TheYatesMachine

You're wonderful! I hope you have a great Friday, and your weekend is the best of 2015 so far!

Former US Military Intelligence Officer here... I'm working on my master's degree but I really miss the military.

I want some more excitement and I'm considering joining the FFL when I'm finished with my degree.

To my understanding, regardless of my rank in the US military or background, when I join the Legion I'll be back at the bottom rung. I've been a private before, and I can do it again, but I wanted clarification and my email to the FFL was never answered.

Can you make that a little clearer for me?

It's kind of frustrating to see that a lot of the top questions for this AMA are things people can learn just by googling Jerimiah Denton, or looking it up on Wikipedia.

Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

You're playing a very dangerous game. I understand that unacceptable and illegal actions taken against US Citizens should be brought to light, but labeling people heroes for purposefully exposing Top Secret documents and activities is the wrong answer; it fosters a climate of irresponsibility.

Manning's leaks were spiteful, and most certainly resulted in men and women serving in clandestine operations to be compromised or killed. Untold amounts of tax payer money spent on sensitive operations were just flushed down the toilet.

Snowden's leaks have the actual virtue of maintaining some semblance of whistleblowing, but calling him a hero is wrong, as well. Snowden sees himself as a celebrity vigilante. Anyone who has the clearance knows the proper way to bring that sort of information to the proper authorities. Blasting information to the newspapers and wikileaks, then being praised as a hero by the world will undoubtedly breed a desire for others to have their names in headlines by doing the same thing.

I really regret and I'm ashamed that people like yourself, Snowden and Manning have been given the same measure of trust and confidence that other quiet intelligence professionals have. You've turned security into your own game for your own purposes. Your book and movie deals are not worth the lives of professionals you've put at risk, nor is it worth the billions of dollars in reconstruction of procedures in developing and handling sensitive data.