07/09/12 – Marcy Wheeler – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton and our first guest up today is Marcy Wheeler, a.k.a.
Empty Wheel blogger at Empty Wheel dot net.
She writes about, well, all kinds of extremely important things.
A very broad range.
Welcome back to the show, Marcy.
How are you doing?
I'm good, Scott, how are you?
I'm doing real good.
Yeah, let's turn her up there a little bit.
So this one is called failed overseers prepared to legislate away successful oversight and the overseers in this case means the Senate Intelligence Committee, who it's a very small number of people, really, right?
There's this gang of four who's in who are the only Congress people who have the right, at least in theory, to know the secret covert missions of the CIA, et cetera, launched by the executive branch.
And so you're talking about what a terrible job they do and how they actually are pushing a thing to make their own job more difficult, I guess.
They want to make sure that the law catches up with the way that they practice their, their job duties there.
Huh?
Something like that.
Well, I mean, I wouldn't even say that.
I would also say that, um, they are, um, and, and in this case, Dianne Feinstein is the most important person they are, um, trying to prevent leaks that would expose the kinds of things they've at least passively approved, which are way beyond what we should be doing.
And, and just as an example, um, when the story came out, when, uh, David Sanger wrote about sex net a month and a half ago, and everyone was up in arms or, or people like Dianne Feinstein up in arms, oh my gosh, we can't really reveal this information.
Um, and then they started this witch hunt, um, based on that.
And one other, the, the undie bomber 2.0, that, that got exposed and got exposed that he was an infiltrator.
And what's important for people to realize is that this, you know, this witch hunt is being driven by, but as you said, the gang of four and the gang of four, it technically should be the gang of eight, but Bush changed the law kind of, you know, unilaterally, and it's not clear that Obama has changed it back, um, for covert operations, the administration has to at least tell the four ranking members of the intelligence committee and the four leaders of the houses in Congress.
So in addition to people like Dianne Feinstein and Faxby Chambliss, they're also supposed to tell Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.
Right.
That's the gang of eight there.
That's the gang of eight.
It's supposed to be gang of eight.
Bush kind of unilaterally said, okay, we're just going to tell gang of four, um, which made it a lot harder for, for the gang to do anything, to basically defund things that were illegal or inappropriate, but which is fine with everybody because whoever's the speaker of the house or the majority leader of the Senate, they don't want to know these things anyway, it's their responsibility.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I think that part of, part of what's going on is, is that, that people are happy not exercising any oversight, but, but then in cases like this, I mean, so David Sanger reports and, and really the only thing that was new in his article of about six weeks ago over an article that he published in 2011, where he already revealed that it was the U S and Israel behind Stuxnet.
The only thing that was new in this most recent article, in my opinion, was that, um, were accusations that Israel had let Stuxnet free.
In other words, there's a quote in there from Joe Biden, for example.
And then there's anonymous quotes from people who had briefed the president that basically said, well, you know, Israel did the code that let Stuxnet escape from just Natan, the Iranian nuclear site.
Um, and we don't know if we were part of the code and that, you know, that's, that's incredibly damning information because it suggests that we thought we were partnering with Israel on this, on this, um, you know, cyber attack, basically this, this, um, cyber war.
And all of a sudden Israel behind her back went and released it.
Um, and released it beyond just the scope of what Israel and the United States had agreed to do.
Now, if that's true, it's really damning information, but first of all, we should ask why it's our job, why it's America's job to keep Israel secret.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, for one thing, for one thing, and it's, and what's really interesting about that is that basically on, at the request of Bibi Netanyahu, Congress, a couple of months ago, passed a law, basically mandating an investigation of a couple more leaks that hurt Israel, basically hurt Israel's efforts to attack Iran unilaterally.
So, you know, now we're in the business of, of investigating people who leak things inconvenient for Israel, whether or not they're convenient for the U.S. to leak.
Right.
Okay.
