GayPatriot

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A window into CIA interrogation; is it torture?

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Re: waterboarding and “enhanced interrogation” – whether they constitute torture – my own view has long been the following:

  • Under the law, “torture” is a matter of intent. For example, if a doctor is forced to operate on you without anesthetic, it probably isn’t torture. His intent is to save a life – yours – and he inflicts no more pain than is unavoidable for that goal.
  • By analogy, “enhanced interrogation” is not torture if it’s done in the right way and time, to save people’s lives. If it’s honestly thought necessary to save lives, and is done no more than needed to acquire key information, it isn’t torture.

That’s my opinion. The key words are “if”, and “honestly”. In other words, it’s a slippery slope. The interrogators had better be honest, right, and in control of themselves. They can go too far, very easily. When they do go too far, we have to be honest ourselves – and put them on trial for any crimes or torts under the law.

Which brings me to this press release: Two CIA psychologists will be sued for allegedly going too far.

The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and the family of Gul Rahman, who froze to death in a secret CIA prison. They were [interrogated] using methods developed by the CIA-contracted psychologists, James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen…

…the case is scheduled to go to trial on September 5 and expected to last two to three weeks.

Mitchell and Jessen helped convince the CIA to adopt…methods…including slamming them into walls, stuffing them inside coffin-like boxes, exposing them to extreme temperatures, starving them, inflicting various kinds of water torture, and chaining them in stress positions designed to inflict pain and to keep them awake for days on end…

Sadly, the article is biased (it’s the ACLU after all) in repeatedly calling all that “torture” before the trial. The point of the trial is to decide. I tried to edit out the bits where it’s decided prematurely. To continue:

Mitchell and Jessen trained other CIA personnel in their methods. In 2005, they founded a company — Mitchell, Jessen & Associates — that the CIA contracted with to run its entire [enhanced interrogation] program, including supplying interrogators and security for black sites and rendition operations. Mitchell and Jessen admitted as part of this lawsuit that the government paid the company $81 million over several years. The CIA let Mitchell and Jessen themselves evaluate the effectiveness…and the agency has since admitted that this was a mistake.

According to Mitchell and Jessen’s theory, if humans were psychologically destroyed through…abuse, they would become totally unable to resist demands for information…

The CIA adopted Mitchell and Jessen’s proposals, and in August of 2002, the agency secured Justice Department authorization in the so-called “torture memos,” which were later rescinded by the Justice Department…

The plaintiffs are suing Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute — which allows federal lawsuits for gross human rights violations…

Mitchell and Jessen may go with a “Zyklon B” defense – the idea that they were merely fulfilling their contracts, and it is others (namely CIA officials) who decided how to apply their methods.

As always, say what you think in the comments; I won’t necessarily be persuaded to your view; but I’m still interested to hear it.

The effort to Overturn 2016 continues

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First, here’s Alan Dershowitz (a lifelong Democrat, and a law professor) on Special Counsel Mueller’s new grand jury:

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I do think that they’re looking to catch Moby Dick, the Big Whale, and that’s what the Special Counsel will be after…If he doesn’t get somebody, he will be regarded as a failure who spent a lot of money investigating and came up with nothing. So, I think there is very much an incentive to try to come up with something serious…

The fact that it’s empaneled in D.C., they already had a grand jury empaneled in Virginia, and I think one of the reasons they moved this to D.C. is that’s a completely Democratic district, as distinguished from Virginia which is a swing state, and it has an ethnic and racial composition that would be somewhat less favorable to Donald Trump. And any experienced lawyer understands that both prosecutors and defense attorneys look at factors like ethnicity, race, political affiliation, when they decide what venue is best for their case.

For such remarks made earlier, Maxine Waters called Dershowitz “racist.” (No, I’m not making this up. Her word.)

This is a witch hunt, plain and simple. They will find someone in Trumpworld who bought a ham sandwich in Russia. That ham sandwich will be said to break some law or other (Deep State has so many laws, for this very purpose of selectively punishing people who inconvenience them). They will indict that person and/or intimidate him into framing Trump, despite the fact that the American people already considered the possibility of all this in 2016 and gave Trump the nod anyway. They will do all this while ignoring Hillary’s destruction of smartphones and 30,000 emails intentionally to obstruct justice.

