I really don’t know what it takes for the dozen or so Snowden/Greenwald dead-enders to accept the fact that Snowden’s documents are authentic. I get that you may not agree with the conclusions drawn by Greenwald or other Guardian writers, and I understand that the documents themselves probably present an over-rosy view of what the NSA can do (just as most Powerpoints in any organization do), but the inability to grasp the significance and authenticity of the Snowden revelations is beyond me.
I’ve always scoffed at the accusation that blogs like this one are purely tribalistic but this is tribalism, pure and simple.
Update: If “authentic” isn’t the right word, what do you call it when every single revelation from Snowden’s documents is met with “well even if the NSA had that capability they wouldn’t use it, or if they did use it, it doesn’t matter”? That’s what I’m talking about, and that’s what I meant by coupling “significance” with authenticity. As Cole has mentioned in the past and as someone mentioned in this thread, the test is what you would think if this had been revealed when Dick Cheney was running things instead of Obama. If you honestly think you wouldn’t be in the comments of this blog howling about the awfulness of what Cheney was doing, then this post isn’t about you.
And spare me the “if the Republicans were in charge it would be even worse” claim. The point here is that the national security apparatus is independent of which party is in charge. If you want my take on why Obama hasn’t done more to curb the NSA, it’s because he’s above all a realist about his power, and only tries to exercise it in fights that he thinks he can win. This is a fight he knows he can’t win. It is also a fight he, like most other Democrats, sees as very dangerous, because he knows that any terrorist act will be hung around his neck if he so much as fires a single NSA analyst or discontinues one boondoggle program. That doesn’t make him a shining example of moral rectitude, but I didn’t support him from the day he declared his candidacy because he was going to make pointless, dead-end stands on principle — I supported him and continue to support him because he’s good at picking his fights. At this point, I think it might do us some good if he picks a fight with the NSA and the rest of the security apparatus, but I sure as shit see why he wouldn’t.
And one more thing: no matter what Google or Amazon does with your personal information, they don’t feed it to the DEA so they can fake a random traffic stop to catch you with your stash in your car.
srv
Oath Keepers do what supposed fans of civil liberties can’t. They’re renting billboards around CIA, NSA and military sites and speaking truth to power.
Pentagon Station ad: http://oathkeepers.org/oath/wp-content/uploads/DC-billboard-JFK.jpg
Frankensteinbeck
Say what? Only a tiny number of the documents are being disputed as not authentic – only the power point slides. The subject hardly comes up. It didn’t come up at all in the last thread. Where are you getting this? We’re arguing that the documents DON’T SAY WHAT YOU’RE BEING TOLD THEY SAY. Well, we’re saying a lot of stuff, but that’s the closest thing to ‘not authentic’.
Baud
Do you have an example of a commenter here questioning the authenticity of the documents themselves? I’ve seen opinions fly all over the place, but I don’t recall that particular critique.
@Frankensteinbeck:
I didn’t even realize the authenticity of the Power Points were being disputed.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
There was some discussion of it. It was thrown aside almost immediately as a moot point, since the documents to back it up were what was important – and those documents did not back up Snowden’s claims. It wasn’t an important part of our arguments, I’m just acknowledging that SOMEONE brought it up briefly at some point.
xenos
I get that you dislike that many of us (especially those of us who are lawyers) are not that scandalized by the NSA surveillance, but denialism? I will freely admit that my judgment and thinking on the subject may be incomplete or just plain wrong, and that seems to be the attitude here.
Accusing us of denialism in this case is just telling us to fuck off. Sorry, we won’t.
NickT
I get the impression that mistermix spends a lot of time getting bent out of shape because someone is wrong on the internet.
NickT
@Frankensteinbeck:
Right. We’ve seen Greenwald get things flagrantly wrong (direct access being the most egregious case) or try and hide little inconvenient details (like the need for warrants). There are plenty of solid reasons not to trust the Prophet Glenn’s interpretations of the sacred powerpoints.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Thanks. I missed, or don’t recall, that discussion. I just don’t see where MM gets his “dozen or so dead enders” here who don’t “accept the fact that the documents are authentic.” There may be that many people here who aren’t the least bit concerned about the NSA issue and don’t care if there are any reforms, but that’s a different thing altogether.
Hunter Gathers
What if I don’t give a fuck either way?
Does that make me tribalist, stupid, evil, or not a true progressive?
I truly don’t give a fuck about this subject.
Sly
Or maybe its because, in the panoply of government intrusions on privacy, the NSA having access to what information they have access to, without even a word on whether or not that access is being abused, seems, at least to me, to be the height of first world problems. I’m not at all surprised that this particular issue has become the hobbyhorse of libertarians and a certain class of liberal who wouldn’t recognize real abuse of investigative power if it stopped and frisked them on a street in the Bronx.
And I can’t be engaging in tribalism if I didn’t give much a shit about warrantless wiretapping during the Bush Administration and even less a shit about things like telecom immunity.
@srv:
The Oath Keepers?
Seriously?
NickT
@Hunter Gathers:
I think it makes you an anarcho-syndicalist-tribalist, but you’d have to ask the Grand Inquisitor Who Categorizes Everything On The Internet to be sure.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Ditto. Nobody is arguing this now. NOBODY. It’s not essential or even implied by our arguments. He’s making this up out of whole cloth.
Anoniminous
@ mastermix
Here is something to brighten (he wrote, sardonically) your day:
NSA can be 100% truthful they only gather this kind of information with a legal warrant. They can hire, or set-up, a private company to do it. We used to call that “plausible denial-ability.”
Baud
@Sly:
Yeah, when it comes to the Oathkeepers, I think it’s more like speaking truth to black power.
Yatsuno
Fess up Mixie. You were just looking for an excuse to use that album cover somewhere.
Davis X. Machina
Authenticity isn’t the issue — that’s s a straw man.
There are other problems.
It’s understanding what these revelations are, and aren’t — beginning with whether they’re revelations. Communicating clearly what they mean, and don’t mean. Delineating what the law does, and doesn’t, permit. And doing that, and other stuff, accurately, in a way that preserves whatever value you’ve got as an interlocutor.
Advocacy journalism has to be journalism, and not just advocacy.
NickT
@Baud:
The Oath Keepers are generally nastier than your average rightwing crackpot. Dave Neiwert did quite a good piece on them a couple of years ago.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/oath-keepers-potentially-most-lethal
He’s followed the various right wing hate groups for a long time now (and written some very good books on the subject), so he knows whereof he speaks.
jo6pac
I’m in agreement with you on this subject.
journalmalist
@Davis X. Machina: “It’s understanding what these revelations are, and aren’t — beginning with whether they’re revelations.”
Yeah I gotta confess to a lot of ignorance here, but not for want of trying. What are the great revelations disclosed by Snowden? I honestly can’t think of one thing that I didn’t already know or at least suspect was going on. What are they?
Josie
It is not tribalism. It’s a difference of opinion. A long time ago, you and I had an argument about whether corn bread dressing should be wet or dry. It’s like that. Actually, on this particular subject, I am just too busy trying to scratch out a living and keep up with all my shit to care. I figure Obama is about as good as it is going to get constitutionally, and, if we get a Republican administration, they won’t care what the law is or what we think about it. They will just do what they want, like Bush did.
BillinGlendaleCA
Must be a slow news day.
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina:
The year and a half old Wired magazine cover argues against that.
Jaybird
I heard that Snowden was pro-life.
MikeJ
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Surely there are some sharks or missing white women.
NickT
@MikeJ:
I hope you haven’t just provoked a 50 page Epistle to the Heretics of Balloon-Juice by Glenn The Prophet Of Snowden.
FlipYrWhig
No one ever says this. You’re so eager to make other people into the conformist tribalists that you’re making shit up to build a stigmatized group to bash so you can demonstrate your superiority and signal it to the like-minded. Anthropologists have a word for that, but I forget what it is.
Botsplainer
@Jaybird:
And a pitbull owner….
NickT
@Jaybird:
I heard that The League Of Ordinary Gentlemen was contemplating the interior of its own anal cavity.
Suzanne
@Josie: Concur.
I also this is a bit of a white dude/first world problem.
Finally, and perhaps this is a horrible attitude to have, I think the American people should live with some of the consequences of their pants-crapping stupidity. The PATRIOT Act had a lot of support from douchebags who were more than happy to trade other people’s lives and freedoms and privacy because they were afraid of The Brown People, and if you disagreed, you Hated America. Fuck that. Let those people realize that the rights they were giving away were their own.
FlipYrWhig
Can we go back to arguing about what kind of phone sucks? That’s usually a pretty solid way to determine who’s cool and who’s just a poser, right Mistermix?
NickT
@FlipYrWhig:
I think the phrase you want is “David Brooks”.
Lynn Dee
@Baud:
Me either. I was going to ask the same question.
Mistermix can count me among those who thinks Snowden is a self-aggrandizing naif and Glenn Greenwald is an ass. But I don’t doubt the authenticity of the documents or that there is something we need to look at here.
Jaybird
NickT, we find it cozier than Obama’s.
NickT
@FlipYrWhig:
How about a debate on which programming language is the best?
Bob In Portland
I’ve never said the documents aren’t authentic. I don’t think Snowden is authentic. It’s the late-fifties false defector program all over again, with a libertarian anti-Obama flavor.
NickT
@Jaybird:
Are you still re-inventing scepticism while pretending to be original?
Keith G
Homo sapiens survived due to their behavior propensity to be tribal in their behavior. 100,000 years ago this was a feature, not a bug. The pull of the tribe still runs strong in most human endeavors.
If there are deadenders in this affair, I do think the number is eroding. Like a climate change denier visiting Greenland, it can be hard to dismiss the change that is occurring right before one’s eyes.
And soon, many of the “There is no story here” crowd will evolve and sometime in the future join the emerged consensus and tell any who care, “Well, I had some significant concerns about the NSA all along”.
Over time, tribal boundaries can be rather porous.
RepubAnon
I think the line as to whether it’s tribalism can be set by one’s answer to the question “would your opinion change if Dick Cheney was President?”
For me, I suspected that the NSA was conducting possibly illegal wiretapping when the secret AT&T room revelations came out in 2006 or so. Mr. Snowden has confirmed that my suspicions were not only true, but understated.
As to misuse – wait until someone ties these eavesdropping habits to the civil forfeiture laws, and they start trying to seize all your possessions because you knew someone that sent a message overseas:
Taken, The New Yorker
Jaybird
Oh, I stopped pretending to be original before it was cool.
Lynn Dee
@NickT:
Speaking of warrants… not sure this is still considered an issue, but a couple weeks back some folks were complaining about warrants being issued after only hearing from one side. But hello, that’s the way the warrants work — they aren’t mini-trials!
