Set the DVRs for 11pm EDT. Joe Coscarelli at NYMag:
In his first public comments on Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, President Obama tells Charlie Rose, “The way I view it, my job is both to protect the American people and to protect the American way of life, which includes our privacy.” The interview, scheduled to air tonight on PBS, features the president calling the need to sacrifice freedom for security “a false choice” and insisting “unequivocally … that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not.”…
While he refuses to comment on the investigation into Snowden’s leaks, Obama lays out a vague plan for moving forward: “What I’ve asked the intelligence community to do is see how much of this we can declassify without further compromising the program, number one,” he says. “Number two: I’ve stood up a privacy and civil liberties oversight board, made up of independent citizens including some fierce civil libertarians. I’ll be meeting with them. And what I want to do is to set up and structure a national conversation, not only about these two programs, but also the general problem of data, big data sets, because this is not going to be restricted to government entities.”…
My emphasis. Buzzfeed has a partial transcription; it is… very Charlie Rose.
David Koch
It’s well known prisoners in GITMO are tortured by forcing them watch Mr Totebag.
Elie
How specific would Obama have to be to avoid your label “vague”? Specific tasks and due dates to send the whole surveillance process to you for review and sign off? We should all know everything, right?
Villago Delenda Est
I understand Chuck Todd’s panties are in a bunch because of the partial transcript being out over on Buzzfeed.
Well, time for yet another Blogger ethics panel, I guess…
Lolis
I much prefer a discussion about this than the IRS, Benghazi or whatever bullshit the media usually asks about. I don’t mind if Obama takes heat for this because he can also use it as an opportunity to make changes his supporters have wanted. Clearly the White House views it that way as well.
Baud
Really, Mr. President. Charlie Rose? And to think I defended you….
Elie
@Lolis:
That is true — and I hope he takes advantage of the door opened by this…
Baud
@Lolis:
I agree. Despite the trolls, at least the issue is a substantive one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Heh. My thoughts exactly. This is proof Obama doesn’t want anyone to hear what he has to say.
@Lolis: Mike Rogers is defending the NSA and calling on the White House to prove there was no criminal behavior in Benghazi!
NickT
@Elie:
Well, we all know that Obama should just have waved a magic wand and yelled “Expelliarmus NSA!”.
hidflect
” the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls…”
Ha! The semantics of a lawyer. Maybe the NSA can’t listen but the some organisation or company CAN. And the NSA then coerce that organisation to supply those records. See? What a dissembling shill for the controllers behind the curtain this guy is…
SiubhanDuinne
@Elie:
Your point is fine, but “vague” is Joe Coscarelli’s word, not Anne Laurie’s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hidflect: If you put mayonnaise in the inside of your tinfoil cap it will block the NSA and Booz Hamilton, Ignatius.
Anne Laurie
@Elie:
“Vague” was not my wording, sorry. What interested me was the President asking for a “national conversation”, because I’m obviously in favor of that!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Hey, at lest he isn’t justifying it (unlike some presidents I can mention) so there is hope.
Elie
@NickT:
Everytime I think that every nuance of Obama derangement syndrome must have been manifest, there is always another one developing …
He hit the national stage during chaos and though he has made it better in some ways, the world is just another reality from even W’s era. We are in a different world and its not yet as different as it is going to be. He is the mirror reflecting our hopes and the absorber of our dreams and our anger.
NickT
@Anne Laurie:
So, using our magical libertarian decoder rings after tapping our toes twice and hopping widdershins for a dormie three, we conclude that you are the secret ninja assassin squad sent by Obama to take out Edward Snowden in Operation Multiplex Triad Dolphin.
David Koch
@hidflect:
Kill all the lawyers first. Stand with Rand!
Elie
@Anne Laurie:
I apologize — you are right — it was the author Joe Coscarelli who actually wrote that..
I want the conversationt — very much.
I think we are having it but it will be bizarre at times and swirl every which way
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: One of the trolls was asking the other day what might be that one step too far for “Bots.” We may have found it.
Mnemosyne
@hidflect:
To what purpose? They can’t arrest you or even get a warrant based on information they obtained illegally. Are we entering black helicopter territory?
schrodinger's cat
Oh noes not Charlie Rose and his table of doom (and boredom).
