Letters at 3AM: The Patriot Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden is the American equivalent of the man who stood in front of that tank in Tiananmen Square
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
Disclosures by the patriot Edward Snowden will have at least one penetrating and unpredictable result: Even though Americans may not face what we've enabled two administrations to do to us, and we may go on denying that we've become the nation we've become – now the whole world has seen proof. The world will not forget, and the world will not let us forget.That said, the devil is in the details, so let's pay him a visit.
The Booz Allen Hamilton gang: Mike McConnell was the National Security Agency director from 1992 to 1996, after which he became a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton (the company that employed Edward Snowden). McConnell created the company's first cyber units. Then, from 2007 to 2009, McConnell was George W. Bush's director of National Intelligence. At that time, he lobbied Congress to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and free the NSA from "burdensome" rules. He returned to Booz Allen in 2009. His first year back, the company paid McConnell $4.1 million (The New York Times, June 16).
Booz Allen got its money's worth. With McConnell's ever-growing intelligence contacts, the company's net income from government contracts went from $25 million in 2010 to $219 million "in the [recent] fiscal year." McConnell is now Booz Allen's vice chairman, earning a fee last year of $2.3 million (same article).
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Gail Collins, in The New York Times (June 15): "Last year, the feds made 1,856 requests to FISA judges and got 1,856 thumbs up." CNN reported that during Obama's administration FISA courts have turned down exactly one request (June 10). NBC reported no, not one; two. Does that sound like very strict supervision? To call the FISA process "courts" is a sly way to lie. The administration well knows that what "court" means to the average citizen bears no resemblance to FISA procedures.
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http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2013-06-28/letters-at-3am-the-patriot-edward-snowden/
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