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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Too bad the Democrats didn't do a damn thing about it.
What's off the table? Accountability is off the table...
. . . how all of this ties in with the TIA program: remember "Total Information Awareness", with the eye-in-the-pyramid logo? The government was pressured to "shelve" that program, only for hints to emerge later that its name was simply changed.
I persist in my belief that law enforcement and security intelligence should be obtained based on probable-cause and targeted, warranted, data-gathering programs. Allowing agencies that are free from meaningful oversight (yet another issue) to conduct fishing expeditions on the general public doesn't sit well with me.
You are big brother and you want to implement a program that uses the
internet to create a dossier on every american so you covertly start a web
search business. What is your corporate slogan?
A) Have it your way
B) Think different
C) Do no evil
If we are to avert a national disaster caused by terrorists it is imperative that data be collected on all those considered to be threats to our national security. For heaven's sake, stop whinning!
Well hurry up, already! In 181 short [?] days we should get a new president. Hopefully.
Pelosi is just as much a war criminal as Bush and Cheney. If you are naive enough to think that ANYONE in this corrupt government will stand up for the rule of law, then I have a bridge to sell you. Every Democrat and Republican in government today is a corrupt criminal trying as hard as they can to steal taxpayer money and deprive the American public from participating in government. If Obama does what his surrogates say he will, and sweeps the crimes of the last 8 years under the rug, this country will be have crossed the very last barrier to facism. Not to worry, though. There are more than enough brown shirts for the Democratic and Republican neocon patriots to wear. And Halliburton is building detention centers as fast as they can for the rest of us. Cheers.
Thanks, RMP. I signed the letter.
-Derek
He is clearly not going to take any retributive action against "Bush's historic abuse of power."
He's proven he'll do nohting about impeachment, or about telecom immunity, or FISA overhaul.
Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader have staked out progressive positions. If principle is to mean anything on these issues, McKinney and Nader should be getting Progressives' votes. Not Obama. It is hard to complain about the Congressional Democrats' spinelessnes if you don't show some backbone yourself.
But I'm not sure it's historic. Abraham Lincoln's abuse of executive power as part of "wartime necessity", including suspension of habeaus corpus and effective house arrest of the Governor and preventing the Maryland from meeting, as well as interference in the 1864 presidential elections, really takes the cake on executive abuses of power and is the template for Bush's actions since 911.
As for spying on the populace, LB Johnson-Nixon's "cointelpro" program of spying on individuals and infiltrating and "destabilizing" the SDS and other organizations--left and right--was the parent of Bush's activities, too.
Doesn't justify Bush, or his predecessors. It does render Bush far less "historic" than Lincoln, JOhnson, and Nixon in these abuses of executive authority.
People would be really shocked if they knew just how powerful this technology is. When they say it is "like Google" they mean like Google if Google had the resources available to the NSA, and those resources make the entire Google server farm look like a toy.
Almost no one remembers Perry Fellwock who was the first, and pretty much only, NSA operative to come forward with the truth. And the Truth as he told Ramparts magazine back in 1972 (http://jya.com/nsa-elint.htm) is that NSA has been spying on Americans since the 70's and even earlier. Even at that time they were able to monitor all transatlantic phone calls, cables, and telex's for key words, voiceprints and telephone numbers of interest.
There is nothing new about any of this, except that now, thanks to the power of the computer, their power has grown exponentially. If I type Mr. Uxelpilg in this post and then Google it later, this post will come up. That's in Google; if NSA makes the same inquiry they could link it to me, and then my emails, web pages visited, bank accounts, anything, everything. Some people think that is a good thing, those people are credulous and trusting sheep, who will suspect nothing until the day comes when Obama/McCain/Bush (same gang, no difference) invokes NSPD 51 and the ersatz "national emergency" is declared and the roundups begin. Of course those sheep will in fact have nothing to worry about, (except for those pesky "false positives") -- it will be the leader types who are rounded up and sent to the FEMA detention facilties. The pathetic cowards who defend their oligarchical overlords will be left alone to live their miserable fear driven lives.
To read more on the power of data mining have a look at this article by a data miner at Kos... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/16/13030/3804
As for the pending "investigation"... well that's the best laugh I have had all morning, as Glenn Greenwald demonstrated recently, the entire apparatus of the Democrat party is complicit in the worst excesses of the Buhs/Cheney regime. There may be an "investigation", but like the many others that proceeded it -- there will be no indictments. In fact, I can sum it up now, just a bit ahead of time. Here it is:
"The Congressional Report on Crimes, Misdemeanors, and certain incidents in the Buhs White House"9/11. Terror. Nothing to see here, move along please... Terror. 9/11
when someone like elephantman sings the praise of Nader, i seriously reconsider the spoiler nametag, a nametag I have vehemently denied. the more republicans i see endorsing Nader, the more likely I am to vote Obama.
Of course, it may be the only strategy they have to beet Obama that will work... and why is that? Why would that strategy work?
ssia
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
