Looks like I missed all the Security Theater fun yesterday while having a neighborhood fish fry, homemade cider and mead tasting competition and Breaking Bad Viewing Society meeting. Since one of the threads reached a TBogg Unit,* there’s really nothing more to be said. Except perhaps this: It is entirely possible to hold the following views simultaneously:
1. The NSA data collection spree – regardless of whether it began under Bush, Obama or Warren G. Harding – is an unwarranted intrusion into Americans’ (and other nationals’) private communications.
2. It doesn’t matter if Google and Amazon do it too and with more direct implications for our personal Internet experience; that fact is another worthy topic of debate, but as far as we know, Google and Amazon aren’t colluding with the cops and Homeland Security. That distinction matters.
3. There is a difference between having the capability to do something and actually doing it, and there are those who often conflate the two. However, for other potentially abuse-prone police / government capabilities, such SWAT teams, we generally have a better understanding of their necessity and demand more transparency and oversight of their operations. We need a similar level of confidence in NSA operations.
4. Using terrorism statutes to routinely harass Laura Poitras and detain Greenwald’s spouse for nine hours is wrong because they aren’t terrorists. Greenwald’s fulminations about the US/UK targeting Miranda because he’s Greenwald’s hubby are bollocks because the government(s) had very good reason to believe Miranda is an agent in l’affaire Snowden, not just an innocent family member/tourist, but that doesn’t change the fact that anti-terrorism laws are supposed to be about preventing terrorism, not harassing journalists or even polemicists and their assistants.
5. I agree with Cole when he said, “But seriously, what is going on is not right, not normal, and not permissible. Even if it is legal and even if Glenn Greenwald is the biggest flaming asshole to ever walk the earth, with an ego that makes Rush Limbaugh’s look like he suffers from self-loathing.”
But I disagree with a possible implication in the paragraph that immediately follows that assertion, which is that it somehow doesn’t matter what the methods and motivations of the players in the Snowald-Assange drama are. It does matter, and it has nothing to do with “feelings” or whether or not these are swell guys or assholes.
It matters because when libertarians, people who reflexively despise the US and people who think Rand Fucking Paul is the great hope of America influence the flow of information that is igniting an ongoing debate, they will shape the data to fit their agenda. It doesn’t mean that they’ll never have anything useful to contribute or that they might not do us an incredible service by sparking a debate that leads to reform.
But it would be as dumb of us now to ignore their motives as it was of our countrymen to take guys like Colin Powell, Tony Blair, et al, at their word when they lied about WMDs in the run-up to the Iraq War because they’re just sincere, terrific guys, not at all like GWB. Uncritically swallowing everything Snowald, Assange, et al, dish out because they aren’t the government isn’t any smarter than blindly trusting the government.
As for the Obama administration, in my opinion, the jury is still out on how they’ll handle all this. That’s the cue for those of you who follow me around in every thread calling me an Obot to accuse me of ignoring the NSA perfidy I would have condemned under Bush and accuse me of click-whoring. It’s also the cue for those who express disappointment whenever I utter anything mildly critical of the administration to accuse me of being brainwashed by firebaggers or whatever.
I don’t think Obama or any other president is capable of fully overseeing every facet of the massive bureaucracies he nominally controls, but he is responsible for them. I suspect Obama will attempt some reasonable reforms — along the lines he outlined in his speech on drone warfare before the Snowden story broke, i.e., it’s time to come off a permanent war footing and rethink the policies that go along with addressing a so-called existential threat.
And he’ll probably be beaten back in that attempt by the same squealing candy-asses who stymie any attempt at getting a handle on gun madness in this country. But we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
*Thread containing 500+ comments.
HelloRochester
I concur. But mainly I just wanted to be first.
cleek
this sentence is the first mention of “Congress” on this page.
Alexandra
TBogg Unit?
*feeling distinctly unsavvy*
Gin & Tonic
@cleek: I thought it was covered under “squealing candy-asses.”
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you. Obviously, they are synonyms. But Cleek makes a fair point about the general discussion — too much focus on Obama and too little on the people whose job it is to investigate this shit and change things as warranted.
Goblue72
He couldn’t even close Gitmo – our very own torture mill and gulag – without both sides of Congress squealing. Good luck with the NSA thing.
NotMax
Reasonableness?
How unbloggy.
eemom
You have more common sense and writing ability than that pair of late night drama queens put together. Times, of course, ten thousand.
Mnemosyne
It would be kind of nice if one of the front-pagers could track someone down who actually knows about this particular statute in Great Britain (no, Sully doesn’t count). At least according to the Wikipedia page, people have been complaining about it since it was first passed in 2000, but it does sound as though the British courts have said it’s okay to detain people suspected of non-terrorist crimes under that statute.
And, again, people who think that this detention could only have happened at the behest of the Obama administration forget that the British government has their own, very good reasons to be pissed off at Snowden and Greenwald. Not everything that happens in a foreign country is because of Obama.
Betty Cracker
@Alexandra: TBogg Unit = 500+ comments. I think Yatsuno coined it. I suspect TBogg would approve of the double entendre.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m gonna have to re-read this and see if there’s anything I disagree with, but I believe I am aware of an internet tradition according to which I say “This!”, with an x and a number, perhaps.
@Gin & Tonic: also implied too in “transparency and oversight”
Belafon
@Goblue72: Exactly. Having Obama and the NSA doing the investigating works great for Congress, especially Republicans:
1) They don’t have to do any work
2) It’s all the presidents/Democrats fault if something bad happens.
ETA: I should add, as much as I’m not nearly as worried about the data collection, I wish some damn Congress would say “it’s our jobs to declare war.”
FlipYrWhig
I might quibble with some of the particulars, but by and large I agree with these thoughts. As a group it ought to be possible to say at the same time that surveillance raises legal and constitutional issues AND that Snowden, Greenwald et al have a tendency to spin yarns about events.