Now you mentioned, uh, the under bomber 2.0 there and how, uh, there was an informant and this and that, and how that came out and it was a little bit embarrassing, it disrupted their narrative.
So I'm not saying whoever let that go was Bradley Manning or something, but that seems to be the kind of leak where I could understand a bunch of stuff the old Congress people are getting upset about it.
However, this stuff, well, okay.
I understand it was, you know, didn't put Israel in the best light and the Senate doesn't necessarily like things like that, but still we're talking about a David Sanger report here in the New York Times.
It's, uh, and my understanding, and please tell me if you differ with this, but it seemed to me like these are very official leaks, just like his piece.
Um, uh, was it him?
I forget the, all of them, what, uh, six, half dozen people wrote that piece all about Obama's, uh, kill list and all the, uh, the meeting where he gives the thumb up or the thumbs down on who gets assassinated and all that the Republicans and Sean Hannity and all these people can bloviate and act like they're all personally upset about it all day or whatever, but these are very official leaks, right?
You know, the, especially with the kill list thing, they made a big deal out of that, but it says in the first paragraph, more or less, I'm paraphrasing, Barack Obama sent his 15 closest friends to tell us this story.
It's not like a big, you know, Bradley Manning scandal where the truth is getting out about what devils these people are.
They're bragging about what devils they are in this case.
Right, right.
And go back to, you know, I mentioned those other, those other leaks that were inconvenient for Israel.
One of them wasn't a leak at all.
It was, um, Leon Panetta basically saying, yeah, the Israelis have told us they're going to attack Iran in April, April, May, or June.
I mean, it wasn't, it was on the record and it was basically Leon Panetta saying, Hey Iran, watch out because here's when Israel's going to unilaterally attack.
I mean, the, the Israeli leaks certainly seem, I mean, there's an aspect of stuff that, that, that, that Diane Feinstein, at least publicly is, is complaining about, although I do think she's as worried about Israel here as she is the United States, which, you know, we should talk about, but it's clear the other three were an effort on the ones that were mandated to be investigated.
Um, they were an effort on the part of the United States to kind of push back against Israel, which was trying to unilaterally attack Iran.
So, you know, it was, it was, it was frankly a leak that I think both you and I, and your, and your listeners would be really happy about, which is people within the administration trying to make it harder for Israel to unilaterally attack Iran.
Um, now the, in addition to that sex net, you know, people like Mike Rogers, who's another one of the gang of four, he's on the house intelligence committee.
Um, you know, they're saying, well, I think that by, by releasing this confirmation that the U S and Israel, which was revealed last year, not this year, but they, they, you know, seem to be forgetting that it's going to make it more likely that somebody else is going to attack us.
And it's like, really, you know, really, you didn't think that Iran already figured out who its biggest enemies are?
Really?
You don't think Iran figured out who has the capability to do this kind of attack?
Really?
You don't think, you know, you think that that their decision, whether or not to attack us, um, using, using a cyber attack would be impacted on whether or not David Sanger had confirmed on page a one of the New York times, as if, you know, as if Iran or Iraq would believe anything on page a one of the New York times, because they've learned better things after Judy Miller.
Yeah.
Well, Hey, still, I know there's a lot of censorship in Iran, but they can pull up how rats.com.
It's all right there.
You don't need neon, neon, neon, Leon Panetta, uh, leaking, uh, you know, probably accidentally off script, uh, a thing like that, uh, just because he feels like it, you can read Benjamin Netanyahu saying the very same thing.
We would very much like to attack this spring.
And then Panetta says the next day, Hey, they might attack this spring.
So how classified is that man?
You know, ah, crap.
Now the music's playing.
We got to take one of these hard breaks.
Well, that's just the way it goes, but we're talking to the brilliant Marcy Wheeler, empty wheel.net is her blog.
And, uh, we'll be right back to talk more about such things like this.
Fun things after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
Santa war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
Website is Scott Horton show.com.
Talking with Marcy Wheeler, empty wheel.net is her blog.
