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June 18, 2013 06:58 AM UTC
31 Comments
he Democrats and President Obama entered the Orwellian world of "newspeak" – joining George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of the Republican party. Last night Charlie Rose aired an interview with the President during which he called the NSA surveillance programs "transparenf."
So, let's see how this works:
We have a super secret agency
Operating under super secret legal authority
Engaging in super secret data collection programs.
On those rare occasions when they think they have no other choice, this
Super secret agency makes a
Super secret application to
A super secret court
Which rubber stamps all of these applications with super secret orders.
What could be more transparent than that?
Calling that process transparent is truly Orwellian. Here's hoping Congress stands up and does its job.
Watching NSA director Keith Alexander on C-SPAN3 right now, and he was just asked "Does the NSA have the technology to flip a switch and listen-in on American's phone calls?", to which he replied, "No."
I can understand if he were to answer that is not allowed under FISA, but I'm pretty sure he just said that the technology doesn't exist.
Anyone in charge of a corporate telephone/Internet network has the capability to do that kind of snooping….how can they insist the the freakin' NSA doesn't have that technology? By splitting hairs that it takes more then just "flipping a switching" ? Do you have to flip two or three switches?
Because they don't actually own the technology, perhaps. My understanding is the way the old law was circumvented is that private industry collects the data (owns the technology) and allows (charges …more like) the government to use the data. So …technically…in a way…he is being truthful.
Need better questions from the reporters.
That kind of makes sense. They were just talking about how there are 22 people at NSA who can initiate queries into their FISA-restricted dataset….but over 1000 system administrators who work with it around the world- the "majority of whom are contractors."
There is a worrisome stat for ya.
Corporations are people…money is speech.
Even more worrisome is that Michelle Bachmann is on the comittee. She just asked Gen. Alexander if the NSA has a copy of "every e-mail ever sent by an American".
He looks like he wants to get up and slap the stupid out of her….can't say I'd blame him if he did.
That might not be as stupid as it sounds.
In the mid-90's the military kept full network traffic logs of all communication going into the military network. If, as is purported, the government has tapped in to the backbone routers of the Internet, it isn't at all far-fetched to assume that they could, if they so chose, archive all e-mail sent in this country, along with social network traffic, VOIP traffic, or anything else they wanted.
And private corporate subcontractors occupy a very murky place in any chain of command or accountability. See Iraq. Often the answer to the question… under which system of law are they required to operate…. was effectively none of them.
The question shouldn't be confined to whether or not we trust our government under this particular administration to steer clear of abuse. It's not just about whether or not you trust Obama and his appointees. The question should be do we trust every private contractor and every future administration to do so.
That's why those who say "I've done nothing wrong so I don't care if they secretly record all my calls and e-mails. Nothing to hide here" are idiots. There is no guarantee that there will never be a government that won't be happy to use this power to secretly claim anything they damn please was found in your calls or e-mails just because you belong to the wrong party or signed the wrong petition or blew the whistle on corruption.
This is the problem with war on something like terrorism that no will ever be able to say definitively no longer exists. War powers and loss of freedom become perpetual with a perpetual war. In any case, rights once surrendered are rarely, if ever, returned. So it's not goodbye until the war on terrorism is won. It's just goodbye.
It's probably going to a secure web page, setting the search criteria, and then clicking submit. So he's correct, there's no switch involved.
Depending on the language the site is written in, there could very-well be a
switchin the code somewhere. 🙂I think you're gonna be hard-pressed to find anyone who'll defend the President or the NSA in this. It's wrong. It was wrong before, and it's wrong now.
And, totally legal.
This spy stuff is REALLY big business, nowadays.
The public interest is not readily apparent in many of the actions of our government, including, I am sorry to say, our president. When the spy guys and the for-profit prison industry get hooked up, look out, the profits should be outta sight.
Makes you want to re-read "Brave New World"….
… Even more to the point, Eisenhower's military-industrial complex …
Cheney's boys gotta find some way to keep their greasy, chubby paws in the taxpayers till, now that we're running out of middle-eastern countries to invade!!
Syria?
Iran
Egypt (even though it is technically Africa)
Israel
Jordan
Saudia Arabia
Nice connection, Duke, with the for-profit prison industry. Then you add in the for-sale judicial industry…the compliant media industry…the anti-education for-profit education industry….
We're fucked.
If the President was anything in his public response, it was transparently cagey.
yep…+1
Dear Pols,
Your webserver is annoyingly SLOW today.
It's the NSA co-server they just got installed. Slows down everything…
+1 to both Daves here. The server is annoyingly slow. And it's probably time to re-institute the use of NSA Line Eater signatures.
You would know, David,…probably got the contract. Speaking of which, did you know anything about the NSA program and ALL the contractors involved before the leaks???
Whew. I always think it must be my old computer when stuff slows down.
It's good to see Rep. Jared Polis's (CO-02) name on the co-sponsor list of the House LIBERT-E Act.
With his co-sponsorship, Polis joins Sen. Mark Udall in asking for transparency and limitations on government evesdropping powers. Way to go, Colorado.
Good for Jared.
It's nice to see a Respresntative who actually understands the ins-and-outs of how technology works. I'm a software engineer, and during the SOPA/PIPA debates, man, there was some stupid shit that got said by members of Congress! It drove me batty to see them go on TV and make absolutely no sense when talking about anything remotely technical, and then still try and pass laws about it.
Once again Jared is out front with some really good legislation. It's too bad we don't have more like him.
A compassionate progressive Representative who's also smart? And wise? And hard working? Has Colorado's Second District died and gone to heaven?
Plutonium Implosion Trigger
Weaponized Anthrax
Just to keep some people a Buckley employed.