Hunter Gathers
As long as the human race continues it’s torrid love affair with Fear (and the money that gets made from pimping out Fear), it ain’t gonna change.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: It’s surreal to imagine that the last serious legislative effort in this direction was led by a Democratic Senator from *Idaho*.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Betty Cracker: This is an opportunity to express my grief over TBogg’s retirement. Can someone persuade him to do guest gigs here once in a while? Please.
MomSense
In addition to Congress, I think we should also note that data protected by 4th amendment right to privacy does not include phone records or bank statements for that matter and hasn’t since the 70s thanks to SCOTUS.
japa21
Betty, good post, even where I disagree with you, such as point 1 and the last sentence of point 3, as I have that trust (at least at the current time). Also, I have no problem with the UK detaining Miranda. He was engaged in illegal activity, basically serving as a drug runner. And he was let go.
There is a major deficit of reasoned, fact based, hyperbole free discussion on this issue. And I am talking about both sides.
And yes, Obama, even before Snowden came out with his mostly already known information, had talked about the need to look at all aspects of our security situation, including information gathering. He was also behind major revamping of the NSA oversight and regulations back in 2009 which basically meant you could be totally against what Bush was doing and have a much lesser issue with the current situation without being an Obot.
moonbat
Well said, Betty. And once we’ve dialed back the surveillance apparatus of this country and another bomb goes off somewhere within this great nation of ours (and it will) I want us all to remember this discussion and not lose our collective shit again by demanding protection from those others at all costs because that is how we reached this sorry pass to begin with.
MattF
I’m still sort-of undecided… but I recall the old KGB tactic of bringing some one in and asking them “Now, why do you think you’ve been arrested?” We’re all guilty of something. Well, not me, but certainly you.
In fact, the whole vast network of police, secrecy and information depends on a reliable supply of guilty parties. And the intelligence community has the cop’s point of view– everyone is guilty of something.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Way too often true of way too many issues, and not just in the blogosphere. Even some very smart people I really respect (cough**Krugman**cough) can’t seem to get the idea of Congress through their noggins.
@Goblue72: A lot neocons called the speech Betty referenced as “surrender”, and they are still considered sages of foreign policy. Even though it’s all too predictable, I still can’t quite believe John McCain’s tantrum about “The Surge” during the Hagel hearings didn’t, as far as I can see, give anyone in the Village even a moment’s pause.
StringOnAStick
Thanks betty, you just saved me from having to wade through a +1 Tboggian of heated comments, and you perfectly articulated what my current assessment of the situation is. I miss having you at Rumproast, but your contributions here are stunning and certainly deserve this wider audience!
chopper
betty, you’re being reasonable. and not calling everyone who disagrees an asshole.
pamelabrown53
I really like your post, Betty. I also think you’re a terrific writer. However, here is where I disagree: “…or that they might be doing us an incredible service by sparking a debate that leads to reform.”
I’ve seen very little real debate but a lot of hyperbole and mass confusion. With that as the basis for debate, how can we expect well thought through reforms that actually balances individual rights and national security?
So far this “debate” more closely resembles a screaming match on crack.
Maroc
Of course it matters what the players’ motives and methods are, in any situation like this, because it allows us to evaluate the information they’re delivering. Is it likely to be crafted to support a particular agenda? Can we distinguish the hard information from the spin? As long as we’re aware of what the spin is likely to be, and what agenda the narrative is trying to sell us, distinguishing the actual information and looking at it independent of spin is challenging, but not impossible. And it’s important to do the exercise.
But reflexively dismissing information from people whose motives or agenda you don’t trust, simply because you don’t like them or their agenda, is as counterproductive and likely to produce serious errors as reflexively embracing information from people you do like just because they’re such terrific guys, so sincere, whatever. It’s an error to assume Colin Powell isn’t lying about those WMDs just because he’s Colin Powell; it’s an identical error to assume that Edward Snowden, or even the dreaded Greenwald, is lying just because he’s Greenwald.
And that’s particularly important to remember in situations where powerful interests are lined up to try to discredit the information coming from the people you already don’t like, and one of the weapons they’re using to try to discredit it is to emphasize the personal qualities of the messenger, which are obviously not directly relevant to the underlying issue. Especially when, as here, the attacks on the messenger aren’t buttressed by credible evidence that there’s anything substantially incorrect about the core of the message.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
yeah, it’s like congress has some sort of magical cloaking device. i guess everyone’s so used to the idea that the guys on the hill do absolutely nothing at all that they don’t even think of them having any responsibilities anymore.
rikyrah
@elonjames
“If I had a son who was stopped, I might feel differently about it, but nevertheless,” – Mayor Bloomberg on #StopAndFrisk
Alexandra
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks. I was aware that he was a somewhat popular blogger, as the phrase goes, I think. Just wasn’t sure on the quantity, particularly as I try to stay out of the NSA/security state threads. 500 comments is mighty.
As a UK resident (not citizen), I’m not surprised by anything that goes on over here and don’t have the patience or attention-span to get too overwrought by anything. I iz a sheeple, in other words.
MikeJ
If you don’t like Greenwald’s partner being detained, contact your MP. If you’re unsure who that is, just put your postcode in this form.
I knew a lot of people thought that Obama was elected king, not president, but it appears many people also believe he was elected PM.
Belafon
@Maroc:
Stopped reading after that.
RandomMonster
Oh Betty, stop confusing the issue with reason and facts, and start calling the US a fascist state. Avoiding that kind of hyperbole is just like punching hippies in the face!
Xantar
@Maroc:
It’s an error to reflexively dismiss Greenwald, but he distorts and exaggerates so damn much that I find I just don’t have the time to wade through all the reading and figure out what’s going on. That’s why my reflexive action is to wait a few days after every Greenwald post so that people have by and large figured out what the facts are.
chopper
@Maroc:
well, if you think he’s lying just because he’s GG, sure. but there’s also the idea that ‘he’s lying because he’s lied before’.
i mean, look at this situation. GG comes out of the gate screaming about his innocent husband being detained merely out of some sort of petty vindictiveness. then it comes out that miranda was there to ferry some of the snowden docs back and forth; the dude was carrying stolen classified documents through the UK.
as it turns out, the people who reflexively doubted GGs initial side of the story were right to do so, even if they believed that the wrong sort of statutes were being cited in his detention.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I think it’s another case of blurring how to talk about law. Strictly legally speaking, the UK law clearly authorizes this kind of treatment with or without suspicion of terrorist involvement. It’s not stretching the law to do it; it _is_ the law to do it. But from another perspective, it’s bullshit to authorize this kind of treatment by throwing it in with a grab-bag of terrorist-fighting powers.
