Private Emails Reveal Ex-Clinton Aide’s Secret Spy Network

[Octafish]

30. It IS horrifying. It also IS the People's business.

America’s real secret revealed: Clinton, Petraeus & how elites protect their legacies

When whistleblowers reveal secrets, it's a national crisis. When "leaders" leave them exposed, here's what's afoot

MARCY WHEELER
Salon.com, March 5, 2015

EXCERPT...

The cavalier treatment of the nation’s secrets by two people who have been steeped in the need to protect such secrets for decades — and have applauded the prosecution of others like Chelsea Manning and John Kiriakou who have leaked information – might suggest the secrets were never so sensitive after all. Maybe this system of secrecy is all just an excuse to prosecute whistleblowers and other annoying national security employees? Maybe this secrecy just serves to keep citizens in the dark about what our government is doing in their name?

And while both of those may, to some degree, be the case, that’s not all that’s going on.

Clinton’s State department business and Petraeus’ conversations with the President actually are sensitive — to say nothing of the covert officers’ identities Petraeus could have exposed. That’s why Clinton and Petraeus’ behavior is so telling — because Petraeus’ Black Books, at least, were filled with precisely the kinds of secrets that must be guarded to prevent people from being killed (we don’t yet know how sensitive the communications Clinton had via email).

Clinton’s State department business and Petraeus’ conversations with the President actually are sensitive — to say nothing of the covert officers’ identities Petraeus could have exposed. That’s why Clinton and Petraeus’ behavior is so telling — because Petraeus’ Black Books, at least, were filled with precisely the kinds of secrets that must be guarded to prevent people from being killed (we don’t yet know how sensitive the communications Clinton had via email).

SNIP...

But the system is also broken because it has been permitted to become a tool the powerful use to control their own image (and thereby accrue more power). After the years-long witch hunts under her spouse’s Presidency, Clinton might be forgiven for wanting to maintain complete control over her own communications (except for that whole bit about democratic accountability). But she is of course doing it to serve her own Presidential aspirations. Likewise, Petraeus has, at times, contemplated a Presidential run. Nor is he the first person to keep a CYA record of some of the most sensitive discussions he engaged in; Alberto Gonzales did the same, but got caught and investigated by DOJ’s Inspector General for having done so. And as these indiscretions have become known, both figures have had veritable PR machines in places to respond – either to defend or to engage in embarrassing tributes.

CONTINUED...

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/05/americas_real_secret_revealed_clinton_petraeus_how_elites_protect_their_legacies/

Thank you for the kind words, Wella. Secret government is un-democratic government.