U.S. intelligence official says no one fired over Snowden

Comments (19)
wyatt4 wrote:

What ? why the inaction ? The outside contract company that did his initial background check and access recommendations should be fined and the employees who gave the approval should be fired. His immediate Booz Allen Hamilton manager should be fired. His immediate navy supervisors should be dis-honorably discharged. Why was he given a computer that had writeable media on it ? What did he have to do for his job on his assigned laptop/desktop that could not be handled via a secure and encrypted server? Why wasn’t his laptop/desktop scanned on a daily basis for classified files ? Why wasn’t he searched before he left to go home in Hawaii every day for cd’s/dvd’s/usb drives ?

Jul 31, 2013 10:15am EDT  --  Report as abuse
steinerrw wrote:

And no one should. Wasn’t something that a person could have stopped…BUT there should be major changes to how contractors screen and work with sensitive data. Booz Allen Hamilton should loose there contract and be fined.

Jul 31, 2013 10:17am EDT  --  Report as abuse
Mistwire wrote:

Yes, not a single person has been fired for this horrific violation of the 4th amendment. Why do you ask?

Jul 31, 2013 10:23am EDT  --  Report as abuse
tomb8569 wrote:

Of course no one got fired. Our Congress has decided to look the other way over the gross violations of citizens constitutional forth amendment rights and allow the NSA to continue on with what its been doing.
The America people have been kicked under the bus [Once again] and our Representatives’ have just said “so what? What are you going to do about it? We have the power to do what ever we want over you.”
We can thank Lil’ Bush and Mr. Obama for this is injustice. The first for signing the Patriot Act into law without the proper restraints and the other for using it in his quest to drive the citizenry of the USA into totally complete serfdom.

Jul 31, 2013 10:23am EDT  --  Report as abuse
MrFlippy wrote:

Not sure “no one should,” but I’m not surprised either in the present political/social culture, where no one is held accountable for anything (unless there is a political agenda involved). When no one is accountable, important things and concepts lose their value, including the value of integrity and doing a good job.

Jul 31, 2013 10:34am EDT  --  Report as abuse
Bob9999 wrote:

What happened is that the U.S. government has always been bad at keeping secrets. This is probably because of a tendency to rely on people who have certain types of connections. (I don’t know what types of connections those are, but people in classified jobs who have such connections know what they are.) In addition, the natural tendency of the U.S. government to leak has probably been exacerbated by over-reliance on contractors. A few years ago, the Washington Post did a story on the nation’s intelligence contractors. The reporters originally wanted to identify how many people had “Secret” level clearances, but there were so many that no one could put a number on it. So the reporters got a number for the number of people with “Top Secret” clearances. That number was 800,000+. How can 800,000 people keep a secret? Furthermore, we don’t know what kind of clearance Snowden had. Since he had access to information across a network used by a national security agency, he may have had a clearance above Top Secret (or above the garden-variety of Top Secret). Yet we hear that his security check was done by a company that is otherwise under investigation for doing slipshod security clearance investigations.

Why was a high school dropout being paid $200,000 per year to act as a gatekeeper for national security information? Any how was it possible for him to take a job which he must have sought (based on the timing, 3 months before these disclosures occurred) solely for the purpose of gaining access to the information which he leaked soon afterwards.

Finally, why are national intelligence agencies employing network architectures that enable network administrators (who do not need to know the contents of the files they are handling) to read the files that are on the networks they are administering. One would think the files would be encrypted so that the files would be unreadable even if they were copied.

Thus, if an honest investigation were done, the explanation for Snowden and other leakers would likely be determined to be a tendency by the U.S. government to rely on people based on certain types of connections, which may or may not be obvious to the people who have them. After all, it is through connections that contractors like Booz Allen (Snowden’s employers) talk the U.S. government into signing contracts that allow high school dropouts to be paid $200,000 to administer networks holding classified information. After all, there are probably people with Ph.D.s and master’s degrees who would like to have jobs like that, even at lower salaries.

Clearly, Snowden is the tip of an iceberg of rot in our national security establishment.