I assume that everyone being held at a UK airport for any suspicion of anything is subject to the Terrorism Act — it’s a bit like Stop and Frisk, it seems — but that doesn’t mean any charges that followed would have anything to do with terrorism. As far as I can tell, they could probably hold and search someone under the Terrorism Act, then find endangered bird eggs or counterfeit Hermes scarves, then prosecute for those crimes.
Marc
Well said, Betty.
Oh, and to this:
Worth remembering that some of those very same candy-asses are routinely and reflexively praised by the same libertarians who howl about Snowden and Obama and the NSA. Motives matter; so do political factions and allegiances, and it’s always worth looking closely at them.
chopper
@Xantar:
exactly. it may be an error to reflexively dismiss GG, but it does make a great deal of sense to reflexively wait a day or two.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: I still post there, but recently, I’ve been posting mostly open threads (which seem pointless to cross-post) and responses to BJ-specific blow-ups. Need to come up with some original material to cross-post!
COB
So I saw TBogg Unit and went immediately to the Lexicon – It’s not there yet. Thankfully the comments clued me in. Could a “responsible” individual possibly add it to the Lexicon for future reference purposes? It is a keeper.
humble thanks, COB
Eric U.
I suppose I’m the victim of learned helplessness, but I never saw how any president was going to fix the security state without a lot better Congress than we are likely to have in the near future. Since I didn’t hear any screaming from the CIA/NSA through their reliable republican partners, I figured it was the status quo, and it turns out that was pretty much the case. It does seem that the U.S. populace is getting really tired of the whole war on terror justification for taking away our civil liberties, so there is hope. It’s just that people don’t seem to be able to react to that in the only way that will change anything, which is to elect a sane congress.
cleek
when those journalists and their assistants decide to complicate the methods governments use to prevent terrorism, those governments probably feel that investigating those journalists is, in fact, related to preventing terrorism.
SectionH
@Betty Cracker: Ha, I was going to ask that too. I’d guessed 500 comments, based on the 500-comment thread, but confirmation is good. Oh, and “Tbogg unit” was the 5th most popular search on the google page which popped up, so I guess Alexandra and I weren’t the only 2 enquiring minds.
Joel
Boy, it sure looks like we’ve got a Pinochet for the 21st century.
FlipYrWhig
@Maroc: it’s also important to remember that Greenwald was spinning the truth from the start — his story was that the UK government, probably at the behest of the US, was harassing his partner to intimidate Greenwald out of his brave reporting on Snowden and surveillance. His story was not that his partner was transporting documents about Snowden and surveillance, which he was, which is, you’d think, the kind of thing that governments have a legitimate interest in investigating.
So this “don’t blame the messenger” finger-wagging is getting a bit irritating. It’s not wrong to blame the messenger for something the messenger actually did.
Chris
@Goblue72:
The main reason I’ve gone easy on Obama’s management of the security state is that I remember when he was virtually the only voice in the U.S. government agitating to close Gitmo (something he did early in his first term, even before HCR), and how Congress bipartisanly reacted by slamming the door shut on any possibility of seeing justice done. (And Gitmo was a far more egregious offense than anything the NSA’s done).
Given that, I hardly fault him if he concluded that the time was wrong for talking about the security state and decided to table that.
schrodinger's cat
This is not the most important issue we are facing. This topic has got more coverage on this blog and other outlets, than the unemployment problem, the economic issues we face, state governments curtailing women’s right over their bodies, the sequester and other brain dead policies strangling research and along with it careers of many who have devoted their lives to science. I could go on..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: Weren’t McCain, Graham and a few other Rs calling for Gitmo to be closed before the Great Tantrum began?
@schrodinger’s cat: One of the many reasons I can’t bring myself to light my hair on fire. I don’t like a lot of the language being used around this issue, I don’t get a feeling of tingly self-righteousness by calling myself a “civil libertarian”, but I will say Cole isn’t one of those usual suspects for whom this is just one more public option
Emma
@Mnemosyne: The thing that pisses me off the most about my liberal brethren is that they had unconsciously adopted the meme that everything that happens in the world is about the US. Or directed by the US.
Arrogance, much?
mk3872
This is one of the most uninformed statements I’ve seen here ever on BJ:
That is EXACTLY what the original Snowden release of PRISM states that Google, Amazon, Microsoft distinctly agreed to do with the Feds!!
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They voted against it. It doesn’t matter what they say on Meet the Press.
Marc
@Chris:
…and how not a single member of Congress was sent home for that vote. Perhaps because progressives have insisted on personally blaming Obama for it?
RSA
A considered and reasonable post like this has no place on Balloon Juice.
Betty Cracker
@cleek: Okay, here’s my question, then: Is that reasonable? We (or the UK, in this case) gave the government some extraordinary powers to prevent terrorism, powers that go beyond those designed to halt trafficking in stolen goods, for example. I think we did so under the understanding that we were dealing with an extraordinary threat, e.g., the so-called ticking time bomb scenario.
Is it okay that the powers that be use this power to detain Miranda, make it really difficult for Poitras to travel (assuming you buy her account of being detained every time she goes anywhere), etc.?
TAPX486
Good summary of the situation. What makes the entire issue of NSA surveillance (and drone strikes for that matter) so difficult is there really are bad guys out there. They would love to do ‘911 the sequel’. An American member of the AEQ is calling for the killing of more diplomats. Given the nature of these terrorist cells NSA intercepts and analysis may be one of the few ways that we can track these people down before they launch another attack.