Now maybe FISA warrants are issued too freely without sufficient basis and that needs to be addressed. But inviting the other side in to offer their opinion (or evidence) is not a solution.
NickT
@Jaybird:
Not completely, it would seem.
Baud
@RepubAnon:
I know what you’re trying to say, but I disagree with that framing. It suggests that we can’t treat one official as more trustworthy than another, no matter what our experiences are with them. It is perfectly consistent and non-tribal for someone to trust Obama but not trust Cheney, based on sound judgment.
That said, Obama won’t be in office forever, so any view you have on this issue should, in my opinion, take that into account.
Mandalay
@mistermix:
I don’t agree with those “dead-enders” at all, but I just went through the previous thread. There isn’t a single instance of anyone questioning the authenticity of the documents. I think you need to clarify.
Thlayli
“Golly gee willikers, why doesn’t everyone agree with me that Snowden and Greenwald are Luke Skywalker and Han Solo taking on the Evil Lord Obama??”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Lynn Dee: This seems to be lost on many people, including generally intelligent people.
A Humble Lurker
Personally, I’m not questioning authenticity, I just don’t give a shit.
ruemara
Well, you must get quite a workout, punching that strawman. Yeesh. No one thinks the document is inauthentic. It’s the “analysis” that’s getting a skeptical eye. I don’t get why in the rush to demand skepticism of the government-particularly in the one thing we kinda need to have government do, security-I’m not also allowed to be skeptical of the motives, the methods and the interpretation of the people telling me to distrust. Fuck all of them, I haven’t trusted a soul since I was 3. I’m already skeptical, which is why I don’t care for “could possibly be” with regards to starting panic mode. “Is already, has been used, can be proven to have been used, in violation of”, those are the phrases I will panic over. And since this is GG’s speciality, why isn’t he using his considerable social media presence to get people off their duffers and contacting their congressperson to demand the oversight bill come to the floor and pass? He’s popular, this is his beat and it seems to be unknown.
FlipYrWhig
@Mandalay: Good on ya. It was bullshit framing with the sole intention of making up a reason to bash people on The Other Side.
Yatsuno
@Mandalay: Cole trolls the blog all the time. Why is Mixie above doing the same thing?
Va Highlander
I hope this is just trollin’. i really don’t want to believe that any of the frontpagers here are this goddamned childish.
NickT
@ruemara:
Hey, Ruemara, welcome to this pointless debate over another mistermix Strawman of Maximum Indignation complete with token LOOGie useful idiot. How’s your artwork going?
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Cheney has a record of breaking the law for political purposes, and lying on a vast scale to start a war. Obama has a record of not enforcing laws that don’t exist, and obeying laws that people wish didn’t exist. Context is friggin’ important.
@Mandalay: and @FlipYrWhig:
Ditto. Thank you for accurately representing your opposition. I appreciate the courtesy and honesty.
Yatsuno
@NickT: Mixie isn’t here arguing his points. I’m going with troll fud.
NickT
@Yatsuno:
Pretty dumb thing thing to do, either way.
Heinrich Schlachter
Hey guys.
I really don’t understand your discussion here. Its the wrong topic. You should not ask if the documents are original or not. You should start thinkng about how the laws should be changed to still keep privacy for the people but also have a way on how to identify threats to the nations.
Splitting Image
I can’t speak for anyone else, but here in Upper Canuckistan, Snowden’s revelations mean jack shit and most people’s defenses of him are even jacker. A few people seem to be genuinely questioning the usefulness of electronic surveillance but a good many more are outraged that the ability to do so is being used against (gasp) American Citizens(TM) rather than the dirty, swarthy furriners that the government is supposed to be targeting.
Same thing happened with the drones. A lot of the oxygen in the discussion over the drone program got sucked up by the fact that amongst the many people killed by them was an American Citizen(TM), killed without trial in defiance of his Constitutional Rights(TM). The more central the Constitutional issues became in anyone’s argument, the less importance was placed on the effectiveness of the drone program as a whole.
As has been pointed out by other people, the government has had these powers since U.S. voters gave them to it over ten years ago. Many of the people responsible are still in the House and the Senate. More to the point, the nature of the surveillance (i.e. the intertubes) means that there is less of a distinction between Americans and the rest of the world than there was when the NSA was created. Making a stink about data being collected on American Citizens(TM) when the NSA’s mandate specifically limits their activities to swarthy furriners (under section fill-in-the-blank of the Constitution) is asinine at this point.
The issue isn’t whether Snowden’s documents are authentic or not; it’s why anyone was even surprised at much of what was revealed.
mclaren
Greenwald is a grifter because Anti-Liberal Black Lady said so. Snowden is a Chinese spy because Martin said so. Obama’s worldwide persecution of Snowden is legal because burnspbesq said so.
Facts don’t matter. Logic doesn’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter. All that counts is passionate belief in the Dear Leader.
The Snowden/Manning dead-enders on this forum are the exact mirror images of the Republican global warming deniers. Deny, deny, deny, whatever facts or logic contradict your fanatical belief system, just keep screaming denials.
Emma
Congratulations. You are now a member in good standing of the “if you question Greenwald you’re a bad American”.
Oh, is that a strawman too? Too damn bad.
There were people telling us, ALL OF US, that the Patriot Act was going to create a mess. Some in this very blog. When the whole Snowden thing started, some people tried hard to show you that these concerns were around. Hell, I could find some common ground with you. Now? I don’t care anymore.
There’s a leftist version of the rightist who’s trying to rewrite the Vietnam War. The leftist who missed the good old days of real hippie punching and is trying to get his martyrdom in.
I’m done. I’ve known people who have faced off with real dictatorships, and your need to be persecuted doesn’t impress me. From now on, I’ll just avoid the topic here.
NickT
@mclaren:
You’ve summed up your own worldview perfectly. Not that it was exactly a revelation.
NickT
@Emma:
You know, there might be a business opportunity here. Imagine, if you will, a liberal therapy center, complete with hippie punching spa facilities, where you can get a facial while being denounced in all sorts of deliciously satisfying ways. I think there could be real money in this.
Snarla
It is possible for Obama to send drones or a hit team to assassinate Snowden. Therefore, Obama unquestionable HAS sent drones or a hit team to assassinate Snowden.
Baud
@Yatsuno:
Maybe. Unexpected from MM. Cole or Doug, no question.
NickT
@Snarla:
Furthermore, it is possible for Obama to have arranged for mistermix to write this post in order to underline the credibility of the Snowwaldians. Therefore, Obama unquestionably has.
raven
And people say watching golf is boring. . . .
JWR
What I don’t get is why Greenwald is dribbling these things out instead of releasing them in one big data dump. I know, a slower process allows him to put his imprimatur, and his bias, on them, but this drip drip dripping of information is just ridiculous.
NickT
@raven:
Only a dozen or so dead-enders would disagree with that very reasonable assertion.
Peter
@mclaren:
Your pills are in the top drawer. Please take them before you have another incident.
raven
@NickT: Well, Tiger is out of it so it’s less interesting today.
NickT
@raven:
Clearly Obama arranged for micro-drone-strikes to make sure that Tiger did badly.
burnspbesq
@Anoniminous:
Care to provide some evidence that the wireless trash-can company is in cahoots with any intelligence service?
Naah, didn’t think so.
Chicken Little is alive and well and living in America.
Mandalay
@Yatsuno:
Trolling is one thing, but (apparently) just making up false accusations is another. It happens all the time in the threads of course, but doing it in an FP is a new low.
Maybe there is an explanation that I am missing?
RandomMonster
Honestly, who is contesting the authenticity of the documents? The US GOVERNMENT has said they’re authentic.
And “tribalism” is just a dishonest rhetorical device to discredit people who don’t agree with you.
RandomMonster
@JWR: What I don’t get is why Greenwald is dribbling these things out instead of releasing them in one big data dump. I know, a slower process allows him to put his imprimatur, and his bias, on them, but this drip drip dripping of information is just ridiculous.
Well, there’s the need for weekly readers for one.
burnspbesq
@RepubAnon:
Got any other monsters under your bed that you’d like to tell us about?
gussie
Like many others here, I’m a 4th Amendment Agnostic. I just don’t care. It’s a first world problem–and the Republicans will do worse. Also, nobody knows what the NSA is doing, because they won’t tell us, which means everyone is ignorantly talking out their ass.
So I’m happy if Booz Hamilton employees have the capacity to wiretap me. I spend all my time trying to find the Worst Problem in the World to focus on, anyway, so I can dismiss everyone else’s issues as trivial. Education reform? Talk about first world problems! We have schools, don’t we? Stop whining. The shrinking middle class? Tell that to Somalians. Access to Plan B? Yeah, like pharmaceuticals aren’t totally first world. Voting suppression? Please. There are countries where they’d _love_ to be able to have even a theoretical chance to vote.
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
Seriously?
I keep thinking that someday you’ll get a clue. Sadly, today is not that day.
Mandalay
@JWR:
I completely agree. Obviously the reason is to stretch out the story, increase web site clicks, and to bump newspaper sales (in Britain).
But it certainly undermines the notion that the story is of great importance when the Guardian sits on chunks of it for weeks. You can’t credibly claim that the sky is falling, and then tell your readers to come back next week for further details.
The double irony is that the story actually is a big deal. The Guardian should have dumped everything up front.
Culture of Truth
This whole issue about what is or is not a revelation is an interesting one. The FISA courts have been around for a very long time, yet Andrea Mitchell clearly had never heard of them, and I expect she’s not alone. Likewise civil foreiture has been an ongoing scandal for a while, but even the author of the New Yorker article said on NPR she had never heard of them until she wrote the article. It has those people who have covered these things for years scratching their heads. Wait until people learn about drug sniffing dogs! or cops testilying! or pretext stops! or exigent circumstances! or the laws on plain view, location tracking, or search warrant abuse, or non-Patriot act phone records access!
Instead we have Rush Holt, who I like, railing against “government spying on innocent Americans” and comparisons to the Stasi.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
One of these days, mistermix will figure out the difference between “has the technological capability to do” and “has done.” Not today, but someday.
RepubAnon
@Baud: That is precisely my point – when considering whether a law is good or bad, one consideration is whether it can be abused when someone that you don’t trust is in power. If you wouldn’t trust Dick Cheney with the NSA’s intercept power, it’s a bad law.
Note: Dick Cheney would probably ignore the law – but that’s a different issue. This is why we have things such as independent review boards for police shootings. We can’t set up a system where the safeguards depend on whether or not we trust the person in charge. Otherwise, we’re in a system of “men, not laws.