Hey lefties and Deep Staters: Any of you who may believe all this to be wonderful for your side, are morons. If your side should happen to succeed in overturning the 2016 election: you will only remind people of why you’re enemies of law and democracy who must be stripped of all political power. Call it the Obi Wan Effect. If you do knock out Trump, you will make him symbolically “more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.

Some more signs of lefties and/or Deep Staters up to no good:

  • Federal employees step up defiance of Trump. As NDT put it, “not only are these imbeciles demonstrating that they do not respect the will of the voters, they are openly bragging that they are out to sabotage and attack the will of the voters.”
  • At the end of July, Obama’s failed CIA Director Brennan called for government officials to disobey orders if Trump should put an end to the Mueller investigation.

    Let’s be clear: Trump has the constitutional authority to end Mueller’s investigation. Whether it’s politically wise, is another question. What Congress should or would do next, is another question. But he 100% has the authority, as the head of the Executive branch. As such, Brennan’s comments were a call to rebellion and irresponsibly wrong.

Seymour Hersh on Seth Rich and Trumprussia

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Seymour Hersh, the famous left-leaning but hard-hitting investigative journalist, has apparently endorsed the theory that Seth Rich was the DNC leaker. Big League Politics has an audio recording. Assuming it’s real,

  • Hersh claims to know from an FBI report, that was made when D.C. police called in an FBI cyber unit to look at Rich’s laptop after his death.
  • Hersh is skeptical of the idea that Seth Rich was murdered for political reasons – although Rich did express concerns to friends that something might happen to him.
  • Hersh suggests that Rich’s brother put up obstacles to investigating any Rich-WikiLeaks connection.
  • Hersh suggests that the Trump-Russia conspiracy allegations were disinformation planted by Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan. And that NSA and CIA types (what we call Deep State) are against Trump because, in some unspecified way (I’d like to know more), Trump ends their hopes of getting lucrative private consulting contracts on leaving the government.

Needless to say, if these claims are real, they blow Trumprussia out of the water.

I found it worthwhile to read BLP’s whole article and listen to the recording. UPDATE: Transcript here.

While we’re at it: We know that the House Intelligence Committee started to look into the “unmasking” scandal (where the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign; zealously doing surveillance and over-zealously “unmasking” the names of Trump operatives who were swept up in it). A key aide to Susan Rice and Obama, Ben Rhodes, has emerged as a ‘person of interest’ in that investigation.

This adds Rhodes to the growing list of top Obama government officials who may have improperly unmasked Americans in communications intercepted overseas by the NSA, Circa has confirmed…

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, Rice and former CIA Director John Brennan have all been named in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation…

…the committee has “found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”

Finally, they’re looking!

U.S. to stop arming jihadists; Deep State hardest hit

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President Trump has decided that the CIA will stop arming the so-called “moderate” (but really jihadist) Syrian rebels.

With the end of the CIA program, U.S. involvement in Syria now consists of a vigorous air campaign against the Islamic State and a Pentagon-run train-and-equip program in support of the largely Kurdish rebel force that is advancing on Islamic State strongholds in Raqqa and along the Euphrates River valley.

More on the Kurds in a moment. Trump’s move should help to maintain the Syria cease-fire, defeat ISIS and defuse Mideast tensions. In my view, it is as sensible as Obama’s original decision to arm the jihadis was not. Naturally, the U.S. Deep State – which wanted tensions (or even a Syria ground war) – hates the move and besmirches it as pro-Putin, “Russia won”, etc.

In news that is not so good, we’ve also had a flurry of items about the growing rift between Turkey and the West. Turkey remains a NATO ally, but Erdogan is on bad terms with the European Community, and it doesn’t help that the U.S. (or NATO) organized a failed coup against Erdogan in 2016.

So, the Kurds would seem to be a major issue. Decades ago, Western powers drew the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq in such a way as to divide the Kurds. Ever since, they’ve dreamed of getting together in a new Kurdistan. That the U.S. would have armed the Syrian Kurds (starting under Obama), sets off alarm bells in Turkey.

UPDATE: Julian Assange on ISIS, key U.S. allies, and the Clintons. Here’s the idea.

