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[quote=King Brown] "Oh, please, sir, stop right there," said the airline's tracking office in Mumbai. "Don't say anything. We are not alllowed to say what happened to your computer." It finally showed up scuffed and scratched as if it had been on long CIA assembly line.[quote]


That's it!! The CIA has taken possession of the gun. They will use it to commit assassinations all over the world in the next few weeks. Then you will recieve the gun and it will appear scuffed, and scratched as though the CIA had put it on their assembly line (?). Months later the assassinations will be pinned on you. I'd just forget about the whole thing. Whatever you do, don't take possession of the gun!!

I need more tinfoil!!

I take 2-3 shotguns to Manitoba each fall and last year was the first time the customs officer made me uncase the guns so he could verify the serial numbers I had entered on the forms. Things getting a little harder each year. I went ahead and renewed my passport also.

NT, the point of the thread and my post was government intrusion, no?

An American writing that post may have committed a criminal offence under the Patriot Act.

"We are not alllowed to say what happened to your computer" refers to the Act's prohibition of any mention to anyone of federal security investigations.

BATF and Customs are only part of it.

I have gritted my teeth, in trying not to respond to this, but jeez, King, you really seem to believe what you are saying. First, I assure you, if the "CIA" or FBI for that matter, wanted to know what was in your friend's computer they wouldn't have to steal his luggage and they wouldn't have to crack open its casing on an assembly line or anywhere else.

Let's see, from what I think I understand from the original posting, we have someone in Mumbai - that would be India - being less than communicative about luggage they have lost. Somehow, I think my suspicions would be directed solidly toward their third world shoulders than they would in reaching what strikes me as a fairly paranoid assumption that your friend somehow merited the ham-fisted attention of apparently incompetent US intelligence services.

I've have always tended find amusing the perceptions of U.S. intelligence. On the one hand they are portrayed as incompetent bumbling fools and in the next breath, capable of pulling off vast international conspiracies ranging from 9/11 to the New World Order.

What they really are, are professionals and patriots (in the very best traditional sense of the word), who every day work tirelessly to ferret out information about those who would do us and our allies harm - that would include even you, King. I have colleagues in CIA, DIA, and NSA and everyone of them has taken a constitutional oath which they treat very, very seriously.

Have there been abuses? Sure. As there have been in every other government organization. But they have been few. Since the WWII and the founding of the OSS, these men and women have served their nation with enomous selflessness and all too often, unrecognized or unpublicized, bravery.

Thank you, Sir, for beating me to a response about the level of professionalism exhibited by CIA emloyees. There have been too many movie and television characters portraying these remarkable folks as paranoid, bumbling fools and far too many people who can't seperate amusing fiction from reality. I worked in a very low level support role for the CIA on several occasions and was always impressed by how well they did everything they had to do. I'll second your statement about neither group needing to "crack open" a computer, or anything else, to learn it's contents. If they had been involved, there would have been no sign of intrussion.

Cary

Joe, thanks for your point of view. I accepted the US government's findings of its investigation of intelligence services, disseminated to the world. It related the embarassing failures not to any lack of loyalty but to internecine warfare and paucity of coordination. I have friends in US HUMINT who are all you say they are. They have serious reservation about waterboarding.

A closer reading of my post should indicate that my friend's baggage was not stolen. He is one of the tens of thousands who travel frequently to Middle East countries of interest to the US. His checked-bag at Air Canada in Atlanta did not go into the plane. Air Canada's lost-baggage office is in Mumbai (Bombay).

You may feel differently about paranoid assumptions if an American citizen was pulled off a plane in Toronto and sent off to Syria for a year of solitary and torture, as a Canadian engineer was in New York by US intelligence services, for which the US has apologized. Others are held for years without charge.

The Mumbai quote went straight to the Patriot Act. India and a "less than communicative clerk" had nothing to do with it, other than the clerk spilling the beans of what happened to the bag.

