"Still, I’d take this article with a grain of salt - the “intelligence officials” quoted clearly have their own agenda here, and are spinning furiously. But whether or not this ThinThread was really Greatest. Telephony surveillance system. EVAR. as the article claims, (and whether or not such a program actually ever existed) it does point out, once again, what is really at issue with this domestic spying program: the complete lack of oversight and accountability. It would be trivial to implement an encryption system which would protect the identity of the person whose phone records were being analyzed, just as it would be perfectly possible to abide by FISA while conducting this surveillance. But this was not done.I'm a bit wary of this ThinThread story, too. but still...And so the question becomes: why was none of this done? The (bullshit) answer we get is that it was not done because the President can do whatever he wants when he decides we are “at war”, and he doesn’t have to tell you shit. But this isn’t an answer. Even if you didn’t have to, why wouldn’t you be interested, just on general principles, in trying to protect the privacy of Americans who you have absolutely no reason to suspect are involved in terrorism? Even if you didn’t have to, why wouldn’t you try to work with the Congress and the courts, just to ensure that everything could be carried out smoothly? In order to make some legal/philosophical point about the Unitary Executive? Because you forgot? Because you didn’t have the time?
Bullshit. The lack of oversight and the lack of privacy protection is not a bug; it’s a feature. This program was not intended to catch terrorists - it was intended to give the White House access, invisibly, to information about private citizens which it wouldn’t otherwise be allowed to have. (We’ve seen the tip of this iceberg already.) The goals of this program are political. There’s just no other plausible reason to conduct the program this way."
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
not intended to catch terrorists
the PoorMan on ThinThread (this one's for Noise):
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9 comments:
wonder how many more democrats will be exposed between now and november?
wonder how many leaks about dems will we see?
sigh
br3n
hiya br3n - thnx for dropping by.
it's going to be an amazing 6 months - that's for sure. hold on to your hat! there will be much political blood in the streets (and hopefully no real blood)
The line, "The Presdient can do whatever he wants" is LITERALLY a GOP line. When Harriet Miers was nominated for the SC, I called every single member of the Judicary Committee, plus the majority and minority committee staff to ask if there was a legal precedence for a president appointing his personal attorney or WH Counsel. The majority staffperson kept repeating the same line, no matter what question I asked or what comment I made. "The president can appoint whoever he wants. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Finally, I said apparently not, since Congressional oversight and advice and consent are not in your programming. I felt like I had called Stepford. The minority staff, on the other hand, researched the question and got back to me with the answer. Only once, Andrew Jackson had appointed Roger Tanney. N0 one had ever appointed their current WH Counsel. The staff then added a question to Harriet's questionarie about how she would handle cases involving her client. Her answer flunked and she withdrew. Curiously, Andrew Jackson is the only president who was ever censured. I think we should change that and add the Great Deceiver to that history footnote and then some. I'm starting to think Impeachment is too damned good for this son of a battle axe. He thinks our Constitution makes good toilet paper.
P.S. Harriet was also asked to produce copies of some of her advice as WH Counsel, which she refused to do, requiring her to withdraw her name.
nice work kathleen!
the miers nomination really was a fabulous moment. i almost wish it had succeeded.
I believe Mr. Klein in his AT&T statement (or similar document) mentions that what he discovered brought TIA to mind immediately.
I think the War on Terror is a think tank marketing project to implement a police state. But I guess nobody likes to dwell in in the "Land of Cynicism" so I hoped that the Democrats were going to object to domestic spying and data mining based on the (flimsy) pretext of tracking Al Qaeda.
12 to 3 vote for confirmation with an endorsement from former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-FL) does not rekindle one's faith in our elected officials.
TIA isnt dead... it's now called "Basketball"
"I think the War on Terror is a think tank marketing project to implement a police state."
i think you are correct - but i think we need to ask the next question: "I think the War on Terror is a think tank marketing project to implement a police state - BECAUSE..."
i presume that it's becuase the people doing the implemeting are out-and-out criminals and are scared that they'll get caught - but we're doing our best to catch 'em
"I think the War on Terror is a think tank marketing project to implement a police state - BECAUSE..."
i presume that it's becuase the people doing the implemeting are out-and-out criminals and are scared that they'll get caught - but we're doing our best to catch 'em
In line with your comments, here's a possible scenario:
A klepotcratic plutocracy. The Iran/Contra crowd found themselves another Reagan and added the element of fearmongering..."Congress can't investigate any of this because that would embolden the terrorists. Besides, we need all our resources available for "fighting terror" and "exporting democracy."
So the think tanks sociopaths got to play imperialism with real human beings and Bush's base cleaned up due to deregulation and military assisted creation of new business opportunities.
The police state is put in place because there is no such thing as accountability if one faction has all the power/weapons.
Motive is the million dollar question.
Yeah and how about millions of dollars is the motive? Peace is not profitable. They need their perpetual war to keep making those defense dollars for the right people. And of course, the added benefit of having a police state just means they'll have little or no interference with the PLAN. it works for them.
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