Monday, July 03, 2006

911 changed everything nothing)

* bloomberg:
"The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks..."
(I wrote about this back in May - where i noted that if the spying started 'shortly after 911', that the infrastructure must have been in place before then. 911 changed everything nothing)

* dana priest shivved bill bennett on MTP. priceless. 'some people want to ban gambling...'

* janemayer:
"All Presidents, it is said, overreach during wartime, but, according to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., whom I had the pleasure of interviewing for my article, the Bush White House has done this differently. While earlier Presidents have, as you say, suspended ordinary laws, he suggests that earlier Presidents did not assert that this was their inherent constitutional right. In contrast, Schlesinger says, the Bush White House has taken these infamous aberrations and woven them together into a doctrine of Presidential power."

13 comments:

Don said...

post-9/11 world = pre-1776 America

Anonymous said...

the look on bill bennett's face was fucking great, lol. and his finger-steepling or whatever he thought he was doing w/his hands. :-)

lukery said...

did judy do a great job? or was the show particularly entertaining by accident?

even harwood joined in on the fun!

billbennett burn in hell

lukery said...

don - pre-genocide? yay!

Don said...

don - pre-genocide? yay!

Without a constitution... under King George (III)...

(genocide?)

lukery said...

genocide: american indian

(i have a particular interest because the same thing happened here. 40,000 years of history wiped out in a few decades)

Don said...

Ah. Got it. Never thought of it as a genocide; you never see it depicted as such, and there are more than a few Indians running around in my neck of the woods, likely a higher percentage of the population here than Aborigines or Maori down under...

...but sadly, it fits.

Don said...

I suppose, thinking about it, it does extend the intended metaphor. Once more now, as then, the true 'savages' are the ones in government pointing fingers.

lukery said...

other people do 'genocide' - not 'us'

"you never see it depicted as such,"
indeed.

Anonymous said...

not only did 9/11 change nothing but it should be obvious that their reasoning for the spying didn't protect US at all. i'm so waiting for someone on the right to point this out, but i ain't holding my breath.

Anonymous said...

Rimone,

Agree totally! As someone said on DU, their NSA spy program prior to 9/11 either:

a) indicates that they were totally incompetent and that these "stepped up" efforts didn't stop 9/11.

or

b) the NSA spy program had NOTHING to do with stopping terrorism, and everything to do with moving towards their totalitarian state dreams!

I really don't see any other explanation. I vote B! If they were really trying to step up efforts to go after terrorists before 9/11, then Richard Clarke wouldn't have felt ignored, and Cheney would have attended A meeting of the anti-terrorism task force then.

Anonymous said...

Calipendence,

Former FBI Agent Colleen Rowley has been saying for ages now that the NSA spying began well before 9/11. If they were spying to prevent terrorism, they sure sucked at it.

No, they were spying on citizens to get stuff on opponents to intimidate them and that's why they still do it. They can't get FISA warrant for harrassing people.

With Bush's parents and Bin Laden's parent being friends, does anyone seriously thing they are looking for OBL?

Hell, they get him to send in tapes just in the knick of time to give everyone their booster shot of fear.

It's a Pavlocracy. The conditioning will be continual.

lukery said...

i love 'pavlocracy' :-)