CIA Didn't Bother Informing Obama About Blown Cover Of German Double Agent Before His Call With Merkel

from the finding-out-from-the-papers-again dept

Wed, Jul 9th 2014 11:59am — Mike Masnick

We've pointed out before how bizarre it is that President Obama seems to gleefully admit that he's almost totally in the dark about what the intelligence community is doing. Last year, he admitted that he keeps finding out what the NSA is doing from the press reports on the Snowden documents and then he goes to ask what the NSA has been up to. It appears this "keep him in the dark" status is reaching new and ridiculous heights. As you probably heard, over the weekend the Germans arrested an employee of the German BND, who had apparently been spying for the Americans (via the CIA), and who had been tasked with keeping tabs on the German investigation into the Snowden leaks. This morning, there are reports about a second spy as well. Reports suggest that the first guy was a bit of a bumbling buffoon who was caught because he sent via email classified documents to the Russians, offering to spy for them as well (leading to an investigation that turned up his existing spying activities for the CIA), but it's still a diplomatic black eye for the US.

However, the craziest bit about this is that no one bothered to inform the President that the cover of a CIA plant had been blown in Germany -- even though President Obama was scheduled to talk to Angela Merkel a day after the arrest. While that call went off without a hitch, and the spy wasn't brought up, the fact that President Obama was apparently unaware of the situation, once again, raises serious questions about the rogue nature of the intelligence community. No one expects the President to know specifically about CIA plants, but once one is blown -- especially concerning a big ally where previous revelations already made a bit of a diplomatic mess -- you'd think that someone inside the intelligence community would think to brief the President.

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Filed Under: angela merkel, barak cobama, bnd, cia, ed snownde, germany, nsa, surveillance

29 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:10pm

So much for information sharing. Oh well, I guess the Commander and Chief of the United States doesn't need to be kept apprized of the current situation. He'd only need to be kept apprized if he was actually the one calling the shots.
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Manok, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:15pm

Pfff, the fact that Merkel didn't dare to bring it up shows already why Obama doesn't need to be up to speed. And if only he had a nice ranch like Bush, he wouldn't need to come to the office so much.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:16pm

It's called plausible deniability for a reason people
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Michael, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:16pm

That's where you have to give Bill Clinton credit. He was the first to know when anything was blown.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:28pm

Re:
its not plausible if the person in question is willfully ignorant.
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MM_Dandy (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:31pm

I see nothing!
http://youtu.be/rwcBaG-S7UA
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:36pm

Re:
He could be calling the shots... if he had a damn spine.

I guess the dems love their weak simpleton leaders!
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:36pm

Re:
That position is subordinate to the cabal, don't you know.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:36pm

Another Bit of Solid Evidence that Obama is a Muppet
The only remaining question is whose?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:36pm

Re: Re:
Correct, this would be considered 'criminal negligence' in an actual court of law!
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That One Guy (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:44pm

No need
He didn't get informed about it because he didn't need to be. Germany has already shown that they're just fine dancing to the USG's tune, and will not do anything that would annoy/anger the USG too much, so of course having a spy or two outed like this wouldn't be discussed or even brought up, making briefing him on it beforehand a waste of time.

As to the 'bizarre' bit about how he only learns about what the NSA is doing from the press... yeah, nothing 'bizarre' about that, it's called 'willful ignorance', or 'plausible deniability'. He doesn't know what they're doing because he doesn't want to know.
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That One Guy (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:47pm

Re: Re:
I guess the dems love their weak simpleton leaders!

G.W. Bush anyone? It's not just one party that loves a charismatic but stupid(willful or not) figurehead, they both do.
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Padpaw (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:47pm

of course we should believe the president known far and wide for lying every time he opens his mouth.

From sergeant Schultz to President Obama, I know nothing, I see nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ag4nkSh7Q
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Stuart (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:50pm

Nahh
He has the word out. No one is allowed to let him know about anything he might want to lie about.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:52pm

Oh please! People are behaving as if Obama is the most powerful or important person in the U.S.
He's just the most powerful puppet and can't know anything important, unless his masters tell him to.
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DannyB (profile), 9 Jul 2014 @ 12:56pm

This seems like very poor management
Good managers make sure their underlings have the information needed to do their job properly.

