its plans, which grew out of a broader internal review of intelligence-gathering methods, prompted by the leak of N.S.A. documents by a former contractor, Edward J. Snowden.
In a statement on Monday, Ms. Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “I do not believe the United States should be collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers.” Ms. Feinstein, who has been a stalwart defender of the administration’s surveillance policies, said her committee would begin a “major review of all intelligence collection programs…”
The article continues on to note that, as of Monday night, “…no final decision had been made on the monitoring of friendly foreign leaders. But the disclosure that it is moving to prohibit it signals a landmark shift for the N.S.A., which has had nearly unfettered powers to collect data on tens of millions of people around the world, from ordinary citizens to heads of state, including the leaders of Brazil and Mexico.”
But, yet again, just another paragraph down, the government’s narrative goes off the rails….
…Disclosure of the White House’s proposed action came after the release on Monday afternoon of Ms. Feinstein’s statement, in which she asserted that the White House had told her it would cease all intelligence collection in friendly countries. That statement, senior administration officials said, was “not accurate,” but they acknowledged that they had already made unspecified changes in surveillance policy and planned further changes, particularly in the monitoring of government leaders…
The fact of the matter may
not be that “everybody does it,” but the fact that the U.S. spies on foreign leaders of both friendly and unfriendly government leaders has been an ongoing reality as far as this nation’s intelligence services are concerned,
for decades. As I noted in a comment in another post, earlier on Monday, with hundreds of thousands of employees in our nation’s intelligence services, it wouldn’t surprise me if a million Americans are aware of this greater truth.
Personally, I had a close friend (he died in a car accident in the early 90’s) who worked as a translator at the NSA whose daily job was to monitor tapes and satellite feeds, delivered via bugs and wiretaps of foreign leaders (of friendly/allied countries). And, again, that was over two decades ago. I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of first- and second-hand, anecdotal stories such as this communicated between people in this country on a regular basis.
Since the Snowden story broke at the beginning of June, our government has had many months to get their ducks in a row with our allies on these matters. Instead, we’re dealing with this travesty now. Then again, when the Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee can’t even get her own talking points straight—to the point where she puts forth bullshit propaganda on-the-fly; and also to the point where the White House has to correct her statements just hours after she’s made them in public--what does that tell us?
What does it tell us when, as the Washington Post reported this Summer, our country has a 2013 “Black Budget” of $52.6 billion (and that doesn’t include the almost $60 billion budget for the Department of Homeland Security), with the largest share of that funding, more than $20 billion, specifically allocated for “communications,” to: “Warn policymakers, military and civilian authorities of threats, such as economic instability, state failure, societal unrest and emergence of regional powers…”?
I guess that when they were doing line-itemizations of those intelligence communications tasks they left out the part about letting our allies know we were tapping the phones of their elected leaders. Then again, after reviewing the current news cycle, it begs the question: How much of that $20+ billion was set aside for communications with our own country’s leaders?
As Markos noted, earlier in the Summer, he didn’t “give two shits” about the Snowden story. Perhaps that was because, at least in some quarters of those hallowed halls in D.C. and based upon Tuesday’s NY Times, neither did our government.
As of today, however, inside the Beltway they’re just: “Shocked! Shocked, I say!”
Yes, in today’s sound-bite and Twitter-based politics, ignorance isn’t a bug. It’s a feature!
The New York Times word for this, today, is: “Pathetic.” As far as the kabuki that we're now witnessing is concerned, I think that pretty much sums it all up.
# # #
ADDED BONUS: Check out the eight-second clip from our new government spokesperson for our surveillance state!
# # #