Letters to the Editor
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@ MacK..
I don't know where you get the idea that millions of illicit targets were eavesdropped on. This is sort of an eastern European "big lie" that kept people worried.
Maybe the news? AT&T was pushing a whole bunch of OC48a into a room with a Narus in it, according to reports. That's, according to some sources, a good part of all their bridging traffic, and could easily be millions of user's data.
Eavesdropping on millions of people would require tens of thousands of analysts. Even the Bushies would have found it tough to keep a lid on that.
Depends on what the "violation" is, doesn't it? If an FBI guy puts taps on 100 phones with tape recorders without warrant, but never listens to the tapes, is this illegal? Let's say the gummint was just looking for (and then, when identified, at) e-mails with the word "plutonium" in them. If they scanned a million e-mails, reading them for content to see if they contained that word, and passed on only those that don't, isn't that "content analysis"? Despite the fact that perhaps all that didn't have this were thrown away afterwards, they were still "scanned" and "cleared". How about if they were looking for "s3x" in them? Doesn't it say a bit about a person to know that they don't use that word (or at least "l33tsp33k")?
Cheers,
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Abolish the Senate
Back in the Old Days, when Senators were still chosen by state legislatures, the Abolition of the Senate was an occasional call of the Populists and even some of the Progressives. Ultimately they compromised with the direct election of Senators through the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.
In Canada, the abolition of the Senate comes up from time to time in Parliament to this day, and in America, the Green Party (USA) platform explicitly calls for the elimination of the Body.
And why not?
Just because the Senate has been (somewhat counterintuitively) the more "liberal" house of Congress during the recent Republican hegemony, it doesn't necessarily mean it would always be that way. In fact, when the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2007, the "parliamentary manoeuvers" -- ie: filibusters -- of the Republican minority, and Democratic leadership acquiescence to the minority hissy-fits have essentially turned the Senate harder to the right than it was when Rs were in control.
Abolish it.
Expand the House. Why do we have a 435 member House of Representatives for a nation of 300,000,000? It's insane. Expand the House to 1,500 or even 3,000. Let every constituent know their congressional reps (still overloading the reps, but hey...)
If we're ever going to have a Congress that represents the People, drop-kicking the Senate and expanding the House are essential.
(There are many ways to keep a pro-forma Senate as an advisory body only, but why bother? Just get rid of it.)
The latest episode of Senatorial perfidy under the leadership of Harry Reid (who apparently lost control of his little express train to amnesty for telcos) just goes to show what a dishonest institution the Senate is. While there is understandable blogospheric chest thumping over the decision to pull the telco give away and amnesty bill for now, think about what happened.
If Dodd, for example, hadn't been shamed or "persuaded" to take on issue with a hold and a filibuster, would he have done it on his own? Was there any institutional reason for him to do so? Even with is consistent Constitutionalist rhetoric?
The answer is no. He did it anyway, which is a good thing -- and has left Harry sputtering in the dust -- but it's unlikely he would have done it on his own, any more than St. Russell Feingold would do it on his own. For all the Principle these men have, they seem to have more loyalty to the institution than to their vaunted Principles. As we know, with a kind of shudder, Mrs. St. Hillary Clinton talked a good line, when she was shamed into it, but did noting. Same with Senator St. Barak Obama. Biden, too.
And as the Rs lined up to praise Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller for their outstanding, ahem, obeisance to the White House, and Orrin Hatch pontificated about the Grand Conspiracy Theories of the Blogosphere, while calling for a permanent state of abject terror over the Brown Folk Under Our Beds (Aiyieeeeee), it was clear these men (and some women) are fools.
Abolish the Senate. Let these poor people go.
Sheesh.
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@ MacK..
Don't get carried away by vanity, tapping phones is laborious and boring and consists of listening to Pizza orders, phone sex and discussions with someone's parents. Too many phonetaps is a huge, unmanageable effort.
I'd suggest you check out the log in your own first. I do happen to know a little bit about "taps", and suggest it may be presumptuous for you to lecture me on that.
Cheers,
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@RMP
Get out there and mix it up! Time's a wastin'.
I have the feeling that you, be bop, and I - and maybe one or two others operating in this little universe - are old mates, like those ghosts who came out to fight at the end of Lord of the Rings.
Old farts like us, familiar with some aspects of uniformed service, and, some of the younger vets too, might enjoy jumping up and getting it on in this big battle, if a few energetic Aragorns appeared out there, waving big broadswords and appealing to our better angels.
Onward! Down with the Orcs. Down with Mordor.
(Your wife probably could do with a bit more quality private time too.)
- End inspirational message -
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@ RMP
I have been, and am, a great admirer of your comments here -- honesty and decency often seem in short supply these days, until folks like you confirm that people of good will have always been out there, and are there still. It's heartening to hear that you're doing more than just encouraging others.
As bebop reminds us virtually every day, putting our hearts and our backs into the work as well as our minds isn't just the best antidote to despair, it's also an act of stewardship, one which can't help but have real consequences. Always be mindful of the garden, even in the midst of war.