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THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING / Published Quarterly
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ISSN 1074-3111 Volume One, Issue One March 19, 1994
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Editor-in-Chief: Scott Davis
NetSurfer: John Logan
It's A Conspiracy!: Gordon Fagan
E-Mail - editors@fennec.com
** ftp site: etext.archive.umich.edu /pub/Zines/JAUC
U.S. Mail:
The Journal Of American Underground Computing
10111 N. Lamar #25
Austin, Texas 78753
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"The underground press serves as the only effective counter to a growing
power, and more sophisticated techniques used by establishment mass media
to falsify, misrepresent, misquote, rule out of consideration as a priori
ridiculous, or simply ignore and blot out of existence: data, books,
discoveries that they consider prejudicial to establishment interest..."
(William S. Burroughs and Daniel Odier, "The Job", Viking, New York, 1989)
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Contents Copyright (C) 1994 The Journal Of American Underground Computing
and/or the author of the articles presented herein. All rights reserved.
Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission
of the Editor-In-Chief and/or the author of the article. This publication
is made available quarterly to the amateur computer hobbyist free of charge.
Any commercial usage (electronic or otherwise) is strictly prohibited
without prior consent of the Editor, and is in violation of applicable
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DISCLAIMER AND NOTICE TO DISTRIBUTORS -
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To obtain permission to distribute this publication under any of the
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This publication is provided without charge to anyone who wants it.
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The articles and information printed herein are the property of the author
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Any attempt to sell this publication in part or in whole, on CD Rom or
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THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN UNDERGROUND COMPUTING - Volume 1, Issue 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Introduction To TJOAUC Editors
2) Control Of Information In The Mass Media Gordon Fagan
3) Some Thoughts On Clipper, NSA, ... Jim Bidzos
4) CIA Corrupt, Stupid, Should Be Abolished Mark Lane
5) Legion Of Doom T-Shirts...get 'em!! Chris Goggans
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Introduction To The Journal Of American Underground Computing
By The Editors (editors@fennec.com)
First of all, I want to personally thank you for taking the time
to read this electronic publication. The editors of this publication had a
large hand in The World View Magazine, a publication that became defunct as
of January 1, 1993. We had become stagnant with that publication, so we
jointly agreed to ditch it. Since then, we have received hundreds of
subscription requests for the magazine. After consulting with each other
for several months, we have decided to do a "new-and-improved" version of
that popular magazine...but under a different name. And in a more official
capacity I might add. So here it is...Issue one, Volume one. The format for
this magazine is totally undefined. The decision to do it this way is better
than focusing on a certain area in the sense that we can cover anything and
everything...and people will not be suprised when they see an article that
is "out of character". Also, I hope that it will inspire people to write
about whatever they feel intimate with...be it politics, computer networking,
hacking, etc...or any remote aspect of such topics. So please read on, and
keep in mind that we encourage you to comment on anything you agree with,
disagree with, like, dislike, etc...we will print comments like that.
Your input is necessary. Thanks for reading, and enjoy. A special thanks
goes to "The Spotlight", a weekly publication in our nation's capital for
permission to reprint, etc...Thanks to Don Markey!
Editors
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CONTROL OF INFORMATION IN THE MASS MEDIA
By Gordon Fagan (fagang@ccmail.us.dell.com)
The Public's right to know is not always what the Public ends up
getting. The Public frequently gets one-sided, biased information
and not just from the mass media. It's easy to have a long arm that
protects the special interest groups: this kind of a "one world
family" of insiders that is capable of affecting federal judges,
U.S. attorneys, to slant or obstruct justice, to hide or cover up
crucial information, and to interfere with our liberties.
There has been a major campaign on the part of the Central
Intelligence Agency to place Central Intelligence Agency agents, in
various news media posts. Documents have been found on this. It was
called "Operation Mocking Bird". They placed operatives in places
like TIME Magazine and LIFE Magazine, the New York Times, inside CBS
and ABC News. The National Student Association and other student
groups were also targeted.