NickT
@Mnemosyne:
How did you find out about the black helicopters!? Only Agents Greenwald and Snowden had the necessary clearances for Operation Disinformation.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Truth be told, Obama has been a big disappointment in this area. He has the NSA spying on everything we do, he has drones, and yet there still be trolls on Balloon Juice…
This is NOT what I voted for, Mr. President.
White Trash Liberal
Why wasn’t Snowden asked to clarify what server access the NSA had to the major corporations? Seemed like an ideal question, especially now, given this interview. We are attempting a national dialogue… Right?
Bueller?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
The exclusionary rule is a mechanism to enforce the Fourth Amendment. It is not the point of the Fourth Amendment.
NickT
@Baud:
And Starbucks is still burning their goddamn coffee! Where is the hope and change in that, eh?
JWL
Michelle Bachman is a member of the House “Intelligence” Committee.
I submit that if she is deemed qualified to be informed about our national security secrets, then I am too.
If Obama wasn’t blowing smoke, he would have commandeered the airwaves in a presidential address to the nation in order to make his case.
Instead, what route does he go?
Fucking Charlie Rose. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: How’s that hopey changey thing working out for ya?
? Martin
It won’t matter. Libertarians are like birthers. Unless they have physical evidence in their hands that refutes everything in their imagination, they’ll never be satisfied.
Now, it’d be nice if:
A) Congress actually attended the briefings set up for them and
B) if they attend, having enough briefings so Congress doesn’t need hearings
Then we could get assurances from our elected officials. That should matter more than a citizens panel. Of course, Congress should be more trusted than Ariel Castro taking your daughter on a date. And the citizens panel would probably leak less.
gbear
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey, if it puts of Chuck Todd’s undies in a bundle, it’s all good.
PsiFighter37
@White Trash Liberal: It’s hard to find where all the truthiness is when you’re wearing the emperor’s new clothes.
I bet the reason they haven’t grabbed Snowden’s ass yet is they did a check on what he had access to, probably saw he had access to nothing of importance, and will let him get his 15 minutes. Then that fucker will realize he has no money and less prospects, and that’s when we’ll see a newly-born grifter trying to get his grift on.
Omnes Omnibus
@gbear: See! You’d defend anything he does.
NickT
@Omnes Omnibus:
That whole rooting for the Bears thing is pretty hard to spin positively.
fuckwit
This is it! This is the money quote right here:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/is-democratic-criticism-on-n-s-a-hurting-obamas-approval-rating/
The whole controversy has been ginned up by Rove to tank the Democrats.
They focus group tested it, they planned the messaging, and they delivered the goods. I smell a Rove.
beliebert
I thought Obama went into a lot of good detail about it and explained it very well. Which means all the hair on fire “government is reading my emails” idiots will completely ignore it and switch into “yea but….” denial.
I’m sure Greenwald has his next book on this half written by now and fully expect to see famous Greewald suck hole Cole flogging advanced copies here.
NickT
@fuckwit:
pokeyblow
Why does “President Obama on Charlie Rose” give me a discouraging “David Brooks Giving a Seminar at the Aspen Institute” vibe?
Omnes Omnibus
@NickT: Dude, tell me about it. Packer fan here.
Baud
@NickT: @Omnes Omnibus:
I’m so not voting for him in 2016.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m slightly confused by your argument. I’m not saying that it’s A-OK for them to illegally gather information, but I also don’t understand the paranoia about how the government is going to use that illegally gathered information to throw you in prison, because they are barred by law from doing that. Does the fruit of the poisonous tree not exist anymore?
NickT
@Baud:
I also want him impeached because Dunkin stopped selling their double chocolate donuts during his reign – which is a SIGN of his UNGODLINESS!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: You’ve convinced me.
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh sure. Root for a bunch of socialists.
(Says the resident of a practically Communist city.)
NickT
@Mnemosyne:
I saw T&H earlier in the other threads.
Baud
@NickT:
I blame Obamacare.
NickT
@Yatsuno:
Yes, but practical Communism is a very, very different thing from LIBERAL SOCIALISM – which is EEEEVIL!!!
NickT
@Baud:
If only he hadn’t murdered Teddy Kennedy to enable Darth Baucus to destroy singlepayer.
