Keith Alexander Offered To Resign, But White House Said No Because It Didn't Want Snowden To Win

from the petty-petty-petty dept

One of the really big questions many of us have had throughout the revelations of the NSA's scandals is how the hell have Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA boss Keith Alexander kept their jobs through all of this. Clapper has been caught directly lying to Congress. Alexander has been shown to have been extraordinarily misleading, if he hasn't outright lied. Furthermore, it's been revealed that both have overseen massive levels of dysfunction and abuse within the NSA (even as they try to spin them as no big deal). And, even among NSA supporters, there's an argument to be made that Alexander should be fired for having system security so weak it allowed Snowden to do what he did undetected, even months after the basics were revealed. So now it's come out, via a report by Siobhan Gorman in the Wall Street Journal, that Alexander did, in fact, offer to resign but that the White House rejected the request, because they didn't want to hand Snowden a victory.

Shortly after former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed himself in June as the source of leaked National Security Agency documents, the agency's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, offered to resign, according to a senior U.S. official. The offer, which hasn't previously been reported, was declined by the Obama administration....

[....] When the leaks began, some top administration officials found their confidence in Gen. Alexander shaken because he presided over a grave security lapse, a former senior defense official said. But the officials also didn't think his resignation would solve the security problem and were concerned that letting him leave would wrongly hand Mr. Snowden a win, the former defense official said.

That's a ridiculous reason, if true. And, unfortunately, it shows the ridiculous anti-whistleblower mindset of the White House. It's not about correcting actual problems, it's all about making sure that we punish the whistleblower, and don't let him get any "victory." That's a huge mistake that makes the White House look out of touch, out of control and unable to recognize where the real problems are.

President Obama has stated repeatedly that these revelations have resulted in a necessary discussion and that he needs to earn the trust of the American public on the NSA spying. Getting rid of Alexander and Clapper, and starting fresh, would have been a good start to doing that. Playing defense and trying to avoid Snowden "winning" just looks... childish.

Filed Under: barack obama, ed snowden, james clapper, keith alexander, nsa, resignations, surveillance

Former ATI Chief Quits AMD, Signalling An Unhappy Marriage

from the a-chip-on-your-shoulder dept

One of the biggest losers in the tech world right now is AMD, which has been getting its clock cleaned by Intel. Just a year ago, AMD was taking market share away from Intel, and with its acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI, it was supposed to establish technological supremacy over its much larger rival. But that dream has turned into a nightmare. The company announced today that David Orton, ATI's former CEO, would be stepping down, as plans to integrate the two companies' technology has been going slowly. Orton insists that he's still optimistic about AMD's chances (whatever that's worth), but it definitely appears that the company bit off way more than it could chew, in trying to do a major acquisition while simultaneously getting itself into a brutal price war with Intel.

Filed Under: resignations
Companies: amd, ati