Originally, the intent of "Operation Mocking Bird" was to make
certain that these major media outlets and student organizations
reflected an adequately anti-communist perspective. And then, of
course, as they became entrenched and in-place, any time the Central
Intelligence Agency wanted a story killed or distorted they would
contact their agents inside. They have bragged openly in private
memos back and forth inside the Agency about how proud they are of
having very important "assets" inside virtually every major news
media in the United States.
For example, the Chief National Security Correspondent for TIME
Magazine, Bruce Van Voorst, is a regular Central Intelligence
Agency officer. It turns out that Ben Bradlee from the Washington
Post was a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer prior to
coming to his post at the Washington Post. Bob Woodward at the
Washington Post was the Point-Briefer for U.S. Naval Intelligence
of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff before he went over to the Washington
Post. What we're told in the media (and what we're told officially
from Government sources) and what is the truth are frequently at
varying degrees against each other.
We find these people constantly in the news media. When the New
York Times was refusing to print any information about Oliver North,
Richard Secord, Albert Hakim and Rob Owen, and all of the other men
who, throughout 1985 and 1986, were engaged in a massive criminal
conspiracy to violate the Boland Amendment prohibiting any weapons
shipments to the Contras, and who were involved in smuggling TOW
missiles to Iran. Keith Schneider, who was one of the reporters
assigned to look into the issue, said that the Times was refusing to
print any of it because their high-level sources inside the Central
Intelligence Agency refused to confirm the stories.
This kind of relationship between self-conscious "assets" of the
Covert Operations Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a
political police force on an international level to protect the
ostensible economic interests of United States industries by placing
these people inside a news media which, under the First Amendment,
ostensibly has the responsibility to critique and investigate
potential injustices on the part of the State, inside the Government
is an extraordinarily dangerous development here in the United States.
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Article printed with permission of the author, Jim Bidzos
Jim Bidzos is the President and CEO of RSA Data Security, and is a
well respected authority in the area of security and encryption.
SOME THOUGHTS ON CLIPPER, NSA, AND ONE KEY ESCROW ALTERNATIVE
By Jim Bidzos (bidzos@rsa.com)
In a recent editorial, Dr. Dorothy Denning of Georgtown University
argued in support of the U.S. government's proposed Clipper Chip, a
security device that would allow law enforcement to decipher the
communications of users of such devices.
Dr. Denning attempts to argue that Clipper is necessary for law
enforcement agencies to be able to do their job. I'm not going to
argue that one; there are plenty of people who can argue that
compromising privacy for all citizens in order to aid law enforcement
is a bad idea more effectively than I, particularly in the Clipper
case, where the arguments from law enforcement are dubious at best.
(The current justification is inadequate; there may be better reasons,
from a law enforcement perspective, but we haven't heard them yet.)
Without doubt, law enforcement and intelligence are huge stakeholders
in the debate over encryption. But every individual and corporation in
the U.S. must be included as well. Are NSA's actions really in the
best interests of all the stakeholders? Are there alternatives to the
current key escrow program?
If one steps back and looks at what has happened over the last few
years, one might well question the government's approach with Clipper,
if not its motivation, for dealing with this problem. (I believe it
may even be possible to conclude that Clipper is the visible portion
of a large-scale covert operation on U.S. soil by NSA, the National
Security Agency.) Over a number of years, through their subversion of
the Commerce Department (who should be championing the causes of U.S.
industry, not the intelligence agencies), NSA has managed to put many
U.S. government resources normally beyond their control, both legally
and practically, to work on their program of making U.S. and
international communications accessible.
The first step was the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the
Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and the Defense Department's NSA. This document appears to
contravene the provisions of the Computer Security Act of 1987, the
intent of which was to give NIST control over crypto standards-making
for the unclassified government and commercial sectors. The MOU
essentially gave NSA a veto over any proposals for crypto standards by
NIST.
