Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, and the war on whistleblowers

Today I was hoping to write about a phone press conference featuring Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg. They were going to talk about the possible verdict in the Bradley Manning trial and the U.S. government’s war on whistleblowers. Unfortunately, that call was rescheduled from 10 a.m. this morning to just after my deadline, so I’m soldiering on without them. (If I learn anything fascinating I’ll update this post later.)

The scenario in this country at this moment in time is indeed quite chilling. We have an administration that is hell-bent on pursuing leakers, moreso than at any other in our history.

We have James Risen, the New York Times reporter who first revealed a bungled CIA plot to fool Iranian scientists and has now been ordered by a federal appeals court to testify against his alleged source. We also have the court-martial of former Army private first class Bradley Manning, whose judge may announce a verdict at any time. Instead, the mainstream media has largely been sidetracked by the soap opera of Edward Snowden reprising Tom Hanks’ role in “The Terminal,” wandering through Moscow International Airport and subsisting on a diet of vending machine food.

Snowden’s ultimate fate is, I think, far less important than the ongoing questions about the insatiable data collecting habits of the NSA and their head-on collision with our constitutional rights.

Please please tell me now

Above and beyond that, though, there are other questions that I don’t hear anyone else asking. Like:

• How is it that a three-month employee with a spotty resume managed to walk off with a trove of secret documents from a longtime intelligence contractor?
• If Booz Allen Hamilton is being asked to manage top-secret NSA programs, why doesn’t it have better security than that?
• Why is Booz Allen Hamilton still receiving more than $1.3 billion of our tax dollars each year just for working with the NSA, as well as billions in other federal contracts?
• Why has no one at BAH been fired over this?

That Snowden exceeded his authority and broke the rules is not in question. The fact that he was able to do it so easily, however, means somebody else screwed up.

As many residents of Cringeville are well aware, the concept of segregation of duties is not a new one in the world of technology. You want to limit the damage a sys admin with a hidden agenda can do. But only now, months after the Snowden bombshells, has the NSA decided to adopt the “two-man rule” to limit one person’s ability to expose supersecret programs and information. It’s a bit like the cliché about securing the farm’s outbuildings after its equine occupants have departed.

Who at the NSA is responsible for overseeing federal contractors, and why does he or she still have a job? For that matter, how did Bradley Manning, a lowly PFC, manage to get his hands on such a vast number of classified documents without anyone noticing? Who were his superior officers, and their superiors? What happened to them?

The answer: Nothing happened to them. At least, not publicly. And it probably never will.

There are those who maintain that Manning and Snowden did grave damage to national security, that their actions gave aid and comfort to the enemy. I understand why they say that, but I don’t really believe it. I think any terrorist who was still using Facebook, Twitter, and cellphones to hatch his evil schemes is a rank amateur. The ones who pose a real threat are much smarter than that. I think Manning’s leak of 250,000 diplomatic cables produced more smoke than fire, though I do disagree with how they were handled by WikiLeaks.

It goes all the way to the top

But if you do believe that, if you think Snowden’s and Manning’s leaks were really that damaging, then Dr. Ralph Schrader, chairman and CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, should have resigned two months ago. BAH should have had its $6 billion worth of DoD contracts immediately revoked. Manning’s superior officers should be facing a court martial as well.

But that hasn’t happened. And it probably never will.

Those in positions of power and privilege rarely pay for their own negligence. The furor over Snowden and Manning has less to do with damage to our country and more to do with the inconvenience of having to answer uncomfortable questions in public.

These guys (they are almost all men) aren’t worried about national security, they’re worried about job security — their own. Thus, they focus the attention on the rogues and ignore the policies and procedures that allowed the leakers to operate with so little oversight. As usual in government, there’s plenty of blame to go around, but no real accountability.