Jul 31, 2013 10:36am EDT  --  Report as abuse
ThoseWhoServe wrote:

Why is anyone surprised? You had an employee working with sensitive material, contractors doing their own thing (looking for the next contract), no chain of command, no management oversight or responsibility, and an overwhelming data mountain of unprocessed information getting bigger and bigger.

Members of the Armed Forces assigned to NSA and government employees know exactly who they work for and report to. Contractor employees at NSA with the same level of clearance appear to be a bunch of free spirits with no loyalty to anyone or any organization.

Further compounding the out-of-control process is having a separate contractor that does not report to NSA or DoD in any meaningful way.

Jul 31, 2013 10:38am EDT  --  Report as abuse
ThoseWhoServe wrote:

Why is anyone surprised? You had an employee working with sensitive material, contractors doing their own thing (looking for the next contract), no chain of command, no management oversight or responsibility, and an overwhelming data mountain of unprocessed information getting bigger and bigger.

Members of the Armed Forces assigned to NSA and government employees know exactly who they work for and report to. Contractor employees at NSA with the same level of clearance appear to be a bunch of free spirits with no loyalty to anyone or any organization.

Further compounding the out-of-control process is having a separate contractor conducting the background checks that does not report to NSA or DoD in any meaningful way and has been under investigation for not complying with their contract and potential criminal acts.

Jul 31, 2013 10:42am EDT  --  Report as abuse
miguelnot wrote:

I’m not surprised given they haven’t held anyone accountable for circumventing the Fourth Amendment.

Jul 31, 2013 10:44am EDT  --  Report as abuse
justinoinroma wrote:

Spybama

Jul 31, 2013 10:52am EDT  --  Report as abuse
cbj wrote:

I have just got to ask this one question . . . why didn’t Snowden get some worth while facts such as what’s really in Area 51 or the truth behind WTC 7?

Seriously, all of you conspiracy lovers have to give it a rest. That info is out there anyway. The NSA simply has compiled it and organized it in a usable manner. With one swipe of the credit card Madison Ave. has you on the scope and they know more than the NSA ever will . . . because YOU TELL THEM. What the heck do you think Farmville and Bejeweled is for? Entertainment? It’s a giant Marketing ablenkung because of you own need and desire for this illusory ‘connection’.
CLUE . . . the electronic connection is LESS connection.

Jul 31, 2013 11:18am EDT  --  Report as abuse
StigTW wrote:

Why should someone get fired because someone grew a conscience?

Jul 31, 2013 1:52pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
AlkalineState wrote:

It is becoming clear that this whole thing was a shrewd set-up to take down the Patriot Act. How do you repeal an act that the republicans passed and republicans love?

Tell them Obama likes the law and needs it. Don’t believe me? Look at the Tea Party reaction to NSA. Predictable and perfect.

Jul 31, 2013 6:37pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
OldRogue wrote:

To paraphrase LBJ, NSA would rather have them inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

Jul 31, 2013 6:59pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
theshift33 wrote:

Why not. Do these contractors have so much power they are untouchable or is our government completely impotent or both. What an onion to peel to get to the stink in the middle.

Jul 31, 2013 7:23pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
dd606 wrote:

This is the real thing that should upset people… that nobody was even remotely reprimanded for letting this nut do what he did. But of course, everybody is too busy running around waving their hands in the air, screaming the word “constitution” 50 times a day… All because some innocuous computer somewhere, might have a record that they called their grandma at Christmas last year… which nobody is ever going to see.

Jul 31, 2013 8:53pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
BillSaidIt wrote:

My I must be Dumb – If they did fire or resign over ANYTHING ABOUT SNOWDEN That would be the same as admitting they messed up by doing an unconstitutional act against the people of the USA and Now other Countries that (are /were) allies. IRS can not stick their finger in the hole in the dyke to plug this dam leak up – Go get’em Issa this is your 3:00 am phone call

Aug 01, 2013 2:22am EDT  --  Report as abuse
BillSaidIt wrote:

Now Obama can point his finger at the right person – His image in a mirror

Aug 01, 2013 2:27am EDT  --  Report as abuse
z0rr0 wrote:

Well, if Mr. Inglis had read the other bits in the news, he would have had a better answer.

He would have known that NSA agency Privacy rules do not allow snooping on employees (just on Americans).

Aug 01, 2013 3:18pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
 
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