And we're talking about how the, uh, intelligence committees, I guess the Senate intelligence committee led still led by Diane Feinstein.
I'm confused.
Uh, anyway, uh, they're pushing for a thing to basically make it much, much harder for, uh, reporters to do reporting and find out what the hell is going on in Washington, DC at all.
Could you please explain Marcy?
Well, they're big pushes, um, basically to, to require notice to the congressional committee before executive branch officials talk to the journalist.
So in other words, they want to have a hand in, they want to know who's talking to journalists.
Yeah.
But that doesn't make any sense.
How the hell is the Senate intelligence committee going to keep track of that?
Well, and the other stupid thing is, um, these people have been known to leak themselves.
I mean, Dianne Feinstein rather notably revealed some information about what we're doing in Pakistan some years back.
Um, I noted an example.
There was a story a couple of days ago or last week sometime when, um, the people who were doing drone strikes in the intelligence committees basically said, yeah, we get to see this cool video and we think it's pretty good.
Um, and, and it was sort of sort, you know, it mentioned that some of the people on the committee, um, who are, who are conducting this so-called oversight are former ag committee staffers.
And, you know, it seems likely that they were the, they were the source for the, for the story.
Well, those guys are Saxby Chambliss, Chambliss' aides.
In other words, you know, so here you've got aides going to the press to say, Hey, look at what great oversight we're doing.
And making it very clear that what they're describing is compartmented information, just as classified as everything else we've been talking about.
And yet it's okay for them to go to the press and leak about what great oversight they're doing.
They just, you know, other people can't go to the press and, and let us know that our government is, has exercised the incredibly poor judgment to start fiber attacking other countries.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the bottom line here that people need to understand is, you know, all the pretended hyperventilation and angst in the media about, Oh no, there's so many leaks of classified information that it's funny too, because you see the TV news, people going along with this way too much information is getting out and becoming available to us and our government needs to stop it more next, you know, kind of attitude.
And, and yet it's always just exactly the same as it ever was.
They can leak whatever they want to selectively make them look good.
Even if like we talked about in that, or like I was talking about in that kill list article, what he's bragging about is actually horrible.
They think they're bragging about it.
No problem.
The president can send 15 people to leak the most highly classified global assassination program information right to the New York times.
No problem whatsoever.
They can leak.
There was a scandal, right?
With the guys making the movie about the killing of bin Laden, that they get to have all this classified information.
And yet if you're Bradley Manning or, you know, you know, them all, all their names wrote there, Drake and the rest of the whistleblowers, they'll nail you to the wall.
If you tell a reporter something that, you know, the, the president or his proxies did not want told, and then all of a sudden, Oh no, everyone gets all terribly concerned and speaks in these hushed tones about the dangers to our national security.
Well, and it's important to know that, um, at, at least according to public reporting, the CIA, the CIA did not submit a crime report for those kill list stories, which says either it wasn't classified or, and I think, I mean, you and I have talked about this before.
I think this is the more likely answer.
It wasn't accurate that the information in those stories was an out and out lie.
And therefore it doesn't have to be investigated because it wasn't true in the first place.
Yes.
Not classified.
We made all that up.
Right.
And so I, you know, I, you know, if we're going to have leak, which hunt, we might as well say, well, we assume there's not a leak, which hunt about the kill list, because what you told these journalists was just a fabrication to cover up the more troubling information, which is that we now have, um, we're doing signature strikes rather than kill this.
Um, that we aren't exercising that kind of oversight.
We're just, you know, killing people because they run out after another drone strike.
Well, that's in there, right?
It's just the lead is Barry.
They talk about the, the running commentary inside the government is that, Hey, look, there's five guys doing jumping jacks, kill them.
They're training.
You know, we saw monkey bar footage on CNN, 700,000 times.
That means terrorism to us.
Well, but, but, but the, but the story they're telling is that before we kill anybody, the president gives the okay, or in 30% of the cases in Pakistan, before we kill anybody, the president gives her the okay.