Laertes
You’ve got it wrong. The deadenders mostly accept the authenticity of the documents. It’s the significance of the documents that’s in dispute.
They’re wrong either way, but one ought to be clear about what it is that they’re so wrong about.
Culture of Truth
It’s also a pet peeve of when people cite the 4th Amendment when they clearly know nothing about its interpretation over the years. The 4th amendment does not mean “whatever I think it means.” This includes Congress members.
JWR
@Mandalay: You can’t credibly claim that the sky is falling, and then tell your readers to come back next week for further details.
Yes. This.
dollared
@burnspbesq: Please provide a precise explanation for why that is not within the scope of prosecutorial discretion.
Culture of Truth
It is rather funny, though, to read a post telling people ‘don’t question the documents!’ about the guy who throws out ‘dear leader’ epithet anyone who disagrees with him.
Laertes
@Culture of Truth:
You know, I’m not sure that it is. I wish people cared more about the ever-more-intrusive security apparatus. The Snowden affair, however old-news it might be to the more informed folks, has made more people care. That’s a good thing. The details about what exactly is new to whom, and did Snowden actually reveal any criminal behavior, and is Greenwald actually a prick aren’t maybe all that important.
Broadly speaking, he’s directed some attention to stuff that really needed some attention. I’m supposed to think that that’s a bad thing just because my guy is in office at the moment? Hells, no.
dollared
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): And someday you will understand the statement “what can be abused, will be. And keeping it in complete secrecy facilitates the abuse.”
Soonergrunt
*pops popcorn, opens beer*
Please proceed.
obliterati
Is this performance art? Some sort of strawman-slaying Olympics? I don’t get it.
dollared
@xenos: OK, Mr. Lawyer, my law degree must be invalid, because I find the NSA stuff completely incompatible with our Constitution and a palpable threat to our democracy.
So explain to me how total system surveillance with no need for probable cause, with no public oversight, will not be abused to favor those in power. I’ll go get my pen and paper so I can look up all your references to governments that never abused their unchecked power.
I am not a kook
Mistermix, really? You put up a post falsely. as has been said by countless commenters on this post, accusing people of denying the authenticity of the documents. Then you promptly run away and don’t answer any comments?
You do realize your language and framing in this post come from Ted & Hellen and mclaren? Hope you’re proud.
I would love a real, honest fact-based look at 1. the facts as they are known now, and 2. the interpretations of those facts by various people (including Greenwald). If only somebody with an access to a blog would be willing to put in some work to facilitate it. Instead we get a fuck you and skedaddle.
kc
@Hunter Gathers:
Well, maybe not evil.
dollared
@Mandalay: Why? Is the Guardian less credible because it’s managing a series of revelations in order maximize their exposure?
Culture of Truth
@Laertes: I actually agree with what you just wrote, but to me on a sociological level it is interesting what it takes to make people notice something that has been right in front of them for a long time. Since the afternoon we learned Snowden’s name I knew people would obsess on him and his motives while I stated I thought that was irrelevant. Snowden as a person is relatively unimportant to me, but it’s clear Snowden’s revelations, such as they are, sparked a wide-ranging conversation, and caused people self-educate on things like FISA courts.
So the revelation thing is “interesting” in that it reveals even intelligent, politically engaged people, can ingore a problem for years and then suddenly care deeply about it.
Just One More Canuck
@Yatsuno: I’ve always been disappointed that they didn’t have an album called “And a Baby”
SectarianSofa
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep. Straw-persons all around.
askew
@Hunter Gathers:
That’s how I feel about this. It wouldn’t even make the top 100 list of issues I care about and I felt the same way when Bush was president. There are so many more important issues that impact the lives of millions of Americans. Voter restriction bills, the erosion of women’s rights, stop and frisk, etc. But most of these issues don’t impact middle-class/upper-class white men so bloggers/pundits would rather spend their outrage on this instead.
gelfling545
@journalmalist: I think this is the point – not seeing the Snowden “revelations” as a great surprise. Some people seem to feel that they were surprising, I guess, or that they should be treated as such. I have always assumed that if something can be done it is being done by someone, somewhere or what would be the point of developing the technology? I can’t say I like it but, given as we have never abandoned a technology just because it is intrusive and something can’t be
undeveloped” once it exists, the only fix is whatever can be done legislatively which, at this point in time is just about nothing although it should be kept on the to do list for future, less work-averse Congresses. Mind you, legislation still doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere won’t be engaging in this stuff. I’m not blase about the issue, I just don’t see how it can be tackled right now.
A while back i heard a PSA from NY State about g_mbling warning people that c_sino g_mbling favored the house by 8%. I remember thinking at the time that those figures were actually better than I thought. This is striking me somewhat the same way. It’s not good but I had already assumed worse.
Sly
@gussie:
It’s not that dipshit libertarians and their clueless white leftist kin elevate petty grievances over extreme and systemic injustices, it’s that, most of the time, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a petty grievance in the first place.
There are people in this country who are being denied an equal opportunity when it comes to education. There are people in this country who have lost a significant amount of their political power when it comes to how and where they work. There are people in this country who are being denied the franchise for no reason other than the people in power do not like how they are employing their right to vote. There are people in this country who are being denied the most basic level of autonomy over their own bodies.
There are people in this country whose rights are regularly and unlawfully denied by individuals and organizations with police powers. Guess what? To whatever extent the NSA is participating in that abuse, it is a level of participation (even if it does exist, which is conceding a point that is still very much in contention) that pales in comparison to state and municipal police forces. You want to protest an investigative body that habitually abuses its own power? Here’s one. It even starts with the letter “N,” if that helps.
RepubAnon
@burnspbesq: “Monsters under the bed?” Did you read the New Yorker article about police using the civil forfeiture laws originally intended for use against drug kingpins to seize the assets of people with little or no connection to the drug trade as a funding mechanism?
Here’s Detroit:
It doesn’t take much extrapolation to wonder whether similar tactics wouldn’t be used against, say, persons involved in the Occupy Movement. Now that the extent of the NSA’s program is public, keeping it secret is largely moot – so the need for “parallel construction” is weakened as well.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We’re giving a great deal of power to the NSA. Worrying about how that new power could be abused seems only rational given past abuses of power by law enforcement.
SectarianSofa
@FlipYrWhig:
I wonder what Bill Gates thinks, because at least he’s made a serious attempt at understanding what the deeper problems affecting such and such are ….
BruceJ
@JWR: Why is Greenwald dribbling it out?
Go find your copy of “Dark Side of the Moon” and cue up track 6. Lacking that, find your copy of Bowie’s “Young Americans” and cue up track 8…
(for the Philistines and youngsters with their hippety-hop who don’t know “great Music’ 8-) it’s ‘Money’ and ‘Fame’)
Villago Delenda Est
@Heinrich Schlachter:
Sorry, in the “too hard” box. Easier to just thrash around on peripheral issues.
Mandalay
@dollared:
Yes. The factual information that they reveal is no more or less credible when they “manage” its release. But when they sit on information for weeks (and it’s now becoming months) before publication it raises legitimate questions:
– How committed is the Guardian to publishing the news as opposed to maximizing mouse clicks and newspaper sales?
– With what level of importance should readers treat stories that could have been published weeks ago, but were deliberately delayed?
– What level of credibility do Guardian journalists have when they tell us about the seriousness of the issues they raise if they have been sitting on the story for weeks? If the story is so important why was it held back?
Socoolsofresh
@Mandalay: Not sure why a total dump would have been the better idea. You know how the media works, if all the details of this story were dumped, it would have been the controversy of the week, and then swept under the rug as soon as possible. By now it would have been old news, and we wouldn’t be talking about it. Just like how the NRA knew it could ride out the Newtown shootings, and that it would go back to business as usual until another massacre. This slow drip is keeping it in peoples minds, and may result in some actual change.
hildebrand
Living in Deep South Texas, you get used to casual abuses of the fourth amendment, and frankly, the rest of the country does not care one bit. Where is Greenwald and the other folks who have their knickers in a twist about what the NSA is doing? Every time you want to leave the Valley, you drive through a mandatory check point – where the Border Patrol checks you and your car just in case you might be smuggling illegal immigrants or drugs. Any amount of checking is fair game. Probable cause? We live close to Mexico – that is your probable cause. Supreme Court said this is kosher back in 1976. On the way back into the Valley, they aim every type of imaging device known to humanity at the highway (on both sides of the road) to look into your car and note who and what is going south. I always smile and wave. I figure if they know we are coming home, they should open up my house and drop the air conditioning a few degrees, maybe get the grill going.
The NSA has means to do whatever they might want to do with email and other assorted electronic whatnot? Really? After 911? What will think of next? What bothers me about Snowden is the fact that is a showboating, glory-monger – I just don’t sense that he is doing all of this for our sake. Greenwald is in the same boat. If you want to be a whistleblower, to speak truth to power, then do it, do it well, and don’t make yourself the story.
gussie
@Sly: Absolutely! That’s what I’m saying. My issues are the important ones. I don’t understand why other people have such a hard time with that. I suspect it’s a combination of first world privilege and self-dramatizing.
Mandalay
@I am not a kook:
I think “cut and run” is the more polite term.
Socoolsofresh
@Sly: Love the ‘there are worse problems in this country, so until those get solved, stfu’ It is like, wait until there is no more starving people in the world, then we can talk about genetically modified crops. Yes there are other problems, but its called multitasking. If only the most basic problems had to be solved in order to move on to more complicated ones, nothing would get done. Because some of these basic problems have been around since the dawn of time.
mistermix
I updated the post to address some of what’s in the comments, but on the “why is Greenwald dribbling it out” question, Greenwald claims it is Snowden who is dribbling it out. If you put yourself in Snowden’s shoes, there are a couple of reasons he might want to keep doing this.
First, he continues to be part of the story so his physical location and safety are still on people’s minds, and he gets the ego fulfillment of being the big story for a long time. Second, it gives him insurance against some kind of a assassination attempt because he’s set up some kind of deadman’s trigger where the rest of what he has is dumped if he dies. Third, if he’s saving the most damning revelations for last, then he makes the minimizers look like chumps. (By “minimizers”, I mean the people who said “well, they might have that power theoretically but they aren’t using it”. I think the minimizers are wrong on this one, but that’s just my hunch.)
mistermix
@I am not a kook: I left the blog for an hour to walk my dog. It’s a nice day here. I guess I won’t cash my paycheck this week.
askew
I continue to be amazed by libertarians and white male leftists who are obsessed with hypothetical government overreach and shrug their shoulders at real government overreach when it impacts women and minorities. Guess since they know they won’t get stopped and frisked, denied their right to vote or have their bodies and sex lives regulated, they don’t give a fuck.
me
@askew: I continue to be amazed by these impressive strawmen.
mistermix
@Sly:
All topics that are covered regularly here, by the way. There have been very few NSA posts lately, and certainly the NSA discussion hasn’t eclipsed these other discussions in the national media. Of course, more attention has been paid to the royal babies (Kardashian and Windsor) than any of these topics combined.
gussie
@Socoolsofresh: Sure, but where are all the people who get their knickers in a twist about genocide when it comes to the impending climate catastrophe? Individual genocides pale into insignificance next to global mass death, but do they care? No. They just want to get their faces in the paper.