But really, it comes down to the double chocolate donuts.
David Koch
you guys joke about not voting for obummer in 2016, but if you were True Progressives, you would primary him in 2014
NickT
@David Koch:
A real progressive would have impeached Obama in 2007.
fuckwit
Oh, and pay no attention to the income inequality behind the curtain!
While you people are all hair-on-fire about the NSA, every fucking corporation in America and overseas is spying on every little fart you make, everything you buy, and has NO REGULATORY OVERSIGHT AT ALL.
Think about that. The NSA has to go to a FISA court to spy on you. WalMart (or TRW, or Google, or MSFT, etc) doesn’t have to do shit– all they have to do is collect the data themselves or pay someone else for it. All perfectly legal! Apple has all your GPS data. So does Google. Where’s their judges and warrants?
See… IT MAKES NO SENSE.
This non-troversy is focus-group tested propaganda from Corporate America and the Rethugs, probably Rove and his ilk, designed to destroy Obama and the Democrats…. and to distract from how Corporate America is fucking you balls-deep in the ass every day.
Pay no attention to the 1% fucking you! Get outraged about some NSA bullshit! Really. Just remember: the government is your enemy, the corporations are your friends… and vote Republican.
Fucking tools.
jamick6000
haha that’s a nice way to put it.
One night I was watching Charlie Rose and he was asking Joe Scarborough about something David Gregory said on Meet The Press.
wmd
@Anne Laurie: One of the key things to watch for is whether the “privacy and civil liberties oversight board” is given clearance. if they really do have the capacity to dig into the way surveillance is conducted that’s a step towards real oversight.
It would be even better if they have the authority to declassify information related to their task without having to convince the agencies they’re investigating to go along with it.
pokeyblow
@fuckwit: YES! And that’s why Obama pushed so hard to have the bank executives prosecuted!
Because he is trying to clamp down on the oligarchy!
EXACTLY!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
That’s what the exclusionary rule is. My point is that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches is not limited to the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule is simply a Court imposed rule designed to force police departments to follow the Fourth Amendment’s strictures on searches. It does not by any means indicate that it is okay to violate the Fourth Amendment as long as one has doesn’t intend to introduce evidence in court.
Now, just to be careful here, I am not claiming anywhere in this comment that any program currently in the news either does or does not violate the Fourth Amendment. I just want to kill the idea that not using something in court somehow makes that thing okay.
? Martin
Ok, here’s the nut of the problem as it seems. People are largely filtering into two camps:
1) Those that need to see some physical firewall between the government and your data
2) Those that need to see some policy firewall between the government and your data
In the analog world, we had the former, but not the latter. The government didn’t spy on you because it was fucking hard to plug a wire into the exact switch that your call was going through. And there were no laws against it, because it was fucking hard. Well, until Nixon decided to do it…
In the digital world, you lose the former. There are no physical barriers to these things any more. Nobody thinks that their data stored at Google is actually in some box that nobody can access. Of course it can be accessed, that’s the whole fucking point of putting things in the cloud! So there are no physical barriers. The only thing that can possibly exist is a policy barrier. So folks in the former camp are not satisfied by the policy barrier and demand a physical barrier. Well, that’s not happening. That’s completely unrealistic in 2013.
Of course, the government has done a terrible fucking job of:
1) explaining what those policy barriers are, because half of them are secret and shit and
2) illustrating that there is a check against that policy barrier, an outside (Congress, courts) audit of what data is being accessed and severe penalties against anyone who violates that policy.
But I’m not sure that if the latter existed that it would satisfy the folks demanding a physical barrier. So I can’t help but lump these people in with the birthers who refuse the existence of electronic documents and the like. That’s a bit unfair, but it’s sort of the same scope of demanding something that technology has rendered impossible.
Seonachan
Doesn’t get more Charlie Rose than this:
AHH onna Droid
Fuck, at the end of that quote Barack Shabazz Citizen X Obama threw down! Look out Doug J, this is some 11 dimensiony trolling. POTUS just threatened to sic a board of “fierce” ronulans on private industry.s Big Data. Expect brain explosions, meltdowns, and denouncements.
Will the elitist Europizing Sokalist agenda ever stop?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: I will, tyvm!