That's just not true.
I mean, that's just, that's not what signature strikes, which is what we're doing in Pakistan and Yemen are all about.
And you can just imagine the sick show at the intelligence committee too, where they're showing the video to the staffers who are the so-called oversight here.
But it's just like the first Gulf war is something where they just show you whatever they want and drop 90% dumb bombs and show you three successful laser strikes over and over and over again, and pretend like there were no civilian casualties at all.
Right.
And, and, you know, are we getting the follow-up to find out after the fact?
Oh, instead we killed a baker and we killed a farmer and we killed, you know, we were targeting people for the way they irrigate their fields in Afghanistan.
Are, are we getting, I mean, we don't hear that in the, in the, in the sanctioned leak story.
So, you know, it's all very selective what we get and really the fundamental issue is it is really stupid for the United States to be the first country to start the kind of cyber attack against Iran that we did and they did it.
And one of the reasons I focus on Dianne Feinstein a lot is they did it.
Um, they, they kind of expanded the program at a time when she was on the gang of four, just about everybody else hasn't been on the gang of four that that long.
So they're not responsible for having kind of given the tacit okay to that.
But Dianne Feinstein was, so Dianne Feinstein should have stopped that really boneheaded decision to start cyber attacking other countries.
And she didn't do that.
So she bears responsibility for not having done that, for not having said, Whoa, this is a really dumb idea.
And yet rather than, you know, now that we all know how boneheaded it really was, Dianne Feinstein's going, we've got to prosecute the people who leaked this information.
And she's basically saying, we've got to prosecute the people who told the American people what kind of stupid decisions I've okay.
Well, I know that you had said before in the previous segment that you wanted to maybe get back to Dianne Feinstein and Israel.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I mean, I just think, you know, it's crazy.
The new news in David Sanger's story, as I've said, is that Israel is responsible for Stuxnet escaping Natanz, for Stuxnet getting into a space where the Iranians actually figured out they had this malware, where it may have exposed other people, where other hackers now have access to the code and can replicate the attack on the United States.
And if that's true, I mean, if it's true that Israel kind of deliberately made the decision to let this cyber attack escape Natanz, you know, we ought to know that because these guys are supposedly our allies, and we ought to know that they've basically released the WMD.
I mean, the equivalent of a WMD, because this stuff could be incredibly destructive in the wrong hands.
And now it's in the wrong hands, as well as, you know, us, it's not clear that we know how to use this stuff either.
And, and we, you know, we really ought to know what our so called ally does in so called partnership with us.
Yeah, I think you mean the American people ought to know.
Yeah, I mean, because, because we ought to, you know, that the our, our alliance with Israel is, is, you know, it's politically, it's treated as beyond question, but whoever let Sucks Net free, and if Israel did it intentionally, then it's even crazier.
We need to have a debate in this country about whether we really want to be partnering with somebody like that, and whether we want to be considering them an ally, and it'll never happen.
Well, it seems like such a, as you said, you know, this code is out now.
And, and the precedent is set for, you know, cyber Pearl Harbors and all these kinds of things.
And yet, did it even work for its purpose?
It was supposed to sabotage the enrichment efforts at Natanz.
And yet, I mean, they've always had some troubles with their nuclear program here, there, the other thing, but they've also always continued to churn out 3.5%, and now 20% enriched uranium 235, right?
So what's it been worth all this cost?
You know?
Yeah, and they'll say, I mean, and they'll say that, that it was worth a delay.
The Obama administration will say that in that delay, they've been able to push all these sanctions against Iran.
And incidentally, I love this fact, one of the bases for increased sanctions against Iran, we've argued that they have cyber attacked up.
Did they ever provide any evidence for that?
No, because Treasury never has to when they release these new sanctions, they don't have to say here's proof that they've cyber attacked up.
But I just find it incredibly amusing.
When I'm in a good mood, when I'm in a bad mood, I find incredibly cynical that we're now sanctioning Iran for things that we are doing to Iran as well.
