​An Obama Anniversary Worth Noting

by Ray

We should have seen it coming. Exactly eight years ago came a clear sign that prudence dictated a hard look into the mouth of this gift (Trojan?) horse running for President. It was Barack Obama’s capitulation to NSA and the giant telecoms that should have raised our antennae higher.

As soon as Obama-the-candidate went back on his earlier promise, and said he had decided to vote, after all, for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation holding the telecoms and NSA harmless for having trashed the Bill of Rights, Ray wrote him a letter. Neither Obama nor John Brennan, the trustee who had just become Obama’s principal adviser on such issues, wrote back.

For a trip down memory lane, here’s the text, originally posted on afterdowningstreet.org:

http://warisacrime.org/node/34526

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Ray McGovern’s Response to Obama’s FISA Explanation
It’s a Deal Breaker for This Intelligence Officer
Submitted by Ray McGovern on July 3, 2008 – 11:11pm.

July 3, 2008

Dear Senator Obama,

I speak from 30 years of experience in intelligence work. I don’t know who actually briefed you on the eavesdropping legislation, but the bill is unnecessary for intelligence collection and POISON for our civil liberties—not even to mention the unconscionable retroactive immunity provision.

You have made a big mistake, Senator, in indicating you intend to vote for it. There is still time to change your mind. That’s what big people do.

Your penultimate paragraph seals it for me. What you are saying relies not on principle—and still less on respect for the law, or respect for our Constitutional rights.

What I hear you saying is an all too familiar refrain: “Tough s___, progressive voter. You know you’ve got nowhere else to go. You want McCain in there?”

A painful reminder that the Republicans have no corner on arrogance. You think you have us over a barrel. Well let me tell you something those suits from K Street haven’t told you; you need our active support, and you are about to blow it.

Your “explanation” was unworthy of one who has sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (including the Fourth Amendment).

And your attitude is not that of a person I THOUGHT was different—and would be genuinely for change I could believe in.

We live just a couple of miles from where George Mason is buried. (As you may remember, professor of the Constitution that you have been, Mason actually refused to approve the Constitution—although he and fellow Virginian James Madison had pretty much drafted it—BECAUSE IT LACKED THE BILL OF RIGHTS).

Well, the air is still this evening. Our windows are open and George Mason can be heard tossing and turning in his grave, loudly moaning. Yes, moaning.

I went over to his grave; between the moans he explained that he had just heard of your plan to play fast and loose with his beloved Bill of Rights. “Hard to enjoy the Fourth tomorrow with the Constitution being shredded Right and Left,” he whispered.

Remember, Senator, what Emerson said about those unable to change their “little” minds. Beware the K Street hobgoblins!

Again: Dissing us by the “So-you-want-McCain?” riposte is unworthy. Not only is it clear that you are “mis-underestimating” us but, frankly, I find it insulting.

Please get back on track.

Respectfully,
Ray McGovern
US Army Infantry/Intelligence Officer: 1962-64
CIA Analyst, 1963-1990
Co-Founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

 

Ray Gets Letter Printed in WashPost

Letters to the Editor, Washington Post, July 1, 2015

McCain, Ukraine and Mr. Putin

In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, “The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,” Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation.

What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?

This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item “Putin had early plan to annex Crimea” described a “secret meeting” Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which “Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.” No mention was made of the coup the previous day.

I have searched in vain for credible evidence that, before the coup, Mr. Putin had any intention to annex Crimea. George Friedman, the widely respected president of the think tank Stratfor, has described the putsch on Feb. 22, 2014, as “the most blatant coup in history.”

Ray McGovern, Arlington

The writer is former chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch of the CIA.

​Formal Presentation of Framed Sam Adams Award Citation to Bill Binney

The occasion was the annual meeting of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters, June 13, 2015, at the BWI Doubletree Hotel — oddly, surrounded by NSA buildings in Linthicum, MD. John Henry of the Committee for the Republic hosted the evening program titled: “The National Security Agency’s War on the U.S. Constitution”

Main speakers were William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, Thomas Drake, and James Bamford. Bruce Fein, John Henry, and Ray McGovern also spoke.

