Coffee Creates Focus...In The Wrong Places

So when I show up to a coffee place and they ask for a name, I usually say Spartacus.  Mostly I am hoping when they call the name and I stand up or step forward and say I am Spartacus, someone else will, or multiple other people will.  So far, no luck.

However, the Washington Post thinks the goings on of a Starbucks is important.  After all, it is located in the Central Intelligence Agency.

The article goes into the in depth quandaries of doing background checks on the Starbucks employees, the fact that receipts record the store number as number one, and that customers don't offer up a name, not even fake ones as I do.

My whole issue with all this is not who or how the CIA conducts operations in its own Starbucks.  It can even recruit people to the Osama bin Laden Capture team for all I care, but what I do care about is the Washington Post's abject failure as a news organization.

Their coverage of the IRS and Benghazi scandals has been pitiful - acting more like a mouthpiece for the Administration than a member of the Fourth Estate.  Even now, when Obama's popularity numbers are sagging, they feel it their responsibility to focus on coffee's ability to focus CIA employees rather than is the Administration focused on the threats America faces.

In case you missed it in the news, this Administration appears to have used the IRS to target groups it disagreed with politically.  This Administration refused to protect its own overseas employees in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi and woops, in case anybody forgets, the CIA under this Administration has missed the growing presence of ISIS as a force.

I keep hearing how print media is going the way of the dinosaur and I keep wondering if they aren't hastening their own exit.  They are creating the situations for why more than half of people don't want to read them.  They are slanted propaganda pieces, not independent voices in the political arena.  I apologize if I am ranting about a newspaper's misplaced focus, but I understand why they are dying off.  In the meantime, I need a cup of coffee.

Movies And Intelligence

So this afternoon being off of work and ahead of a few projects for Never Forget Foundation, I thought I would relax with a bucket of popcorn and some lethality every four minutes.  No I don't mean the news, I mean going to see the latest Pierce Brosnan film, November Man.  For those of you considering the movie I will start with the trailer:

Let me start by saying I love 007, but having a film that is about a former spy being played by a former Bond whose love interest is his previous Bond love interest does make things awkward.  Or schizophrenic.  Or boring....until.

So you will be surprised to note that this movie was filled with spy cliches.

• Old spy drawn back into the game.
• Old spy loses one of the people he cares about.
• Old spy who is hard stays hard...and sad.
• Old spy walks away from everything...including the cool explosions.

This film has its share of regular murder, drinking, and regular explosions to keep you awake, but other than that the plot line is about as thin as capellini d’angelo.  If you are looking for plot twists you have to wait until the movie is over.  (More on that later.)

Again, this is a film with a quick introduction of the spy who becomes former spy.  He is brought back into the game so that he can help one of the few who he cares about.  He then finds out his former protege killed the one he cared about and the hunt for how and why begins.  Bond formula from here...shooting, explosions, naked girl, moment of reflection, shooting...

It is what it is folks and I didn't walk in expecting much, but if you do want anything out of this film you have to wait until it is forty percent over.  Sorry.  I like Brosnan.  I thought his former spy portrayal in the 2005 movie The Matador was almost hilarious if they didn't have quite the ease they did with the murder of the various victims in that movie.  If you want to see Brosnan doing what he does...let's face it - he could play an old retired spy in his sleep - then go plunk down your money and this movie should hit the minimum expectations which is why I gave it three stars.  If you expect more, you will be disappointed.

Now, as promised, the good part of the movie was when a guy approached me after the film.  I was wearing a FDNY t-shirt to which he asked if I had worked for them.  I answered honestly no, but that I had my various brothers in that and many other departments.  He then went on to tell me about his career in the CIA.

Let me repeat that...he went on to tell me he worked for the CIA.

"I like to watch these films to check them out," he said.  I stood there and nodded politely now wanting to make my way to the car.  He didn't scare me.  While he did outweigh me and had a few inches in height I was pretty sure I could evade any move he had.  I also wasn't worried about a sophisticated recruitment ploy, but I had to ask myself how much schizophrenia could I handle in one day.

The movie had its issues as I outline above, but to now hear a guy who looked like he just left Walmart telling me he was super secret guy and talking about his career in America's super secret agency and his obvious need to validate it via Hollywood made me think I need to start watching rom-coms.  Didn't the CIA make the line "I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you" famous?  I mean look if you are a CIA employee and need to go watch these films....well, have at it, but don't tell me okay.  I may have to shoot you...with a water pistol.

When Laws Apply

Once upon a time, the Central Intelligence Agency could not spy on Americans (Executive Order 12333).  It seems like a quaint idea now that your own government would not spy on you.  That was the stuff of the old Soviet Union.

Now, we have a CIA Director who freely admits his employees spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the elder house of Congress whose committee's responsibility includes overseeing the CIA.  What?

Something has gone very wrong when the employees of the government can spy on those titulary in charge of the government.  What might be more concerning is the 2008 amendments to Executive Order 12333 indicated that senior authorization had to occur for spying on Americans to occur.  The question that no one seems to be asking is who authorized the spying on the United States Senate, or like the IRS, was this simply "rogue employees."

Finally, how big a leap is it to ask, if the CIA is brazen enough to spy on the United States Senate, why would it worry about a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on a regular individual?  If you were wondering about your rights eroding, look no farther than your leaders.  If they have their rights being dismantled systematically, you and I have no chance at all.

America...land of the almost free, home of the sheep.