Did National Intelligence Director James Clapper Blackmail America?

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Then I read this, the greatest insult to all of our collective integrity, and to all of our individual intelligence.  I will tell you, it’s the most outrageous thing that I have heard since the massive government expansion began under President Bush in September of 2001.  Folks, this is an outrage of the highest proportion.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Then I read this, the greatest insult to all of our collective integrity, and to all of our individual intelligence.  I will tell you, it’s the most outrageous thing that I have heard since the massive government expansion began under President Bush in September of 2001.  Folks, this is an outrage of the highest proportion.  If any of us buy into this — let me rephrase that.  If any of us fail to lift our voices in opposition against this, then we will not lift our voices in opposition against anything.  That is the statement that intelligence workers, those that work for the NSA, if they don’t get paid directly, some of them may commit actual treason.  They may actually go work for the other side.

Hold on, Mr. Clapper.  I thought that our brave men and women in spy uniform only did this because they love this country, because they’re patriots dammit, and because they care about us and they care about national security and they are patriots.  Well, where I come from, patriots don’t ask for the paycheck first and do the patriotism later.  You may want to look up a little poem or a short story written by one Thomas Paine in December of 1776.  It’s called “The Crisis.”  Read through “The Crisis” and tell me about how your patriots are now said to be thinking about jumping to the other side.  This is beyond insulting.  Let me just read this to you as it comes from the Washington Times today.

[reading]

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no choice but to follow the clear legal guidelines in determining who he could keep on the job. [Mike: Because we have to have all these spooks and spies on the job, folks.]

Staff could report for duty only if their job “is necessary to protect against imminent threat to life or property. And so our applying that standard is what resulted across the board in furloughing of roughly 70 percent,” Mr. Clapper said.

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Mr. Clapper’s spokesman, Shawn Turner, confirmed that the furloughs covered the full range of duties of staff across the sprawling collection of agencies that insiders call the intelligence community — including both operations and support personnel.

“If there are people working on ongoing operations where [the target does not present] an imminent threat to life or property, some of those people have been furloughed,” Mr. Turner said. [Mike: I thought everything these people did was dealing with imminent threats. So if they’re not dealing with imminent threats, what are they doing? What are they dealing with?]

Mr. Clapper, the nation’s fourth director of national intelligence, also told Congress that the financial impact of being without wages would make intelligence staff more vulnerable to recruitment by America’s enemies.

“This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence service to recruit, particularly as our employees already, many of whom were subject to furloughs driven by sequestration, are going to have, I believe, even greater financial challenges,” he warned.

[end reading]

Mike:  Let me translate that for you.  Because our spooks are not getting paid, then they may sell their spook spy services to the enemy.  These are our patriots, our brave men and women in NSA spyfare uniform?  Are you freaking kidding me?  So now we operate basically under the extortion that if we don’t fork over whatever dough it is our spies are supposed to be earning, they may remain vulnerable?  This is the director saying this.  I’m not interpreting.  That was in quotation marks.  Our intelligence, these spies, the intelligence gatherers, the analysts and what have you, they’ll go work for the enemy.  In other words, they’re only doing this for money.  I thought they did it because they’re patriots.  I thought they did it because they loved our country.  I thought they did it for the most high and altruistic reasons.  What does money have to do with this?  Now we learn you don’t pay, we go rogue.

If some intrepid member of Congress heard this, I have to wonder why you would not immediately want to recall all, every single last stinking one of them, all of these people’s security clearances.  Did he not just telegraph that there is always a security risk?  All it takes is a break in pay and the nation’s greatest, most brave, most patriotic souls will bolt to the other side.  Boy, that’s loyalty, ain’t it?  How does that make you feel about being spied on now?  Now you’re being spied on by a bunch of creeps that are only doing it because there are paychecks involved, not the other reasons we’ve been told they do it.  Certainly if there are contracts to be fulfilled, then they’re supposed to have their contracts fulfilled, and I’m not suggesting they should not be paid.

I’m not the one that said, and I’m not the one that’s been implying, as Peter King and other members of Congress have, that what the NSA does is patriotism.  AG, we have the clip somewhere with Peter King saying [mocking] “These people are patriots.  What they’re doing is patriotic.”  Let me see if I understand this then.  So a patriot is someone who is paid to protect this country?  This is a shocking revelation here.  I read this last night and I thought that has to be wrong.  I heard it on Fox News driving home from golf practice yesterday.  Then I got home and it was in the rundown and I read it.  I double checked the source and this is the quote people are using to populate their stories about this.  I’d like to know why someone in Congress, as I said, why isn’t someone in Congress beginning an investigation on this?  Shouldn’t you put a hold on all the furloughed workers’ security clearances?  Let  me ask you a question: Do they still have, when you do a furlough, do the spooks still have security clearance?  If they do, baby needs a new pair of shoes.  What’s that you say, Achmed?  You need a new what?  Yeah, I can get that for you, but you gotta pay.  That is just offensive, to be extorted like that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re two days in here.  [mocking] “Yeah, but some of them were let go because of the sequester.”  So if someone works in intelligence and they receive the highest level of security clearance and the money goes south, then there’s an expectation that many of them will sell what it is they know to the enemy?  At least Edward Snowden did it for the right reasons.  To my knowledge, he didn’t sell it to Glenn Greenwald.   He didn’t sell it to the Guardian UK where the story was first reported.  Now we have the government and agents of the government blackmailing us, telling us either you tell your attack dog Republicans, you Tea Party conservatives, either you tell your little Constitution-wielders to stand down or you get it.  Guess what, your kids get it, too.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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