JWL
@beliebert: Yeah, but explained it (and oh so well, according to your satisfaction) to who exactly?
I’ll tell you who: The fuckin’ Washington press corps.
The man is POTUS. If he informs the networks he has an issue of national import to discuss, the airwaves are all his. Instead, he turns to Charlie Rose.
Again, Michelle Bachman knows the score. Is your faith in the GOP and/or the democratic party that absolute? Because if it is, you are a great fool.
Heliopause
Awesome, a national beer summit, White House picks up the tab. Just promise that I get to sit next to Henry Louis Gates and not some asshole cop, and that Biden’s pisswater beer doesn’t get substituted for mine. And Mr. President, can we have national conversation every day about 4 PM? Thanks.
AHH onna Droid
@David Koch: It’s not torture to administer a medically approved sleep aid! //
Baud
@? Martin:
That’s not correct. There was a long standing law against wiretapping in the analog world. Much stricter than what we have today. It was loosened in 1968, I believe. See Lee v. State of Fla., 392 U.S. 378
Linnaeus
At risk of stating the obvious (or not, depending on your view, I suppose), we need a conversation not just about government surveillance specifically, but the national security state generally. That won’t be an easy one to have, because we’ve gotten so used to an expansive national security apparatus over the past 60+ years.
NickT
@Linnaeus:
Whaddaya mean, you don’t love Big Brother?!
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: Would you be OK with your neighbor spying on you in the shower, provided that you never noticed?
NickT
@Bobby Thomson:
Are you objecting to God being everywhere and working in mysterious ways?
sapient
@fuckwit: Thanks so much, fuckwit. You are so wise.
pokeyblow
@Bobby Thomson: I think the neighbor is the one who would balk at that assignment.
Mandalay
@White Trash Liberal:
He was asked something close to that (” Define in as much detail as you can what “direct access” means.“), but he semi-dodged the issue with this answer:
I suspect the Guardian instructed Snowden to hold back some details (“More detail on how direct NSA’s accesses are is coming…” – WTF?) so they can drag this story out.
The Guardian wants to claim that this is vitally important news, but then only release it a little at a time. Not a responsible or professional approach IMO.
beliebert
@JWL: wtf are you babbling on about. What EXACTLY didn’t he say that is bothering you. What EXACTLY did he say that is bothering you. Is there ANYTHING he could say that would make you happy? Don’t bother responding..,
And wtf does Bachman have to do with any of this ….LOL….
Suffern ACE
@JWL: oh please. This issue is a political problem for the democrats and he should not be demanding to preempt the airwaves yet to give the speech. Its not some kind of crisis for the nation where he needs to be directing traffic. And at least he chose a broadcast network and not some cable news show. And Charlie maybe a softie interviewer, but at least he won’t be trying to make a name for himself with some gotcha nonsense in this situation.
David Koch
@fuckwit:
The only thing that has tanked has been MSNBC’s ratings.
Last week’s exclusive interview with greenwald produced the lowest 8PM rating since 2003. That’s a long time ago.
Ouch!
I hope Ed Schultz asks for a big raise when they ask him to come back and save them.
Baud
@Mandalay:
I’m no techie, but aren’t all his examples meta-data?
ETA: Maybe not email and user id. Never mind.
NickT
@JWL:
Does this even pretend to make sense?
Omnes Omnibus
@beliebert: I think we would all be happy if he brought those double chocolate doughnut thingies back. Although, I would prefer a croissant.
Chris
@fuckwit:
I have to say, of all the “scandals” that’ve popped up this year, the NSA one absolutely takes the cake (although Rand Paul’s grandiloquent ranting about DROOOOOONEZ comes close). What’ve we found out? Worst case scenario, that the NSA entitles itself to spy on Americans with zero warrant.
… and everyone is gasping in horror as if this were literally the first time (since Watergate (which this is even worse than)) that they’d heard about it. This exact topic came up several times during the Bush years, sparked outrage and hot debates, and in every case, went basically unresolved (there were no Church Committees, no congressional bans), which meant the NSA would keep on doing it. Of course it still had that power going into the Obama years. … and yet somehow, everybody appears to have forgotten that.