Mandalay
@Socoolsofresh:
Maybe so. It’s obviously had a real effect on Administration policy already, and there is no way of knowing whether a full dump would have had more or less effect in the long term.
But the Guardian is in the business of publishing news, not shaping Administration policy, so I do fault them for withholding information.
Of course the agendas and objectives of Greenwald and Snowden are different to those of the Guardian, and I don’t know how much control they exert over the rate of the release of information. I would guess that Snowden has no say at all, and that Greenwald has complete control over his columns, but little or no say in what the rest of the Guardian publishes.
askew
@mistermix:
They don’t even get 1/100th the attention or outrage that this NSA outrage has gotten on the blog or in the left punditry at all. Just shows how much white men dominate the discourse on the left.
MomSense
@mistermix:
Please read this exchange between Al Giordano (the Field) and Glenn Greenwald regarding FISA and the DEA.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/salons-glenn-greenwald-writes-the-field
Socoolsofresh
@askew: This is a massive strawman. Who said libertarians or ‘white male leftists’ don’t care? You just made that shit up.
mistermix
@Emma:
Promises, promises.
By the way, you were one of the commenters whose initial reaction was that Snowden’s revelations were flat-out false. Remember that? Before you leave, do you want to acknowledge your mistake?
askew
@MomSense:
Al Giordano is the shit. His voice is someone we are really missing in the blogosphere. He didn’t just sit around and bitch about some progressive purity. He is out there trying to make a difference in the world and he understands the issues that impact Americans.
JWR
@mistermix: From your update: If you want my take on why Obama hasn’t done more to curb the NSA, it’s because he’s above all a realist about his power, and only tries to exercise it in fights that he thinks he can win. This is a fight he knows he can’t win. It is also a fight he, like most other Democrats, sees as very dangerous, because he knows that any terrorist act will be hung around his neck if he so much as fires a single NSA analyst or discontinues one boondoggle program.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to say just that without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. But that paragraph sums up perfectly how I feel about Obama and why I voted for him both times. Thank you!
Socoolsofresh
I guess Ezra Klein can join the list of journalists who should be demonized, if he wasn’t already, for some other petty reason:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/09/edward-snowden-patriot/
mistermix
@askew:
My bold to emphasize your horseshit. Kay writes something good, interesting and often original about education and/or labor pretty much every fucking day. I’m the one who writes about the NSA most often and it’s been a couple a week in the last few weeks, at most.
hildebrand
@askew: Bingo. In all of those cases, it was not their ox being gored. Now that they are the ones being electronically frisked (or even have the possibility of said frisking), they are running around decrying abuse of power and the end of civilization as we know it. Again, where is the concern for my rights, living where I do? Why are they not screaming about the fact that when my students have the temerity to drive through the checkpoint (not at the border – 45 miles north of the border) they have to prove that they are legal, or that the kids in the back seat of the car are theirs?
When the usual suspects start to show some concern about these issues, then I will start to think that they care about everyone, and are not simply the glory-seeking grifters they seem to be.
Mandalay
@askew:
This pathetic tactic has become pervasive at BJ. You fuckers need to be held accountable when you spew this moronic drivel.
Post hard evidence for your allegation or STFU.
mistermix
@hildebrand:
Did you know that much of my family, including in the winter my Mother, who is 76, and her sister, who is 78, experience this? Does that mean that I did something awful by not writing about it every day, to the exclusion of all other topics?
Socoolsofresh
@Mandalay: It’s really all they got left these days.
Lynn Dee
@Socoolsofresh:
Ezra Klein is great. But I disagree with him on this.
Does disagreeing with him qualify as demonizing him? Not in my estimation.
hildebrand
@mistermix: When have you ever written about it? When was the last time you spent even a fraction of the energy on that very real abuse of power that you have expended on the potential abuse of power of the NSA. I am not downplaying the NSA abuses, I am simply asking about some consistency regarding civil liberties. The ‘abuse’ we suffer is daily, and nobody cares. Nobody even thinks about it, it is accepted and enshrined by the Supreme Court as perfectly legal.
Every single time I drive north, I am assumed to be guilty. Of something. Every single time. I have my citizenship questioned. I have to provide a destination for my travels. If I answer in any way they think is ‘suspicious’, I get a trip to the side of the checkpoint while they tear apart my car looking for something illegal, and a lovely chat with the Border Patrol and other law enforcement agency types. And I have it easy – being a middle-aged white guy. My students get hassled all the time – the checkpoint is not a fun experience for them and their families. Yet, this is all fine because it is hidden down here in Deep South Texas – we can easily be ignored. It certainly never is something anybody on the blogs or the news finds to be worth their time.
Sly
@gussie:
When “my issues” involve actual people experiencing genuine injustice and “your issues” do not? Yeah. I’ll say it: Your issues don’t mean jack fucking shit.
@Socoolsofresh:
Not the argument.
The argument is as follows: Unless or until the NSA’s capability becomes an issue of abuse, it is not worth caring about. And this is true irrespective of whether or not other actual (or even hypothetical!) 4th Amendment abuses exist. But if you do care about 4th Amendment abuses, there are actual ones taking place.
Put another way: The United States Air Force has the capability to incinerate my house with me inside it. For some odd reason (perhaps owing to the fact that my house is not in Pakistan) I’m not losing any sleep over it.
I am not a kook
@mistermix: Maybe next time you could write the post, save as draft, go walk your dog, then rewrite it as an adult whose intention is not solely to troll.
For example, you make an excellent point about Obama in your update which actually advances the discussion. You’re a decent writer when you slow down a bit.
I’m a registered Obot of the first order, but this week’s “trust us, if I didn’t work in government myself I’d be concerned too” is fucking weak tea. This is the best line they’ve come up with after weeks of preparation? Seriously disappointing.
eemom
The “coupling” of two words that mean entirely different things is kind of a big deal, assuming intellectual honesty matters to you at all.
Of course, when someone resorts to bullshit buzzwords like “tribalist” to attack their opponents, that assumption is pretty much out the window.
Josie
@hildebrand:
Don’t forget to mention that, after the car is torn apart – seats and everything pulled out – the owner is left with the fun of putting it back together. There is no apology, no offer of help, nothing but the back of their hands. I know because this happened to my son several times. His crime? Long hair. This was years ago, and nobody worried about his civil rights.
mistermix
@MomSense: Glenn is a real asshole, isn’t he?
? Martin
@hildebrand: This is the problem I have with this argument. There are clear issues with government that need to be addressed that directly impact people in a very real way. And then we have this hypothetical argument centered around the notion that government is evil, that we’re all being spied on and yet nobody can point to an actual impact on them.
If someone can tell us how phone metadata collection has made their life worse, then let’s hear it. Let’s hear something that we can actually work to address. But this seems like the very epitome of first world problems – for those people that haven’t lost control of their own body, that aren’t having their voting rights attacked, their citizenship questioned, the right to marry people they love, or the ability to rise out of poverty no matter how many hours a week they work, instead we have ‘someone might have my phone call timestamp in a database somewhere’. It’s not a prerequisite to being a liberal that you experience a civil rights violation. There are real problems that need to be solved without getting so focused on these hypothetical ones.
Mandalay
@hildebrand:
So unless folks post about your specific concerns they are “grifters”? Got it.
Do you have a link where you raised your concerns on an Open Thread? What happened when you emailed an FPer to psot a blog about the issue. Did they ignore you? Or did you never send an email?
Or do you see it as solely the responsibility of the “grifters” to somehow divine what’s bothering you through osmosis?
hildebrand
@Josie: Yep. I have heard far too many of those kinds of stories, and I have experienced a few too many interesting ‘conversations’ with the Border Patrol (and I am about the least threatening person in physical appearance – I just ask too many questions because I am naturally curious).
I am not a kook
@hildebrand: Since you’re so angry at BJ not covering the issues you think they should cover, have you considered offering to pay the blog’s expenses for a month and maybe paying mistermix an honorarium so he could write about your issues?
Or you know, you could write your own blog and document each and every instance of you and the people in your community being harassed by Border Patrol. Blogs are not a zero sum game. I guess it’s easier to rage on in the comments.
mistermix
@I am not a kook: Posting something that some group of commenters don’t like isn’t trolling. If I didn’t believe it and posted it just to irritate then, yeah, I’d be trolling. It should be obvious that I wasn’t doing that here.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
But they are not “hypothetical” problems. The secrecy of the laws governing our security is a massive problem. The lack of accountability to Congress is a massive problem (as you have noted to yourself).
Those are very real problems, and absolutely fundamental ones that need to be addressed.
This “real problems” vs. “hypothetical problems” argument is a strawman.
MomSense
@mistermix:
Really? That is your take on this? We are talking about information that has been public knowledge for over a decade and when the information wasn’t helpful to Greenwald’s position on FISA he was dismissive. Now all of a sudden there is all this concern about how the DEA gets information (much of it from foreign sources and perfectly legally) but those of us who have been concerned about the security state and the “war on drugs” and have been involved in trying to do something about these issues are now “deadenders” because we aren’t sufficiently panicked about the information Greenwald is providing?
Have you ever posted on the review that the President asked Justice to undertake shortly after he was inaugurated in 2009 and the resulting instances of illegal surveillance the Justice Dept identified and publicized? After that review, the Executive added additional oversight to the program because Congress sure as hell didn’t want to curb the security state. But go ahead and attach all the blame to this President and to his supporters and when his position is weaker going into the midterms the Republican House and Senate will totally repeal the AUMF (which the President called for long before Snowden’s leaks) and they will reform the Patriot Act and FISA.
mistermix
@hildebrand: When AZ passed its driving while brown law I wrote a couple of posts about it and described how it would affect my mom. Sorry you missed them. Not surprised since you’ve also apparently missed every single thing Kay’s written on education and labor.
Liberty60
So it seems like the reaction to Snowden’s revelations boils down to:
1. Its unimportant what the NSA is doing;
2. Snowden is a villain for exposing it.
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Secrecy is always going to be necessary. That’s the benefit of a representative government – we elect people we trust, and they represent our interests. I admit that’s not working great right now, but the solution is to fix the democratic process.
