I remember back in 2006 having the distinct impression that people in the Bush administration were looking to discredit their critics, including the new army of citizen-journalists and opinion writers in the blogosphere who were just destroying them over the war in Iraq. I often wondered how far they were willing to go and how far down the food-chain they were willing to reach. I figured I was too small-fry to merit attention, but I could never be sure, especially with former intel-guys like Larry Johnson and Pat Lang contributing to the site. Now it is confirmed that the administration used the CIA to gather dirt on Juan Cole. But that’s just the one case we know about. Should we assume they didn’t seek dirt on Markos or Atrios? I wouldn’t.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Yes we should assume they sought dirt on at least Markos and Atrios. I’m assuming what they found on Juan Cole was that he once removed the mattress tag from a mattress (apologies to Paul Simon of IL fans).
not shocked in the least
I’d assume they did. Given current technology & its place in our lives, there’s no excuse not to! It’s just too easy.
Old school fascists who had to work to gather personal information are just spinning in their graves with envy and/or glee.
Here is Juan Cole’s response.
My dear, innocent friends.
“They” are spying on everybody!
Get used to it.
It ain’t going away.
They know what you eat, what you like to fuck, your political opinions or lack thereof…it’s all out there in the hands of the corporate macropoly, and they will share it with their cops/enforcers just as will any government share its own information with its police forces.
The only possible way not to be spied upon?
Drop completely out. Which is…besides being simply difficult and inconvenient…is almost impossible. I mean…even if you did manage to suddenly and completely disappear from their cyberview, do you not think that red flags would go up because of your sudden absence?
C’mon.
Conan Doyle wrote a Sherlock Holmes story called “The Dog That Didn’t Bark”, right? The clue was that no dog barked during the crime, even though there was one in the area. Welll…update that.
“The Citizen That Didn’t Register On The Grid”
I’ll keep an eye out for you.
Bet on it.
AG
cole:
And i would like a pony.
Juan Cole has an extensive network of friends, colleagues, and contacts in the Middle East. That alone would cause the Bushies to monitor him. But as I understand the story, the CIA went beyond monitoring to trying to dig up enough dirt to bring Cole down.
Did you ever ask yourself what motivated Larry Johnson and Pat Lang to contribute to this site? If the CIA is like most bureaucracies, there are many agendas going on that relate to its long-term survival. Might we be getting a more subtle form of disinformation that was more credible than the BS being fed the corporate media? Yes, I know that Larry Johnson was PO’d at the outing of Valerie Plame, but the permanent bureaucracy at CIA must have been as well.
Unless the law changed with the PATRIOT ACT, the CIA operating domestically in tracking the actions of a US citizen was illegal. Yeah. Right. Who’s going to enforce that silly rule in a time of war?
I would assume that they did indeed try to discredit Markos. But digging up dirt is not the only way of doing it. Personal attacks on his site for not being sufficiently this or that can also have an effect.
And do you think that Firedoglake, who liveblogged the Libby trial, would not be a part of this operation?
Deception in politics is corrosive because it creates a hall of mirrors that prevents rational choices (even under the normal limits of human irrationality) and it seduces the deceiver into the hubris of believing that (1) they know best and (2) they can get away with it. Item 1 is rarely true and when item 2 succeeds, the hubris is catastrophic.
What do you mean about FDL?
Don’t you think the Bush administration would be very interested in a blog site that was drawing traffic by liveblogging the Libby trial? And doing it better than the coverage by the corporate media?
No.
Going after Juan Cole makes me think that they weren’t primarily interested in popular figures who might influence the public, but experts who were well-regarded within the foreign policy/analyst community.
BooMan, I wouldn’t sell myself short if I were you. I’ll wager a small wager that someone at CIA, or NSA, or FBI has some dirt on you. Progressive activist, street organizer, blogger with a substantial following of DFH types who might make trouble at any time. I’ll bet they’re watching you. And I’ll bet they’ve got something on you, just in case they need it.
I have no idea what they might have on you. You seem like a real stand-up guy. But then, I thought that about Edwards and Weiner, too. Just sayin’.
.
won’t resign!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."As budr stated, don’t sell yourself short, BooMan. My father spied on me a lot of times, but what brought it to his attention was that some of the things I stated were flagged by the State Department. If I’ve been flagged, surely you have been.
you guys act like I actually want to be spied on to prove my importance to myself.
Heh, I know you’re just joshing, but yeah…it’s not fun knowing that your government is spying on you. I think mostly what I’ve said that’s been flagged has related to me saying that I do not believe in allegiance to country, but to the people; that I am not a patriot, and that I do not say the Pledge of Allegiance; and that our Empire is disgraceful in every avenue of foreign policy. Another time I was mocking right-wingers with facetiousness, and perhaps the idiots doing the spying couldn’t tell the difference.
Could you elaborate, Seabe?
See above. My father is an Evangelical religious fanatic, and he stalked me on Facebook. He read my messages, my private messages, and imo I believe he abused his government authority to do this. I have since deleted my old Facebook profile because of this. However, during a heated argument where I discovered that he did indeed do this — after all, he knew things that he couldn’t know unless he read my messages — he stated that co-workers showed him things I’d posted on FB with them saying “Yo, what’s up with this?”
So yeah, according to him, the State Department has flagged things I’ve said. He could be bluffing, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it were true.
I still wonder about the odd FBI agent that showed up at my door back around that time. He said he was looking for the manager or owner-like he wouldn’t know that ahead of time? Picked my door to randomly knock on in this small apt. complex then say he didn’t know who the owner was among other things.
If I was the suspicious type, I’d think he was following up on getting a look at someone who signed lots of impeach bush petitions or anti-war petitions etc. Anyway it was just an ‘odd’ little visit that seemed to make no sense. When I did ask him what he wanted he said of course he couldn’t tell me.
Total Information Awareness..did anyone see the British 5 episode drama called ‘The Last Enemy’? All about ID cards plus ‘tagging’ peoples blood to keep track of them. Good drama plus pretty spooky.
“The British 5?”
Do you mean “MI5?”
That’s a good spy show.
.
‘Last Enemy’ – Episode 1 thru 5
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."No, I wasn’t that clear was I, as Oui put below it was a 5 episode drama called ‘The Last Enemy’. I have seen some of MI5 series though and thought they were pretty good also.