If people want to rein in the NSA, then by all means knock yourself out and incidentally, “about time…” but as someone who actually noticed and objected back when the NSA was first granted these powers, the hypocrisy of the entire establishment in pretending that this is some unprecedented breaking news is really, really nauseating.
NickT
@Baud:
Yes, but the latest libertarian line seems to be that metadata are data, so this must all be very bad because… WOLVERINES!!!
NickT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Splitter!
David Koch
@Bobby Thomson: depends on whether my neighbor is sexy or not
srv
This president isn’t going to win the day being artful with words like listen, analyze, monitor or collect. And Charlie Boy ain’t going to ask the right questions.
Stop playing word games and start going long form.
Linnaeus
@NickT:
Heh. I’m not just talking about the intelligence gathering aspects of our security apparatus, but the diplomatic and military aspects as well. Our country is heavily invested in a national security stance that is out of proportion to our actual security needs and, among other things, uses resources that are best directed elsewhere.
MattR
@Linnaeus: It would be nice to see a very public comparison of what the gov’t told the courts in United States v Reynolds, which formalized the state’s secrets privilege, about the documents the platintiffs were seeking with the contents of the actual documents now that they have been declassified. Hint: They were embarrassing to the gov’t, but didn’t contain any secret information. It would also be very worthwhile to review the criteria the SCOTUS laid out in Reynolds and compare them with how it is currently invoked.
Baud
@David Koch:
Remember when the hosts on MSNBC used to complain about how Washington kept ignoring issues that non-elite Americans care about….
Good times.
? Martin
@Baud: No, pre 1967 wiretapping was widespread. SCOTUS ruled at that time that you needed a warrant. The next year, Congress clarified the rules and said that law enforcement only needed a warrant to listen, but could get the calling data without a warrant.
HOWEVER, it didn’t apply to intelligence agencies. They could wiretap without warrant, which is how Nixon abused it. And that’s what FISA was set up to address in 1978, and that’s why they went with a secret court whereas non-intel law enforcement needs to with a conventional court.
Mandalay
@fuckwit:
There is a huge qualitative difference between what Walmart (for example) is doing, and what the government is doing.
By doing business with Walmart you are implicitly allowing them to capture your data, and AFAIK they are not hiding the fact that they are capturing your data. If you don’t like it don’t use Walmart.
But the government is capturing all your electronic communication, you cannot prevent it, and (to put it kindly) they have been dishonest and opaque about their activities. And according to Snowden, your claim that the “NSA has to go to a FISA court to spy on you” is false.
So, do you really think Walmart is worse than the government?
? Martin
@NickT:
They can say whatever they want. The courts have been extremely clear on what is data and what is not data. And the courts are the ones that say what is legal and what isn’t.
Linnaeus
@MattR:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the government’s interpretation of the criteria was, shall we say, loose.
NickT
@? Martin:
Absolutely – but it won’t stop the fantasists and the paranoids and the simply pathetically ignorant from concocting ever more bizarre conspiracy theories.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
On many, many levels.
? Martin
@Mandalay: Do you think that Walmart doesn’t sell your data? Where do you think these guys get their data from? Do you think the NSA can’t buy the same data? It turns out they can’t, by law, but I can. The Chinese government can, and the NSA can steal it from the Chinese (irony)…
Who regulates access to your credit history?
MomSense
@Heliopause:
If we are going to discuss this every damn day I am going to need something much stronger than beer.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
(:
Todd
@Mandalay:
I want my policing handcuffed, man. Old typewriters, manila folders and shoulders. When a guy gives an alibi, I want him beaten until he recants the alibi – none of that data collection shit.
A criminal should get a fair shake, and a chance that some innocent should do the time.
Now pass me a giant puppet and a drum.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
Well I am not sure that actually they need to.
But instead of being fake-offended, just accept that I wasn’t defending Walmart. I was merely pointing out that the nature of data capture by Walmart is very different to what the government is doing. Hardly contentious.
Chill out FFS….you seem to have been posting here 24/7 for days. Take a break.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
The problem is that the extreme left and extreme right both share an irrational fear and hatred of our government. That is the frame of reference in which all these issues are viewed.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Statist.
