When the Government Lies

Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press wrote this excellent article with the by-line: "When lying is acceptable, public loses"

WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of Congress asks the director of national intelligence if the National Security Agency collects data on millions of Americans. "No, sir," James Clapper responds. Pressed, he adds a caveat: "Not wittingly."

Then, NSA programs that do precisely that are disclosed.

It turns out that President Barack Obama's intelligence chief lied. Or as he put it last week: "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner, by saying, 'No,' because the program was classified."

The White House stands by him. Press secretary Jay Carney says Obama "certainly believes that Director Clapper has been straight and direct in the answers that he's given." Congress, always adept at performing verbal gymnastics, seems generally unmiffed about Clapper's lack of candor. If there have been repercussions, the public doesn't know about them.

Welcome to the intelligence community, a shadowy network of secrets and lies reserved, apparently, not only for this country's enemies but also for its own citizens.

Sometimes it feels as if the government operates in a parallel universe where lying has no consequences and everyone but the people it represents is complicit in deception. Looking at episodes like this, it's unsurprising that people have lost faith in their elected leaders and the institution of government. This all reinforces what polls show people think: Washington plays by its own rules.

Since when is it acceptable for government — elected leaders or those they appoint — to be directly untruthful to Americans? Do people even care about the deception? Or is this kind of behavior expected these days? After all, most politicians parse words, tell half-truths and omit facts. Some lie outright. It's called spin.

And yet this feels different.

The government quite legitimately keeps loads of secrets from its people for security reasons, with gag orders in effect over top-secret information that adversaries could use against us. But does that authority also give the government permission to lie to its people in the name of their own safety without repercussions? Should Congress simply be accepting those falsehoods?

It wasn't always this way.

Congress was apoplectic when former aides to President Richard Nixon perjured themselves in the Watergate cover-up and when President Bill Clinton was less than truthful during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But in those cases, the issues divided over partisan lines, and classified information relating to national security wasn't involved.

In this instance, most Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill support the underlying NSA programs even though the public is divided over them. And lawmakers aren't quick to hold Clapper accountable because, when it comes to telling the truth to Americans, their hands are hardly clean.

The public, meanwhile, has responded to Clapper's falsehood with a collective shrug. Are we just resigned to this?

Consider the results of 2012 surveys.

One from the Public Affairs Council found that 57 percent of Americans felt that public officials in Washington had below-average honesty and ethical standards. Another from the Pew Research Center found 54 percent of Americans felt the federal government in Washington was mostly corrupt, while 31 percent rated it mostly honest.

Trust in government has dropped dramatically since the 1950s, when a majority of the country placed faith in it most of the time. But by April 2013, an Associated Press-GfK poll had found just 21 percent feeling that way. And people have even less faith in Congress; a new Gallup poll found just 10 percent of Americans say they have confidence in the House and Senate — the lowest level for any institution on record.

In this case, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, long had tried to raise concerns over the scope and breadth of post-9/11 intelligence gathering.

They were privy to the secret techniques but were barred by law from disclosing any classified information. So they had to be subtle.

Discussion on Capitol Hill about top-secret programs usually takes place in a secure room so opponents of the United States won't learn of the details.

Nevertheless, in March — before the programs the senator knew existed had been disclosed to the world — Wyden put Clapper on the spot. The senator asked about the classified intelligence operations, which Clapper was prohibited from talking openly about, in a public committee hearing.

"Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Wyden asked.

"No, sir," Clapper answered.

"It does not?" asked Wyden.

"Not wittingly," Clapper said, offering a more nuanced response. "There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect — but not wittingly."

Three months later, a former NSA contractor leaked information on top-secret surveillance programs that do, in fact, file away phone records on millions of Americans. Wittingly.

That, said Udall, "is the type of surveillance I have long said would shock the public if they knew about it."

Within days, Wyden — who says he gave Clapper a heads up a day earlier that he would be asking the question about classified information at an open hearing — accused Clapper of misleading the Senate committee in public and later in private when the intelligence director declined to change his answer from the firm "no" to the question.

"The American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives," Wyden said.

Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., called for Clapper to resign and suggested perjury, saying he "lied under oath to Congress and the American people" and that "Congress can't make informed decisions on intelligence issues when the head of the intelligence community willfully makes false statements."

In interviews, Clapper tried to explain.

To National Journal, he said: "What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' e-mail. I stand by that." But Clapper didn't tell the committee during the hearing that he was referring specifically to email, though he did indicate his reservations about being questioned in public on confidential matters.

Clapper also told NBC News that "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner." He added that his response technically wasn't false because of semantics over the word "collection." But he also allowed that his response may have been "too cute by half."

Whatever else it does, the episode illuminates a conflict in our system — one that we dance around whenever the subject of secrets comes up.

The Obama administration says it wants the American people to allow the NSA to do what it must to protect the nation. The president himself has assured Americans that Congress has been in the loop, making sure the NSA isn't going too far. But it's hard to see how a real check on that power is possible if Congress is unable or unwilling to provide actual oversight, much less take action when a key official involved in the program isn't straight with lawmakers.

In this case, it nudges accountability further into the shadows — and gives the American public even less of a stake in the security of the open society that we say we hold so dear.

Obama's Political pick for Deputy CIA Director

Why Obama would chose a woman with no CIA experience for No. 2 CIA job can only be answered by his need to place political allies and those who share his ideology in these important positions. Avril Haines will be the first woman to be second in command at the CIA, but critics point not to her gender but her lack of CIA experience. Her choice screams loud about how Obama views his political survival over national security.

An article by Jennifer Skalka Tulumello of the Christian Science Monitor

Plucking from a collection of high-powered female lawyers serving the White House, President Obama has nominated Avril Haines as the next deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ms. Haines is the first woman to hold the job. She replaces Michael Morell, who announced his retirement after more than three decades in the CIA to spend time with family. She’s an unexpected pick in that she hasn’t any background with the agency. In fact, Haines was slated just a couple months ago to move to the State Department as its legal adviser.

How unusual is it for a lawyer – and one without spook experience – to fill such a powerful agency job?

One former senior CIA official tells the Monitor that her nomination has prompted surprise among his former colleagues, not due to Haines’s gender, of course, but because she is a relative unknown in the community. He says the law is “not a typical track” for the deputy director job and that she’ll likely “face some skepticism among the ranks until she can prove that she has learned the intricacies of the organization and doesn’t automatically default to an overly legalistic, risk averse, view of everything.”

“She has the disadvantage of following Michael J. Morell who is much admired across the board,” the official adds. “Thirty-three years of experience being replaced by none. She faces quite an uphill climb.”

CIA Director John Brennan provided his full support for Haines, however, suggesting “she knows more about covert action than anyone in the US government outside of the CIA.”

"She has participated in virtually every Deputies and Principals Committee meeting over the past two years and chairs the Lawyers' Group that reviews the agency's most sensitive programs," he added, in a statement reported by UPI.

But the former senior CIA official says Haines’s experience doesn’t add up to the job. “Sitting in National Security Committee meetings on covert action is nice, but being deputy CIA director involves much, much more that covert action, and she has no known experience in those things,” he says.

Forget about the women angle, or the lawyer piece, or, for that matter, Haines’s lack of agency experience, says Philip Mudd, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. With Mr. Brennan and Haines in the top two jobs, the CIA has a direct pipeline to the White House.

“I think this underscores the relevance of the CIA in the post-9/11 era,” Mudd says. “You want people with firepower there – and that’s political firepower. Because the White House needs that agency in ways they’ve never needed it before.”

Mudd says the CIA is a flat organization – it’s not military-oriented and it’s not hierarchical.

“The key question people on the inside are going to ask is, ‘Is she going to listen?’ ” Mudd says. “It’s a proud organization. They’re going to sniff her. ‘Is she going to ask us what we think?’ ”

At the White House, Haines served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president for national security affairs. According to her White House bio, the Georgetown University Law Center graduate formerly worked for the State Department as assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs and in the office of the legal adviser. And she served as deputy chief counsel for the majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago.