So we are left with asking how do we protect our freedom from our protectors, no matter how welling meaning they may be. The horse is already out of the barn, we just have to figure out how to keep him in the paddock.
The solutions have to deal with the reality of 21st century technology. Rand Paul has decided that all of the surveillance is unconstitutional because the founders intended that the warrant in 4th amendment applied to one person and one specific place or piece of evidence. Now that may or may not be true but this is the 21st century and we can’t build oversight based on an 19th century understanding of technology.
And yes my ACLU membership card refuses to talk to me when I make suggestions that we have to live with some degree of NSA spying. It doesn’t make me happy to have to say that but one 9/11 in a life time is one to many
Emma
@Eric U.: which is to elect a sane congress. That will happen when we have sane Republicans again. I just read an article about a Republican guy who is trying to advocate for Obamacare because he personally ran into the “pre-existing condition” problem. When they asked him who he was going to vote for, he said for the Republican — even though that person advocated complete repeal of Obamacare.
How do we get past that sort of madness?
Frankensteinbeck
I see a new thread on this has been created while I was typing in the last one. I think what I said there is pertinent here:
Okay, forget Greenwald. Let’s address the issues.
This entire series of leaks have been wild misrepresentations or flat-out lies designed to make you think there’s a problem – because, after all, if they release something new every week it looks like a pattern.
What have we found out? The NSA can get a search warrant from a court and start tracking the metadata of people outside the US. They have computer systems to do this. The FISA court approves warrants at about the same rate any court approves warrants – almost all of them. When any law enforcement agency – including the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, and IRS – runs into information that a crime has been committed, they send what amounts to an anonymous tip to the appropriate other agency to begin investigating. The NSA audits its computer systems rigorously, and have found roughly 4000 times that operators made errors like inputting the wrong search term. Roughly one third of those were times the computer program turned up American information while examining foreign information, and that information was removed. A man already known to be illegally carrying state secrets, including UK state secrets, was stopped by the UK in an airport, held for nine hours, and the equipment he was carrying those secrets on was confiscated.
Maybe these revelations make you freak out. They make me yawn.
Things that we did NOT find out, but the articles pretended were true: The NSA has a database of all American internet activity. The NSA can and does read emails routinely without a warrant. The NSA has broken the law to spy on Americans 4000 times. A journalist was stopped and harassed in London because he embarrassed the US. The NSA gives evidence to the IRS and DEA, and they fabricate false explanations for that evidence.
No evidence has been given that any of those things are true. They were not revealed by any of the leaks. If you think they were, you have fallen for a hoax, a list of scare stories inflated out of bland evidence.
There is no ‘there’ there.
different-church-lady
I demand enshrinement in the lexicon!
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah. And when push came to shove, they folded and voted against it.
Patricia Kayden
“I suspect Obama will attempt some reasonable reforms — along the lines he outlined in his speech on drone warfare before the Snowden story broke”
I agree and I also agree that we will have to see whether or not Congress goes along with any reform of the Patriot Act and in turn NSA surveillance.
MikeJ
@Emma:
If the Democrats would simply cease to exist and cede all power to Republicans in perpetuity, then Republicans could start acting sane again. As it is, every time a Democrat proposes something sane, it just guarantees that Republican will have to be against it.
piratedan
@schrodinger’s cat: yeah, while everyone is up in arms about the potential alleged abuses proposed by the very existence of the NSA, the R’s at the state level are actively disenfranchising and placing additional unconstitutional hurdles in front of voters. Kay has done a great job of tracking that and others regarding the rollback of a woman’s inviolate right to control her own body. There are many fronts in this battle regarding what matters to us, education, national infrastructure funding, energy and environmental policies, the growing inequity between the haves and have nots, CEO compensation, Wall Street Reform and the scorched earth politics of the right and global warming. We rarely get to discuss concepts and ideas on how we make nice with the Muslims (not bombing them would be a start) and prevent our short term capitalists from relocating our jobs and wealth to China while they jet off to some island paradise.
Jockey Full of Malbec
If only we, as a country, had some kind of mechanism in place… through which elected representatives could change or reform existing laws to better reflect the will of the people (who have clearly changed their collective Mind on this particular subject since 2005).
Naw, not sexy enough. Much better to screech at each other across this newest of ideological fences, like barnyard animals.
(ETA: Not to denegrate BC’s post in particular, this was actually the most un-hysterical, balanced post on the subject here I’ve ever seen).
Chris
@Emma:
Hippie punching has truly taken the country around the bend. They simply cannot and will not stand with a Democrat, because for the last fifty years they’ve been trained and trained themselves to a Pavlovian point.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Also wasn’t the time to run around like your hair is on fire, when these laws were being debated? I mean before they were passed, not a decade after the fact.
Ramiah Ariya
Just for some clarity, since I have been reading Greenwald for 7 years now:
1. Greenwald is a civil libertarian – some have just called him a libertarian in these spaces and tried to imply he is a right-wing economic libertarian. He is not.
2. Greenwald is squarely on the Left. This was, by the way, never in doubt before Obama. For anyone who questions this, they can read his opposition to Elena Kagan’s appointment to the SC. Greenwald was for Sonia Sotamoyor, but not Elena Kagan because he thought she was not sufficiently Left enough. He wanted Obama to appoint a credentialed, reliable Leftist to the SC. Anyone who reads that and says Greenwald is a right-wing libertarian needs to have their head examined.
3. Greenwald also has not shown any contempt for the OTHER functions of government. During the Grand Bargain debates, he repeatedly attacked Obama for keeping Social Security and other programs on the table. He has written about his fears that Obama would weaken the social safety net. Therefore, his attack on the government on the basis of civil liberties cannot be twisted to mean that he is against all government as some kind of Teabagger or libertarian.
4. His “support” for Ron Paul has always been for Paul’s civil liberties statements. He has presented arguments for this and it is not fair to call him racist, just for this reason. That is guilt by association.
