Ms. Axsmith is a patriot, not unlike me. Peace,
Arlene Johnson Publisher/Author http://www.truedemocracy.net -----Original Message----- >From: norgesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Aug 4, 2006 2:11 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [cia-drugs] C.I.A. Worker Says Message on Torture Got Her Fired > >C.I.A. Worker Says Message on Torture Got Her Fired > > >http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/07/22/us/22intel600.jpg > >Christine Axsmith, keeper of a blog on a secret computer network used by >American intelligence agencies. > >By MARK MAZZETTI >Published: July 22, 2006 >WASHINGTON, July 21 ? A contract employee working for the Central Intelligence >Agency said she had been fired recently for posting a message on a classified >computer server that said an interrogation technique used by the agency >against some terror suspects amounted to torture. > >The employee, Christine Axsmith, kept the ?Covert Communications? blog on a >top-secret computer network used by American intelligence agencies. Ms. >Axsmith was fired on Monday after C.I.A. officials objected to a message that >criticized the interrogation technique called ?waterboarding,? a particularly >harsh practice that the C.I.A. is known to have used on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, >who is widely regarded as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. > >The episode has opened a window into the new world of classified blogging: an >experimental effort being carried out in top-secret computer forums where >information and ideas are shared across the intelligence community. >Intelligence officials said that since last year, more than 1,000 blogs had >been set up on classified intelligence servers. > >Ms. Axsmith, a computer security expert with a law degree, posted the message >this month, shortly after the Bush administration decided to grant some >protections of the Geneva Conventions to suspected terrorists in American >custody. She said that her message began, ?Waterboarding is torture, and >torture is wrong.? > >Ms. Axsmith?s firing was earlier reported on several blogs including >Wonkette.com on Thursday, and in Friday?s Washington Post. > >?I wanted an in-house discussion,? Ms. Axsmith said in an interview on >Thursday in her home in Washington. ?Something where I would be educating >people on the background of the Geneva Conventions.? > >Instead, Ms. Axsmith was fired by her employer, B.A.E. Systems, which has an >information technology contract with the C.I.A. > >Ms. Axsmith said C.I.A. officials had confronted her and told her that the >agency?s senior leadership was angry about the blog, which was housed on >Intelink, the classified server maintained by the American intelligence >community to aid communication among its employees. > >Besides losing her job, Ms. Axsmith also lost her top-secret security >clearance, which she had held since 1993 and used for previous work for the >State Department and National Counterterrorism Center. > >She said she feared that her career in the intelligence world was over. ?It >was like I was wiped out,? she said. > >A spokesman for B.A.E. Systems, Bob Hastings, said privacy issues prohibited >him from commenting on Ms. Axsmith?s firing. But Mr. Hastings said that >company policy prohibited employees from using computers for non-official >purposes. > >Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said that the blogs were intended to >?encourage collaboration? on business issues but that postings ?should relate >directly to the official business of the author and readers of the Web site.? > >The C.I.A. denies that it uses torture to extract information from prisoners, >although a 2004 report by the agency?s inspector general concluded that some >of its interrogation practices appeared to constitute cruel, inhuman and >degrading treatment. > >In waterboarding, the interrogation technique that Ms. Axsmith criticized, a >prisoner is strapped to a board and then made to feel as if he is drowning. > >In March 2005, Porter J. Goss, who was then the C.I.A. director, described >waterboarding as a ?professional interrogation technique?; American military >pilots and commandos are known to have been subjected to it during highly >classified training regimes designed to prepare them to live in captivity. > >The use of the practice, along with the agency?s detention of approximately >three dozen ?high value detainees? in secret jails, has made some C.I.A. >employees uneasy and has prompted a debate within the intelligence community. > >Ms. Axsmith said she believed that the ?vast majority? of people working for >the C.I.A. were opposed to torture. > >And, she said that she believed that the classified blogs could be a critical >tool to allow C.I.A. employees ? who are often prohibited from discussing >their work even with other agency officials ? to vent frustrations. > >?The blogs are a safety valve for people to discuss controversial topics,? she >said. ?It reduces the chances that people may leak to the press.? > >In April, the C.I.A. fired Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime employee, for having >unauthorized contacts with the news media. > >Though stripped of her security clearance, Ms. Axsmith still maintains her >public, unclassified blog: econo-girl.blogspot.com. On that Web site on >Friday, there were several messages supporting her, including postings from >anonymous intelligence officials who said that they would miss her ?Covert >Communications? blog. > >Ms. Axsmith acknowledges that the posting that got her fired was deliberately >provocative, and she said that if she had another chance she might have toned >down the language. > >?I guess I?m just too much of a big mouth for that organization,? she said. > >http://voxverax.blogspot.com/2006/07/cia-worker-says-message-on-torture-got.html > >http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/washington/22intel.html?ex=1154836800&en=aa617f7f8fb0e144&ei=5070 Complete archives at http://www.sitbot.net/ Please let us stay on topic and be civil. OM Yahoo! 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