By using the standards making authority of NIST, NSA is attempting to
force the entire U.S. government to purchase Clipper equipment since
only NIST-standard equipment may be purchased by government agencies.
This purchasing power can then be used to force U.S. manufacturers to
build Clipper products or risk losing government business. (GSA is
currently questioning NSA's authority to control government-wide
procurement, and should continue to do so.) This of course not only
subsidizes Clipper products, but could make Clipper a de facto
standard if the costs associated with alternatives are too high.
These costs to industry, of ignoring Clipper, come in the form of lost
government market share, costly support for multiple versions of
incompatible products, and non-exportability of non-Clipper products.
It also appears that NSA is desperately seeking a digital signature
standard that would force users to take that signature capability
wrapped up with a Clipper chip. If this is the case, as it appears to
be, then NSA has is trying to use what is probably the most powerful
business tool of the information age as a means to deny us its
benefits unless we subsidize and accept Clipper in the process. This
would, if true, be an unprecedented abuse of government power to
influence U.S. industry and control individual privacy. (Clipper is
part of a chip called Capstone, which is where their proposed digital
signature standard would be used.)
The overall cost of these policies is unknown. We only know that NSA
has spent a considerable amount of money on the program directly.
Other costs are not so obvious. They are:
- A burdened U.S. industry, which will have to build multiple products
or more expensive products that support multiple techniques;
- A low-intensity "trade war" with the rest of the world over
encryption;
- Lost sales to U.S. companies, since international buyers will surely
go to non-U.S. suppliers for non- Clipper encryption, as may buyers in
the U.S.;
- Potential abuses by government and loss of privacy for all citizens.
Does NSA truly believe they can displace other methods with Clipper?
With over three million licensed, documented RSA products, the
technology they feel threatened by, in use in the U.S. today? Not
likely; therefore, they have already decided that these costs are
acceptable even if they only delay the inevitable, and that U.S.
industry and U.S. taxpayers should bear these costs, whatever they
are. This policy was apparently developed by unelected people who
operate without oversight or accountability. Does the White House
really support this policy?
It has been reported that NSA is attempting to gain support from
foreign governments for escrow technology, especially if "local
control" is provided. Even if NSA can convince their sister
organizations around the world to support key escrow (by offering
Clipper technology with a do-your-own-escrow option), will these other
organizations succeed in selling it to their government, industry and
citizens? Most countries around the world have much stronger privacy
laws and a longer history of individual privacy than the U.S.
WHY AGAIN WHEN IT DIDN'T WORK THE FIRST TIME?
Many seem to have forgotten or are not aware that the Clipper program
is not new, and it's also not the first time NSA has attempted to
force communications security on U.S. industry that it could
compromise. In the mid-80's, NSA introduced a program called the
Commercial COMSEC Endorsement Program, or CCEP. CCEP was essentially
Clipper in a black box, since the technology was not sufficiently
advanced to build lower-cost chips. Vendors would join CCEP (with the
proper security clearances) and be authorized to incorporate
classified algorithms into communications systems. NSA had proposed
that they themselves would actually provide the keys to end-users of
such systems. The new twist is access by key escrow.
To see how little things have changed, consider this quote: "...RSA
Data Security, Inc. asserts that since CCEP-2 is not published and
therefore cannot be inspected by third parties, the NSA could put a
'trap door' in the algorithm that would enable the agency to inspect
information transmitted by the private sector. When contacted, NSA
representative Cynthia Beck said that it was the agency's policy not
to comment on such matters." That was in 1987. ("The Federal Snags in
Encryption Technology," Computer and Communications Decisions, July
1987, pp. 58-60.)