  • Saudi Arabia and Qatar wanted Syria regime change and funded the jihadis.
  • Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund ISIS (who, I keep saying, are much the same people as the Syria jihadi-rebels). And, per her leaked emails, Hillary definitely knew it.
  • Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund the Clintons.
  • Could all this be why Hillary wanted to bomb Syria and do Syria regime change so much? And not-so-much to bomb ISIS?

Also, Julian Assange noting how the CIA paid ISIS salaries. He excerpts a Financial Times article, deep inside which is this: “One rebel commander, who asked not to be named, said U.S. support had been waning for months, but noted that the rebels had been given their salaries as normal last month.”

UPDATE: Just learned about SOFREP, a news service by Special Forces veterans. And they had a report in 2016 saying that, yes, Obama’s CIA was absolutely, positively making the Special Forces train jihadis in Syria and delivering advanced weapons to the jihadis, in violation of U.S. law against aiding terrorists.

#NothingGate: Because yeah, they’ve got a lot to hide

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Scott Adams has dubbed the Trump Jr scandal #NothingGate – There’s nothing there, but it sure is terrible.

We all know the signs. A couple hours ago, MSNBC was quoting campaign finance law about how campaigns are not supposed to take foreign contributions.

FOR REAL. Yes, I Laughed Out Loud. Right in front of everybody at the gym.

The law clearly talks about money and OBJECTS (the ordinary meaning of “things”) of value. Here is what they were quoting:

A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.

First, the words are written *on the foreign national*. Second: Only in a McCarthy-ite, Salem Witch Hunt world could the words be stretched to cover knowledge (which, in the context of a campaign, is called opposition research). AND…AND…AND…IF the words are indeed to be stretched so very far, then Hillary’s campaign was equally-or-even-more guilty.

Seriously…Are these people thinking at all? Well, we know they’re not. This is “what insanity looks like”. These people aren’t following any rational thought process.

Why would they not? The obvious reason: Deflection. Distraction.

  • Let’s not talk about Hillary’s campaign violations.
  • Let’s not talk about her campaign’s meetings with officials of a foreign government, in an effort to obtain valuable knowledge (or opposition research) on her opponent from those foreign officials.
  • Let’s not talk about all the Saudi money (which would be illegal indeed) in her campaign.
  • Let’s not talk about the Hillary campaign’s documented, illegal levels of collusion with the media.
  • Let’s not talk about all the Fake News, “Hillary is ahead!” and “Hillary is a lock to win!”, that the media perpetrated to try to depress Republican/Trump voter turnout.
  • Let’s not talk about the basic fact that she was a terrible candidate – and she lost.
  • Let’s not talk about the massive Clinton Foundation corruption.
  • Let’s not talk about Hillary’s collusion in giving Russia 20% of America’s uranium supply, apparently in exchange for hefty speaking fees and other yuge donations.
  • Let’s not talk about her campaign chair, John Podesta, and his brother being on Russia’s payroll for years.
  • Let’s not talk about Hillary and the Obama administration colluding to obstruct justice, in the Hillary e-mail investigation.
  • Let’s not talk about the indictments coming, hopefully, for James “Leaker” Comey.
  • Let’s not talk about the unbelievable scandal of the Obama administration spying on domestic political opponents. And the intelligence agencies going along with it.
  • Let’s not talk about the fact that the entire “Russia hacking narrative” has been a lie from minute one and, accordingly, the leadership of U.S. intelligence agencies are seriously politicized and compromised, meaning President Trump had better clean house – for America’s good.
  • Let’s not talk about the Trump administration’s progress and successes.
  • No, no, no. Deflect, deny, distract, handwave, keep screaming “Trump!!!!1!”

Fortunately, none of this needs to matter. The Controlled Media, the Left, and the “political class” have lost a lot of power. What we’re seeing now are the throes of their cognitive dissonance; their refusal to believe it. Having done nothing whatsoever wrong in this matter, Trump – and Trump Jr. – need only stay strong and clear-headed, and they will survive; and survival is victory.

My one, little doubt about this situation would be: Whether they will stay strong? We shall see. I know, I know…their track record argues that they will.

Is Trumprussia boomeranging?