MattR
@? Martin: I thought Nadler made an interesting point when he opened his questioning of Mueller by pointing out that it may not be a slam dunk that the precedent of Maryland v Smith regarding pen registers would apply to all the metadata currently being collected simply because it is so pervasive today that it is much more intrusive on privacy than it was 30+ years ago. From a purely legal perspective he may be right, however given the current makeup of the court and the attitude of the country in our post 9-11 world, I don’t think there is much chance of the courts placing any meaningful restrictions on the collection of metadata.
@MomSense: It is funny because I often explain that I am a Democrat because I fear Big Business significantly more than I fear Big Government.
JoyfulA
@efgoldman: I lived in an area with party lines until I was 12. When you rang the operator and asked for someone, often the operator could advise you that she’s at the doctor’s or he’s at the barber’s, so try again later. Once in a while, another party on your party line would chime in: Oh, he’s home now, go ahead.
And party lines still exist. That’s the only kind of phone my parents could get in their riverside cottage in the mountains.
JWL
@MomSense: Well, how well balanced of you.
After Vietnam and Iraq- to name only two little blips on the old radar- I’ll submit a distrust of government is healthy attitude for a citizen nowadays to possess.
But that’s just me.
Omnes Omnibus
@JWL: And death panels. Don’t forget those.
JWL
@beliebert: It’s what Obama is not saying that bothers me (babble, babble..).
You get it now?
You do understand Bachman is a member of the House “Intelligence” Committee, right?
That is, Michelle Bachman (R-Minnessota).
If not, google her name. Then get back to me.
NickT
@Omnes Omnibus:
And the War On Double Chocolate Donuts.
JWL
@NickT: Point taken.
Should have written: M.B. has been informed about things you and I are not trusted with knowing.
Michelle Bachman..
grandpa john
@MattR:
I see you have your priorities in the right order
beliebert
@JWL: Ok I’ll bite. What didn’t he say exactly? Seeing as how you obviously have sat in on the classified intelligence briefings and have a deep constitutional background just like him and understand what the issues are from the Presidents perspective. So I guess we will be seeing J WL on the ticket in 2016. Have you picked a running mate yet?
Emma
@JWL: It is a healthy attitude, but it has to be rational. Factual. Otherwise we put ourselves in the same positions as Tea Party folk.
Right now we have Snowden, GG, and the Guardian saying that the NSA can spy on Americans at any time for any reason. Everyone else is pushing pack. Then the story veers off into the US is spying on Russia and China, which in more rational times would have been received with a massive yawn and a worldwide “no shit, Sherlock”.
I am most interested right now in getting information on the workings of the FISA court. I hear there was an NPR program that explained how the judges work and that they often ask the NSA to revise the requests before granting them. If that is true, then they are working as they should. I think. In order to make up my mind, I need information. Not on the idea of metadata collection, but how it is used. That is where the vulnerability is.
Brian H
Where the heck is Ted & Helen? Finally in a rubber room?
Emma
@JWL: So what? In a democracy we have the politicians we elect. She’s a fanatic and somewhat of a twit, but she was ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF HER STATE. That gives her the right to know these things.
And she’ll be gone soon and they’ll send someone else. And he will have the same rights.
? Martin
@MattR:
Well, he’s only right if Congress hadn’t made clear how much authority the executive branch should have here. Once again, I’m not willing to give Congress a pass simply because they don’t want to do their fucking job. I realize this was probably a rhetorical question, but shit – where’s the bill Nadler introduced to clarify this issue?
sparky
@Mandalay: “Chill out FFS….you seem to have been posting here 24/7 for days. Take a break.”
Oh the irony.
JWL
@Emma: That is an eminently fair question, that strikes to the heart of it all.
It’s beyond my ability to make a case here and now why I feel our Republican form of government is fundamentally flawed where the protection of our liberties are concerned. As if our campaign financing laws weren’t bad enough, the United decision by the Supreme Court finished any hope of healthy reform.
Suffice to say, I lack faith in the two party system. A great many millions of American voters are disenfranchised, in the sense they believe neither party represents their aspirations for the nation. Just look at the poll numbers concerning faith in the integrity Americans accord congress. I don’t hold much with polls, but in this case, I don’t need to. Those polls are right on.
