Nuggets that need repeating if not already posted: General Petraeus requested fresh pineapple at his bedside every night (shows that he has care for her tastebuds). General Allen and Jill Kelley were pulling the bit from that Don Cheadle movie where instead of sending emails, they were saving drafts and reading each others' drafts, to the tune of 19 per day average. Too bad for them, the FBI has also seen the Don Cheadle movie from 5 years ago. The investigating FBI agent got so horny reading the emails, that he had to insert himself into the picture. The power of strange conquers all.
Nice. That's exactly what I think happened. A bunch of hornie men who should have been much more careful.
I agree that he shouldn't have cheated on his wife. But that's his wife's business. Blackmailable secret - not really moved by this. In the end, the only people who twisted his arm with the information were the very people who broke into his email. Could have become a problem - maybe he was discussing this with his wife? You guys probably know more about this than me, I don't know a lot about his relationship with each of the women. I think it's a problem, but one that affects him. The privacy issue affects all. Even under the 1986 electronic communications privacy act, the federal prosecutor doesn't get a free pass. There has to be a legitimate reason to warrant breaking into the guy's emails. If that reason was "this chick whispered it to me last night" - then that's an illegitimate process with no oversight. They can make stuff up after the fact and no one would know. There better be a written statement from the person making the request/complaint which someone reviews and deems to be legitimate under pre-assigned and independent criteria/principles. It doesn't seem like anything resembling that took place. It looks like they do this all the time and possibly based on the most frivelous suspicions. It should be even more infuriating to you guys because only God knows what kind of issues they've previous deemed frivelous, and which ones they have decided are legitimate. Perhaps there are internal processes that we don't know about, but seems they would be known given how this looks. If not, this little chink appears to be symptomatic of abhorrent procedures under that lovely veil of secrecy they show everyone all the time.
If you have a Top Secret security clearance, as far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't expect any huge amounts of privacy, which is the slight difference between Petraeus and me.
Joan Walsh (channeling Greenwald, who is still the best at this sort of thing IMO) gets it: And in other news...further info on the bizarre-o links between all the parties involved. Part of me thinks this is just a simple case of the FBI abusing powers it should have never been given. Another part of me thinks there is something rotten going on. Not sure which part is right. Edit: I think these paragraphs from Greenwald (link above) are worthy of quotes:
Thanks for sharing. I hope this scandal sparks a national debate into the legality of these matters. I believe Americans will open their eyes eventually and say enough is enough. Hopefully it happens before we’ve gone too far into the big brother direction.
My only question is how many millions of dollars will be wasted until this is over with? I bet that lady who got the emails/initially reported it and is now under the spotlight wishes she didn't say a word now.
That Kelley chick must be a freakydeak. FBI dude was thumbing through thousands of emails (the saved drafts bit) and just had smut all on his mind. That must have been some great smut, because his judgment was so clouded that he decided to pull an Anthony Weiner and grasp at bagging Kelley. That's just crazy. "I'm sorry miss, but I'm an FBI agent who has been spying on you for months reading your dirty notes to that married General, and um, here's a shirtless pic of myself. You're hottt."
color me unsurprised. [rquoter]The former diplomat who spoke with PJ Media regarded the whole enterprise as totally amateurish and likened it to the Mike Nichols film Charlie Wilson’s War about a clueless congressman who supplies Stingers to the Afghan guerrillas. “It’s as if Hillary and the others just watched that movie and said ‘Hey, let’s do that!’” the diplomat said. He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters.[/rquoter] http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013...stating-to-clinton-and-obama/?singlepage=true
Thanks Basso. I was about to start a new thread with the article from PJ Media. ...But in reference to General Ham resignation.