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As Rush, Hannity, etc. have been pointing out lately, eight months of baseless Trump-Russia collusion allegations seem finally to be blowing up in the faces of the Democrats, Controlled Media and Deep State.

In a recent poll, 73% of Americans said the investigations are causing Congress to lose focus, 64% said they’re hurting the country, 56% said it’s time to move on, and 52% said they don’t believe Trump did any collusion.

And the story itself is taking a few turns. First, I’d like to give the background on something called the Trump Dossier.

  • It’s a salacious report on candidate Trump that was put together (in 2015 or 16?) by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele.
  • His work was sloppy, containing (among other things) provably-false tales of Trump associates meeting Russians in Europe, and probably-false tales of Trump doing bizarre sexual practices. (OK, tame practices by gay standards.)
  • Steele was paid to produce the dossier by a company called Fusion GPS.
  • Many suspect that Fusion GPS was paid ultimately by Democrats and/or #NeverTrumpers, and was hired precisely to do a hit piece (something shoddy and salacious).
  • The dossier was passed to the FBI and other U.S. agencies. Although they knew it was false in its most serious claims (or should have known), they appear to have used it as a basis for investigations on Trump and as a roadmap for questioning witnesses.
  • Also, some suspect that the Obama administration may have used the dossier to obtain their secret FISA warrants and/or NSA surveillance on Trump, during and after the 2016 campaign.
  • We need to know on that last point because, *if true*, it would be explosive: one would have to “connect the dots” of Hillary or DNC paying a foreigner for a bogus report on Trump, Obama using the report as a bogus reason to spy on candidate Trump, Susan Rice “unmasking” the data and distributing it within the Obama government, and then leakers possibly leaking Trump campaign secrets to media, DNC and/or Hillary. Quite a trick.

It’s backfiring on the Democrats because at long last, the Senate Judiciary committee is investigating Fusion GPS and who was behind the bogus dossier.

Next, I’d like to discuss The Washington Post’s blockbuster article last Friday on Russian election hacking, a game-changer.

WaPo is known for “burying the lede”: putting a title/frame on a story that tries to mask the important revelations within it. This article is titled “Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault”. Thus, WaPo’s frame is: Russian election hacking is real and isn’t Obama a lonely hero for having tried to punish Russia?

But the article’s details tell a different story.

  • Everyone agrees, still, that Russia didn’t change a single vote. In that respect, the 2016 election was perfectly fair and un-hacked.
  • The CIA did report to Obama in 2016 that Russia was trying to do cyber-crime on various U.S. targets, including both the DNC and RNC.
  • For five months, Obama dithered and considered various responses and, in the end, he did…nothing. Until after the election (when he expelled some Russian diplomats, tightened some sanctions, and fanned the flames of protest and questioning Trump’s legitimacy).

“It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend,” said a former senior Obama administration official involved in White House deliberations on Russia [in the months before the election]. “I feel like we sort of choked.”

I want to make clear that I still do not take this “Russia hacking” narrative at face value. My reasons:

  • Still no evidence. The WaPo article doesn’t actually provide any.
  • After Wikileaks Vault 7 (including revelations that the CIA itself routinely hacks things and leaves Russian fingerprints), there is no reason to take the CIA’s word on anything – without evidence.
  • Also, Russia could have tried to hack into stuff – but with little or no effect.
  • In regard to the “DNC emails”, at least, it is still very plausible the leaker was Seth Rich, a DNC insider. Because Wikileaks dropped many hints about it. (At this point, yes I trust their hints more than the CIA’s.)
  • And it still doesn’t matter who leaked the “DNC emails” because they were 100% true and relevant information that American voters deserved. If it was Russia, they did not attack our nation or our democracy; only our 2 major-party Establishments. (Big difference.)
  • It is still exceedingly odd that the DNC denied FBI investigators access to their computers after the leaks. Instead, the DNC spoon-fed the FBI a report on supposed Russian hacking from another shoddy, DNC-paid company, CrowdStrike.