The Committee for the Republic was eager provide an appropriate occasion for Binney to receive the framed citation (in English and German) for the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence. The paper citation and traditional corner-brightener candlestick holder was originally presented to Binney at an SRO ceremony in Berlin on January 22, 2015.

Ed Snowden, who was live-streamed into that Berlin ceremony, emphasized, “Without Bill Binney there would be no Ed Snowden.” Bill, in turn, had been greatly encouraged by the courageous, principled stand taken by Tom Drake in facing down the U.S. Department of Justice and NSA successfully, after four years of persecution that included government-provided “evidence” proven in Court to have been forged.

Actually, in a very real sense, it was a triple play: Drake to Binney to Snowden. So it was altogether appropriate that Tom Drake be the former Sam Adams Associate honoree to present the framed award to Bill Binney on June 13, 2015 in the belly of the (NSA) beast.

Tom also had been the clear choice of his colleague Sam Adams Associates to present the 2013 award for integrity to Ed Snowden in Moscow on October 7, 2013. As soon as Ed surfaced in Hong Kong, he made it clear that U.S. government abuse of Tom had convinced Ed that he had to leave the U.S. in order to achieve his mission and have some chance — however slight it seemed at the time — of avoiding spending the rest of his life in prison.

Hats off to Drake to Binney to Snowden: courageous patriots all!

Will Justice Prevail? Assange’s 3rd anniversary in embassy of Ecuador

“Guantanamo Justice” in Britain (from Sunshine Press)

“19 June 2015 marks three years since Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, entered the embassy of Ecuador in London. He was granted political asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention … Mr. Assange risks extradition to the US from both the UK and Sweden. He has been detained—without charge—in prison, under house arrest and in the embassy for nearly five years. He has not seen the sun in three years, as the embassy has no outdoor area. …”

For the entire statement from Sunshine Press, see:

https://justice4assange.com/3-Years-in-Embassy.html

Ray Comment:

The British say they will arrest Assange the minute he steps outside the Ecuadorian Embassy.

I am reminded that the now defunct Magna Carta, while mocked by the New York Times on its 800th anniversary four days ago – see: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/opinion/stop-revering-magna-carta.html?_r=0 – has still not been given a proper burial. Shame on Britain, where the English once had the backbone to stand up to a king.

​It is time to end the pretense. There should be a proper funeral, memorial service, and burial for the Magna Carta after eight centuries of protecting the human rights now denied to Julian Assange, to those in Guantanamo and to thousands of others now aping our new form of “democracy.”

The lawless U.S. “Justice” Department now plays the role of king, and British lawyers shame their ancestors, as well as their profession, in bowing low to carry out Washington’s diktat regarding Julian Assange – as in so many other matters.

Sadly, this should come as no surprise. London’s agile lawyers did backflips to apply a veneer of legality to “justify” the U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq, launching what the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal defined as a “war of aggression” with its “accumulated evil” of kidnapping and torture, in which the British also cooperated.

“British Law” has become an oxymoron. And only a moron could be blind to the reality that Britain’s servile lawyers are putty in Washington’s hands. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had no business being at Runnymede on June 15 to mark the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta. Neither did the queen, nor any of today’s much more malleable British barons.​

Veterans Urge Drone Operators to Refuse Orders to Fly

Many U.S. military veterans are counseling military drone operators to refuse to fly drone surveillance/attack missions, and are sponsoring prime-time television commercials urging drone operators to “refuse to fly.”

In a letter released today by KnowDrones.com, 44 former members of the US Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines whose ranks range from private to colonel … “urge United States drone pilots, sensor operators and support teams to refuse to play any role in drone surveillance/assassination missions. Such missions profoundly violate domestic and international laws intended to protect individuals’ rights to life, privacy and due process.”

http://warisacrime.org/content/veterans-urge-drone-operators-refuse-orders-fly