Accountability to Congress is almost entirely a problem of Congress, as it was under Bush.
I am not a kook
@? Martin: Maybe it’s all hypothetical to you. Maybe you could acknowledge that it’s not your place to police what other people find risible. I happen to communicate with non-US persons weekly at least and usually multiple times per day when I’m working. One of those people might have a cousin who knows somebody on Facebook or shares a name with someone on some watch list.
I used to jokingly greet NSA in my skype chats with family but I stopped doing that because some glibertarian dweeb BoozAH contractor might take offense and drop DEA a hint that somebody needs investigatin’.
Using “first world problem” as a cudgel is really lame. So we’re all about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs now? Eat your peas because children in Africa are starving.
mistermix
@MomSense: But go ahead and attach all the blame to this President and to his supporters and when his position is weaker going into the midterms the Republican House and Senate will totally repeal the AUMF (which the President called for long before Snowden’s leaks) and they will reform the Patriot Act and FISA.
Um, did you read my update? Did that blame Obama? Because if you think it did, I sure didn’t mean to.
JWR
@mistermix: In response to the Narconews piece ..in your desperate effort to defend Barack Obama in all that He does..”
I like the way Glenn capitalizes the word He in that sentence. But yeah, he really is an a**hole. Especially in his recent response to Carl Bernstein on DemocracyNow!. First, he brought Bob Woodward into the mix, as if he and Bernstein were still a pair, and then accused both of being “insider Washington defenders of the government.” Two ad hominem attacks just in his opening response. All in all, I’ve found Greenwald’s performance of late to be nothing short of disgusting.
Keith G
@JWR: @Mandalay:
I see MM has touched on this a bit. I will add….
The long slow roll out allows me (and I assume others) to become acquainted with new info and then think about its importance (or lack thereof) and its context in a bigger picture. Prism, XKeyscore, and I assume others, are better evaluated with a little down time between each new chapter. I also think as MM does that it has created a neat storyline where in the “nothing new” crowd keep getting beaned by the next info drop…”Yes Virginia, there is something new here.”
I do like how the timing of the info flow is used by some to attack the character of the leaker(s)…As if they would think him a better human if it all came in one big drop.
Puleeese.
No. They would just move on to find some other issue to use – as they have already done with a variety of issues. These legalistic keyboard patriots are getting just a wee bit sad in their repetitiveness. And worse, they are boring.
Kick back and relax. It gonna be a bit longer. Hopefully this will put a burr on the ass of our political leadership so that a conversation of how we want our liberties better protected (from all threats) can begin.
I am not a kook
@mistermix: I just find your stuff much more interesting when you take the time to reflect a bit before hitting post. Also, words do have a generally accepted meaning. Like “authentic”. As in an antonym for fraud.
Anton Sirius
@Laertes:
The distinction I’ve been making is this:
I give Greenwald full props for being an effective activist and propagandist. He’s forced his pet issue front and center, and it was an issue long overdue for public debate.
I also believe him to be a self-aggrandizing weasel, and a lousy journalist, who should be held accountable for the lies that have become Conventional Wisdom about what the NSA does and doesn’t do.
Those aren’t mutually contradictory views. In fact, there’s somewhat complementary.
My ideal outcome from all this would be a massive reform of the Patriot Act and the other associated legislation, and GG being relegated to writing for Breitbartland and WND and appearances on Beck’s show because no reputable news outlet, or even CNN, will give him the time of day.
A guy can dream.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
Reasonable people can disagree on how much secrecy is necessary with respect to the citizenry. But the real (not “hypothetical”) problem we have at the moment is that Congress is also kept in the dark. Which means our security agencies are not accountable.
Agreed, and they have the spine of a jellyfish. The potential problem that members of Congress face is identical to Obama’s, as outlined by mistermix:
So given the choice of playing it safe, doing nothing, and letting the NSA do whatever the hell it wants, or showing leadership and doing the right thing, the path Congress chooses is a no-brainer.
eemom
@MomSense:
Thanks for linking that. Giordano has always seen right through, and been an epic smackerdown of, that god of self-promotion in the guise of principle that is Greewald (together with goddess Hamsher).
I am not a kook
@Anton Sirius: Thank you, well put. I couldn’t agree more.
Just Some Fuckhead
Thanks for ruining another good opportunity to have this discussion, Edward Snowden and Corner Stone.
Fuckers.
Anton Sirius
@mistermix:
No, he doesn’t, mm, not at all.
Us “dead-enders” and “minimizers” are saying “we’ll believe something is seriously wrong when you provide us with proof that there is actual abuse and malfeasance going on in the NSA.” If he’d led with those abuses, rather than PowerPoint slides filtered through Greenwald’s bullshit, we’d already be on board.
It’s called having a reality-based worldview. It used to be what this site was all about.
srv
MM, did you think that you were going to be FP’ing on a blog that isn’t statist?
Any hippies here punched themselves to death years back. Everybody else turned into Darrell, particularly on this topic.
ericblair
@Liberty60:
This is ignoring the story that Snowden apparently took large amounts of top secret intelligence data with him, some of which was delivered to the Guardian and they refused to publish it. He then physically took this data to China and Russia and was likely under the control of their agents for weeks, and I’m guessing those devices are in Russian hands for the foreseeable future.
If he used commercial full disk encryption to encrypt the data, I doubt that would slow their intelligence agencies down much. (By necessity, they’ll have the decryption algorithm but not the key, it’s a lot of data which will make it easier to crack, and it’s in a predictable file system format which will help as well.) If he did use Type I encryption that’s more difficult to crack, then he’s probably delivered a classified US crypto device into their hands.
Xantar
@mistermix:
I don’t think the word “authentic” means what you think it does.
? Martin
@I am not a kook:
As do I. I communicate with people internationally on a daily basis – Egypt, Iran, Korea, China. Nobody has knocked on my door. There’s been no change to how I do things.
That’s a function of your paranoia, not a function of anything actually happening to you or anyone you know. Nothing in your life has actually changed. You have never been inconvenienced except when you chose to inconvenience yourself.
Meanwhile, there are things the government does which is actually, measurably intrusive.
Keith G
@Anton Sirius:
Really? A propagandist who is a self-aggrandizing weasel, and a lousy journalist?
My, oh my.
History has taught me that that is very much how many famous propagandists are described. Sorta goes with the package, it seems. BTW, I always viewed GG as a polemicist and not any sort of true journalist. I guess that’s why I haven’t haz a sad.
Held accountable?
Fer fuck sake….Of all the behaviors that need accountability over the past decade or so and you pick on this?
Dear (theoretical) God! We are so doomed!
Liberty60
@ericblair:
OK so its:
1. Its unimportant what the NSA is doing;
2. Snowden is a villain for exposing it to the Russians and Chinese.
JWR
@eemom: Heh! “Goddess Hamsher” FDL was a pretty good blog way back when. The Libby trial, and emptywheel, and all that. And then came the ’08 campaign and the politics of Taylor Marsh ruled and things got pretty hot. That’s when I left that blog, in a big hurry.
Liberty60
@? Martin:
Which is exactly why very few people speak about this in anything but the most abstract terms, or as a proxy argument for other positions.
There haven’t been any abuses of the NSA spying, that we know of.
That we know of, so far.
Which speaks well of President Obama, but really, are we supposed to let it go then?
Whats wrong with being concerned, not with what they are doing with the vast amounts of data they collect, but the mere fact that they collect it at all?
srv
@ericblair: @ericblair: 1. It’s different when Obama does it.
Anton Sirius
@Keith G:
Right, because that’s exactly what I said, and only what I said.
Fuck you, troll. You’re in the mclaren bin.
Long Tooth
“The point here is that the national security apparatus is independent of which party is in charge”.
Are you kidding?
A Reminder: The last republican administration big lied the USA into unleashing war. What else does anyone need know in order to recognize the GOP is by far the more reckless and dangerous of the two party’s? The GOP has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt there is no crime too sinister they will forbear to commit.
Keep in mind today’s surveillance establishment is their very own Big Brother toolbox, tools they crafted with intent to exploit, not demur to use.
I certainly don’t understand why on earth Obama and Pelosi are so hell bent on sustaining it.
cleek
this is yet another thing that Congress can change any time it wants to.
and, Congress will have to be the body to change it, because the President never will. there is no incentive to, and it would be practically impossible.
ericblair
@Liberty60:
This is ignoring that the NSA does a lot more than has been in the documents that the Guardian has decided to reveal, but easily could be in the other documents he’s taken. If he’s got four laptops full of information, that’s a lot of data. If you think that the US should do no electronic intelligence gathering anywhere in the world, fine, but that is what you’re saying.
ETA: Half of NSA’s overall mission is protecting US government data (Information Assurance), so it’s possible he could have compromised that, too.
Lynn Dee
@Liberty60:
You’re kind of misconstruing the argument. Those who say (if they do; I’m taking your word here) that what the NSA is doing is unimportant don’t mean that the collecting of information is unimportant. They mean, in fact, that it’s important enough that the invasion of privacy is unimportant. And when they say Snowden is a villain for exposing it, they don’t mean he’s a villain for exposing the invasion of privacy, but for exposing how information is being collected.
So you see, Liberty60, if you’d been clear in the first place in stating what you believe to be the other side’s argument, you’d understand that this inconsistency you think you’ve uncovered isn’t an inconsistency at all.
Keith G
@Anton Sirius:
Oooh, hot response. You are on fire, sir.
Lynn Dee
@Xantar:
Lol. So true.
mistermix
@Anton Sirius:
No, it’s called applying a nitpicky, overly-skeptical standard of what’s factual when the facts don’t agree with your worldview. This is what I was trying to get at with the use of the word “authentic” but obviously that wasn’t the right word. Each NSA revelation is greeted by the dead-end crew with the following set of responses:
1. If it is a NSA document showing that they have broad powers to intercept, classify and catalog domestic intelligence, then it is completely off limits to assume that this power might be abused, and even we imagine that the power might be abused, it is inconceivable that it would do any real harm to Americans, and even if it did, it could not do more harm than Google or Facebook are already doing
2. If it is an accusation about the use of NSA intelligence against domestic targets (e.g., the DEA revelations), then it must be mostly ignored because it doesn’t fit the narrative that this whole discussion is about theoretical misuse of powers.
3. When it comes to judging Snowden’s leaks, we must assume that they are meaningless, peripheral and harmless. When it comes to judging Snowden, he’s an awful traitor who has done untold harm to the US by revealing our most dear secrets.
