Plane spotters blowing CIA cover ops

[LilKim]

What do you think of this? Is it good to shine a light on possible illegal activities by our government or is this kind of thing the CIA does necessary and we should keep quiet?

Recent Newsweek piece:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037720/site/newsweek/

Older but more thorough WaPo investigative piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27826-2004Dec26.html

Some discussion on a plane spotting site:
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1979684/
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1978314/

[Just Me]

1. Is it "bad" to shine light on possible illegal activities by anyone?

:shrug:

I guess it depends upon whether or not you believe the "rule of law" is an integral part of democracy or any civilized society. Personally, I believe the "rule of law" is absolutely tantamount to a civilized society.

[sarcasmo]

2. Plane spotters will be arrested and labeled threats to National Security.

[number6]

3. moving drugs and prisoners to be tortured

"transport system the agency set up to secretly move cargo and people—including terrorist suspects—around the world."

[number6]

4. I vote, shine the light ....

:smoke:

[tanyev]

5. Straight from the horse's mouth:

"I live in a transparent country," Bush said at one point. "I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open."

Of course, the public having the ability to keep track of the CIA is not what he meant, but I think it's a good thing. They would like to use the internet(s) to keep an eye on us, but that is virtually impossible to do (at least at this point) without our also using it to keep an eye on them. I wish our country really were as transparent as Bush pretended.

[EVDebs]

6. Pack the staffs of the oversight committees with our people, then

keep the Congressional oversight committees civilian staff and the Congressmen themselves 'out of the loop'. Claim ignorance when things go haywire; 'it was above my pay-grade'.

[HereSince1628]

7. Well, parse that.

There are 2 complete sentences.

1) I live in a transparent country. (Of course, thanks to Ashcroft, invasive spyware and corporate sharing of personal information the country has become transparent to the ruling class.)

2) I live in a country where decisions made by government are wide open. (Yes, wide open to any interpretation that Karl Roverer and his band of whirling spinners.)


The second sentence may have absolutely nothing to do with the first.

[Fovea]

8. In general terms

You can state policy and draw a line in the sand, but the winds of circumstance will as quickly expunge it.

I think some activities of the CIA are quite legitimate, some are not.
In order to trust the CIA at all, it would be important to know that rigorous debate, and downright argument occur in the analysis groups, but also in the operational branches.

To say that we cannot oversee the CIA would be the admission of a de facto theocracy of spies. To say that without an internal structure that accepts and facilitates that oversight, we labor blindly, sometimes stabbing out in ways that hamper other legitimate uses of our Intel assets.

However, the affaire Plame is *must* be rigorously dealt with, or there is a huge disincentive for operatives in the field. Huge.