Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog [11],
Kevin Gosztola over at Firedoglake [12] does some excellent work, and his latest story about the recent activities of perjuring Director of National Intelligence for the U.S., James Clapper, is no exception. To provide a little context, the Washington Post recently reported [13]that:
Freitag skimmed the extracurriculars, read the first essay, rated it good. GW also asks students to list a role model and two words to describe themselves. As for herself, Freitag said, she would list “Martha Stewart/Tina Fey” and “sassy/classy.”This year, she’s seeing a lot of Edward Snowden citations.
Freitag is an admissions officer at George Washington University, and apparently this trend of college students accurately identifying Edward Snowden as a hero has given James Clapper a panic attack. So much so, that he is taking time away from protecting us from “terrorists” (a term that now apparently includes folks at the Bundy Ranch according to Harry Reid [14]) to embark upon a propaganda speaking tour of U.S. college campuses to demonstrate to those silly young kids that Snowden is no hero, but actually a traitorous villain.
This whole thing is eerily similar to Banana Ben Bernanke’s college propaganda tour back in 2012 [15], which demonstrates that the status quo simply has one playbook that it sticks to aggressively. The only question I have is how long before Clapper realizes he can earn $250,000 a speech once he leaves his current role, as Benny Bernanke is currently raking in. [16]
From Firedoglake:
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is touring universities and colleges in the United States in an attempt to persuade students that they should not consider former NSA contractor Edward Snowden a whistleblower or a hero.
Speaking at the GEOINT conference in Tampa, Florida, on April 15, Clapper addressed [17] attendees and told university students at Georgetown University and the University of Georgia about a recent article in The Washington Post on college admissions.
“An admissions officer from George Washington University told The Post that for the admissions’ essay question, ‘Who’s your personal hero?’ the admissions officer observed that she was seeing a lot more of Edward Snowden citations. And the idea that young people see Edward Snowden as a hero really bothers me. So I thought I needed to talk about Snowden at Georgetown and Georgia and I am going to do the same elsewhere at colleges and universities.”
Seems like a great way to spend your time and taxpayer dollars.
The interior situation in Iraq, which is deteriorating, a “very assertive Russia” (“brings back memories”), “a competitive China,” a challenging Iran, “a dangerous unpredictable North Korea” and “global demands for resources” complicated by climate change were all mentioned as bugaboos for Clapper and the intelligence community. And Snowden’s leaks were accused of “complicating everything.”
No Clapper, the unconstitutional behavior of the intelligence agencies is what is “complicating everything.” Don’t try to deflect blame from where it belongs because a patriot decides to tell the public the truth about government criminality.
This is what statists never comprehend. The strength of a nation or culture does not come from government’s ability to do whatever it wants without having to adhere to the law, respect civil liberties or inform the public. The strength of a nation or culture comes from the rule of law, from freedom, from accountability, from enterprise and from faith in the institutions that define that nation or culture. Americans have been losing faith in all of the things that define America and for good reason. Snowden was just another nail in the coffin. Without genuine freedom in all aspects of life, politics, economics, communities, a culture will collapse and lose out to others. That is why the U.S. is in decline, not because Snowden revealed the cancer at the heart of U.S. intelligence and corporate America. He is just putting a mirror in front of us and forcing ourselves to look at the ugly reflection.
A good portion of Clapper’s speech was then spent addressing what he called the “myth of Edward Snowden.” He said he told students that “despite being a geezer” he got it.”
“I understand that a lot of young people see Snowden as a courageous whistleblower standing up to authority. I personally believe that whistleblowing in its highest form takes an incredible amount of courage and integrity. But Snowden isn’t a whistleblower,” Clapper declared.
Oh, ok Clapper. If you say so. You disingenuous perjuring creep. [18]
“There’s an inspector general for NSA and another one for the entire intelligence community. My office has a civil liberties and privacy protection officer. Snowden could also have gone to the Justice Department or the Congress. And as we’ve seen Snowden is superb at finding information so I think he could have tracked those people down had he given it a little thought,” Clapper stated.
Actually, if he had gone to the NSA’s inspector general, George Ellard, according to Ellard himself [19], he would have said something like, “Hey, listen, fifteen federal judges have certified this program is okay.” He also would have tried to address Snowden’s “misperceptions” and his “lack of understanding what we do.”
So that’s what would have happened to Snowden if he tried to go through traditional channels. Absolutely nothing.
Perhaps, the biggest question might be how much will this tour of colleges and universities by Clapper cost. He spent a part of his speech bemoaning the budget cuts the intelligence community has managed to survive. Somehow they have come up with the money to fund traveling to talk to students about the “myth of Edward Snowden”?
Why should taxpayers be funding this propaganda? And doesn’t Clapper have a job to do as Director of National Intelligence?
Don’t worry taxpayers, pretty soon he will join Ben Bernanke on his magical mystery keynesian/statist bus tour and earn several hundred thousand dollars a speech.
USA! USA!
Keep chanting serfs.
Full article here [20].