Also, too:
So this means that if and when he comes up with those abuses, you won’t be on board because you disagree with the way they were ladled out? That’s like saying you didn’t like organisation of the chapters in Nixonland so you can’t accept Perlstein’s conclusions about the Southern Strategy.
Anybodybuther2016
That’s it in a nutshell isn’t it? It’s more important to that class of liberal to loose it over what they think the government might do to them as opposed to what the government is doing to people they pretend to care about right now in their own country. I can’t take these people seriously. How is it that an uneducated peon like myself can see through yet another faked media crated scandal and yet my progressive betters can’t?
strandedvandal
Was it illegal? No, so he’s a fucking traitor and you are defending him. For Christ sake, he ran to China and Russia. That, in and of itself, should be enough to convince you of his real intentions. Talk about deadenders. Do you REALLY want every Tom, Dick and Edward with an axe to grind exposing every government detail about any program they just don’t like? Myself, I am adult enough to understand that the Government, every Government, does things that I just don’t need to know about and I don’t want to know about.
Anton Sirius
@mistermix:
Wanting evidence of abuse before believing abuse is taking place is nit-picky now?
No, it means I won’t feel stupid for demanding that evidence before joining in – which was the motivation you were claiming for Snowden, that he was trying to make us “minimizers” look like chumps. Nor would I consider anyone else a chump in any situation where they demanded actual evidence of abuse before believing it was happening.
Flip that logic around, mm. You have chosen to go all-in before that evidence is presented, because you believe that it will, eventually, come to light.
Will you feel like a chump if it doesn’t?
FlipYrWhig
@mistermix: oddly enough, I think each “NSA revelation” ought to be held at arm’s length for a while rather than being immediately and uncritically embraced — especially because uncritically embracing them has become a litmus test of The True Defender of Civil Liberties Who Is Right to Have Been Disappointed in Obama All Along. There’s nothing more “tribal” than the view that the other side is mindlessly tribal. That’s Greenwald’s entire act, and it’s why he has relentless followers who attack other people for being relentless followers, and many other people in the blogosphere play their part in this particular version of The Aristocrats too.
mistermix
@Anton Sirius: So what’s your take on the DEA revelations. Those aren’t “evidence”?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
And the IRS:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130807
Frankensteinbeck
Every single revelation is met the same way because NONE OF THEM REVEALED ANYTHING NEW. They’re all the same pathetic information that the NSA can, horrors, get a warrant and track people’s internet use. Hell, most of what we’ve learned is that the NSA has a giant pile of restrictions on what they can and can’t do. We’re not going to change our mind until you actually provide us with new information. If you keep giving us the same old information over and over and going ‘Isn’t this scary?!’ we’re going to give you the same answer over and over.
If you think the government is going to recklessly abuse every spying power it has, then you have MUCH worse things to worry about. They can be bugging your car right now. Oh sure, they’d need a warrant and probable cause, but apparently you don’t think that’s any restriction. They could be hauling you off to a concentration camp right now. They have the manpower to do it. Yes, it’s illegal, but you don’t seem to think that’s stopping the NSA.
And don’t give me the false equivalence about Cheney. We had evidence that Cheney broke these kinds of laws on a large scale. If you want an equivalence, would I be worried if Bush Senior had these powers? No. I wouldn’t give a damn. I don’t like him, but I had no reason to believe he was abusing the national security system.
Keith G
@Anybodybuther2016:
Why the dichotomy? They are both appalling. And, in fact, one is very much related to the other, in that there is an “anything goes” mentality accompanying the nonstop march of centralizing and amping policing powers.
I am not sure where your insight into the hearts of “that class of liberal” comes from, but it’s possible that some focus on the NSA since it is more universal to anyone connected to modernity. Others of us have been decrying stop and frisk since it reared its ugly head in 2002.
eemom
@JWR:
Same here, and actually a lot of us BJ commenterators are old FDL refugees who share that history.
Jay
@ericblair: This.
Even if the NSA had people reading EVERY SINGLE sext message and LOLCat and watching every dungeon run in WoW 24/7…what the dumbass should have done was have GG release the stuff and stayed right here. At least if his claim to not want to put the US at risk was true.
Never mind his alleged “deadman switch”, and the fact that he advertised it to the entirety of the damn planet.
Now, people who…shall we say, may not have our best interests in mind, and somewhat loose ethical guidelines, have, at the very least, physical access to some very sensitive data…and the machine its stored on.
Good going, Snowballs, for someone that doesn’t want to put the US at risk, you’re doing a shitty job at it. I just wish stupidity were a crime, that would get him life without parole, easy…
hildebrand
@Mandalay: @I am not a kook: Both of you are willfully missing the point of my comments. I am asking for a certain level of consistency from those who claim to be concerned about civil liberties. If you are concerned about what the NSA might be doing, why are you not also concerned about those civil liberties which are being stepped on every single day. Not possibly being stepped on, actually being stepped on. Every day. It is not theoretical, it is actual – I can point to numerous cases every single day. I find it interesting that such cases don’t seem to move either of you.
Even more interesting, you set about the task of attacking me for having the temerity to bring these cases up in the first place. You mock. You deride. You trash me for not adequately alerting the bloggers on this site to my concerns. Yet, it seems that by mentioning these issues in this thread, I have, at the very least, mentioned them, and within the context of yet another thread on civil liberties abuses. That said, I have taken these concerns to other interested parties, people far more likely to be productive in addressing the concerns.
What is truly fascinating about your responses, though, is the seeming hostility you have towards anyone who does share your concern for civil liberties abuses, just not the abuses you think most important. If you are truly concerned about abuse, should you not be concerned about all abuses in this category? I find your selectivity troubling.
me
@mistermix: Even the soon-to-be-declassified FISC opinion that the NSA violated the fourth amendment seems to be rejected as contradictory to a tightly held world view.
mistermix
@Frankensteinbeck:
So we knew all along about “parallel construction” used by the DEA and IRS to hide the use of NSA data in prosecutions?
Any links for that?
Or does putting it in all caps make it true without needing links?
eemom
@Xantar:
Actually, it’s worse because the word has a very specific meaning, and MM is far from dumb enough to not know what that is. That’s where intellectual dishonesty comes in.
Followed by the parade of strawmen in #173.
Mandalay
@Anton Sirius:
Well the Director of National Intelligence lied under oath to Congress in March when asked whether the NSA collects “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans”.
His reply was “No, sir … not wittingly.”. Clapper was given forewarning in writing of that question the previous day, and we now know that he lied rather than misspoke.
Now if you want to argue that his response is no biggie then go right ahead. But most people with a pulse would find that to be a red flag that maybe there is “actual abuse and malfeasance going on in the NSA”.
I see “dead-enders” speculating that Snowden probably hates America, or is possibly getting paid by the Russians, or that maybe he gave all his data to China, or that Greenwald’s sole motivation is self-aggrandizement. But I never read a dead-ender wondering why Clapper felt it necessary to lie to Congress.
Soonergrunt
@cleek: to say nothing of the fact that any change President (D) might make could and would be undone by President (R). But I suppose the President should just issue those executive orders and then, just like DADT, everything would be sparkle-ponies, chocolate milk streams, and gumdrop fields forever.
MomSense
@mistermix:
I am not howling about Obama like I did about Chaney because they are not the same–at all.
I remember distinctly that the President called on Congress to repeal the AUMF in his foreign policy speech. In the same speech he talked about needing to bring the war on terror to a close, needing to weigh the balance between security and privacy. He talked about closing Guantanamo–again calling on Congress to do this and reiterating why he opposes it and why GTMO does not reflect our values. He talked about drone strikes–really a very thoughtful discussion, declassified the decision making concerning al Awlaki, called for more oversight.
That was not a speech that Dick Fucking Chaney would ever have given. I don’t watch cable news but I bet he or his evil spawn criticized that speech. You mentioned Obama at least three times in your update and said that we were deadenders if we were not howling about Obama like we did Chaney. I assume by howling you think we should be blaming Obama, or outraged by him so I don’t think I was reading your post incorrectly.
MomSense
@mistermix:
I am not howling about Obama like I did about Chaney because they are not the same–at all.
I remember distinctly that the President called on Congress to repeal the AUMF in his foreign policy speech. In the same speech he talked about needing to bring the war on terror to a close, needing to weigh the balance between security and privacy. He talked about closing Guantanamo–again calling on Congress to do this and reiterating why he opposes it and why GTMO does not reflect our values. He talked about drone strikes–really a very thoughtful discussion, declassified the decision making concerning al Awlaki, called for more oversight.
That was not a speech that Dick Fucking Chaney would ever have given. I don’t watch cable news but I bet he or his evil spawn criticized that speech. You mentioned Obama at least three times in your update and said that we were deadenders if we were not howling about Obama like we did Chaney. I assume by howling you think we should be blaming Obama, or outraged by him so I don’t think I was reading your post incorrectly.
Anton Sirius
@mistermix:
No, because a) I remember what a chinese wall is from old Law and Order episodes, and more importantly b) there are no details at all in that allegation, just a bunch of maybes. We don’t know whether the tips come from illegal intelligence gathering or not, and we don’t know how the DEA handles those tips.
And let’s be clear here: those are two separate possible abuses. I’m far more skeptical of the DEA handling the tips legally than I am of the NSA collecting the tips legally, mainly because the DEA has a much longer, proven track record of ignoring the law to get trophies for their wall than the NSA does of spying illegally on US citizens. Huh. It’s almost as if had Snowden already released evidence of NSA abuse, that wouldn’t be the case…
You didn’t answer my question. Will you feel like a chump if there’s no big reveal at the end from Snowden showing actual NSA abuse or abuses?
Frankensteinbeck
@mistermix:
Those articles are a completely separate topic. They don’t have anything to do with NSA abuses. However, I just went back and read those articles and will address them on their own terms.
The DEA and IRS get the equivalent of anonymous tips when other security agencies find evidence of illegal behavior in their investigations. Is this shocking? They then have to go and do their own investigations and rely solely on their own evidence to do their own law enforcement. Is that shocking? A bunch of people say this is not just legal, but normal and has been done for decades in all branches of law enforcement (the documents that brought it up are undated, so there’s that) and others say it sounds like it’s unconstitutional and could be abused in technical legal ways. Fair enough, get a court to rule on it. No, this does not fit into some overarching picture of the NSA abusing its powers.
It’s at least new (to me), it just doesn’t affect the topic at hand.
geg6
@Anton Sirius:
This. Exactly.
Anton Sirius
@Jay:
I said this in another thread, in relation to the John Lewis kerfuffle: I find it fascinating that in the old days of Gandhi and MLK, people fought for their rights by risking imprisonment to highlight the injustice they saw.