All that I remember is that Greenwald was a hero for liberals until he started pointing out the problems in Obama’s civil liberties record, and his foreign policy.
Chris
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
FOUR legs good, TWO legs bad, and DON’T you forget it!
Splitting Image
In descending order, the most imporant current civil liberties issues facing the U.S. are, in my opinion:
1) The concerted attack on voting rights in Republican-held “purple” states.
2) Inordinate use of police power, including “stop and frisk”, unnecessary use of tasers, etc.
3) The attack on women’s access to health care under the guise of preventing abortions.
4) Oversentencing for minor drug offenses, particularly for minority offenders.
5) “Right to work” legislation preventing workers from organizing and negotiating with their employers.
I don’t have a problem with people adding
6) Electronic surveillance by the government without sufficient transparency or oversight
to the list, along with a good many others that are worth mentioning, as long as the top of the list remains intact. When people who claim to support “civil liberties” endorse Rand Fucking Paul, the surveillance issue becomes less a civil rights issue in itself than a way to draw attention away from more serious problems. Aside from his history with the Civil Rights Act, Paul is in favour of a federal ban on abortion, which would require government access to health care records and the abolition of the right to privacy in order to enforce. His concern for civil liberties, and that of his supporters, is as phony as his concern for the unborn.
I would also add that people claiming that Adolf Obama must be somehow responsible for the U.K.’s response to a security threat are only broadcasting their ignorance to the world. As several people have pointed out. the U.K. has had a longer history of terrorist attacks than the U.S., and they are perfectly capable of over-reacting to a non-existent threat on their own. Blaming Obama without any evidence of any American involvement is verging on “I am Spartacus because Benghazi” territory.
pamelabrown53
@Emma:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MikeJ: I get that, I mean before the ’08 election, I think there was pretty broad bipartisan support for closing Gitmo. And I made a google and McCain and Graham were both calling for it to close before Obama stole their presidency.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Orwell fan?
Betty Cracker
@mk3872: I meant they aren’t forwarding your LOLcats and Pottery Barn browsing cookies to the DHS. But maybe they are! Dun-dun-DUN! Seriously, though, I’ve seen it argued here that since Google, etc., collect your browsing history for advertising purposes, electronic snooping by the government doesn’t matter. It’s not the same thing, is what I’m saying.
TAPX486
@Patricia Kayden: Congress could not agree to stop setting themselves on fire:-) :-)
ira-NY
This is just another example of GG’s personal involvement in this story and lack of candor unnecessarily complicating and obfuscating the more important issues.
Yatsuno
@schrodinger’s cat:
Adjusted that for you. Also to reflect why this is such a big thang now.
@Betty Cracker: I cannot take credit for the coining of said term, though I forget who came up with it. I will, however, take credit for popularising it, because it really is fecking brilliant.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Even though McCain was always much more conservative than he’s often acknowledged as, it’s remarkable how much farther the old crank has fallen since 2008. Part of it might be the teabaggers’ primarying effect on the entire party, but I think finally getting “his” turn at the presidency only to lose it to a young(er) black man really pissed him off.
@schrodinger’s cat:
What gave it away? And yes, actually. “1984” is still one of my favorite books ever written re politics.
different-church-lady
@Chris: All animals are screechy. But some are more screechy than others.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Your quote from The Animal Farm.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic:
This is absolutely true. Frank Church was essentially destroyed for daring to question the National Security State. Rethuglicans led the charge.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: As I recall we kinda coined it together during a little snarkalog.
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: What are they so afraid of? NSA getting hold of their intertoobz browsing history?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: John McCain is pro-war and anti-choice, other than those two issues, his entire political philosophy is “Who am I mad at today?!”
Betty Cracker
@Splitting Image: Can’t say I disagree with anything you wrote there.
Anton Sirius
Betty, thank you for this.
With regard to this point specifically:
it came up in one of the recent threads that Greenwald’s evolution into a civil liberties firebrand, and our dear host’s defection to the sane(r) political party for that matter, came about as a result of abuses of power under Bush.
That’s the crucial difference between then and now. As yet, there have been no documented cases of abuse by the NSA during the Obama administration presented by Greenwald, Snowden or anybody else.
mistermix believes that Snowden/Greenwald are sitting on that evidence until they figure the time is ripe to release it. I believe that to be wishful thinking. I also believe that Greenwald suckering Miranda into acting and/or posing as a mule to trigger a stop is a pretty strong indication that Greenwald has no evidence of abuse in his back pocket and is trying to gin some up.
I guess we’ll see.
Spaghetti Lee
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
On the other hand, I think it’s understandable, given how useless congress has been for the last few years (and will likely continue to be until the next round of gerrymandering, at least), for people to be frustrated to death with them, and laugh at the idea that the current dysfunctional group of idiots can craft anything approaching a useful and sane response to privacy concerns. ‘Obama can’t fix everything’ is obviously correct, but telling people ‘Wait for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to fix it instead” isn’t really a good Plan B.
Villago Delenda Est
@Splitting Image:
Ron Paul and his vile spawn are both neo-feudalist filth.
Their heads should be on pikes at King’s Landing.
different-church-lady
The genesis.
MikeJ
@Anton Sirius:
I’ve actually heard people arguing that Google shouldn’t be able to tell what you’re searching for.
Internets, how do they work?
Villago Delenda Est
@moonbat:
Protection at all costs leads you to a police state in which the protection cannot be provided for, anyways.
Because who will protect you from the protectors?
Belafon
@Ramiah Ariya: Your number 4 is what gives him away. Ron Paul is not a civil libertarian. Ron Paul is a “let the states do what ever they want,” in other words, a strict federalist.
He also thinks you can catch the gay if you sit on a toiled used by one.
It’s my issue with GG: He’s wanting to seriously influence US policy and not understanding the consequences of how he’s doing it. Ron Paul wouldn’t shake hands with GG.
