I'm right again dot com   SPECIAL

An Unincorporated Division of the Anonymous Anything Society          June 19, 2013


WHISTLE BLOWERS

PLEASE NOTE:  I've a brand new e-mail address: k7os@comcast.net - Not that you'll ever use it to send me a comment about anything.

With that noted, let's get down to cases, beginning with Domestic Surveillance and the kerfuffle over Eric Snowden, an American Computer Geek, who is leaking his take to the media about the black arts that numerous sections of the massive US Security Apparatus use to monitor and record the passing of electronic traffic. Apparently this is done in order to determine who among us is in contact with the Forces of Darkness.

U.S. recruiters probably found Eddie by googling the Game Boy website. May I quote an old saw: "It serves them right?"

 A true watchdog, a genuine applicant for membership in the Whistle Blowers of America Society has to do three things. First, complain, preferably in writing, to his or her superior, and then to the supervisor's superior, before going public. To our knowledge, Snowden may have elected to skip these steps, therefore he is termed a "Leaker" by the Keepers of the Secrets.

 A whistle blower can add to their cache' by being discharged and having their retirement plan rescinded. It helps tremendously if the administration, whether it be private company or governmental agency, can accuse the Leaker of being especially tendentious, such as supporting a suggestion box for employees or affecting a Sean Hannity Hairdo. (Do I really have to explain that?)

Then of course, one must be interviewed at least once on television, preferably on "60 Minutes."  Extra marks are obtained if the Whistle Blower wannabe could have been discharged for some picayune offense - such as scratching messages on the inside of restroom partitions.

It's especially helpful if a former Vice President/War Promoter can be prompted to call one a traitor.

I hold that one must forsake all of the benefits (book contracts, bigtime TV interviews, documentary films, product endorsements) of being a true Whistle Blower if one runs off to Thailand, or to any place that doesn't give a whit for any stinking U.S. extradition treaty. That is considered patently unfair, say the Anti-WB's. I am inclined to agree.

On the other hand, I admit to being more than a bit uneasy about our government's stance on the Snowden case. Knowing that a digital record of my personal communications repose in a building full of floor-to-ceiling racks of of air-conditioned computers - without my having access to a delete button, does little to reassure me.

"We're just messing with a bunch of ones and zeros," the Keepers of the Secrets contend. "We simply want to know the series of digits that are used to call or send eMail to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ali Khameni, Bashar Assad or anyone else. It's really like collecting the DNA sequence of people without knowing their names."

They protest that they've absolutely no interest in anyone sneaking a peek at Victoria's not-so-secret website or dialing for phone sex. Unless of course, their last name is Putin or have an Iranian or Chinese prefix for dial-up.

Wouldn't the great, late J. Edgar Hoover loved having this weapon? Or Heinrich Himmler, for that matter. 

The folks at National Security say, "We've been harvesting your phone numbers for years and storing them in a data base of almost inconceivably huge capacity. The analogy is that it is just like reading the address on the outside of the envelope while delivering it and not opening and reading the contents."

Not yet, anyway.

Instead, the Keepers of the Secrets are coming up with documentation of cases about this process having led to successful interdictions.

"Besides," Say the Secret Keepers, "Whistleblowers are protected by Law!"

OH YOW! Uh-huh. That is, until they disagree with their handlers. The most they can expect then are royalties on a book and maybe one shot on "60 Minutes," neither of which will begin to pay for legal fees that may keep them from doing jail time. Apparently one can't just start blowing the whistle if you've signed an agreement not to do so. Well, you can, at a price.

Snowden probably could get a job in China, North Korea or Iran. That, or become another "Man without a Country." That's not a good thing.

Our privacy, even at the risk of making us more vulnerable to our enemies, is one of the most precious protections of our Constitution. Isn't it sad that those holding the levers of power have concluded we have to shred the Constitution in order to protect it. I know of no greater irony.

I'm terribly sorry, but like "rendition," (sending people to be tortured in foreign countries), this lack of firewall on the World Wide Web and our landline telephone services makes me feel less secure. I have long been guilty of saying an uncountable number of unkind things about people in the seats of power. If I should ever be even threatened with being waterboarded, I'll confess to anything.

Our Attorney General Eric Holder does beat all for not knowing what is going on, doesn't he?  He is quoted as saying during a visit to Ireland when queried about this current cheap thrill in Washington, that he is "confident that the person (the leaker) who is responsible will be held accountable."  Mr. Holder, sir, perhaps you don't know how the "Fast and Furious" gift of thousands of guns got to the Mexican Cartels, but an American Citizen, Edward Snowden, who can be contacted on his iPhone, publicly confessed in Bankok to being the culprit who leaked the disturbing revelations. C'mon!

This cannot be the cap-off to this travesty: Snowden is at this writing, in Thailand. The London Home Office has announced that Great Britain will fine any airline that is allowed to land in the UK,  2,000 pounds ($3100 American), if they sell Snowden a ticket to London.

They've already had enough of Wikiup's founder, Julian Assange, last said to be holed up in the British Embassy in Ecuador. (Serves him and them right).  The Brits are afraid someone will leak the secret of why anyone would ever consider drinking warm beer or visiting the British Isles during the foggy season.

...or wonder if the Buckingham Palace guards care a tad about the decimation of the black bear population.

Hello! Are you really out there in cyberspace? Please tell me if you suffered through this.  Please. Go back to the e-mail that carried the link to this page and hit "Reply."  I probably already have your eMail address, which I will obliterate from my files if you request it. Promise.

ARCHIVES

Our Thanks to Jim Bromley, of Glendale, Arizona who has begun an archive of what I consider some of my best blogs. They will be added to from time to time, as I visit the crypt. Click: http://www.arizona-AM.net/K7OS

-Phil Richardson, Observer and Storyteller