November 17, 2015–Readers here will have seen me from time to time lamenting the antics of people like Fearful Leader–Director of National Intelligence James Clapper–or agencies such as the CIA and NSA. It’s time to do it again today. It seems the security services have forgotten that they work for the American people, and not the other way around. Let’s be certain no mistake is made here.

Yesterday at a Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CIA director John O. Brennan used the occasion of the Paris attacks to make strident demands for new powers of investigation, intrusive and insistent. It is stunning–and shabby– that the CIA director should use the tragedy of the Paris attacks to advance these demands. They involve a question already asked and answered. There was a presidential decision. It went against the CIA. Who does Brennan work for?

I let pass an opportunity to comment some weeks ago, when the current FBI director, James Comey, went around demanding that the NSA and FBI be given the power to dictate encryption standards for communication devices, or at a minimum that the security services have a “back door” built into encryption programs so they can surreptitiously read messages people think are secure. I thought the issues had been thoroughly aired in the debate after the Snowden affair. Congress has passed a law. In the last week the Courts have again ruled the NSA eavesdropping unconstitutional. And even President Obama, friend of the intelligence agencies, ruled against Comey’s demands.

Then come the Paris attacks. Yesterday I commented on Fearful Clapper latest mongering. Afraid even to reveal his name, Mr. Clapper set the stage for Brennan’s CSIS appearance, and his remarks spy chieftain Brennan presses for the same things Comey did. As if the decision had not already been made. As if CIA can force Obama to reopen the question. As if the security services can reargue any issue until it comes out the way they want. It’s the same arrogance CIA displays over declassifying its dirty laundry on torture.

At Reuters I posted a piece on manhunts in the wake of Paris. There is good reason to suppose the attacks will end up damaging the jihadi perpetrators far more than the French republic.  This is with only the presently-existing techniques. (And, indeed, I am not aware the security services, U.S. in particular, are short of any technology or authority they need to find the bad guys.) Do not listen to the fear mongers!