Spy agencies turning to Snowden as convenient scapegoat

In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the failure of our intelligence agencies to foresee Russia’s plan to invade Crimea, there’s this: It’s Edward Snowden’s fault.

According to an article in today’s BuzzFeed, hints and whispers coming out of the surveillance community are about trying to pin our Crimea intelligence failure on leaked Snowden documents. They somehow gave Russia a leg up on our spooks. Sorry, I just snorted coffee out of my nose. I’ve also heard that climate change and the Washington landslide are being pinned on Mr. Snowden.

There seems to be a large group within the intelligence community who really, really hate Edward Snowden, and it’s clear they will stoop to anything to try and discredit him. As is apparent, they’re not above shifting blame for their own failures to the fugitive hacker. The charges are ludicrous, but even if they weren’t, our spy agencies know that Snowden is not in a position where he can defend himself, so they can make up pretty much anything about him and toss it to the media. Glenn Greenwald does a pretty good job of batting back the insane claims of the agencies, but it’s a large task to take on.

We need to take anything and everything Washington, D.C. says about Edward Snowden with a huge grain of salt.

Our navel-gazing spy agencies miss the big picture

Seems the CIA, NSA and every other acronym in the government’s alphabet soup of spy agencies missed the Russian invasion of Crimea. The Ruskies somehow cloaked their communications, and ooops, slipped into another country before our spooks had their second cup of coffee. They could probably write a five-page report on what I had for lunch yesterday, but couldn’t see one of the world’s largest militaries mass at their border and invade a neighboring country.

Could it be that their attention was focused inward, instead of on the real threats that exist in the world? The expenditure of billions of dollars and many thousands of man hours spying on innocent Americans is, beyond the legal and constitutional ramifications, a huge waste of time and energy and one that undoubtedly distracts our spies from focusing on actual threats.

A few members of congress are asking for an investigation into our surveillance agencies and their activities. I wish I could be optimistic about this, but I know what’s going to happen. If an actual investigation becomes a reality, the agencies and the president will only allow it if everything is kept secret. National security, you know. We will continue to be kept in the dark, maybe thrown a few bones of “reform,” and then the spooks will return to business as usual. And our country will once again not see the forest for the trees.