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: I bow to thine genius, dear lady. Your idea certainly had merit & deserves a wider audience.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: Sure, but would you like to subscribe to my newsletter?
cleek
@Betty Cracker:
the govts obviously think these programs work better if the world doesn’t know about them – and frankly, they’re probably right; if you don’t know you’re being listened to, you’re probably more likely to say something your enemy doesn’t want you to hear. so, the govts are trying to reduce further disclosures by leaning on people who have dedicated themselves to making further disclosures. seems obvious.
gg et al know what they’re doing. they know they’ve made the job of the US/UK/etc. security agencies harder. they know that they’ve aided people in breaking US laws. they know they’re right up against the edge of breaking some laws themselves. they must expect these kinds of hassles – they’d be stupid not to. and i wouldn’t be a tiny bit surprised were i to learn that Miranda was trying to get harassed, because it plays right into their preferred narrative.
is it “okay” ?
to me, sure. but i’m not as freaked-out about the NSA as many people are. i think there’s some value in what they’re doing, though i do want there to be more and better oversight over it (which is true when it comes to everything govt does). and, since the govts don’t know everything Snowden has, or is planning to make public, they have damned good reasons for wanting to know.
will taking this path inconvenience gg et al? of course it will. that’s the reason brave sir Snowden fled the country, after all, right?
if you want to taunt the US govt, you’d better be ready to be inconvenienced.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
On this specific issue, though, Nancy Pelosi and Boehner had to work together (I think I have that right) to stop John Conyers and Justin Amash from getting a bill passed to defund the NSA, and now that Leahy is weighing in, you might see a similar unpartisan alliances forming in the Senate against the McCain-Feinstein block
The Moar You Know
@Goblue72: We have a conservative party – Democrats – and a party dedicated to overthrowing the government and then seceding from America – Republicans.
When we can’t even decide as a nation what we want to be – representative democracy or oligarchic theocracy – how are we supposed to make the much smaller decisions like closing a tiny prison camp in the middle of nowhere?
gbear
There seemed to be some incentives involved for hitting multiple 100s on FDL threads. I think it was at 300 that Jane had to take everyone out for Margaritas and at 4 or 500 everyone would get to go bowling.
kindness
Except Rand Paul is not a Libertarian. Sure he calls himself one but Republicans routinely call themselves fiscally conservative & responsible yet managed to bring 2008 down upon us.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Must be Groundhog Day again.
Anoniminous
@Ramiah Ariya:
Good points.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@Spaghetti Lee:
Congress is absolutely “broken” at the moment. But this is because our political culture is broken. Congress is actually working exactly as designed: It perfectly reflects the collective will of a malinformed public that (for the most part) reacts to issues based on emotions and tribal affiliation, and not much else.
Don’t like your government, America? Take a good long look in the mirror. Because you’re the essential root of the problem. You could change the whole damned thing in six years, without firing a single shot.
(Sorry for the tone… just not liking this new ‘learned helplessness’ response that’s apparently been eating into liberal DNA).
Cacti
The turd polishing going on from the Greenwald howler monkey brigade is endlessly amusing.
They’re outraged that Glenn’s loverboy got pinched on a trip paid for by the Guardian, to mule stolen classified information.
Might as well start hyperventilating about how unfair it is that the baby mamas of county jail inmates get arrested for snatch stashing meth.
Villago Delenda Est
@Splitting Image:
The use of SWAT teams for simple matters of resolving disputes between neighbors, as happened in Arlington, Texas recently. (obligatory warning….link to HuffPo).
The militarization of police has me very worried. Here locally in Track Town, the police want to encrypt all their radio communications. Ostensibly, this is to keep the ‘bad guys’ from listening in on police activity, but it is in effect deliberately making public monitoring of police activity more difficult…a check on police power being neutralized.
Comrade Dread
I don’t trust Greenwald for the same reason I don’t trust Powell. I trusted them. I got burned.
Now I just assume the man is printing 5% fact and 95% hyperbole until I get more sources, because Greenwald has an agenda that is distinctly libertarian and anti-government.
Also, I agree with Betty’s post for the most part.
Hunter Gathers
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: Watch out for that first step, it’s a doozy.
ruemara
@Betty Cracker: I think it is reasonable that if you are known to traffic in stolen good (national security data for, say, a large consortium of western nations), you are going to be detained and questioned. Especially as you are in the middle of trickling releases of that data-complete with your own spin on what it all could possibly mean because your followers don’t really read what you write, they post the headlines and argue their feelings. YMMV, but I have no doubts that if I was doing such things, I’d be cooling my heels an awful lot and just shipping my e-luggage ahead while I cozy up to a nice large book in detention.
ericblair
@cleek:
There’s also a little matter that seems to have gone down the memory hole. Snowden was supposed to have had four laptops full of data in his possession, stuff that GG was saying would bring the US to its knees or something similar. What’s been released is only from a couple of briefings, and even then the Guardian didn’t want to release a lot of it because of its sensitivity. Where are those devices now? I’ve got a couple of ideas.
As a reminder, NSA isn’t only the offensive team, it’s responsible for defense. They work with other government agencies on encryption and security standards, certification, and counterintelligence. So a lot of that information could be out there too.
FlipYrWhig
@Ramiah Ariya: Greenwald defines the axes of right and left almost entirely through ideas about executive power. He didn’t like Kagan because of her views on executive power. That’s his thing. That’s a bizarre way to define left and right.
Frankly, I think he’s confused, and the reason he’s confused is that he got alarmed by Bush’s views on executive power and concluded that he must be “on the left” because he hated Bush. Then, since he’s alarmed by Obama’s views on executive power he thinks Obama’s on the right like Bush, leaving Greenwald and the Greenwaldians “on the left.” That seems to be his reasoning, because he’s a latecomer to politics at all.
But he doesn’t appear to care very much about the panoply of issues the left has been dedicated to advancing for a century — labor, the environment, equal protection, minority rights, you name it. He’s so intent on a wide definition of free speech that he (1) agreed with the Citizens United ruling, (2) earned his bones as a lawyer defending a white supremacist. So, sure, he’s a civil libertarian who cares about things civil libertarians care about. Where civil libertarians and liberal/left people overlap, he’ll be there, but it’s a coincidence.