To understand NSA's thinking, and the danger of their policies,
consider the reply of a senior NSA official when he was asked by a
reporter for the Wall Street Journal if NSA, through the CCEP program,
could read anyone's communications: "Technically, if someone bought
our device and we made the keys and made a copy, sure we could listen
in. But we have better things to do with our time." (The Wall Street
Journal, March 28, 1988, page 1, column 1, "A Supersecret Agency Finds
Selling Secrecy to Others Isn't Easy," by Bob Davis.) Another NSA
official, in the same Journal story, said "The American Public has no
problem with relying on us to provide the technology that prevents the
unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons. If you trust us to protect
against that, you can trust us to protect private records." Remember
that the Cold War was still on at that time.
Law enforcement and intelligence gathering are certainly impeded by
the use of cryptography. There are certainly legitimate concerns that
these interests have. But is the current approach really the way to
gain support from industry and the public? People with a strong
military and intelligence bias are making all the decisions. There
seem to be better ways to strike a balance.
AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL
One approach would be to have NIST develop a standard with three
levels. The first level could specify the use of public-key for key
management and signatures without any key escrow. There could be a
"Level II" compliance that adds government key escrow to message
preparation. "Level III" could be key escrow controlled by the user,
typically a corporation. Would this work? The first level, meeting
the standard by itself, would back up the government's claim that key
escrow is voluntary; if I want privacy and authentication without key
escrow, then I can have it, as the government has claimed I can.
Actions speak louder than words.
Why would any vendors support Level II? There would be several
reasons. They would find a market in the government, since the
government should purchase only Level II products. (I would certainly
like our public servants to use key escrow, just as I want work
product paid for by my corporation to be accessible. Of course, anyone
can buy Level I products for home and personal use.) So the
government can still influence the private sector by buying only
products that include Level II compliance. Also, Level II products
would be decontrolled for export. This way the market can decide;
vendors will do what their customers tell them to. This satisifies
the obvious desire on the part of the government to influence what
happens with their purchasing power.
Level III would allow any user to insert escrow keys they control into
the process. (Level II would not be a prerequisite to Level III.) My
company may want key escrow; I, as an individual, may want to escrow
my keys with my attorney or family members; a standard supporting
these funtions would be useful. I don't necessarily want or need the
government involved.
NIST already knows how to write a FIPS that describes software and
hardware implementations, and to certify that implementations are
correct.
This approach cetainly isn't perfect, but if the administration really
believes what it says and means it, then I submit that this is an
improvement over a single key escrow FIPS foisted on everyone by NSA,
and would stand a much better chance of striking a workable balance
between the needs of the government and the right of individuals to
privacy. Therefore, it RISKS much less than the current plan.
The real problem with the way NSA works is that we don't find out what
they're really doing and planning for decades, even when they're
wrong. What if they are?
In the 60's and 70's, the CIA was out of control, and the Congress,
after extensive hearings that detailed some of the abuses of power by
the CIA, finally moved to force more accountability and oversight. In
the 80's and 90's, NSA's activities should be equally scrutinized by a
concerned Congress.
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SYSOPS: CAN YOU GO TO JAIL ?
By Jeff A. Heyens
Additional Comments By chris@eastern.eastern.com
We have a new problem. Everyone knows that lately there has
been a crackdown on Bulletin Boards which carry pornography,
pirated software, etc. There is, however, a new and much more
powerful threat which is threatening to stop all privately run
BBS's.
The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
is currently in the process of setting itself up to regulate
Public bulletin boards. They want to make it an offense to run a
BBS without a CRTC license. If licensing comes into effect, the
BBS scene will quite literally shrivel up and die.
Consider the example of radio in the 40's and 50's. Before
the CRTC was formed, anyone could broadcast radio signals legally
from their home on any bandwidth. Fearing obscenity and extreme
access to information, the CRTC was formed to sell licenses to
broadcasters. Without such a license, you could be prosecuted
for broadcasting. The result of this action can be seen today:
the only radio stations we see are totally mainstream and are
hell-bent on making profit, not pleasing listeners or informing
the public.