But let’s say it’s all true. Most observers agree that the major countries all try to hack each other (or spy), and to influence each other’s elections. And that Russia and the U.S. have been doing it to each other for 70 years or more. Why should 2016 be an exception? In that case,

  1. It is all the more strange and inappropriate that the DNC didn’t let the FBI in to look at their servers and network, after the alleged “DNC email” hack.
  2. It is strange and inappropriate that Obama didn’t defend the U.S. constitution (as his oath requires) by telling the American public. Obama was no stranger to stirring up trouble with Russia (see: Ukraine coup, 2014). Why wouldn’t he, here? Some guesses:
    • He’s just ineffectual?
    • The Russian interference was routine (see above); much less of a deal than WaPo is now making of it?
    • Obama didn’t want to draw attention to Hillary’s corrupt Russia dealings?
    • He didn’t want to draw attention to Democrats having serious problems with security; like, you know, Hillary’s e-mail scandal?
    • He didn’t want to draw attention to Hillary’s hypocritical interference in Russian elections?
    • He thought Hillary would win, and didn’t want any Russia messes tainting her presidency in the public’s mind? (This is WaPo’s theory. But then, when Trump won, Obama was suddenly OK with tainting the next President?)
    • Or: Deep down, Obama didn’t want Hillary to win? (This is Rush’s theory.)
  3. It is still strange and inappropriate that leading Democrats want to blame Republicans – and the American people – in all this. For example, from Rep. Adam Schiff:

    He said many groups inadvertently abetted Russia’s campaign, including Republicans who refused to confront Moscow and media organizations that eagerly mined the troves of hacked emails.

    In other words, damn the American people for opening their eyes and reading those 100% genuine DNC emails!

In short: If WaPo’s story is true, then instead of Trump-Russia collusion, we should be looking at Obama-Russia collusion and Obama-Hillary collusion. This is the game-changer.

Trumprussia was always “mostly bullsh*t”, as we learned Tuesday. The real story would be if the Russian government interfered in U.S. elections – and President Obama let them. Then made a big deal of it later – just to undermine President Trump. Now *that’s* attacking American democracy.

In every plausible version of this mess,

  1. Someone in the government spread around the fake Trump dossier (when they should have ignored/discredited it).
  2. The DNC hid an alleged crime scene from FBI investigators.
  3. Susan Rice wrongly “unmasked” data on domestic political opponents.
  4. Obama failed to do a thing about Russian interference; until it was time for him, and various Deep State leakers, to undermine a lawful new President whom they just didn’t like.

Oliver Stone making sense?

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Color me shocked.

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His new series, _The Putin Interviews_, is controversial – meaning that the Left hates it, because it doesn’t tell them exactly what they want to hear. A couple of articles on it:

  • Rolling Stone, 10 Most WTF Things We Learned From Oliver Stone’s Putin Interviews.

    Pans the series – splutters with outrage over Stone lobbing too many softball questions and bad-mouthing Hillary Clinton as a war-mongering neo-con – but covers some interesting tidbits along the way.

  • Forbes’ take. Along the way, they go into some of the hacking / cybercrime issues, and the fact that the U.S. has interfered in Ukraine elections in a manner FAR beyond anything the American Left fantasizes with TrumpRussia.

Left and Right, we should be willing to watch these Putin interviews, if only on the principle of “Know your enemy”.

NYT: China hacked (at) our CIA

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From The New York Times:

The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.

Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades…investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

My thoughts:

  • This happened on Obama’s and Hillary’s watch. Although she was over at State, she surely had CIA material on the e-mail server in her bathroom. Did Chinese counterintelligence glean some info from that?
  • Come to think of it, The Clintons have a long history of letting China hack our democracy. (And Saudi Arabia – a separate post.)
  • I’m amazed the NYT would publish this. Oh, wait, it’s just their Asia edition. The Controlled Media has a pattern of still publishing some real news – buried deep on page A37.

Russia hysteria crosses the Atlantic

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Recently, hackers hit Emmanuel Macron and aides, and dumped 9 Gigabytes of emails. The emails are still being analyzed but seem genuine, so far. Could they connect Macron (a French presidential candidate and now France’s President-Elect) to tax evasion? We shall see. As Wired puts it:

users of the anonymous forum 4Chan had also purported to have published evidence of Macron’s tax evasion…it’s not clear if they’re connected to the current leak.

How do our globalist, Deep State, Controlled Media betters respond to it? Blame the Russians, of course. ABC says:

The United States watched Russians hack France’s computer networks during the election and tipped off French officials before it became public, a U.S. cyber official told the Senate on Tuesday.

