to ease the mind

Since there are worries and fears, trials and tribulations, rumors and questions; about the continued viability of Lj, those who wish to find me, in the event of such a demise, may look in at, Terrence Karney Photography, which is my photo-blog.

I will, in the event Lj goes the way of all flesh, establish a new, everyday blog, and the link will be posted there.

But honestly, I don't really think Lj is going away.

While I ponder

I am trying to digest the shooting in SF. For reasons personal I am not likely to watch the video (it's not that I'm squeamish, I just dislike seeing people killed).

In the meanwhile I've tried the uploading tool for Flickr. Meh. It truncates the photo info. Since I like having the photo info that's a "war stopper" for me. Which sucks, because I like all the other features. The ability to see the images (so I don't have to recall which file = which name), is great. Being able to edit the tags, descriptions, etc. before I upload things; so they aren't up there for all to see before I to all that, also really nice.

Being able to post to more than one set at a time is wonderful (because I am sort of lazy. At five-ten minutes per photo to get them uploaded, tagged, and described, going in and taking more time to sort them into sets, one set at a time, is just more hassle).

So, I either need to figure out a way to edit the data, so it does upload, or use the tool as a way to get the order right, so I can use the default tool flicker has.

That, or stop publishing shooting data.

Thoughts?

The BART Shooting

On first blush it looks unconscionable. I will assume (arguendo, bear with me) this isn't a function of racism. Looking at the reports one of two things happened.

1: The cop committed a willful homicide.

2: The training of BART cops, and the SOP for using TASERS is so poor this was an honest mistake, made within the acceptable guidlines for the use of force.

Looking at the footage, I think it's the latter, and that (in my opinion) is worse. Digby has been writing, for months; perhaps more than a year, about the increasing use of TASERs when not really called for.

This looks to be a case in which the officers were frustrated by the subject being less than completely compliant to their wishses. I don't know how much work they were having to do to as they tried to cuff him (which, from other reports was being done with flex-cuffs, which are a little harder to use than "bracelet" cuffs).

All the cops got up at once and stepped away as the one draws a weapon and shoots. That's what makes me think it was supposed to be a TASERing. They didn't want to get zapped with conductive energy.

Me, I am not so fond of TASERs, and the more I read about them, the less I like them. They are considered, "harmless", never mind that accounts of being hit with them are of excruciating pain. Of people who say they would rather be pepper sprayed, physically beaten; or even shot, rather than ever be tasered again.

But the, "non-lethal" nature of them (despite the people who die after being TASERed), means police depts don't investigate the use of them the way they do the discharge of a firearm.

When you add in that TASERs are built like handguns you only increase the risk of the possibility they will be grabbed by mistake. I've seen police officers who have their TASER in the off-side, so a cross-body draw is required. That's a step in the right direction, but I've also seem them placed on the strong-side, just a lot further back.

What I've read is BART doesn't have a 1:1 ratio of tasers to cops on duty, which means not all officers carry them. When they do have them they are handed off from one cop to another at shift change.

That's a recipe for disaster. Trust me, weapons need to be familiar to the bearer, esp. if they are to be grabbed in moments of stress. My guess (and it's just a guess) this cop normally has a TASER. He carries it strong-side, behind his 9mm. He wasn't carrying it that night, and forgot that fact.

Pressing the armchair analysis, if he hasn't used a TASER before, he's seen it done, more than once. The shocked look on his face, after the shot goes off, makes me pretty sure he didn't expect what happened. In the cell-phone video he seems to be trying to explain the gunshot to his partners, before they start looking after the victim.

Which means, sadly, this is several different tragedies, all running in parallel.

Dianne Fienstein is still a twit

But she reiterated her concerns that Mr. Panetta wouldn't come to the job with significant intelligence experience. While acknowledging the CIA Director's job requires an operational skill set, "it's also a clandestine and covert service agency for the country. And as such, I think on the ground experience as a station agent in various parts of the world is vital."

How to sum up.... ah!

Bullshit.

This is an area in which I have some experience. One in which, actually, I have more real world experience than she does. Being a station agent is nice. It teaches one some things. It teaches one how to run sources, control a network, collate information.

It doesn't teach one what things are needful for the big picture. It doesn't make one less likely to be played by the insiders in the community. It tends to make one, actually, easier to persuade that certain types of operations are not only useful, but needful.

It tends to make one less concerned with the potential for blowback. Agents on the ground live in a world of short term concerns. The one they care about most is keeping their sources from getging burned.

I want a CIA director (and whatever it is they are calling the new guy... the Überchief who's suppose to be managing all the intel agencies) to be someone who is used to seeing the big picture. I want that someone to know how beauracracies work. And I wan't him to be someone committed to

1: Honest product. The touchstone of a good intel collector is the truthfulness of the analysis. If the answers are contrary to expectations, she reports them. If they are consonant, swell, but the thing which matters is that what is reported is the truth as best it is known.

2: Scrupulously independant. If the President says, "give me something I can use to make "x" happen," and the information isn't there. The CIA director has to be able to stand up and say, "no sir, can't do it."

3: Inscrutably honest, and concerned with reputation. If he tells the president the data don't support the desired policy, and the president tells him to cook the books, he has to be willing to resign, there and then. If it were me, I'd have a letter of resignation under lock and key in a safe at my house... lacking all but the date and signature.

The head of the CIA doesn't need to be a spook. Decades of spooks running the place is how it came to be what it is now.

That's worked out so well.