CIA warns ex-agents away from media

[Judi Lynn]

CIA warns ex-agents away from media

WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- The Central Intelligence Agency is clamping down on current and former staff with warnings against speaking to the media without clearance.

One former official told Britain's Financial Times the agency had warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could even lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission.

However, Jennifer Millerwise Dyke, spokeswoman for CIA director Porter Goss, called the allegation "rubbish," saying under current law, "termination of a contract does not affect pensions."

Larry Johnson, a former CIA official who blogs at TPMCafe.com, said he recently received a "threatening" letter reminding him about his confidentiality agreements.
"They are trying to intimidate the press and trying to intimidate employees," said Johnson. "Anybody who has been critical of the Bush administration is getting letters."
(snip/...)

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060427-083458-2602r

[JDPriestly]

1. I heard they threatened to deny them pensions.

If they are already receiving a pension, it is presumably because the pension has vested and belongs to them. Or is it different with government pensions?

[madrchsod]

2. to late

they were out on a world wide tour last year defending the cia against the whitehouse`s the faulty intelligence before the war and assesing the damage that the plame affair/brewster-jennings had done to thier contacts. i heard an "ex"-cia agent on bbc over night explaining why they they were out on the road...then goss was placed in charge not to long after that. remember- one never "resigns" from the cia

[RethugAssKicker]

3. This is an orchestrated attack on all dissent

[Zorra]

4. "Anybody who has been critical of the Bush administration is

getting letters."

The republicans need a centralized police agency that is loyal to the republican party only, in order to help achieve one of their ultimate goals: The eventual silencing and elimination of liberals, dissent, and any and all possible opposition to the republican/PNAC party and its fascist agenda.

A party loyal centralized police agency is a primary element in the process of establishing totalitarian control. A centralized police agency committed to blocking the media from having access to government information that is vital to public interests and the maintenance of a healthy democracy is a deadly threat to that democracy.

The media as the fourth branch of government

The notion of the press as the fourth branch of government is sometimes used to compare the press (or media) with Montesquieu's three branches of government, namely an addition to the legislative, the executive and the judiciary branches. Edmund Burke is quoted to have said: "Three Estates in Parliament; but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth estate more important far than they all".

The development of the Western media tradition is rather parallel to the development of democracy in Europe and the United States. On the ideological level, the first advocates of freedom of the press were the liberal thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries.They developed their ideas in opposition to the monarchist tradition in general and the divine right of kings in particular. These liberal theorists argued that freedom of expression was a right claimed by the individual and grounded in natural law. Thus, freedom of the press was an integral part of the individual rights promoted by liberal ideology (see the History section below).

Freedom of the press is a necessity to any democratic society. Other lines of thought later argued in favor of freedom of the press without relying on the controversial issue of natural law; for instance, freedom of expression began to be regarded as an essential component of the social contract (the agreement between a state and its people regarding the rights and duties that each should have to the other).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press

The quotes below illustrate the exact reason that republicans wish to silence all intelligence personnel that have knowledge of the corruption and traitorous acts of this secretive republican government, and the republican party agenda. They do not want the press to have access to information through which they can inform the public of the corruption, evil actions, and malicious intentions of the republican party.

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."

"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe."

"Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."

"I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents."

Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

[Kagemusha]

5. TPM already has a great post on this...

Money quote: This is putting the huge community of ex CIA people in Washington in think tanks and all sorts of other walks of life "in a silo" for the rest of their lives. Absolutely.

Worth reading, current'y it's #1 on the column on the righ tside of the talkingpointsmemo.com page.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thanks for the link! Here's another interesting point from that page:

It's hardly surprising that Porter Goss would use the machinery of the CIA, under the guise of national security, in a partisan way to protect the abuses of the Bush Administration.

At the time of his confirmation, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said it was the "worst appointment that's ever been made because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics."
(snip)

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29254

[Kagemusha]

8. Well the broader point is, Goss thinks even ex-employees are now

adjuncts of the Bush Administration and may not oppose the administration on political grounds because it's the government, he's the government, Bush and Goss are not to be opposed - or else. For no reason other than politics, if need be. (If they can find "national security grounds" all the better.)

I know they shut NOLA scientists up, but that's ones still working there, not ones who quit.

I know that agencies like this can take a "we own your ass for life" attitude and all but, this is going WAY beyond contacts with the media that disclose secret national security information (uh, which is like, not cool) to contacts with the media, PERIOD, without prior approval by a politicized CIA that exists to serve the political interests of the Bush Administration in addition to the national security interests of the United States of America, on the theory that as long as Bush is president, these are one and the same. (And certainly as long as Bush is president, there will be people acting on 'L'etat, c'est moi' regarding him.)

[noonwitch]

12. Confidentiality rules for government employees

I don't know what the CIA's rules are. I work for the state of Michigan and have a pension, but people hired after 1997 don't have one.

If when I retire, I go and talk to the media about cases I worked with, I could face criminal charges for violation of confidentiality. I don't think it would effect my pension, though.

[rodeodance]

6. chilly climate!

[remfan]

9. Jennifer Millerwise

I think it's important to know "the spokespeople". Now, you might say, but since she's a spokesperson for the CIA, she's obviously speaking for Porter Goss, but her background suggests she's speaking for someone else as well, namely Dick Cheney.

Jennifer Millerwise Dyck was named Director of Public Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in January 2005.

Before joining CIA, Mrs. Millerwise Dyck was Deputy Communications Director for Bush-Cheney 2004.

She served as Deputy Assistant for Communications and Press Secretary to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2001 to 2003. During the first 10 months of the Bush Administration, she was Assistant Press Secretary in the White House Office of the Press Secretary.

Here's the thing - unless current and former employees of the CIA put a stop to this, the agency, as they know it, will die. It's damn close to terminal now, but if they don't realize that Dick Cheney is INTENT on destroying the CIA, they're all going to get folded into some part of the Pentagon. And if you think our national security is in a precarious position today, imagine what it's going to be like with the CIA in complete disarray.

[leveymg]

11. Thanks for that valuable info.

Confirms what I thought about the origins of this. We'll be seeing Congressional investigations of this right after the new Congress is sworn in.

[leveymg]

10. This attempt at intimidation will blow up in their faces.

At Langley, there are CIA officers sitting on piles of documents showing wrongdoing by this Administration. This campaign of purges and intimidation might be the trigger to finally get them released.

Use them or lose them.

[Tellurian]

13. The CIA must realize..

Bush has backed himself into a corner.

His viable alternatives are few, if in fact he is determined to remain in control.

His major TRUMP card is Civil War. (I don't believe another terrorist attack will distract the public's attention enough for him to remain in control.)

If he believes he is able to have his operatives create this scenario, throwing the country into a state of chaos, he will expeditiously declare a state of emergency by implementing curfews; the guard at each and every state border, marshall law; thereby suspending our constitutional rights and any future elections indefinitely.

I do not believe the CiA is about to let this happen-

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. This is exactly why Goss was appointed to the CIA.....

...it was to stifle all dissent within the CIA community, to include all former CIA employees.

Somehow, I think the CIA rank-and-file, to include retired CIA personnel, will find other ways to get information to the public's attention.

As a side note, the only presidents who challenged the CIA in the past faied to complete their current terms....JFK in 1963, and Nixon in 1974.

[leesa]

15. Don't be telling the truth about the government's role in 9-11 now.