The thread concerns government intrusion and my post was an addendum to it. I know how US intelligence works. My American colleagues would ask why I had access denied to them in Washington, including the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff warroom during the Cold War with all Soviet target cities behind the plush wine curtains.

Regards, King

This is why I should have simply gone with my first impulse and ignored this post.

"The thread concerns government intrusion and my post was an addendum to it. I know how US intelligence works. My American colleagues would ask why I had access denied to them in Washington, including the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff warroom during the Cold War with all Soviet target cities behind the plush wine curtains."

King, I am absolutely confident that you have no more real idea how the U.S. clandestine services actually work, than you do how the pentagon does. I have served with NATO officers of every rank and grade and have set in every "war room" (a misnomer which speaks volumes to those of us who have actually served on the Joint Staff) in the building. I have also had the privilege of providing fire support to 4th Canadian Mech on Reforgers as far back as the late 70's (truly fine soldiers) and serving with your recent Chief of Staff when he was a two-star and Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Third Corps at Fort Hood (2000). Yes, a Canadian General Officer serving as DCG of the U.S.'s most powerful armored striking formation. You should also know he was denied access to none of our briefings, war plans, or "war rooms".

Does the United States have secrets which are of a national nature? Of course it does. Just as does Canada. But in most areas cooperation has been excellent.

Has this country handled some aspects of the current war badly. I think so, and I have refered to them in previous texts. That said the islamic extremests want us dead. I am an Arabic speaker and have spent much of my adult life in that part of the world. I have negotiated with the urbane and the impoverished; the western educated and recent revolutionaries. I do not believe my world view is colored by ethno-centricity. But the extremests want me dead, and they want to kill you as well King. This is something new in the world, and thank goodness those careless practitioners of intercene warfare and uncoordination are out there doing their best to hold the line.

I regret that you have the impressions that you do. They are mirrored by too many otherwise practically minded people. I also regret that I didn't more carefully read your post. I had no idea that Air Canada had managed to outsource its lost baggage headquarters to India. I didn't say I suspected it was stolen; I surmised it was lost. I still do.

Joe, Canadians are aware of our involvement with US forces, not only the circumstances you mentioned but operational planning Florida of the Iraq campaign and our exchange officers currently serving there. US Marines full-kit 3.200 strong from Iraq are responding next month to our call for assistance in Afghanistan ( Taliban stronghold of Kandahar) where our casualties are disproportionate to our allies.

Canada is aware of the extremist threat, and its intelligence services have already made the biggest number of arrests so far this side of the ocean, praised by your president and secretary of state. I have been involved with US and Canadian intelligence in a personal way for 50 years, and within the last 10 days discussed security face-to-face with our defence minister and federal leader of the opposition.

Last week I returned a book given by Colin Powell to our defence minister.

I don't see where we are at odds, Joe, except from your distance you don't see how an engaged Canadian could know generally of what the most open society in the world is doing. Reminds me of the time the Canadian military contemplated charging me under the Official Secrets Act for "exposing" the Canada-US western Atlantic underwater listening system---gleaned from US trade magazines!

Regards, King

King it sounds like we should having this discussion over a beer rather than here. My sincerest appologies for attempting it and for any false assumptions. Powell is a mentor and someone I deeply admire. Had the president placed his confidence in him rather than Rummsfeld, I suspect we would have been in a far different place right now. I also suspect your and my personal six degrees of separation are something significantly less. All the very best.

I don't know about all this. When I saw Richard Dreyfus in "Stakeout", those FBI guys seemed like an awful nuisance to me. I think they deserved it when Steven Seagal made one take off his shoes and jump in the lake in "Above The Law". That guy really deserved it!! Sometimes they act so arrogant. The only decent FBI agent I have ever known is agent Mulder in the X-Files. But even when Dave Duchovny proves to them time and time again that there are aliens here on earth eating people's brains out, they still don't believe him. That really chaps my butt!!