In this case, it seems like the intelligence community is not giving proper oversight to the president. The intelligence community seem to be poor managers of the elected officials. Both of the president and the senate intelligence committee.
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David, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:07pm

Re:
Well, read this article if you can understand German.

In a nutshell, the German government has decided to extend the duration of their resentment from three to five days. A five-day period of resentment is considered the strongest diplomatic retaliation that Germany can bestow on the U.S.

Something like that.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:07pm

Re: No need
I would consider plausible deniability criminal negiligence in several cases regardless. Plausible deniability is exactly created to avoid putting the president in the same situation as Richard Nixon when Watergate broke.

It is to a large extend either criminal negligence from the president or the agencies when plausible deniability is used in this context. As important core functions of a government, a president has as much of a duty to keep informed and act if the government bureaucracys actions seem inappropriate as passing laws. That duty cannot be fulfilled when plausible deniability is used.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:16pm

Re: Re: No need
Ten dollars says that the US ambassador to Germany also found out about it from the Germans (and not from the spy's handler who probably works in the embassy).
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:21pm

Maybe they are really that dumb.
They love to call themselves the "intelligence community" but apperantly they are completly retarded
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:36pm

Re: This seems like very poor management
"Well, you see Mr. President, we have so much intel, we sometimes have a hard time to know which bits to give you." said the National Security Adviser when asked.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2014 @ 1:55pm

It's becoming increasingly clear that Obama is just an NSA/CIA puppet.
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Jake, 9 Jul 2014 @ 3:25pm

Re: Re: This seems like very poor management
And you can just bet that if he told them to give him all of it, he'd get his wish and regret it. This was the plot of an episode of Yes, Minister, I believe.
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JOY, 9 Jul 2014 @ 8:14pm

Odd that no one seems curious about WHO??
Made the decision to not to inform the COMMANDER IN CHIEF?? It reminds me of the chilling message President Eisenhower left:
https://archive.org/details/DwightD.Eisenhower-FarewellAddressmilitary-industrialComplexSpeech

L inks to parts 2 & 3 below part 1
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2014 @ 4:36am

That's the way their existence is. (our glorious leaders)

They can't think for themselves and are always doing what they are told to do. They only get information when it is given to them and they don't have time to validate anything. It's the nature of how they exist, too busy doing stuff and making sure they don't do/say something stupid while having to say this and that.

Obama, like almost all other leaders is a machine that is always on. No time to think... be here for breakfast, there for meeting, then here for a lunch, go there for another meeting, then here for a press statement, go there for dinner etc...

It's why they age so much. They don't even get a lunch break and even going out to dinner is a job that requires hours of saying this and not saying that.

Until that is fixed... stories like the "ill informed" leader will always be occurring.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2014 @ 9:39am

Re: Re:
You know, that "Der Postillon" is satire, right? Something like "The Onion". If you understand German, that should become clear from all the other articles on that page. And if you don't get it, it's mentioned in the FAQ.

Apart from that, it's really horrible to see how the German government kowtows before the USA. Instead of strongly condemning the actions, evicting all intelligence officers with a diplomatic pass and stopping certain negotiations and other programs (SWIFT data transfer, TTIP, etc.), the actual action taken strongly resembles that the satire news magazine "Der Postillon" describes.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2014 @ 3:17pm

Re: Re: Re:
What a puppet indeed. That deer in the highway look in that Florida classroom on that forsaken day...will never be forgotten.

Clinton had balls, but he moved the Democratic party to the right completing the absolutely-no-difference between the 2 parties an axiom.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2014 @ 3:23pm

Re:
Even Dave Mustaine (who's by his own admission is not very smart) wrote that military intelligence are 2 words that together don't make sense.
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GEMont (profile), 11 Jul 2014 @ 1:50pm

Its just a job... but the pay is awesome!
"...you'd think that someone inside the intelligence community would think to brief the President."

You'd think that if you still believed the President was anything more than a hired gun for Wall Street Billionaires.

On the other hand, if you realized that Obama was just an employee of the men running the USA these days, you would understand that what Obama knows is exactly what he needs to know when he's about to lay down another lie on the US Public.

He already had his German meeting script memorized, so there was no need to confuse the con with stuff that was immaterial to that meeting.

Now that he might need to spin some BS to the public about this "bumbling minion", he will be briefed and handed his new script by the same folks who wrote his German meeting script.

I can barely wait to hear this one. :)
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