We all know that the bulletin board systems are a great way
to get alternative information. We can get information on the
Paul Teele / Karla Homolka trials. We can get new insights as to
what is really happening in the former Yugoslavia through the
giant Internet. We currently have access to multitudes of
information that isn't available through the mainstream media.
If licensing comes into affect, we will LOSE this access.
Not only will the pirate boards be hunted down and exterminated,
but all currently LEGAL PUBLIC DOMAIN BBS's will also be made
illegal unless they can afford a license. And who do you think
will get licenses? Only those willing to follow the CRTC
guidelines for radio and television. Corporations and rich
executives. The BBS world, our underground paradise (if you
will) is in great danger of becoming a commercial hell like the
rest of today's media.
We don't yet know what the proposed licensing fee will be,
but it could anywhere in the area of $300-$5,000. This could
also depend on the size of the BBS. However, most BBS's will
simply close up shop if the government wants a license. The
government will simply weed out all the little guys and support
the big guys.
This WILL HAPPEN, and sooner than you think! The U.S.
Government has already started doing this, with the new
Information SuperHighway being the flag-ship of government
regulated systems. The Canadian government is going farther, and
must be stopped now.
Before I go into my plan of action, I want to tell you that
if licensing comes into effect, if will be basically impossible
to beat the system. All pirate radio stations in North America
have been crushed by the government in a matter of months.
Imagine how easy it will be to crush pirate bulletin board
systems (and by that I simply mean BBS's without a license) with
traceable phone numbers. Bell Canada would be sure to help the
CRTC bust those boards. And the RCMP would have a real easy time
busting any boards with illegal software, because those boards
would not have licenses. The CRTC finds the board through Bell,
arrests the sysop for running a board without a license, then
informs the RCMP that this sysop was allowing copyrighted
material to be transferred through his/her bbs. That sysop, for
the first time in his/her life, is suddenly looking at a possible
jail term.
COULD YOU IMAGINE GOING TO JAIL FOR RUNNING A BBS????????
That, I admit, is the extreme case, but it is looking more and
more likely as time goes on. If you're as pissed off about this
as I am, then keep reading, because I have a plan of
action/protest to stop this from happening.
WE are the only people out there who can stop this from
transpiring. Only the extremely computer literate, those of us
who know the ins and outs of the BBS scene and computers
generally, will be able to generate an argument strong enough to
counter the argument of the government and the CRTC.
I've been a user in different parts of Ontario for about six
years. I currently go to York University for Computer Science
and my plan is to organize a campaign of users who will be
willing to petition the government to stop this craziness. My
sister is a lawyer and also an occasional user of the boards.
She would be willing to confront the CRTC on legal grounds if we
have enough support from YOU. I have to hear from you. In order
to force the CRTC to at least seriously listen to our argument,
we need a lot of names, and a lot of letters to your local MP and
to the CRTC.
If I have enough support, I will set up a BBS which is
dedicated to keeping you informed. I will keep up to date as to
what the CRTC is doing and open up discussion concerning what we
should do about it. I would also print out all the messages on
the board and send them off to the prime minister, the CRTC and
our local MP's. At the same time, my sister and I will prepare a
legal argument to present to the government and the CRTC. IF we
have the support of your names and your letters behind us, the
CRTC will be forced to stop.
OUR GOAL: To stop the CRTC from requiring the licensing of
bulletin board systems and get it written into the law books that
private, home run bbs's are totally legal and should never be
regulated, in the interests of free information.
PLEASE send me E-mail or letter mail with your thoughts. I
WILL set up the bbs and get this ball rolling if we have enough
support! Please send this file to other BBS's and get this
information out. Contact me if you want to be involved. We need
all your support!
Support USERS AGAINST THE LICENSING OF BBS's (UALBBS).
KEEP PRIVATE BBS's LEGAL!