I mean, you know, so it's like, it's this tremendous double standard, we say to everyone in the world, you can't do business with Iran because they launched the cyber attack on us.
But oh, by the way, we're launching even more elaborate cyber attacks against Iran and nobody will stop doing business with us because of it.
Yeah, well, I mean, just imagine the parallel universe, where Iran really is doing these, you know, flame level cyber attacks on the United States and Israel assassinating our nuclear scientists out there in New Mexico, on another New Mexico, a scientist was shot dead at a stoplight today, we would nuke Iran off the face of the earth after what, three of those?
We press reporting of it, because it's I mean, remember, there was a there was a period in the early aughts, where a bunch of our microbiologists were dying, and nobody really wants to talk about that much.
So, you know, we would treat it differently than Iran.
Iran is kind of saying, look, another dead nuclear scientist, it must be Israel in the United States.
Did you know who was behind that?
Maybe, maybe our government didn't attack them because it was our government.
We know and then and then there was that GCHQ guy that the wiretapper guy in England who died.
And, you know, that we keep pushing these stories like, ah, the Russian mafia did it.
And it's like, well, you know, likely the government, you know, it's as likely that the British government did it as anything else that the US did or what have you.
So, you know, I think I'm not, I'm not convinced that we would nuke Iran immediately if our scientists started dying, because scientists both here in England have died.
And, you know, we just cover it up.
We just I guess I'm thinking like motorcycles with sticky bombs driving by and doing these very public, very violent assassinations and in the middle of, you know, Los Alamos, in the shopping district down there, whatever the kind of thing that would get on TV and make people very upset.
Yeah, and you got to figure out how primed everybody is to think that we need some kind of full scale war against Iran as it is if we had our nuclear scientists under attack like that.
I don't know.
I'm just imagining the big deal that that CNN and Fox and MSNBC would agree it was, you know, well, I mean, there was what I call scary Iran plot, the alleged plot where Iran supposedly teamed up with somebody that was a member of Los Vegas cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C.
But but that was another example where most of the details of that, quote unquote, plot came from our informant.
So in other words, it was the FBI saying this guy in Mexico, oh, suggest that we kill him in this restaurant in D.C. where a lot of famous people go.
That'll scare the poop out of the senators.
And sure enough, he did it.
And we've you know, we've we've accused him of that being part of this plot, which sure, maybe it was.
But the idea for it came straight from the FBI.
Yeah.
Well, you know, on that one, that was a lot of fun.
Within the first week, six different retired CIA officers were on the record saying they didn't believe it for a minute.
Right.
And many of them on the show.
Well, they shouldn't.
I mean, it's another one of these FBI plots that, you know, regardless of the intent of the person.
And there were a number of other reasons to question that.
But I mean, I just that's another example where where you're right, where there's this alleged assassination attempt, where we always point back to it and say, look at how evil Iran is.
They tried to kill the Saudi ambassador.
And it's like, oh, yeah.
And how about all those dead scientists in Iran?
You know, it's just totally double standard.
Yeah.
Well, and, you know, they always want to go back to 2005 and misquote the president, who's not the commander in chief over there, threatening to annihilate Israel, that kind of thing.
But American Israel threat threatened war against Iran at least every month, if not, you know, and then depending on which season, sometimes every day, you know, all the time we threaten them.
So I was just trying to do like a little bit of, you know, shoe on the other foot kind of thing.
If they were trying to push us around the way we do them, it would be people would see it much, much different.
I think.
Yeah, I mean, thought about it that way.
Absolutely.
All right.
Anyway.
Hey, thank you so much for your time.
I'm sorry.
I've already kept you over time and I got to go.
But very good as always.
Take care.
All right, everybody.
That's the great Marcy Wheeler.
Empty wheel dot net.
She's keeping track of a lot of things, man.
I wish I had asked her about this, that and the other thing.
I got a few tabs open here.
I didn't quite get to.
But anyway, we'll be right back after this.