Davis X. Machina
Some genies don’t have bottles any more. Laws go only so far. Norms do the rest.
What are the norms in the SIGINT community?
Frank Church lost to Steve Symms by less than 1.2% in the 1980 Reagan wave election. Give Church all of the Libertarian vote because of his stand against the intelligence octopus, he wins by a half of a percent. Any election that close, there’s a hundred reasons why the winner won, and the loser lost.
Betty Cracker
@cleek: I don’t think it’s okay to lean on (i.e., harass) people who aren’t suspected of terrorism themselves using anti-terrorism laws. It doesn’t surprise me that it happens, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Greenwald & Co. set this up so they could denounce this incident when it (predictably) happened, but I don’t think it’s right. It strikes me as an abuse of power.
Yatsuno
@different-church-lady: Depends. Are there recipes?
cleek
@Ramiah Ariya:
not for this liberal. not even close to a “hero”.
yes, most of his breathless screeds were aimed at Bush, pre-Obama. but i’ve always thought him to be a self-aggrandizing hyperbolic rage-addict who seems to have no idea how politics actually works. he’s more interested in demonstrating his ideological purity than in working in the real world. which makes him useless.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker:
You mean the old-school GOP who insisted there was only Black (AQ) and White (USA!) not ten years ago? You mean the Dems who got muzzled by “With Us / Against Us” rhetoric in the ’02 and ’04 elections when the security-theatre state was being built/enhanced and these questions could have been addressed more effectively? Or do you mean the modern GOTea who are interested in any and all investigations of the Scary Black Man in the White House except the Shrub legacy?
Please. With the exception of Pelosi and a handful of others, the Dems in Congress are busy trying to remember where they left their ‘nads after the Shrubbery was busy lopping them off ten years ago; and the GOTea is far more interested in how BHO is trying to punish “job creators” just for being successful and Good Right-Thinking Xtian Hetero Patriotic Ahmurrcans™ for not liking being governed by a ni-CLANG than they are in actually governing responsibly.
It’s a valid criticism – for a functional legislative body. But have you seen the current crop of Congresscritters? Really? There’s no way in Creation that they’re able to do anything of the sort: the Dems are still recovering from being “weak on Defense,” and the GOTea isn’t interested in anything but BHO’s birth certificate, New Black Panther Communist Party membership card and FEMA camps. I’ll wait until we have a functional US legislative body before suggesting that oversight and investigation would be a reasonable proposition.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
And yet insanely, he’s remembered in wingnut circles as having destroyed the National Security State.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, I know. To my great delight, Orwell went and wrote both those books.
Cacti
@kindness:
The “liberty” that Rand Paul is concerned with is that of white people to exclude the coloreds from their places of business.
That’s a cause for which he’s willing to use the police power of the State. Call it Bull Connor libertarianism.
maye
Is carrying around stolen classified documents a crime? Just asking. If someone steals a diamond bracelet from a jewelry store in Berlin, and wants to give it to someone in Brazil, and they ask me to carry it in my backpack on a commercial air plane, am I committing a crime by doing the carrying? I didn’t steal it. I’m just passing it along as a favor to a friend.
SRW1
@Mnemosyne:
Sorry, that benefit of the doubt went out of the window with the Evo Morales story.
Cacti
@maye:
Depends on the laws of your destination.
different-church-lady
@Yatsuno: And a full week of Ziggy in a pull-out section!
MikeJ
@Cacti:
As someone here pointed out, he thinks you should be able to kick someone out of your business because they’re black, but not because they’re carrying a gun.
Yatsuno
@maye: Not sure if trolling…
NickT
This is ridiculously silly – and ignorant of how legal realities actually work. Statutes are given names partly to distinguish them from the mass of material passed through parliament, partly as a fairly loose guideline to the content of said statute. The name implies no limitation on the powers conveyed to the police and courts by said statute. In other words, it is perfectly normal for a non-terrorist to be detained under “anti-terrorist” legislation, just as, for example, it was normal (and necessary) back in the day for cyber-criminals to be detained under older legislation that had been written before the internet existed. That’s simply the reality of how the legal system works – and always has. You won’t ever have a legal system that covers every eventuality with its own nicely labeled law – and so existing laws are extended to cover new situations. Nor is it unusual for a suspect to be detained for a period of some hours. As for the “routine harassment” claim, that is an allegation made by Poitras, rather than an established fact.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: “Using anti-terrorism laws” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that complaint, and I don’t know if it should. It seems that the UK Terrorism Act authorizes detention at ports and airports even in the absence of suspicion of involvement in terrorism. So that doesn’t mean that everyone detained and questioned is being threatened with charges of terrorism or the like.
NickT
@MikeJ:
On the other hand, black men with guns are automatically criminals and thugs, so the system works as the Great White Libertarian Father must have intended. See also: two Black Panthers standing peaceably outside a polling station as opposed to the Brooks Brothers riot.
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree but it seems that our libertarian overlords and drama queens have decided that nothing, absolutely nothing, else matters. And that the only civil liberty worth discussing is that of white males who want to steal government security secrets and disseminate them indiscriminately to the world and are then made late for their connecting flights. The blahs, the wimminz, and the Messicans aren’t worth the time to worry over.
MomSense
Ok this may be just my personal pet peeve but I really hate the DFH and hippie punching memes. I haven’t seen an honest to goodness hippie in at least 35 years. My house growing up was hippie central.
FlipYrWhig
@NickT: There are laws about bank transfers that were passed as part of the Patriot Act. That doesn’t mean that everyone who transfers a lot of money and has it flagged in the system is being treated like a terrorist, IMHO.
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
Yet Church, as Chris points out, to this day is thought of some sort of monster for daring to question the National Security State…by Rethuglicans.