*** Begin Additional Comments: ***
Reading the preceding document has brought a few thoughts to
my mind. First of all, there has been much apprehension about
what the computerization of society holds for the freedom of the
common citizen. It seems that the more powerful a thing is, the
more potential it has for both good and bad; and there is no doubt
that the computerization of information is powerful indeed.
On one side, the computerization of society holds the potential
for a centralized authoritarian regime that could not have been
dreamed of previously. In the near future, there will be no further
need for cash money and there will be no economic activity beyond
the reach central intelligence and control. And there will be no
personal information that will be kept secret from the authorities.
Even the USSR, with the model of central authority we feared most,
could could not have been capable of realizing the degree of control,
the dawn of which, we now witness.
But the evil that we feared in Communism infects our own society.
Abstract concepts such as truth and justice are minimum requirements
for spiritual beings, yet we deny the spiritual and cling to the
material. If we assert that we are but material beings, how real
can the spiritual necessities really be? And yet, in order for
us to have any hope of happiness, these must be acknowledged in
any formula for a culture and society we might propose. Even So,
we increasingly embrace a purely materialist interpretation of
existence in which such things as truth and justice, if not
outright delusional, are relative.
If we continue to embrace the same cosmology as drove the Soviet
repression, and the tools of a police state become available,
what of government's temptation to become the definer of truth and
justice and all the things which are the very breath of life
for the human soul? Even one who is completely seduced by
materialism would have to be blind indeed not to perceive what
an enormous poison this is.
On the other side, the proliferation of information technology has the
same sort of potential as the cheap portable video camera. The
particular aspect of this potential I'm addressing has been made most
obvious by the effect the video camera has had in totalitarian
countries, namely, that it is increasingly difficult for these
governments to suppress the truth of events by simple denial and
propaganda. The proliferation of information technology can
have a parallel with the advent of the Guttenberg press, which made
it more difficult for the Inquisition to suppress the works of
heretics-- but only if it is allowed. If the Church had tried
to regulate the press, it would have been possible to operate them
underground. This is not the case with BBSs because the telephone
network can be programmed to log all modem communications.
From the positive aspect of information technology, there comes the
potential for a democratic process that has not been practical
until now. As information technology becomes more accessible,
there could come a world in which an average Joe might write an
article about picking his nose, and it would have no less
distribution than if it had been published in MacLean's or Newsweek.
Although the suppression of pornography and other abuses has its
attractiveness, the complete and unregulated liberation of
information is our only defense against its dark side. The
scope of the suffering that information enslavement can inflict
upon us is so great that "preventing misuse" can only be an
excuse of those who would enslave us.
Any move that leaves the dark potential of the new technology
in place, while invalidating its positive aspects, leaves the
potential for authoritarian abuse in place, while invalidating
our only true defense. Any such move is quite obviously
a move toward enslaving us. If any cause is worthy of struggle,
the preservation of information liberty is indeed such a cause.
Three other thoughts:
1) If the traditional media loses its preeminence to the "new"
media, it shows a flaw in the traditional media. Then, the
success of the alternative media will be the excuse for imposing
the same regulation on the alternative media as on the traditional.
But this will have the effect of imposing the same mediocrity into
the alternative media as made the traditional media less
attractive. Such are the politics of information enslavement.
2) Radio and television are vulnerable to interference from
the incompetent and abusive. But private BBSs must be explicitly
dialled into. Can the regulators seriously contend that they
might protect us from information that we must access in
such a deliberate and specific manner?
3) If private BBSs are regulated, uucp and FidoNet, which amount
to networks of BBSs for machines, will also be.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following article reprinted from "The Spotlight" in Washington D.C
with permission from Asst. Editor Don Markey.
CIA CORRUPT, STUPID, SHOULD BE ABOLISHED
We're spending untold billions on any international spying
operation that can't figure out what it's own people are
doing. It's time for a change.
