Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules

[TacticalPeek]

Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules

By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: April 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 22 — Mary O. McCarthy, the intelligence officer dismissed on Friday after being accused of leaking information to reporters about the Central Intelligence Agency's overseas prisons, once was responsible for guarding some of the nation's most sensitive secrets.

As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, Ms. McCarthy was known as a low-key professional who paid special attention to preventing White House leaks of classified information and covert operations, several current and former government officials said.

When she disagreed with decisions on intelligence operations, they say, she registered her complaints through internal government channels.

snip

Ms. McCarthy, who has not been charged with any crime, did not respond to telephone calls and an e-mail message. But former colleagues who worked with her at the C.I.A. and the White House say they had trouble fathoming her as a leaker. Some said they flatly refused to believe the accusations.

"We're talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules," said Steven Simon, a National Security Council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with Ms. McCarthy.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/washington/23mccarthy.html?hp&ex=1145764800&en=b2c0a9f955c9fcaa&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Kagemusha]

1. You know, this is based on flunking a polygraph test.

We can't use those in court for a reason, right? Goss is out looking for heads. Maybe she lost her cool while being pushed hard during a test and "flunked" it. If that's the only basis of her being removed, she may not be guilty of any crime at all.

Granted, the CIA is not the kind of place where people who fail a test should be retained, if you have any choice in the matter. She'll be replaced and life will go on. But I can't help but ask myself why the CIA would place absolute faith in polygraph tests in the absence of other evidence. If they were that foolproof we'd use them in courts.

[bluerum]

4. Leaking is not a crime if the information is not classified. nt

[EVDebs]

8. Was US taxpayer dollar source of funding this covert op of secret prisons?

When did Congress o.k. this funding ? Does the WhiteHouse want to go down that road ? Bring it on. The CIA lady could declare herself a 'whistleblower' and I then believe could demand treble damages should illegal actions of the government be disclosed under the False Claims Act

"Congress passed the original False Claims Act in 1863 to prosecute manufacturers that sold the Union army defective supplies. But when Congress amended the statute in 1986, it hoped that the law would be used to uncover fraud in all areas where the government provides funding, either directly or indirectly. The revised law stipulated harsher penalties for wrongdoers and greater rewards for whistleblowers."

http://www.phillipsandcohen.com/CM/Articles/ama.asp

Who built those prisons ? Who paid the contractors ? US Taxpayers, unconstitutionally ?

Am I correct in my analysis ?

[Demeter]

14. Leaking A Crime Is the Mark of A Good Citizen! A Patriot! n/t

[IndianaGreen]

7. The issue at hand is criminal activity by the Bush regime

in establishing a gulag and outsourcing torture to despotic regimes. Our budding tyrant doesn't want the American people to know what crimes are being perpetrated in our name.

Porter Goss is playing the same role for Bush that Stalin's NKVD chief Genrich Yagoda faithfully played for his boss.

[brentspeak]

11. Polygraph tests are completely unreliable

Police officers themselves usually refuse to submit to polygraph tests when asked to sit down for one; they know how bogus they are.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. They SAY that she flunked the test...she was pushed out for....

...some other reason, IMHO. Probably because she had made it clear to Goss that she wasn't willing to fabricate intelligence data.

[Rex]

2. So in other words, Idiot Leader picked a name out of a hat.

So she leaked about the US doing ILLEGAL things in other countries; at least I hope it is illegal for OUR COUNTRY to have overseas torture chambers and rape rooms.

[saltpoint]

3. I had never heard of Mary McCarthy until this past week. But I have

heard of Porter Goss, and my suspicions that she is being scape-goated are running pretty high.

I do not trust Porter Goss to properly operate a door-stop. I believe he is a flunkie of the Bush/Cheney administration, put where he is to maximize their political agenda.

There were numerous reports that veteran CIA people were contemptuous of Goss in the early going, and my hunch is he's not been very respectful to them. They've served longer and likely better than he has and he's doing a Frank Hackett number on them. (Frank Hackett was Robert Duvall's character in the film NETWORK, elevated by a tv network to gut its news division.)

Just guessin', but that's how it feels to me.

[HardWorkingDem]

5. THIS is what a true whistle blower protection law is needed for...

Folks, I don't care if she has the utmost integrity and people can't fathom this woman as the leaker - great people have their breaking points when it comes to lies and human rights abuses.

Maye she just got so fed up with this sort of behavior and had no where else to turn to.

Now, this is a perfect example of why there needs to be protection for true whistle blowers of government abuses.

But what really, really disturbs me the most is the lack of outrage over the existence of these sorts of "facilities."

OUR country is supposed to be the standard bearer for liberty, democracy and human rights and what has the world seen? Only that the current people in power are no better than tin pot dictators. (And in one way, they are even worse - they have denied their acts, while other dictators are not even ashamed to admit they do them.)

[unblock]

6. if she's a straight shooter, perhaps this was a purge?

maybe they needed her out of the way?

:tinfoilhat:

[peacetalksforall]

9. The new rule we live by is = don't believe anything a George boy or

girl says. Wait for the story from a variety of other sources.

George boys and girls think we are stupid or that their announcements must be staged Hollywood movie style. Then, remember, after the original proclamation, more George boys and girls move in to add 'lieence'. Lieence is credence, in the style of Repubs.

Hmmmm. I think I'll submit 'lieence' to Stephen Colbert, Michael Moore, or Al Franken.

[Catrina]

10. 'I swear to defend and protect the Constitution of the US from all enemies

both foreign and domestic'.

I know those aren't the correct words of the oath taken by those sworn to serve this country, but that's the gist of the oath they take.

Secret torture prisons violates the Constitution of the country ~ anyone who knows of the people's employees, from the President on down, committing crimes against the Constitution is obligated to report them.

What I am amazed at is that so many others are willing to turn a blind eye to the crimes the government commits.

If she is the whistle-blower in this case, she is a hero imo. That may be why she has not been charged with a crime yet. No doubt, the TORTURE Atorney General is working hard on finding some way to justify the secret gulags before they charge her.

The argument shouldn't be about whether she, or anyone esle 'leaked' this vile policy, but why ONLY one person had the courage to do so. Apparently the informatiion was correct.

When are we going to go after those who broke the law this way? She is merely a witness to a crime, a witness who reported it. Why the focus on her and not on the perpetrators?

[WillyT]

13. Larry Johnson's Take On This...

Link: http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/the_firing_of_m.html

:shrug:

[Kagemusha]

15. I don't post a thing on TPM but my thoughts on this...

...Basically, it's a funny world out there. "The world is gray, Jack! Gray!" (Clear and Present Danger, movie ver.) You have people doing bad things for "good reasons" in their own mind; possibly this is a woman who did a good thing for "bad reasons" (internal disputes, getting back at her idiot boss, etc). Neither has much to do with anything about whether it's a "good person" or a "bad person". The world really does have a lot of gray in it.

That's why I root for the Fitzgeralds of the world.

[HuffleClaw]

16. the word 'patsy' comes to mind

they NEED someone to point to whenever people point their fingers at bush, cheney, rove, and condi. 'but looook! a CLINTON appointee is a leaker tooooo!!!!'

[ast_liberal2008]

17. More distrust of Clinton officials

Even at the expense of 'homeland' security. What hypocrites!