Some are suggesting the Haines appointment is less about elevating her than ousting Mr. Morell for his role in extracting from official administration talking points references to the CIA’s warnings that terrorists could attack the Benghazi diplomatic compound.

The Benghazi controversy continues to dog the Obama administration politically.

Morell issued a statement pushing back on that speculation.

“Whenever someone involved in the rough and tumble of Washington decides to move on, there is speculation in various quarters about the ‘real reason,’” he said. “But when I say that it is time for my family, nothing could be more real than that.”

Morell’s last day is Aug. 9. Haines is not subject to Senate confirmation in the new post.

Governor Scott of Florida Suspends County Sheriff Over Gun Rights

From an article titled - "Florida Governor Suspends Sheriff For Standing Up For 2nd Amendment", posted on June 10, 2013 by Ben Bullard on PersonalLiberty.com,  I have to throw the bullshit flag on Governor Scott as he apparently does not understand the concept of law enforcement officer discretion nor the second amendment.  And all this in the shadow of Attorney General Eric Holder and all his misdeeds and mal-feasance.

Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott has suspended the Sheriff Nick Finch of the State’s least-populous county (Liberty County) after he allegedly set free a man who’d been arrested for possessing a weapon without a permit.

Nick Finch, sheriff of Liberty County near the State’s Alabama-Georgia border, faces a 3rd-degree felony charge for official misconduct after evidently destroying or altering the paper trail that began when one of his deputies brought in a motorist who had two handguns in his car.

The motorist, Floyd Parrish, didn’t have a concealed-carry permit and was subsequently charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon. Car carry is legal in Florida for those without a conceal-carry permit, but the law stipulates such firearms must be securely encased or not readily accessible for immediate use – two stipulations which Parrish allegedly didn’t meet when he was pulled over in Liberty County.

Parrish stayed in jail until Sheriff Finch arrived, accompanied by the suspect’s brother. Finch allegedly spoke to both men about the incident before ordering that the charges be dropped and Parrish be released.

According to the JCFloridian, Finch allegedly told the deputy who’d arrested Parrish that he “believed in 2nd Amendment rights” and instructed jail staff to return his confiscated firearms.

But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement learned of the incident, which occurred in March, and obtained an arrest warrant for Finch. He was arrested and booked into the Liberty County jail last week before being released on his own recognizance. Gov. Scott has since suspended Finch and temporarily installed a regional agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as acting sheriff.

Finch’s arrest for exercising his judgment in protecting another citizen’s Constitutional freedom has drawn anger from both locals and 2nd Amendment advocates throughout the U.S.

One Liberty County man said Finch may have been a sitting duck among longtime power brokers in a good old boy network,“[s]ince he’s considered what people consider an outsider and not from Liberty County, that they finally railroaded him out. In my personal opinion he was doing his job and people didn’t like it.”

Though Finch has not commented on his arrest, his attorney has said it’s ridiculous to construe the sheriff’s actions as anything but proper defense of his constituents’ Constitutional rights.

“The records at the jail show exactly what happened in this case and the records speak the truth. The sheriff looked at the facts and said ‘I believe in the second amendment and we’re not going to charge him.’ That is not misconduct at all. That is within the Sheriff’s prerogative whether to charge someone or not,” said attorney Jimmy Judkins.

Dean Garrison of DC Clothesline agrees:

With so many Sheriff’s offices making strong pro-2nd Amendment stands in 2013 this is a situation that was bound to happen. The Sheriff had every right not to charge this man. The 2nd Amendment of the constitution should supercede any Florida law. “Shall Not Be Infringed” still means something to men like Nick.

The whole case will surely become about the documents. If Nick Finch destroyed the documents they will make an example of him for all of us to see. They have been waiting for this opportunity. This case will not be prosecuted to the extent that Nick Finch did not understand the 2nd Amendment. They will try to get him on a technicality.

Pro-2nd Amendment law enforcement officials all over the country need to take note. They are looking for any backdoor they can to try to shut you down. This story should be national news soon. My hope is that Finch did not destroy the documents and this case can be heard on its real merits.

Nick Finch was elected sheriff of Liberty, a county of only 8,400 people, in November of last year.