http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/01/cia-operatives-in-benghazi-to-appear-in-closed-congressional-hearing/
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/01/2013 08:45 -0400
CIA operatives in Benghazi to appear in closed Congressional hearing
POSTED AT 8:01 AM ON NOVEMBER 1, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
Congress has tried for more than a year to gain access to those who survived the terrorist attack on two American outposts in Benghazi, with little success — until now. Just days afteran extensive report by 60 Minutes on the run-up to the attack and the lack of US response during the attack itself, the CIA will make witnesses available to the House Intelligence Committee for a closed session.
A House Intelligence subcommittee will hear from CIA security officers who are expected to tell a much more detailed story about the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans last year, CNN has learned.The men, described by sources as former Navy SEALs, former Army Special Forces and former Marines, were under contract to guard CIA agents on the ground there.The security officers were among those who responded when Stevens’ compound was attacked on the night of September 11, 2012.They will appear before lawmakers behind closed doors during the week of November 11, sources told CNN.
Did this have anything to do with the 60 Minutes report on Sunday? The report explicitly criticized the CIA for not providing these witnesses, about which House Republicans have long and publicly complained. The CBS report moved the needle enough to get Chris Matthews, who describes these same Republicans as “Benghazi obsessives,” to finally admit that the GOP had a point in demanding answers from Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration over why no response was provided.
CNN’s Drew Griffin thinks that question might get a lot more pointed. According to his sources, the security contractors at the CIA annex were ready to respond four minutes after the first attack began. Who told them not to go?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-01/china-slams-peeping-tom-america-trust-fiasco-america-eavesdropper
China Slams "Peeping Tom" America: "The Trust Fiasco Of America The Eavesdropper"
Three weeks ago, during the US government shutdown fiasco, and when there was legitimate concern if the US would begin prioritizing debt payments upon running out of cash, China's official and most widely read press agency,Xinhua, slammed the US in "U.S. fiscal failure warrants a de-Americanized world" in which it called for a new world order, and an end to the reserve currency. Now, it is time for the follow up, with China kicking "America the eavesdropper" precisely when it is down.
From Xinhua:
The trust fiasco of America the Eavesdropper
The latest outburst of outcries and outrage across the world has laid bare that almighty America has at least one other anomalous addiction besides borrowing -- bugging.
The U.S. debt drama features a polarized and paralyzed Washington at the helm of the world's largest economy. As nerve-racking as it is, such irresponsible behavior is a recurrent headache economic policymakers worldwide can bear with.
Yet the sole superpower's spying saga is spicy on a heart-attack scale. It is particularly hurtful to those supposed to trust America the most -- its allies.
The recent cascade of eye-popping disclosures depicts a hyperactive Uncle Sam prying into others' secrets and even eavesdropping on dozens of heads of state.
It has been revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the phone conservations of at least 35 world leaders in 2006. And that is just a tip of the iceberg of the spook organization's sprawling spying scheme.
Leaked documents show that the NSA has not only gained front-door access to countless Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process, but secretly broken into the main communications links connecting the two Internet giants' respective data centers around the world to siphon information at will.
What is counterintuitive in the NSA forage is its nonsensical approach: relentless and indiscriminate like a vacuum cleaner. It just bugs everybody, even its closest allies in Europe.
In the most shocking revelation so far, Uncle Sam turned Madame Europa, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, into, as Deutsche Presse-Agentur puts it, "a dupe whose mobile phone conversations were for more than a decade a source of information for U.S. authorities."
Merkel and her peers in the U.S. alliance have every reason to feel insulted and betrayed. At the very least, they deserve the kind of respect and trust that underpins the practice that air travelers do not have to fly naked.
The motivation behind America's extensive eavesdropping is unclear. The explanations the White House has been forced to offer are far from explanatory, and the diorthosis President Barack Obama has promised seems all but skin-deep.
The half-heartedness stands in stark contrast with the pushfulness with which America accuses China of cyber-espionage, and the evasiveness marks a stunning retreat from the straightforwardness with which Washington reproves Beijing for alleged monetary manipulation.
The apparent application of a double standard only reinforces the image of a Janus-faced America. In the sunlight, it preaches; in the dark, it pries. On the offensive, it orates; on the defensive, it equivocates.
The wayward practice has now backfired, and the damage is increasing. Just as the borrowing addiction is shedding America's economic credibility, the bugging obsession is draining its political and security trustworthiness -- only with potentially more destructive consequences.
Trust is the first and foremost casualty. Common sense dictates that trust is a two-way street: One has to trust in order to be trusted. It is particularly true in friendships and alliances.America obviously failed to follow the simple rule.
If Washington did not knit the worldwide wiretapping web just because it could, then its pillage for information unveils an Uncle Sam too deeply entrenched in suspicion and isolation to treat anyone as a real friend.
Ironically enough, the bugging undermines the very thing it is supposed to protect -- national security. As America pins its security on alliances, the tapping tale would sour its relationship with allies -- and thus erode its security bedrock -- more than any terrorist would be capable of.
The harm could go far beyond. For example, mutual trust is vital to China and America's endeavor to build a new type of major-country relations. Washington's lack of trust and hemorrhage of trustworthiness would only make the effort more difficult.
Needless to say, trust entails trade-offs, and the quid pro quos are not riskless. But the United States should be wise enough to know that to trust nobody is no less dangerous than to trust anybody.
As indicated in the still simmering spying scandal, the potential cost of excessive bugging could be way higher. Uncle Sam needs to remember what happened to the tailor in the Lady Godiva story -- Peeping Tom was struck blind.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/10/more-nsa-leakers-followed-snowdens-footsteps-whistleblower-lawyer-says/
Oct 31, 2013 6:06pm
By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
Several more current and former National Security Agency insiders, inspired by American fugitiveEdward Snowden, have come forward as whistleblowers with details of the shadowy agency’s operations, according to an attorney at a whistleblower protection organization.
“I think the government hopes to chill speech by employees in the national security and intelligence fields, especially those at the NSA and CIA, but the unintended consequence is [that] more and more whistleblowers are coming through the doors of the Government Accountability Project (GAP),” said Jesselyn Radack, referring to the organization where she works as the National Security and Human Rights Director. “I think courage is contagious, and we see more and more people from the NSA coming through our door after Snowden made these revelations.”
Radack, an attorney who has met with and been in communication with Snowden, said “a handful” of people in the intelligence community have come forward since this summer when several major international newspapers began writing about the NSA’s classified foreign and domestic surveillance programs – stories based on thousands of secret NSA documents allegedly stolen by Snowden, a former NSA contractor.
Snowden has been charged in the U.S. with espionage-related crimes, and America’s top intelligence officials said he is a traitor who has put America’s national security in jeopardy.
But the legal threats and high-level condemnation haven’t kept others from coming forward with new information, Radack said.
“There definitely could be more revelations in addition to those that Snowden has revealed and that are continuing to come out,” she told ABC News.
Snowden is currently living in Russia, after being granted temporary asylum there. Today his Russian lawyer said he had gotten a job at a major Russian website. Radack said she was unaware of any new employment for Snowden.
The NSA declined to offer immediate comment in response to an after-hours request by ABC News.
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