What's on Dick Chaney's iPod?

The brilliant and charming Athenae over at First Draft asks, "What do you think is on Dick Cheney's iPod.

At first I thought he was listening to NTodd's podcast or Friday Coffee Blogging from my good friends over at Candleblog. Wouldn't it have been cool to hear some of the top secret mp3s on his iPod?

As regular readers of this site know I have several readers of this site in the CIA and NSA and five agencies that are so secret that if I even told you the initials I would get throw in jail faster that you can say Yankee White Cosmic Top Secret. (Which isn't used much these days anyway, but still.)

So here is part of the mp3 that was leaked to ol' Spocko as a "joke" from my buddies. Of course they wouldn't be asking for money, they are just too smart for that, they would be asking for protection from blame and to stop the law breaking. You see it just PISSES them off when Cheney and Bush do shit that they could have done LEGALLY and CLASSIFIED but they decided that they just didn't want to go through the paperwork.

Yea, paperwork is a pain in the ass, but if you know how easy it is to listen in on stuff once everything is set up, you WANT there to be some guidelines. You KNOW how easy it is to be misused and WANT oversight, which isn't the same and wanting terrorists to get away. It is the people who KNOW what power is available that understand and respect the law--hard as that is for some people to believe. Especially since when it might be their ass that gets hung out to dry for breaking the law.

I think sometimes people forget that the folks in the NSA and the CIA have ideals and values too. They don't like being caught with their pants down or missing the intelligence boat, they have families too and live in areas that are targets. They know that a huge problem with all intelligence is lack of correct focus. When you are looking left when the problems are happening right you miss the good stuff. Spending resources in the wrong way just because you want to cast a hugh net isn't smart either, translating worthless crap takes time and processing cycles.

And some of the people know history and the chaos that happened so that certain laws were enacted. They remember or have at least read about abuses and that personal and institutional memory keeps popping up when someone asks them to cross the line. It is such an easy step from terrorist tracking to anyone making an overseas call, and if that person happens to be a political opponent making that call, well...

what is especially galling is that line DIDN'T NEED TO BE CROSSED! FISC is a lapdog rubberstamp and everyone knows it. You were guilty and lazy and we all know it.

Anyway, I changed the mp3 transcript a bit so as not to get myself in trouble and to make it funnier.


"Hi, Dick. Yes we know all about the lies and the deception, but we will be holding off on revealing them to the American public if you pay us the rest of the cash you were sending our way before journalism payola scandal broke. We were smarter than those idiots who got caught. But we held off not out of the goodness of our heart, but to lay low till things cooled down. And maybe to up the asking price a bit. I mean what's a few million between friends? Oh, in case you think we are bluffing we can deliver more than just the bombshell we delivered to the NYTimes last week. We know where all the bodies are buried Dick, we watched you while you were burying them.

Oh, and we have audio and video, thanks for the non-warrant free ride. I mean how were we to know that YOUR calls would fall into our collection bucket? I mean you do call people overseas with terrorist connections (think about it, you know who we are talking about. Do the initials HB, KBR and BT mean anything to you?)

What could we deliver? Do you think that the podcast of you in the energy meeting talking about carving up Iraq following the war would be a big seller on iTunes? You know the meeting, the one that was pre-9/11. Where you folded you hands together in a praylike fashion and said, "Look, one way or another, we will in fact control Iraq oil in the Middle East." "Or maybe they would like to hear you say on the phone to Brownie, "Fuck those dirty bastards in New Orleans, they made their bed now they can lie in it. We'll help Barber and that will teach those bastards to put a Democrat in power when we are running the government." Of course those are only the ones that make you look bad politically, you don't really care about those, you aren't running for office again. Its the ones we have of you actually breaking laws that are the most interesting to us. You broke so many laws in such a short time it is almost an embarrassment of riches. Yeah, you thought those calls weren't tapped didn't you? Who do you think certified the "secure phone"? We did. Sure it's secure from others, just not from us. Let's just say the calls involved trains, planes and mayo. I know you think we are a bunch of cowboys worshipping trees, but

Yeah, we are a sneaky group, but then that is why you love and hate us. You fucked up Dick, you trusted us. Don't you think we learned from Nixon too? Well you know our Swiss Account numbers. We'll be back in touch after the holidays, looking forward to what Santa will leave in our stocking.
Love,
The CIA
P.S. Stop listening to Radiohead! You should really listen to Nelly and then watch this great video on your new video iPod [www.transbuddha.com] We think you'll identify with the main character