Saturday Open Thread [6.8.13]
Yesterday, President Obama strongly defended the NSA’s Big Surveillance program:
Obama, who ran for president in 2008 on a platform of reversing some of the Bush administration’s encroachments on civil liberties, instead defended the programs. ”I came in with a healthy skepticism about these program,” Obama said, noting his administration has strengthened some program safeguards. “My assessment and my team’s assessment is that they help us prevent terrorist attacks.”
Program safeguards. Anyone know what those are? And, of course, if you just tell people that terrorist attacks are prevented, you’re going to get a Pretty Big Pass. But this is the thing that set my teeth on edge every time I heard it yesterday:
“If people don’t trust the executive branch, and also congress and the judicial branch, then we’re going to have some problems here,” Obama admitted.
There is something very Alice in Wonderland about this statement. Because this is a government that has one branch still trying to defund ACORN — even though they no longer exist. This is a government that has one branch taking more votes on abortion and Obamacare than they are on resolving the unemployment crisis. This is a government who — at all levels — works harder at making sure that American business is better taken care of than American citizens. This is a government who can’t even come to terms on a rational budget — which is basically why they even exist — yet they spend a half of a normal work year not getting that done. We have a branch of government who is ruling that corporations have the rights of human American citizens. And yet, as completely dysfunctional as portions of this government works hard at being — because dysfunction is the point — we have the otherwise very smart President of the United States making a straight-faced case for trust in these institutions to provide oversight to a giant Big Data program that I’d bet ALOT of money, the majority of them don’t understand.
In other news, the House voted to start deporting the DREAMERS, in opposition to the President’s policy. One more outreach fail for the rebranding GOP — and given that Marco Rubio is now actively trying to kill immigration reform, I’ve yet to hear anything from activists pushing back. Which doesn’t mean they aren’t — but those reports aren’t in the news I see yet. Hope someone has batter info than I do on this.
And Rmoney is back and he is doing a public (and publicly embarassing) post mortem on his failed campaign. He thinks that Hurricane Sandy helped Obama at the end of the campaign. (Noting, of course, that if a natural disaster had somehow helped Rmoney get into the White House, we would be treated to a neverending claim that God wanted Romney to win, right?) And a “leading Democrat” thought Romney would win a week ahead of the election. I’m guessing that this was Joe Lieberman. Who else would be relying on Rasmussen to judge this election?
Anyway, I’m off to Baltimore for the day. What interests you today?
Bob Cesca does the work of tracking how the story on the NSA’s access to the servers of major ISPs and other data companies has changed over the week. I could hear some of the evolution of the reporting of the details of this story on NPR throughout the day too. Even though the story has chanced some, it is still worthwhile asking whether or not this is a good use of resources, whether these programs are adequately policed (I’d bet not) and whether this is a good way for the government do perform policing. I objected to the Patriot Act implementation (and all of its secret data collection and surveillance) when BushCo sold this massive bit of business to the country (more pages than the ACA!) without giving people time to understand its ramifications. And I still do.
The whistleblower on the NSA information being reported on by The Guardian is Edward Snowden — and ex-CIA assistant and Defense contractor employee. Lots of principle and courage by this guy.
I think this is the one and only issue the far left and far right can work together on. I dont think anyone wants to live in nazi germany, or the former ussr, and with this new secret theft of our american liberties, that is exactly where we are heading
(Synthetic Terrorism by Webster Tarpley) You’ll never be able to give up enough of your privacy and your civil rights to prevent terrism like the Boston boys, etc.
If Snowden exposed illegal activities, he is a patriot. Perhaps even a hero. If he exposed national security activities that was being conducted legally, within the bounds established by the legislative branch, and with appropriate oversight of the judiciary, then he is a traitor. I just that simple.
Everything anti-American now has the cover of law. Legal doesn’t make it right. And if our enemies are so stupid they didn’t know we were collecting all phone records, then they aren’t enemies worth worrying about. That kind of ignorance is dangerous. It is only the gullible American public who was unaware of the disclosures. It is patriotic either way you slice it.
And by the way, there will be unsavory information coming out about Snowden, fake or not. Whistleblowers are never perfect individuals.
Mark Udall and Ron Wyden are both on the Senate Intelligence Overight Committee, and they disagree with the President on the balance between security and privacy these programs supposedly operate under.
But Congress is prohibited from talking about these programs so the President is insulated from any public pressure. The debate is taking place entirely within Congress, and not necessarily all Congressmen know the details either. This info has been out for a while but Americans chose not to know. There is no doubt they are also storing recordings of every phone call or Internet transmission. They don’t even have to decrypt it or listen to it now; they can wait until the technology improves and decryption and voice-to-text becomes trivial.
“Legal doesn’t make it right.”
True. And in a civilized nation the rule of law provides recourse when righting wrongs. A place where each individual decides what is right and acts accordingly, even when contrary to the rule of law, is a place where anarchy reigns. It effectively invalidates all law because each individual gets to decide for themselves what they consider right, from stopping at red lights to pouring toxic wastes into streams, to anything that society has done to promote general welfare of its people. It makes a mockery of and legitimizes everything that we have done over our history in using the law to right wrongs from slavery to prevailing wage. Our society is held together, not just by common interest and intent. It is primarily because we have decided that we would governed by laws lest we be governed by the whim of a few or not at all.
Snowen is an avowed Obama hater and a Tea Party supporter of Rand Paul he is a traitor to to this country for he exposed state secrets which aids our enemies and not government wrong doing he should be hunted down and shot in the head on the streets of Moscow if necessary.
I know this is a bit harsh but this is the way to protect your country from scum like this.
Puck there is a reason congress is prohibited from revealing states secrets by your way of thinking the press had a right to print the date and time of the Normandy invasion commonly known as D Day.
I never thought I would agree with anyone on here. Edward Snowden is a hero. In the private sector he is called a whistleblower. In the government he is being called a leaker.