On a beach.
Drinking a Mai Tai.
Watching the sun set.
But alas, I'm not on vacation. Far from it. I'm back at work and in the real world, which is currently a very nasty place. About a year ago, when I took on some extra-curricular civic duties in addition to work and family, I found that I was too busy to regularly keep up with my San Diego Union Tribune subscription, which I had maintained since 1986, save the three times I had been stationed elsewhere. After being acquired by the LA Times, the cost of that newspaper had grown to a point which didn't justify my stacking up the unread issues. So I let my subscription lapse. I had intended to re-subscribe under my wife's name after a month or so, getting the "new subscriber" rate, but that offer had been discontinued in the new owner's attempt to capitalize on the purchase.
With my lack of print media access, I found myself less informed to some extent, and not as confident in my rants and raves about current events. You've surely noticed that I'm not here with any regularity. Ok, maybe I'm overestimating Sarge's readership. You're probably asking, "Who the hell is this guy and won't he just get on with it?"
But anyhoo... I reduced my pithy political part-time blogging to once in a blue moon, and even slowed my flow of low-grade vitriol on Facebook, mainly reserved for corrupt politicians and weak-kneed Navy Leadership. I lost the taste for it to some extent, but also didn't have the time to combat the emotional and fact-less contrarian comments on my posts. That hobby is quite fun, but time-consuming. And my friends list is not without a few brainless liberals from my hometown who seem to live on the opposite side of logic.
I haven't quit ranting, just lessened it, so before we get to the wonderful combination of calming sunsets and exciting jets, I'll spew forth a little bit that's been on my mind.
"In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information....We do not see those things here."
Oh yeah? Then how the heck did Top Secret (TS) data from Special Access Programs get from the highest level secure network (JWICS) or Secure Internet Protocol Router (SIPRNET) down to the unclassified network? Somebody had to burn a disc, print and scan, or retype TS or SECRET info onto that network. Department of State (DoS) is not typically an "Original Classification Authority" so they weren't creating their own TS info on the unclassified system. The Intelligence Communities develop the majority of that info, and they work exclusively on JWICS and SIPR.
The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS pronounced JAYwicks), is a Top Secret/SCI network run by the United States' Defense Intelligence Agency and used across the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to transmit especially sensitive classified information. Wiki
DoS has JWICS, so for Hillary to become SECSTATE, she was surely briefed on info from JWICS, and familiar with classification lables. No intent? I'm not buying it. There was willful intent to move info from one classified system to another. I could lose my job just for leaving out a secret document on my desk. Hillary? She practically emailed into to the Chinese.
Next item: Listen to and obey the cops, and don't ever resist. They might be dead-wrong about you, and a few of them might be the biggest racists this side of Margaret Sanger, but being an asshole to the cops never helped anybody. Remember Dr. King? I seem to remember that he advocated for non-violent civil protest. Good lesson for traffic stops and demonstrations alike. Cops just want to go home after patrol. And threatening that, even if that's not the intent, can only end badly, for both parties involved.
Hey Mr. President, you could call for calm anytime you want. But what you're doing now is not helping. You've got a Nobel Peace Prize for crissakes. You're our Chief Executive, but instead you're acting predominantly as our Chief Divisor, pitting the "Us's" against the "Them's", even fomenting the violence in Dallas.
Ok, that'll do for a month or two. Now on to those pictures I promised you.
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I realized that there aren't many sunset pictures of the venerable Viking that I haven't seen or posted already. I'm a little sad about that fact. I guess it's one more of those inevitables that come with age. I saw a post somewhere asking to hire former S-3B Viking maintenance Chiefs for a company in Texas. Word has it that they will help get the eight birds ready for sale to the Koreans. Eventually I'll have to start friending Korean Navy pilots to score some more pics.
If I get some, I'll be sure to post 'em, and I hope they help us think about vacation, flying, or anything other than racism, corruption, and politics.
Good post and neat pictures. For printed news I recommend the Wall Street Journal. It's pricey but worth it.
ReplyDelete"...think about vacation, flying, or anything other than racism, corruption, and politics."
ReplyDeleteYep... works for me.
Great post Tuna, awesome photos!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Captain Steve, the WSJ is the only way to go if you still want dead tree news delivered to your door.
ReplyDeleteI am going to write about the disgraceful Clinton email flap again but I got to remembering last night after I shut down and I recalled spillage and how it occurred in my worlds. All of our message traffic was transmitted over a SECRET or TOP SECRET keyed device. That enabled us to get our message traffic (ie, anything addressed to my commands was transmitted over something like OTCIXS which had an unbelievably high encryption given its generic use but which had been dragooned by others to pass mission data uploads to revise targeting on existing, at sea Tomahawk missiles. We did everything in our power to keep our unclassified network connected via what amounts to a diode to OTCIXS but the vulnerability police after Y2K were all over us and we had to sever the networks.
We were talking about radio message traffic gained telephonically in the old world of the last century and a little beyond where one created a dial up account using a STU III device and downloaded the days messages. Depending on the world situation, our location in the world, our tasking, 90% of the flow was unclass. It was up to the RM2 to filter the traffic by hand and eye and distribute the rest to the command on the unclass network that 99% had as their only access. Only about 1% of us had access to the SIPR or higher. Every six months or so, some classified message made it by that single point scrutiny and showed up on the unclassified network. That was referred to as spillage. The command self-reported it, costs and burdens out of reason were assumed and we moved on without crucifying the Petty Officer that did it. We were not all zero tolerance back then and mistakes could be expected for something as trivial as getting a stupidly misclassified C2 CASREP in the unclass system.
As you say, the different networks are never connected together, not even with a KVM switch. This amounts to an insurmountable air gap which we all happily breached all the time as info was pulled off one network, verified to be unclassified and punted to a lower level network. It was the ONLY way to do business.
I have nothing but contempt for the Clintons, their aides, their friends, their foundation and the manner in which she ran business but as I paused to reflect last night, it occurred to me that she and hers were probably operating just like me and mine did and unlike us, she thought a non-program of record RADIANT MERCURY could hide all their lapses and failures and that's the difference between us. When we screwed up we manned up and reported it like anybody who was a 5 time COMSEC officer would. That old system only worked for as long as it did because the culpable people who made an honest mistake knew that they'd only lose their job when they self-reported a massive error and they did not expect jail as the penalty for making a mistake.
Talk about conflicted! Still Comey was wrong and the FBI ruined by their failure to prosecute Clinton. She engaged in an ongoing long term conspiracy that only also compromised national security. She belongs in jail in Pollard's cell for about 309 years.
Tuna:
ReplyDelete"brainless liberals" That, sir, is a redundancy.
Paul L. Quandt
By the way, great pictures. Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeletePaul
Fyi, PowerLine has a post this morning with similar thoughts re: classified info, here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/the-clinton-factor.php
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am not familiar with the details of this kind of thing, but I think I remember reading that Sec. Hillary, by virtue of her position as SecState, had top authority to classify information -- but she failed to comprehend how to treat same? How do these things reconcile? Ok, here is one blog post on that: http://tinyurl.com/p4cy37t
...they don't. She knew what she was doing. She did it to avoid scrutiny of her mix of legally questionable private/foundation/government dealings. Holder, and Comey and Lynch have, among them, completely destroyed any sense of integrity remaining at DOJ/FBI. What a shame.