By Mark Lane
The arrest of Aldrich Hazen Ames, former head of the CIA's Soviet
counterintelligence branch, as a Soviet spy, raises some seminal questions
about the value of the CIA. With the fox and his wife, Maria del Rosario
Casas Ames, also charged as a Soviet spy, in charge of the henhouse, it is
time to wonder about the fate of the chickens.
During September, 1985, Vitaly Yurchenko, a senior KGB official, defected.
Ames was assigned to debrief him. Yurchenko, after that debriefing,
escaped from his CIA controllers while having dinner with them in a
restaurant in Georgetown and then returned to the Soviet Union.
Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer, was under secret FBI surveillance during
the same period. He too fled to the Soviet Union after he learned that he
was about to be arrested. Until now the CIA and FBI have been unable to
figure out how Howard learned of his imminent incarceration.
There is a simple rule employed by police departments throughout the
United States to spot a possibly corrupt cop. Is he living beyond his
means? Even unsophisticated local police organizations which do not
regularly spy on their own colleagues or subject them to lie detector
tests, as does the CIA, have established a relatively sound and simple
method to locate potentially corrupt officers. Did he buy a Cadillac
instead of a Ford? How can he afford to build a garage or construct an
addition to his house?
During his highest paid year with the CIA, Ames earned under $70,000. His
wife was a student. Last year he bought a new Jaguar -- which cost about
his annual income after taxes, unless it was loaded with extras. He also
bought a house in Arlington, Virginia (a Washington suburb) worth well
over half-a-million dollars, a large farm and a number of condominiums in
Columbia, his wife's country of birth. He paid for the Virginia house --
$540,000 -- in cash.
Apparently he was paid approximately $1.5 million by the Soviet Union
during the last several years and spent it all on a luxurious life style.
And now, we are informed by the CIA that no one at the agency noticed the
improved Ames lifestyle during the past decade.
The Ames case is reminiscent of the case of CIA officer Edwin P. Wilson
who engaged in a similar grand life, while earning a relatively meager
salary at the CIA. He was subsequently charged and convicted of illegally
shipping explosives to Libya. For years Wilson lived on a huge baronial
estate in Virginia, kept horses and permitted other CIA officers,
including his superiors, to send their children over to his mansion and
stables to ride the horses.
The CIA later claimed to be astonished that Wilson had some other income.
He claimed the agency knew it all along and that he was the victim of a
change in policy toward Libya in the smoke-filled rooms in Langley,
Virginia (headquarters of the CIA) where the resident scholars engage in
thinking too convoluted and too secret thoughts for ordinary Americans to
comprehend. Wilson is now in prison and the CIA is newly astonished by
Ames.
Most Americans have not yet decided to forgive the CIA for murdering
President John F. Kennedy and the leaders of other states. The only
justification for its existence, immoral though it may be, is that at
least it is effective. That excuse has now expired. So should the CIA.
The American people deserve an intelligence agency created in the
post-Communist world, one designed not to plot, overthrow and kill, but to
inquire and determine. An organization which can predict, based on work
on the ground and contacts, trouble spots such as in Bosnia before they
erupt, a financial crisis in Japan secured through evaluation and study of
trends by competent scientists, the uprising of Mexican indigenous people
before we enter into a NAFTA which makes us partners of their oppressors
-- all of these would be of great value to America.
Above all, a democratic society deserves an intelligence agency designed
to meet the needs of such a country, not designed for a totalitarian
state.
This portion of the story ends on a light note. The "Washington Times"
reported in front page headlines that the Russians may lose billions of
dollars in U.S. aid due to their perfidy of spying on us. Just recently
Philip Heyman, a Justice Department high official, over the objection of
Janet Reno, the attorney general and his superior, demanded that Jonathan
Pollard, the American who spied for Israel, be freed. Pollard was paid in
dollars which the United States had sent to Israel as part of its enormous
contribution to that state.
I am still looking for the headline that suggests that Israel may lose
billions of dollars in U.S. aid.