Update:
Since posting this, I checked up on Loftus, one of whose books, “The Betrayal of the Jews,” is linked in the post below.
It seems there is major disagreement about him.
While conceding his expertise and successful professional work, some who were on board the USS Liberty claim that his book on the subject is misleading and based on unnamed sources and false accounts. Right-wing propaganda?
As he was dying from lung cancer, the legendary Machiavellian CIA head of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angelton, provided author Joseph J. Trento this startling candid confession:
You know how I got to be in charge of counterintelligence? I agreed not to polygraph or require detailed background checks on Allen Dulles and 60 of his closest friends . . . They were afraid that their own business dealings with Hitler’s pals would come out. They were too arrogant to believe that the Russians would discover it all . . .
Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. These people attracted and promoted each other. Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it . . . Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Carmel Offiie, and Frank Wisner were the grand masters. If you were in a room with them you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell. I guess I will see them there soon.
Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, pages 478-479.
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NOTE (Some previous blog posts relevant to the material linked above)
Blog posts related to Angleton, Colby, Agora, and the rest.
“Doug Valentine on the Empire of the Lie,” December 29, 2009
World Gold Council, Rothschild-backed Fund, Buys Stakes in Bullion Vault,” June 23, 2010
Soros ad Shock Therapy In Poland,” April 20, 2012
“The Ronald Reagan of Columbia,” September 28, 2012
“Was Pegasus Behind the Murder of Bill Colby?,” August 29, 2012
“Paul-Lehrman Connection Meaningless, Says Daily Bell,” August 24, 2012
“Lila at the Daily Reckoning,”
“More Agora,” 2009, updated many times.
“Turning Beach Sand in Gold, the Goldcor Swindle, April 10, 2009
“Systematics threatened Agora over Danny Casolaro’s Death,” Sept. 27, 2012
Started in 2009, I believe, and then updated. I’ve put in dozens of links to material but they disappear mysteriously. Webpages to which I’ve linked are taken down or disappear. I’ve put the links back and they disappear again. There is software that enables blogs to be hacked without leaving a physical trace. The multiple updates are to keep track of the lies of a certain net troll, who takes my pieces and then deliberately misrepresents them. Possibly, has financial mafia connections.
Welcome to virtual reality.
COMMENT
The post by Charles Burris at LRC started an immediate train of thought about the wider effects of revenge porn laws.
Would laws proscribing nude/sexual material put a crimp on outing anyone in public office?
The Weiner case has been cited, but not convincingly.
In the first place, I’m not sure that Weiner’s antics even rose to the level of a public issue….unless he really was stalking his constituents on Twitter.
Secondly, it’s perfectly possible for someone to reveal what Weiner was upto, without putting photos of his private parts on the net.
His targets could show chat sessions to journalists/investigators, who would affirm publicly that they had seen them.
If a president has prostate cancer, is there any need to publish a public photo of his body to “inform” the public?
Obviously not.
But what about my contention that publication of private email correspondence, private conversations, and candid camera shots, without consent, should also be clearly signaled as a violation of rights?
Wouldn’t that get in the way of outing criminals in government or their accomplices?
Not at all. There is, first of all, a distinction between matters of public concern (the behavior of government or police or intelligence personnel) and the behavior of private citizens.
In their public capacity, no business or political dealing of an official should be off-limits to public scrutiny.
What about private business transactions of public figures (that is, how they made money before coming to office)?
That is tougher to address in a principled fashion, because I think it’s still fair to leave public officials some room for privacy, because, contrary to net rumors, they are human beings.
However, I think their right to privacy should be limited to personal matters, not to business affairs, which inherently involve the public (that is, people outside their family and friends).
That means journalists would be free to access tax papers, business records etc., as needed, as far back as needed, as long as they did it legally.
If nothing, that would stop a lot of people from going into public office, in the first place.
My worry about conversations being recorded and used to threaten or coerce journalists stems from my own experience involving telephone conversations with a certain libertarian blogger, in which we discussed a number of other activists and issues.
I suspect very strongly that those conversations were recorded.
The very fact that journalists can be recorded puts a crimp on their ability to blog.
How is THAT not chilling?
Far more chilling than any law that automatically criminalized non-consensual personal material on the net.
[Note my reasoning on this again:
The individual might have consented to having photos taken in a private context. Such consent doesn’t automatically extend to public display of the photos. If you give permission to someone to enter your home once to fix a sink, does that mean that they’re allowed to come in later to steal your furniture? Even if you gave them a key, you still retain your right not to be robbed. ]
Obviously, there are invasion of privacy laws already on the books.
Equally obviously, it’s hard to charge someone with invasion of privacy if the person who did it might have been a proxy, rather than a principal.
In other words, the guilty party used someone else to do his dirty work.
Furthermore, invasion of privacy laws are pointless, if pursuing them damages ones privacy even further.
Finally, if malicious intent is used as a test, the law can easily be circumvented, since any anonymous blog can redistribute private material without a problem, as they can claim to be motivated by money or curiosity, not malice.
That’s why a simple, uncomplicated law against the public posting of private photos or conversations or emails that do not show explicit consent would restrain third-party dissemination, off the bat.
No malice would need to be proved.
There is nothing libertarian about hacking private conversations or recording them, even if some theorists have so argued.
On the other hand, laws attempting to circumvent anonymous commenting on blogs are on the face of it a violation of legitimate free speech protection.