Well, when domestic policy is heavily built around being able to spy on your own and anybody elseâs citizens on a whim, naturally you need an excuse, however flimsy.
When nobody finally has to justify it anymore, then you know weâre in even bigger trouble.
Theyâre spooks. Lying, disinformation, misrepresentation is pretty much their USP.
The article is right. To take what they say on trust you need to be deeply gullible.
As we know from Iraq, they donât even tell the truth to politicians, and then the politicians pass on a distorted version to us. And then they wonder why the British public doesnât trust politicians.
The exact language is quite interestingâŚ
âAs to the specific allegations this morning, we never comment on operational intelligence mattersâŚâ
This is standard policy. Even when people claim in Parliament that British Intelligence is involved in UFOâs or something like that, the flat answer is always not to comment. This is a good policy in the main, as it stops people from fishing for information.
ââŚso Iâm not going to talk about what we have or havenât done in order to mitigate the effect of the Snowden revelations but nobody should be in any doubt that Edward Snowden has caused immense damage,â
Ah, so we are not discussing anything concerning intelligence. Therefore everything we are talking about refers to something else. Our next yearâs funding? My Knighthood? Our relations with the US? Maybe. But not actual intelligence.
A British intelligence source said Snowden had done âincalculable damage.â
Again, the funny use of words. âSourceâ should not mean employee. âIncalculableâ means we cannot calculate it. The official at Cameronâs office was effectively saying the same thing when they said there was âno evidence of anyone being harmed.â
âA Home Office source told the newspaper that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not grant Snowden asylum for nothingâ. Indeed not. He may have granted Snowden asylum because he thought it was the moral thing to do (snort). Or, more likely, that the Americans were practically daring him to do it at the time.
âHis documents were encrypted but they werenât completely secure and we have now seen our agents and assets being targeted,â the source said. Now that is an operational detail. Either that source was not in the Home Office, or he/she is leaking information they shouldnât. Or they are talking about internal budgets, and not actions of other nations.
And finallyâŚ
British security agencies declined to comment.
Finally, hereâs someone who knows their job and sticks to it. So who are all these other âsourcesâ or âspokespersonsâ? Not intelligence people, then, which makes the whole news story look rather limp. So the journalists have to stick last Fridayâs lettuce under the cold tap, and pick off the brown bits, so it almost feels crisp and fresh again.
Itâs not exactly telling fibs. Anyone who has the boxed set of âYes, MInisterâ can tell the difference. But shame on them none the less.
Even if what theyâre saying is correct, they should be more embarrassed that such apparently dangerous information was available to an American contractor from his desk with no apparent oversight.
Why was information that could be dangerous to British interests left lying around where a foreign power (abit a gernerally friendly one) apparently had full access?
Shouldnât the British establishment be pointing the finger at the US for failing to secure their own contractors? (They probably did, but in private. No squabbling in front of the children and all that)
If I were of the betting persuasion, I might be tempted to put my chips on âHey, remember how we just learned that the Office of Personnel Management pretty much got turned upside down and shaken until empty by parties as yet unknown?â rather than âApparently no cryptosystem is a match for Putinâs manly pecsââŚ
In fairness, there arenât many actual journalists left at the Daily Torygraph. [edit - or the Sunday Times, which pre-Murdoch was a good newspaper.]
He was reminding people who spy for the Russians âDonât worry, anybody who spies on the Americans, we look after themâ. Never forget a simple fact; Putin is far more intelligent (and better educated) than people give him credit for. The macho posturing is like baby kissing and promising to stop welfare in the US or claiming to be going to stop immigration in the UK; itâs what you do to get elected.
Has it occurred to anybody that Russian businesses will like it just fine if English businesses canât use strong crypto? Also, I think the Swiss and the Brazilians and some guys from Alabama might like to take a peek at what youâve got.
Whatâs that you say? Exemption for business? I dunno about the UK, but here in America it takes about two weeks to set up a corporation, and a couple hundred bucks if you do it yourself. I have a few myself. Or have you found a way to ensure only the Right People can start a business?
Why would the NSA know where British agents were deployed?
Ah, so this must be so totally unrelated:
If Russia and China are able to break Snowdenâs heavy duty encryption, why are the Western spy agencies so eager to ban consumer-grade encryption? Youâd think theyâd be embarrassed to admit they canât even break that.
Apparently doublethink is now mandatory along with the thoughtcrime watch.
Or only the right people, who have the right connections, or make the right campaign donations, will be granted access to strong cryptoâŚ
They probably wouldnât be that obvious, maybe it would be framed as âonly companies with government contracts,â which is very nearly the same set.
Seems like more classic âFear, Uncertainty, and Doubtâ campaigning against Snowden and progress. All it does is reveal peopleâs perverse hatred of democracy when they throw punches at intelligence program whistleblowers like Snowden and provide yet another reason for why these programs must be pulled to the ground and razed with predjudice. We need to stop letting our governments pretend that we are at war, or that war or inequitable economic policy are somehow acceptable options.
Two whole weeks? In England and Wales you can, if youâre that anxious, visit Cardiff and do it there and then. Or settle for the slow old 24 hour process over the telephone.
I am not sure they are even up to singlethink yet.
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