From the stand point of a former spook, one of the worst things that Ronald Reagan did while in office was his televised explanation of why we bombed Tripoli, Libya. He threw away a priceless intelligence capability for no discernible reason.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about: the Libyans set off a bomb in a nightclub in Berlin that killed US personnel as well as local civilians. In retaliation the US bombed the Libyan capital and the Colonel’s personal compound.

Reagan went on the tube and told the world that we had intercepted the orders for the bombing from Libya to the Libyan mission in Berlin. That told the Libyans that their communications to their embassies weren’t secure, and they changed everything.

If Reagan had a decent National Security team, it would have been hinted that the information came from a source in Libya. So, instead of locking the US out of their diplomatic systems, the Libyans would have been looking for a traitor in their midst.

Well, Zero has done the same thing. Marcy Wheeler reports on the latest leaks: Behind Legion of Doom: Breaking “Encrypted Electronic Communications between High Level Al Qaeda Leaders”. It wasn’t just a conference call, it was an encrypted conference call that they now know we decrypted. All of the codes and procedures will be changed.

And these people have the gall to go after Snowden …

There has been a history of ‘plumbing’ in American politics. I put it down the reality that Washington DC used lead piping in its water system which has led to a lot of erratic thinking in the Village.

Of course, Tricky Dick’s merry band of mischief makers were known as ‘the Plumbers’, which was probably because they worked in the sewer of his paranoia.

Then in recent times there was another Republican icon, “Joe the Plumber”, who wasn’t actually named Joe, and wasn’t really a plumber, but Republicans aren’t really conservatives, so it all worked in their reality.

There was a real plumber named Joe, Joe Caldart, who showed BP how to cap the Well from Hell, but BP refuses to admit it, despite overwhelming evidence.

The latest mess is all about leaks, which is a major concern for plumbers. The government built this huge system to siphon off information from the “Tubes” and didn’t realize how easy it was for people inside their ‘sewage treatment plant’ to tap into the system.

When the government decided to privatize this collection process they guaranteed that there would be leaks. Every corporation involved is a new connection that will provide a new opportunity for leaks. When NSA was a true military/civil service operation, almost no one knew it even existed, much less what it did.