The Guardian reports: The FBI has shrugged off growing congressional anxiety over its surveillance of US citizens, claiming such programs could have foiled the 9-11 terrorist attacks and would prevent “another Boston”.
The FBI director, Robert Mueller, also revealed that US authorities would be taking action against whistleblower Edward Snowden for revealing the extent of its activities, confirming that the FBI and department of justice were taking “all necessary steps to hold the person responsible”.
But Mueller’s testimony before the House judicial oversight committee brought angry responses from many congressmen, who questioned whether such surveillance was lawful and demanded to know why it had failed to prevent the Boston bombing if it were so effective.
Preventing airline passengers from carrying knives on board; not basing thousands of American troops in Saudi Arabia — there are all sorts of things that could have prevented 9/11.
What Mueller and other government officials are now doing is attempting to terrorize Americans. They are in effect saying that unless the citizens of this country are willing to live under mass surveillance, they or their loved ones are more likely to meet a premature and violent death. It’s called security-state blackmail.
“the slacker who came in from the cold,” with “all the qualifications to become a grocery bagger.”
A short while ago in a comment to a ‘take down’ article from Slate by Farad Majoo . I took exception to the manner in which tech columnist Manjoo in his article went about ‘dissing’ Snowden while using information Snowden himself offered about his qualifications and education.
” It seems like ‘a put down’ but perhaps it was really about calling into question NSA competence as they employ IT personnel.” was a view in reply. Umm.. perhaps but I still see it as a stretch especially in the light of comments on Snowed in a similar vein by:
John Boehner. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Susan Collins columnists Richard Cohen, David Brooks, Jeffrey Toobin, Roger Simon, Roger Brokow, Matt Miller
.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/top-commentary-nsa-leaks
Perhaps given these responses it is not all about NSA’s hiring policies or keeping its programs secret but about the culture of the nation’s capital as uses it it the main line of defense is to attack Snowden for lacking the proper credentials to speak out against the government. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/14/the-sickening-snowden-backlash.html
The argument being made by the NSA and its defenders is that the success of its operations hinge on secrecy. Loss of secrecy cripples national security — so the argument goes. What Manjoo is arguing (and I have argued many times before) is that the function of secrecy, more often than not, is to shield incompetence.