I will contend most of that skepticism can be laid at the feet of the GOP. I believe they are, truly, the American Fascist Party. I define American Fascism as being corporate dictate wed to governmental power. The republican party are democratic nihilists. It’s sole purpose is the destruction of our Republic. Not simply by any means necessary- although ultimately violence is their hole card. Rather, by any and all means within their power- and that means control of the media and politicians, of both parties, that are bought and sold like commodities in today’s Republican form of government.
Ben Franklin saw it coming. It’s a Republic, but only if We The People can preserve it. And the cards are now stacked mightily against those that despise today’s status quo.
fuckwit
@Emma: People, this is not hard. Obama threaded this needle in what I’ve seen of his answers, and attempted to make his point through Charlie Rose cutting himoff.
Let me splain this, if I may:
1) The NSA CAN INDEED do all this horrible stuff, and more. Think back to your English teacher, who when you asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?”, she said, “You can, but you may not”. We are talking about technology, and this is why I’m so frustrated with everyone on al sides of this issue. THE TOOTHPASTE IS OUT OF THE TUBE people! It won’t go back in. They CAN do this. The technology to do this exists, is in place, is user-friendly, mature, and ubiquitous. Corporations can use it all the time, and probably do, for purposes we don’t know, and without any oversight, warrants, or review. Now the NSA has their hands on it too.
2) But the NSA MAY NOT do this horrible stuff. See what I just did there? The words are “MAY NOT”. Not “can not”, but “may not”. Perhaps this is what Snowden was trying to blow the whistle on, and if so, good on him. If Obama is trying to get us to understand this– and I think his attempted answers (minus Charlie Rose cutoffs) indicate it, it’s an important “conversation” (as he likes to say) and we need to have it. The law forbids the gummint from doing this kind of wide-net monitoring, even though it’s so damn easy for them to do it and there’s really nothing other than the law stopping them. There are checks and balances. He SAYS they’re adhering to it, and wants to open up more information for more public oversight.
Do you see, people? The technology to do this is in place and mature, which means that it CAN be done. And it has been possible for a long time. It’s easy, in fact. Only the law, and a government that cares about following it (ahem, a big improvement we have now over Cheney, which Obama somewhat surprisintly alludes to), stops it from happening.
So this is the core of it. The technology for “big data” mining is everywhere, scary, and able to do some very creepy stuff. The government is following rules, we have them, and there is oversight, and we can improve it, but it’s there. Corporations may or not be following any rules, and I have first-hand experience of corporations following no fucking rules at all, so I’m cynical.
Yes this stuff is dangerous. No I’m not freaking out. Shit, the gummint has nuclear weapons too, FFS. They ain’t going away anytime either. And we have banks running around unregulated, fucking up the economy, and while we’re being distracted with this, they’re still doing their damage in that sector…. nanosecond trading, quantum trading, jeebus.
This is the world we live in. We have these technologies, some of which are dangerous and frightening, and the only thing that stands between us and horrors are the structures of law and government and checks and balances and transparency and such, trying to assure that people with their hands on this stuff behave. Can we improve the safety of these things? Definitely. But this isn’t hysteria time, it’s serious time. We really need as a society to take a hard, sober look at this stuff and decide where to put the safety features.
Another Halocene Human
@MomSense: Not sure it’s irrational in the context of the anti-social behavior so many of them fantasize about (and a few of them engage in).
If you don’t believe me, here are a few examples: killing abortion doctors. Firebombing cars of animal researchers. Vandalism during otherwise peaceful labor protests. Open carrying loaded firearms during counter protests. Throwing acid in the windows of dvd/sex shops. Plotting to bomb bridges (both lefties and righties have been caught in the midst of abortion bridge bomb plots… as if our bridges aren’t doing a good job of coming down on their own).
Another Halocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Shit, Dershowitz had me fooled until that post 9/11 meltdown where he was running around justifying the use of torture.
MattR
@? Martin:
I am not sure that is true. From the actual ruling in Smith v Maryland:
I believe Nadler’s point is that with changes in technology and personal habits, it is possible that a pen register did not meet those requirements for 4th Amendment protection in 1979, but collecting email or other internet metadata today might (particularly the second part – does society consider it reasonable to expect to maintain the privacy of where you were located when making a cell phone call?)