The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in Langley, Virginia, U.S. on August 14, 2008. Larry Downing/Reuters
Time: Spies Working From Home: How Coronavirus Is Impacting U.S. Intelligence Networks Across the World
In a foreign capital recently, an American spy was facing an unexpected dilemma: how to cancel a clandestine first meeting with a promising new recruit? People were not leaving their homes, so the usually crowded shops, bars, buses, parks, and restaurants were empty, and there was no longer a place to meet without arousing suspicion.
While the coronavirus is exacting a far larger toll on people around the world who are losing income, jobs and even their lives to the pandemic, it also poses an unprecedented problem for intelligence case officers stationed around the world whose job it is to meet the agents they’re recruiting or running without being noticed or risking their own, their contacts’, and their contacts’ families’ liberty and lives. The pandemic has slowed the pace of America’s adversaries’ spy networks, as well, as they too have turned their attention to combating the virus, U.S. officials say.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: As much as the US intel community likes to boast that they were aware of this pandemic in January and were warning top officials .... U.S. Intelligence Community Says They Warned About This Coronavirus Outbreak In January, the fact is that it looks like they were completely unprepared on what impact this would have on their operations. The last sentence of this Time report sums it up perfectly ....
.... “I suppose you could call it ironic,” a third U.S. official said with a shrug this week. “But the institutions that are charged with preparing the country for possible threats were poorly prepared for this one.”
11 comments:
Looks like four US Senators sure took the warnings to heed. Burr is head of the Senate Intel Committee.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Jim Inhofe, Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler made stock trades before coronavirus pandemic.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/richard-burr-kelly-loeffler-urged-to-resign-for-selling-stocks-after-coronavirus-briefing/
They never are. I'm so frustrated and I'm not even American haha. I just don't understand how they are caught pants down more often than a gay dude hanging out at an airport bathroom stall like wtf
Home
Share
0
National Security
U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic
President Trump attends the coronavirus response daily briefing at the White House on March 20.
President Trump attends the coronavirus response daily briefing at the White House on March 20. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
By
Shane Harris,
Greg Miller,
Josh Dawsey and
Ellen Nakashima
March 20, 2020 at 8:10 p.m. EDT
U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting.
The intelligence reports didn’t predict when the virus might land on U.S. shores or recommend particular steps that public health officials should take, issues outside the purview of the intelligence agencies. But they did track the spread of the virus in China, and later in other countries, and warned that Chinese officials appeared to be minimizing the severity of the outbreak.
Taken together, the reports and warnings painted an early picture of a virus that showed the characteristics of a globe-encircling pandemic that could require governments to take swift actions to contain it. But despite that constant flow of reporting, Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans. Lawmakers, too, did not grapple with the virus in earnest until this month, as officials scrambled to keep citizens in their homes and hospitals braced for a surge in patients suffering from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
he several ways in which President Donald Trump’s methods of operation—including his lies, refusal to accept responsibility, and downplaying problems to protect his personal image and political standing—have spelled a failure of leadership in the current coronavirus crisis have already become familiar. Columnists and commentators have had much to say about this, as have the financial markets. Another now-familiar pattern has been that a significant number of other countries have out-performed the United States in their response to the crisis, according to such measures as the speed of responding, the comprehensiveness of testing, and the appropriateness of protective steps taken. Those strong performers have included states hit hard by the virus as well as ones that—thanks in large part to their effective responses—have been spared the worst of the pandemic.
One of the strongest of these performers is Singapore.
There are more Democrat gay congressmen than Republican. If you are Republican you will be outed. Not so if you are Democrat.
The list below is incomplete. It does not have Larry Craig. The Larry Craig incident reminds me of college. They actually took the doors off stalls in the bathroom of the student unions, because gays were suing the stalls for sex. In the new age of Grindr, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, this way of life I believe is in the past. The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell is good. Russian Intel cannot blackmail gays that way anymore.
The Russians had extensive contact with the Mattachine Society in the 1950s.
But if you want to talk about Larry Craig, let's talk about Governor McGreevey. Or Gerry Studds, who took a 17 year old Congressional page under his wing and get re-elected. Gays want to lower the age of consent down to 12.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_members_of_the_United_States_Congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McGreevey
Governors run for President.
It is what they do.
Popular Mayors run for governor.
It is what they do.
Sordid Images Emerge of Naked and Passed Out Democrat Andrew Gillum at Miami Hotel Party
Democrats hold the mayo, but add the lube.
If it is natural, why do they need so much lube or lube at all?
The Costs of Letting Trump Believe His Authoritarian Buddies Instead of His Intelligence Community
In a time of global emergency, we need calm, directness and, above all, hard facts. Only the opposite is on offer from the Trump White House. It is therefore time to call the president’s news conferences for what they are: propaganda.
We may as well be watching newsreels approved by the Soviet Politburo. We’re witnessing the falsification of history in real time. When Donald Trump, under the guise of social distancing, told the White House press corps on Thursday that he ought to get rid of 75 to 80 percent of them — reserving the privilege only for those he liked — it may have been chilling, but it wasn’t surprising. He wants to thin out their ranks until there’s only Pravda in the room.
Sometimes, I stare at Deborah Birx during these briefings and I wonder if she understands that this is the footage historians will be looking at 100 years from now — the president rambling on incoherently, vainly, angrily, deceitfully, while she watches, her face stiff with the strangled horror of a bride enduring an inappropriate toast.
If the public wants factual news briefings, they need to tune in to those who are giving them: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, whose addresses appear with English subtitles on Deutsche Welle. They should start following the many civic-minded epidemiologists and virologists and contagion experts on Twitter, like Harvard’s Marc Lipsitch and Yale’s Nicholas Christakis, whose threads have been invaluable primers in a time of awful confusion.
These are people with a high tolerance for uncertainty. It’s the president’s incapacity to tolerate it — combined with his bottomless need to self-flatter and preserve his political power — that leads, so often, to his spectacular fits of deception and misdirection.
6 Ways Trump’s Denial of Science Has Delayed the Response to COVID-19 (and Climate Change)
When the federal government faltered earlier, governors stepped in. Many have been demonstrating the kind of leadership that was missing in Washington as the coronavirus continued to gain force, including a recognition that this isn’t a time for buck passing.
President Trump was asked a week ago whether he should shoulder any of the blame for the delays and missteps by the federal government earlier this year. He responded by saying, “I don’t take responsibility at all.” He has maintained that posture, even as he has begun to take a more serious attitude toward the situation.
Contrast Trump’s blame-shifting with what Cuomo said on Friday when he announced the stay-at-home restrictions. “If someone is unhappy and somebody wants to blame someone or complain about someone, blame me,” he said. “There is no one else who is responsible for this decision.”
Trump has sparred with some state leaders who have demanded swifter action by the federal government. Two weeks ago, he called Inslee “a snake” and said he didn’t want to deal with him. Vice President Pence, who heads the federal coronavirus task force, took another tack, praising Inslee and his staff for the steps they were taking and maintaining good relations.
Trump also needled Cuomo on Twitter, but state-level officials say that in recent days there has been a greater spirit of cooperation between the president and the governors, in meetings and on conference calls. Trump has since taken to praising Newsom, and he reportedly has had good conversations with Cuomo.
But the president still loses focus on the pandemic and instead lashes out when there is any hint of criticism. On Friday he aimed his ire at NBC’s Peter Alexander for asking what message the president would have for Americans who are scared. ““I say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I say,” Trump replied.
Post a Comment