Nowadays, they just go Galt. Snowden flees, Lavabit shuts itself down, etc.
mistermix
@eemom:
Hmm, I’m sorry but did I miss where you made an actual argument to support your views about Snowden, Greenwald, the NSA, et al? All I remember from your dead-end side of the table has been a bunch of fairly predictable name calling.
mistermix
@Frankensteinbeck:
Articles about other agencies using domestic intelligence gathered by the NSA, which is only supposed to gather intelligence about foreigners, don’t have anything to do with the NSA. Got it.
Frankensteinbeck
@mistermix:
Sorry, what? Who started this by calling us ‘dead-enders’ and accusing us of tribalism being our sole motivation in a post that provides no other arguments? Oh, and it had a blatant straw man in it, since nobody is arguing ‘authenticity’. You do not get to fling around the ‘the other side is just name calling’ argument. You are as or more guilty.
Laertes
Snowden’s no profile in courage, but from here in the cheap seats, I’m reluctant to criticize a man for fleeing a justice system that did what it did to Jose Padilla. John Lewis can, but I can’t. I’ve done nothing to earn that right.
Soonergrunt
What he said: Milt Shook
Anton Sirius
@Mandalay:
Or he made a very careful, weaselly parsing between “data” and “metadata”. Whichever.
I freely admit that Clapper’s performance created some smoke. But that doesn’t mean the only possible reason he gave that response was to cover up a fire.
lol
@me:
Those supposed “strawmen” are living and breathing at Reddit.
Frankensteinbeck
@mistermix:
That domestic intelligence gathered by the NSA is involved is pure speculation. The DEA article says that they receive information from a wide variety of organizations. The IRS article says that they only receive information gathered in the course of overseas investigations. Your source does not say what you seem to think it says.
RandomMonster
1. If it is a NSA document showing that they have broad powers to intercept, classify and catalog domestic intelligence, then it is completely off limits to assume that this power might be abused,
Nobody says it’s off limits to assume the power might be abused — we’re saying it’s stupid to assume that it must be abused, given that there have only been accusations and allegations but nothing that looks like clear evidence. You understand the difference, right?
2. If it is an accusation about the use of NSA intelligence against domestic targets (e.g., the DEA revelations), then it must be mostly ignored because it doesn’t fit the narrative that this whole discussion is about theoretical misuse of powers.
The DEA revelations are interesting and worthy of exploration. Note that I didn’t say there’s definitive proof of abuse — we would all benefit from more details. But who is saying evidence should be ignored? What critics are saying is that we need more evidence — what you write above trivializes that argument.
3. When it comes to judging Snowden’s leaks, we must assume that they are meaningless, peripheral and harmless.
Nobody is saying that. People are saying that what he disclosed suggests a lot of things that could be interpreted in many ways in the absence of evidence and more details.
Anton Sirius
@Laertes:
I don’t even make the comparison to necessarily impugn Snowden’s bravery, or his commitment to his cause. I think it’s a genuine philosophical difference, and (to bring the discussion full circle) says a lot about tribalism and whether libertarians think of themselves as part of the larger societal tribe or not.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig:
You have had worse ideas.
I kid. Seriously, I am not opposition to this. In fact, I can’t think of many folks whom I respect on this issue who have argued for complete and total belief. I think that is part of our nature as a Lefty. Doubt Everything!. That’s what makes us so fun at cocktail parties. Anyway, many of us are staggered by the process over time of the build up and centralization of security forces. Some of us are old enough to remember COINTELPRO first hand. The younger ones here might recall FBI documents show that the Feds treated the Occupy Movement as a criminal terrorist threat.
Progressive movements (regardless of one’s view of their legitimacy) have been burned many times by those in the government who wished that they would stop. Secrecy is the prime tool of those who wish to suppress the inconvenient. Secrecy is a cancer in a democracy – a cancer that might not be fatal, but will always be dangerous. We are getting a look at the secret workings of our government, and although the method is too crude, it’s better this than nothing.
Sorry, but I think linking this to the personality of this or that person is just a bit weak.
There will always be folks on both sides who really love or really hate this president. But also, who is arguing for an “uncritically embracing”? Not I. Not MM. There are a very few here who have, I guess.
RandomMonster
@Soonergrunt: Yes!
me
@Soonergrunt:
“Is exceeding”? Nice weasel words considering there is definitive evidence that they did exceed their authority at one point between 2001 and 2011.
Laertes
@me:
It also elides the point that their authority under the law turns out to be quite a bit broader than most people knew. Secret laws, secret courts, secret rulings–these things aren’t part of a well-functioning Democracy.
Mandalay
@Keith G:
More precisely, why the false dichotomy? This thread riddled with it. In fact the whole of BJ is full of it lately. It takes two forms:
– The people who would do {x} are the same people who would do {y}!
– The people who would do {x} would never do {y}!
You can pick any values for {x} and {y}. They are all equally meaningless.
Yatsuno
@Laertes:
This is true. Have you voiced your displeasure to your Congresscritter yet?
Keith G
@Anton Sirius:
Apples/oranges.
The two men you name had followers and natural constituencies that made their mistreatment or disappearance unlikely. I imagine (and I may be wrong, but I doubt it), that upon arrest Snowden will be held without bail (even had he not flew) and incommunicado. Because of the nature of his activities, his communication will be limited and monitored and there would be no followups from the press.
Even if he turns out to be a turkey (as in little substance & much harm) I understand and support his travels. He seems to feel he has an important message to get to the public.
Laertes
@Yatsuno:
Yeah. I call from time to time to add my tiny little voice to the din, for whatever that turns out to be worth. Brad Sherman is a decent guy, though I was sad when the redistricting swapped him in for Henry Waxman. That guy is such a badass.
Odie Hugh Manatee
This calls for a song!
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Keep trollin’, trollin’, trollin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them doggies trollin’… Rawhide!
hildebrand
@Mandalay: Actually, some of us are simply asking for basic consistency. If you are for civil liberties, you need to be for civil liberties in all cases – or you have some explaining to do.
Thlayli
@mistermix:
“Obot”
“Authoritarian”
“Lickspittle”
“Tribalist”
“Dead-ender”
Who’s doing the name-calling around here…?
Soonergrunt
@me: Hardly weasel words given that the author (and I) agree with everyone that there was a point around 2006 when NSA and other agencies were routinely engaging in warrant-less surveillance.
You’d actually have a point had the author (or I) said “There is zero evidence that the NSA has exceeded its authority under the law.” But that isn’t what the author or I have ever asserted.
Alas.
Socoolsofresh
Explain away, faithful explainers. I love how it has now been almost 3 months of hearing your explanations, and the arguments hasn’t evolved much, even though the evidence has. This will, and always be a nothingburger!
fuckwt
Strawman is made of straw.
Just sayin.
The problem, again, is the stupid laws, not the fact that we have a government (shocking!) or that it has access to all this data that private corporations collect (shocking!).
Eliminate the stupid drug Prohibition and the drug war. Then there’s no reason for the NSA to give data to the DEA– they are both Federal agencies anyway, so, really, are you surprised they’re sharing it?– and if they did there’s nothing they could do to fuck with you. If your laws are just, then the enforcement of them is not a problem. The way to make government responsible is to not outlaw stuff that shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. The presumption here is that the government IS the people, not some sinister ‘other’ threatning us. And if that can’t be assumed, then that’s the root problem we need to fix. All bets are off if our government is not on our side, working for us.
And, because of that, yes it DOES matter whether it’s Cheney or Obama doing it. Power is inevitable, SOMEONE has to have it. The challenge is to put in checks and balances on it and to make sure that the most responsible people are entrusted with it. Obama is a lot more responsible then Cheney, so I do sleep easier at night knowing he’s the guy. I sleep less well knowing that Boner and Turtle won’t let any legislation through that’d actually fix this.
Also, this data collection technology is not going away, the toothpaste is not going back in the tube. I love what Obama hinted at, that there may be technological solutions to this problem, i.e. more use of strong end-to-end encryption.
Too much of this anti-NSA hysteria smells to me like a strain of Libertarian “all government is bad!” naivete. Government is inevitable. Technology is inevitable (and, ultimately, is power too). The question is how do we use these powers for our good, how do we set up checks and balances to keep it under control, how do we make sure the best and most reponsible people are elected, how to we align our laws with our values, and make sure our government is following those laws.
This is a serious matter, and it needs discussion. I have no doubt that what Greenwald and Snowden has exposed is real. Also, none of it is surprising to me because I was an old-skool EFF and ACLU member back in the day, and was howling about it back in the Cliinton days (remember the “Clipper chip”? I do!) and up to and during the PATRIOT Act days.
Socoolsofresh
@Anton Sirius: Ya, Snowden is no civil rights leader, so the information he revealed isn’t important.
Lavabit shut down rather than give up its information to the government. I guess if they were real patriots they would have given all their users info to the U.S. government. That is now considered the new American way.
Mandalay
@hildebrand:
You run your mouth without having a clue what I post about here beyond this thread, which is about the NSA, and not your pet peeves.
No. The problem was that you called everyone who didn’t share your concerns “glory-seeking grifters”, so fuck off with your holier-than-thou sanctimonious bullshit.
No. I’m hostile to an asswipe who wants to post about border patrols in a thread about the NSA, and then gratuitously call everyone who isn’t instantly sympathetic to your precious concerns “glory-seeking grifters”. Fuck off, wanker.
fuckwt
@RepubAnon: That’s scary, and true. A relative had his assets frozen by his ex-wife as soon as he filed. He was self-employed, hadn’t been doing too well (which had been one point of tension in their marriage), and he was destitute after that– all he had was savings, which he couldn’t use. The case dragged on for many years, and he’s still living below the poverty line decades after that.
me
@Soonergrunt: 2006? The FISC opinion is about surveillance that occured after 2008. Again “Is exceeding” are weasel words
Soonergrunt
@me: The blog post you linked references a law that was passed in 2008. It states that “EFF has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding answers about illegal email and telephone call surveillance at the National Security Agency (NSA).”
EFF has been suing on this subject for years.
When were these determinations made? Because unless you can show that they were made some time in the last few months about conduct that occurred within (hell, I’ll be extremely generous here) say the last two years, then “is exceeding” isn’t anything remotely like weasel words, no matter how desperately you cling to that idea.
“was exceeding” would be correct. And while we’re on the subject, you just showed us all that the system, including court oversight, works. Thanks.
Good on ’em. There’s a reason I donate money to them.
