Friday, January 26, 2018

Cleanup Time

Do you believe the federal government acts with integrity? At bottom, that's what's going on. Sharyl Attkisson makes the point:
There are two overarching issues.

First, there’s the alleged improper use of politically-funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes.

Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties.

This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics.

It touches everybody. It’s potentially monumental.
It's important to understand what happened. Back to Attkisson:
[Sen. Charles] Grassley also pointed out that agencies accused of possible improprieties are the ones controlling the information. It’s the FBI who may have misused the unverified “dossier” opposition research, allegedly presenting it to a secret court as if it were verified intelligence.

“[FBI] Director [James] Comey testified in 2017 that it was ‘salacious and unverified’,” said Grassley. “So, it was a collection of unverified opposition research funded by a political opponent in an election year. Would it be proper for the Obama administration — or any administration — to use something like that to authorize further investigation that intrudes on the privacy of people associated with its political opponents? That should bother civil libertarians of any political stripe.”
It should, but if doesn't. Having other people find out what you've done bothers them, though.
Meantime, the Department of Justice has officially warned the House Intelligence Committee not to release its memo. It's like the possible defendant in a criminal trial threatening prosecutors for having the audacity to reveal alleged evidence to the judge and jury.

This is the first time I can recall open government groups and many reporters joining in the argument to keep the information secret. They are strangely uncurious about alleged improprieties with implications of the worst kind: Stasi-like tactics used against Americans. “Don’t be irresponsible and reveal sources and methods,” they plead.
If the sources and methods are as corrupt as the people in charge are, it all needs to be revealed. And it's time to clean things up.

5 comments:

3john2 said...

The Vampire demands that you don’t touch that window-shade.

Bike Bubba said...

It really doesn't help that the news feed I see these days, especially out of NewsWeak and Yahoo, is filled with flat out bulls**t. Really, you've got the Democrats, the media, and the bureaucracy (but I repeat myself) arrayed against the truth here.

Gino said...

Wasn't Atkinson a victim of govt surveillance herself?

Bike Bubba said...

Gino, yes, her personal computer had a keystroke logger on it. For some reason, the office of the inspector general chose not to inspect it, or was not allowed to.

Bike Bubba said...

Regarding that memo, just saw a belly-laugher out of ThinkProgress and I think the NY Times, where "sources" are arguing that the memo is a cherry-picked litany of claims from the DOJ. I guess they're not so concerned about confidentiality anymore, and are of course ignoring that it was DOJ lifers that authorized and sustained a lot of the (allegedly) illegal work. Yup, I totally expect them to be involved in putting together such a document!