Because, how DARE we peasants have real information about the wrongdoing of any Protected political figure?

I have long doubted that the Russians have much to do with these episodes. First, we know that the CIA hacks into things and leaves Russian fingerprints deliberately to mislead people. Sad to say, you can never believe anything a U.S. intelligence agency says about who hacked anything.

Second, this particular story is hokey. After eight months of terrible accusations in the U.S. media, why would the Russians again (supposedly) do that exact same thing, in the exact same way, as if wanting to be caught and blamed?

Third, who benefits from a breakout of anti-Russia hysteria, this time? Macron, of course. And the European Union, which wants him to succeed. And globalist / Deep State types generally, which want the European Union to succeed.

When a politician’s information is hacked, the key point isn’t who brings it out, but whether it is real. In the case of Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and the DNC in 2016: The emails were all real. And they gave information about her shady dealings that voters needed and deserved. Could the same be true here, of Macron?

If you disagree (or know more about this), feel free to inform us in the comments.

CIA vs. WikiLeaks: It’s Awn

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Of course the fight between them was already on; I’ll get to that in a moment.

President Trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo:

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in his first speech since taking over the agency, lambasted WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange — calling the group a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that is often abetted by “state actors like Russia.”

Speaking Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pompeo called Assange a “fraud,” someone with no “moral compass” and a “narcissist who has created nothing of value.”

He asserted that Assange and former National Security Agency staffer and famed leaker Edward Snowden “seek to use that information to make a name for themselves” and they “care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.”

Asked why he would focus on WikiLeaks rather than other issues, Pompeo said he felt it was vital to inform the American people about the threat they pose.

There’s more. RTWT.

Some of Pompeo’s claims are absurd, and others are all too real. First, the absurd: That Snowden did it to make a name for himself.

The guy is almost a prisoner – in Russia, of all places. If he comes back to the U.S., he faces trial. Snowden agrees that he should face trial, and says that he will do so – when he is allowed to mount a public-interest defense (presenting his side of it, that he acted in the public interest when he revealed masses of NSA classified info). But I digress. The point is: Snowden has given up so much to reveal what he revealed, that saying he did it for the fame is ridiculous.

Similar thoughts would apply to Assange, who is almost a prisoner in Ecuador’s embassy in London. While no one is ever perfect, both of these men have acted from their ideals. In denying that so crudely, Pompeo counts on his audience to be stupid.

As to what’s real in Pompeo’s speech: There is no question that both Snowden’s revelations and WikiLeaks make the job of U.S. intelligence agencies much harder. That has to be a bad thing, in many respects. The question is whether, in some other respects, it might also be a good thing?

What has been revealed, first by Snowden and more recently by WikiLeaks Vault 7, is: massive surveillance programs whereby U.S. intelligence agencies spy not only on enemies, but on allies and on ordinary Americans. Really unconstitutional programs and capabilities. So unconstitutional and invasive that they destroy U.S. moral authority and make us understandably hated by the rest of the world.

Until recently, Pompeo’s boss, President Trump, was pro-WikiLeaks (see here – Trump literally said “I love WikiLeaks!”). And against excessive surveillance, such as the Obama administration’s surveillance on Trump before, during and after the 2016 election. Likewise with Pompeo himself. But their love for WikiLeaks was before the Vault 7 revelations and more to come, which could be ugly enough to destroy the CIA as an institution.

In the past, I’ve blogged on my ambivalence about Snowden (example, see here). But, in the last year, I’ve come more to his side; glad that he and Assange did what they do. The more so because of news headlines in the last 5 months: I believe that some leaders of the U.S. intelligence community have tried to damage (if not overthrow) a duly elected President, with a campaign of “intelligence leaks” that are so empty and misleading as to be lies-in-effect. That would be a separate issue. But one that proves the said leaders’ bad faith and anti-constitutional intentions.

In short, we’re at a sad juncture where several issues point to the same conclusion: the U.S. intelligence community is way out of control and in great need of investigation and cleanup.

As always, feel free to disagree or state your view, in the comments. (As always, I’m looking for “agreeable disagreement” and exchange; don’t expect me to come instantly to your viewpoint.)