Mandalay
@Laertes:
OT: Whatever happened to Henry Waxman? A few years ago he was like a rabid honey badger, going after some Republican every ten minutes. He was awesome. And now I never hear anything about him. Is he OK?
me
@Soonergrunt: The opinion was written in Oct 2011 so there’s your two years. To be sure, it doesn’t say the illegal surveillance was still happening in 2011 but we’ll know in about week when it’s released.
Lynn Dee
@me:
You keep saying that. But why is “is exceeding” weasel wordy? Seems pretty explicit to me.
I am not a kook
@hildebrand:
What I find fascinating is that you came into this thread with this:
Yeah, selectivity is in the eye of the beholder. Only if people acknowledge and write about ALL civil liberties issues, are they allowed to write about this. And then only if they have written about YOUR pet issue.
Personally I think voting rights suppression, especially based on racism, is the worst thing in this country. I find it troubling that you don’t denounce it. So there.
You know, people might be receptive to learn about the Border Patrol excesses if you didn’t accuse them of oppressing you because it’s not on their radar for whatever reason, like living thousands of miles away. I would be. It’s not a zero sum game. You can’t expect everyone to be aware of every single issue and prioritize them to your liking. You have an issue. Yelling at people isn’t going to make them more receptive.
I am not a kook
@mistermix:
Calling people dead-enders, among others, isn’t trolling? OK.
I am not a kook
Now that I’m arguing with both mistermix and hildebrand, I vanish in a puff of smo
hildebrand
@Mandalay: Wow – you have interesting issues. Any slight deviation from your topic (even though it actually does share DNA) and you absolutely blow your cool. You must be just a ball at parties.
Nonetheless, you tell me, if Snowden was actually interested in exposing the United States government, and not simply marketing himself as some type of whistle-blower martyr, then why run to China and then to Russia? Why not make a direct statement, with all of the evidence?
Finally, as far as what you usually post around here? Please, you are as predictable as the day is long, have been for as long as I have been reading this blog (I started reading in 2007). You are a one trick pony. Always have been. Always will be. You don’t have reasoned discussions, it is beyond your ability or temperament – you yell and mock until people tire of your knavishness. You are the most tiresome of fools, and you glory in playing the troll. Oh, yes, I know you.
RSA
@mistermix:
I thought I wasn’t a dead-ender, but now I don’t know… The problem I have with this article is that it’s what we might call “The rule proves the exception.” That is, doesn’t tell us about any new NSA capabilities. It’s all about a rule with an unspecified contingency: “analysts may NOT/NOT [not repeat not] implement any USP [US persons] queries until an effective oversight process has been developed by NSA and agreed to by DOJ/ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence].” If that oversight process allows warrantless searches, then we have a problem. I think Soonergrunt has the right perspective: The most important issue raised by the article isn’t whether the “NSA loophole allows warrantless search for US citizens’ emails and phone calls,” but whether official policy allows the NSA to exploit the loophole. The article raises an important question; it shouldn’t imply that the question is answered.
Soonergrunt
@me: So something that’s nearly two years old that describes something that happened several weeks to months prior to that (courts NEVER move quickly) “is exceeding”?
My generosity at work, I suppose. You’re welcome.
BobS
@hildebrand: You keep whining that many or most or some of us concerned about likely abuses on the part of the NSA are not equally concerned about the ongoing civil liberty abuses that you cite. Speaking on behalf of older white male leftists (who specifically took a hit upthread from ‘askew’ for not being sufficiently concerned about issues that don’t directly affect us), let me assure you these abuses are and have long been of concern to many of us- we are in fact able to walk and chew gum simultaneously. It’s important enough to some of us that we’ve contributed our time and money in furtherance of these causes.
Additionally, all these issues have been covered pretty regularly in the left media I rely on for news, including Counterpunch, DemocracyNow!, and Free Speech Radio News. The problems you write of haven’t exactly been on ignore by the people who’ve been accused of ignoring them on this thread.
Moe Gamble
@JWR:
I think Greenwald’s dribbling of the info is smart. It keeps the issue from disappearing.
hildebrand
@I am not a kook: You are right. I apologize.
Simply put, I am tired of folks spending so much time swinging at potential abuses, while ignoring the abuses that happen every day. The border issues aren’t sexy or in the news, nor do they have folks like Greenwald or Snowden making them famous, so they simply don’t even exist as issues for those who claim to be interested in civil liberties. What I am asking for is consistency along the entire spectrum of civil liberties issues.
me
@Soonergrunt: Yet, the article you linked says “sure abuse occured in 2006 but the law we passed fixed that in 2008” completely ignoring that there was illegal stuff still happening afterward. Then to say we don’t know right now that there are violations happening. Somehow that isn’t weaselly.
hildebrand
@BobS: I respectfully disagree. (I find it interesting that you immediately dismiss my concerns as whining. That is a tell, as they say.) I am saying that I find it interesting that folks who are so disturbed by the potential abuses (until we see evidence to show the actual abuse, we have to call them potential) are seemingly silent about actual abuses that happen every day. I know the sites that deal with border and civil rights issues, this site, and those who always talk about civil liberties abuses on this site, are not among them. Ever. You will never see the issue widened to embrace those civil liberties that are curtailed as a matter of daily course.
What I find interesting is the vehemence against trying to widen the issue. This has been an odd development today. You, and others, have really gotten extremely defensive. The question is why? Why not simply incorporate my concerns into a broader narrative? Why not hit the low-hanging fruit of government overreach regarding civil liberties? This is a tangible issue that could be addressed – and yet, on numerous occasions on this thread, I am the bad guy for raising the issue. Don’t you find that odd, at all?
eemom
@hildebrand:
fwiw, I agree with you…..and the response you’re getting — i.e., “Oh but I pay lip service to all those other abuses…..so that means I’m totally NOT a hypocrite for focusing on the speculative splinter in the finger of the privileged few rather than the knife in the guts to the marginalized many” — is just more white guy bullshit.
Reminds me of the howling and wailing over the “torture” of Bradley Manning, by so many here who neither know, nor give two shits about, the rampant and worse abuses that are business as usual in US prisons everyday, all the time.
Culture of Truth
If “authentic” isn’t the right word, what do you call it when every single revelation from Snowden’s documents is met with “well even if the NSA had that capability they wouldn’t use it, or if they did use it, it doesn’t matter”?
Something else entirely.
Also, two other, different, issues.
Also, who is saying those two things?
keestadoll
@Long Tooth: Because it’s shiny and pretty and precedent let them? Just spit-balling.
Va Highlander
Just read the update and, sadly, mistermix really is this childish, still seemingly incapable of addressing the real objections of his detractors. How depressing.
TG Chicago
@JWR: It’s the smart media strategy. It keeps the story in the news longer. A big data dump could be a one- or two-day story and quickly swept under the rug.
Mandalay
@hildebrand:
No. You whined about your pet peeve, and then called everyone who didn’t sympathize with you “glory-seeking grifters”. Fucking idiot.
lojasmo
Uh. Cheney and Bush were doing this. There was a lawsuit in 1996. Was I howling? No. Neither did I EVER howl about the use of drone tech, which happened frequently during the last administration.
Three million displaced Iraqis and 250,000 dead iraqis, and ignoing the PDB about Bin Laden. Yeah, I was pretty pissed about that stuff.
hildebrand
@Mandalay: Hmm, no, I called Snowden a glory-seeking grifter. You are simply a troll. You aren’t smart enough to get paid for what you do. Whatever it is that you do.
On a far more interesting note – isn’t it odd that you find actual abuse of civil liberties to be merely one person’s pet peeve. It makes me think that you don’t actually care about people – just the idea of a cause.
lojasmo
@Jaybird:
Well, he’s a fucking paultroon, so there’s that.
lojasmo
@Mandalay:
Subscriptions don’t sell themselves. A (brit) doc where I work is VERY concerned about every word that dribbles from Greenwald’s pen.
lojasmo
@Socoolsofresh:
It’s nice that you can offer insight into the minds of murder appologists and those who commit espionage.
Thanks.
lojasmo
@Socoolsofresh:
Um. Broadly true White libertardians and our progressive betters actively mock women’s issues and issues of race here with impunity.
Bob In Portland
Where was Mistermix when the FBI were going through Spitzer’s bank records?
Keith G
@Bob In Portland:
I know, right? That makes me so fucking angry. And another thing…where the hell was he when Julius Caesar shit-canned the Roman Republic? He’s got some nerve!!
BobS
@hildebrand: I didn’t dismiss your concerns- I told you your concerns were my concerns. And you were whining.@eemom: Always good to hear from the resident apologist for our apartheid client state and the evisceration of it’s own “marginalized many” (as well as the occasional state-sponsored murder of American citizens) – if I ever wound up on the same side of an issue as someone with your fascistic instincts, I’d start worrying my own moral compass was fucked up.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@hildebrand: ” It makes me think that you don’t actually care about people – just the idea of a cause. “
BAM! Nailed it. You’re wasting your time on this one.
@Bob In Portland:
Shit, where was he when J. Edgar was Hoovering up info on Americans? ;) Government spying is old news but this spying touches their precious new tech!
It’s all about the internet and their presence on it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@BobS: That incoherent outrage was practically mclaren-worthy.
Soonergrunt
@Moe Gamble: And keeps his paychecks flowing.
Christian R. Conrad
@Anton Sirius:In reply to:
BZZZT, wrong answer: Metadata is a type of data, so is included in “any type of data at all”.
Care to try again? Better luck next time!
BobS
@The prophet Nostradumbass: What part do you need help with- that hildebrand has been whining throughout the thread or that eemom is a cheerleader for an apartheid and increasingly fascist Israel who needs to get the beam out of her eye before sharing her ignorance regarding civil liberties?
litbrit
Thank you for this post, @mistermix.
I’ve written plenty of words about the surveillance state; about the legion TSA abuses that everyone seems to think people are making up (until it happens to them); about no-knock searches and pet shootings and, of course, the execrable Stop-and-Frisk programs.
I won’t even bother taking on the NSA apologists–I can only wonder how much evidence they’ll need to have splayed before their noses in order to admit that, Hey, this isn’t right, this isn’t Constitutional, this isn’t American, this isn’t AMERICA.
What I would like to do, though, is share a comment from my FB page, written by a retired SEAL friend of mine in response to my post about the recent NSA-DEA revelations. He wrote:
so . . .they get some ideas about taking some folks down, being as it’s drug arrests all their assets get to be seized. then, they walk the trail back to justify the arrest, seizure and convictions. i seem to recall another agency that worked exactly like that. torquemada’s inquisition.
litbrit
This, however, bears repeating, repeating, repeating, and amplifying until it becomes something more than the dulled chatter (or worse, “esoteric discussion”!) it currently remains:
Clapper lied. To Congress.