Remember how Phillip Agee was considered a traitor, and mentioned by name as a traitor by Barbara Bush, of all people, for his revelation of the names of CIA agents in various overseas locations? Contrast with the utter silence about the outing of Valerie Plame by Scooter Libby via Robert Novak at the behest of the Dark Lord?
eemom
Not gonna bother linking, but I just read that Glennzie is now telling the British government it’s gonna “be sorry” for detaining his partner cuz now he’s gonna release LOTS more documents ABOUT THEM.
IOW, throwing a temper tantrum like a fucking 5 year old. Not that that matters.
smintheus
The assumption of so many on this thread that miranda was carrying *stolen* documents is hilarious. So why did the Brits let him go if they found him in possession of (presumptively) stolen docs? And classified docs, to boot? Never mind the assumption that miranda would be dumb enough to travel via the UK with copies of documents he could be arrested for.
Another assumption, never examined, is that the UK knew for a fact that miranda was carrying documents for Greenwald. How would it be in a position to know that…without the NSA resorting to illegal surveillance, that is?
Yatsuno
@geg6: Sigh. No respect for white male fee-fees whatsoever. They’re just so CONCERNED, can’t you see that?
/snark, just in case
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: and as Frank Church’s homestate has a completely uncontained wildfire that has gone from being the size of Philadelphia to the size of Denver (I’m guessing Denver is bit more sprawled), I can think of yet one more issue we’re not talking about.
NickT
@FlipYrWhig:
Right. I really wish that the front-pagers would think about how the legal system actually works in the UK and the USA. It’s simply baffling that they don’t apparently know the basics of these things. I mean, do they actually think that Miranda should have been simply processed in 15 minutes as if he were checking into the hotel before going out for drinks and dinner?
Villago Delenda Est
@NickT:
For real world example, see Sacramento, 1967. Black Panthers parading with guns inside the California state capitol.
Saint Ronald Reagan could not sign the most restrictive gun control laws of the late 60’s fast enough after that little incident.
NickT
@smintheus:
So first you want to accuse the Brits of brutally tyrannizing Miranda – and now you want to blame them for letting him go?
Can’t you people make up your minds which side of the outrage fence you fall on?
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
When traveling as a foreign national through the secure area of another nation’s airports, you have very few rights under any norms of international law.
Nation states, under the Westphalian concept of sovereignty that has been around since 1648, have plenary authority over who crosses their borders, and what they’re carrying with them.
You average Joe (or Glenn in this case) seems pig ignorant of this fact.
Belafon
@maye: Did you know it was stolen? If yes, then in pretty much all cases you are going to be in trouble. If you didn’t know, then you can probably get out of it, but it’s going to take some work (it’ll be a lot easier in places where the government has to prove you knew rather than places that you have to prove you didn’t know).
I’m pretty sure Miranda knew.
NickT
@Cacti:
Give it 5 minutes and the Paulistanis will be howling for an invasion of Westphalia and the imposition of a democracy and American values.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ah, yes, because the Snowald camp has conducted themselves with such shrewd and careful foresight up to now.
smintheus
@NickT: On the last thread I posted an account of gross harassment of an innocent man, leading to his imprisonment without cause in Bagram and Gitmo, which started with detention and interrogation at Heathrow under the anti-terrorism law…even though he was not in fact suspected of any crimes.
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s all you got?
NickT
@smintheus:
Which is irrelevant here. The claim by Betty was that you can only use “anti-terrorist laws” against terrorists. That’s simply not how the legal system works -and never has been.
smintheus
@NickT: Have to assume you deliberately misconstrued my argument. Nobody could read as poorly as that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@smintheus: Nope, I just thought it was funny you based a large part of your argument on the intelligence of Miranda and Greenwald.
Villago Delenda Est
No one has said this yet, but I will:
Was Miranda mirandized?
Oh, wait, UK. Sorry about that.
jamick6000
It’s funny how some of you FLIP OUT about Assange saying something nice about Ron Paul, but don’t bat an eyelash when Obama praises Reagan.
geg6
@Ramiah Ariya:
Fixed that for ya. No, he wasn’t a liberal hero to me. He sometimes had a good point but I almost always quit reading before getting to it because he is the worst writer in the world.
And sorry, Glenn is NOT some flaming liberal. If he was, he’d never have voted for W. TWICE. No liberal worthy of the name did that. And before you say it, I don’t consider John Cole a liberal. He’s like the proverbial pendulum. He is now the exact opposite of what he was as a wingnut: an emoprog who knows little to nothing about being an actual liberal. I love John, but he’s got about 25 years of work to do before I’d consider him an actual liberal. And that’s assuming he ever does, which I doubt. Too tough to be an actual liberal for people who think it’s all about people like Greenwald and emoting on the internet.
NickT
@smintheus:
No, you’ve made a bad argument which is not germane to the point at issue. You can sulk about it as much as you like, but the fact remains that your pet cause is not relevant here. There is a difference between the scope of laws – which is the point at issue here – and specific cases of alleged abuse of individuals . Think harder next time.
MomSense
“Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had,” Greenwald said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro with the Argentinean daily La Nacion.
“The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.”
Greenwald issued these threats and then his partner tries to perhaps carry some of this dangerous information on his person through the UK????
Incompetent, they are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jamick6000: Oh christ. Not this idiocy again.
Yatsuno
@smintheus:
Oh I dunno. Greenwald announcing to the world that he was relaying documents through his partner might have been a wee bit of a clue here.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No one light a match, there’s a lot of straw about right now.
MomSense
@jamick6000:
He didn’t praise Reagan. He said he was a transformational President (clearly he was) AND that he didn’t agree with his policies and was working against them.
NickT
@jamick6000:
Obama observed that Reagan changed the zeitgeist, not that he did so for the better. Critical thinking is your friend here.
Villago Delenda Est
@jamick6000:
Because Assange is admiring Paul’s politics, not his communications and political skills, which is what Obama admires.
jamick6000
I stopped reading this post after a couple paragraphs, but I assume that Obama is still awesome and the NSA’s activities might be in some ways problematic?
NickT
@Yatsuno:
A man who runs up the black flag and talks about attacking trading vessels can hardly complain when accused of piracy.
smintheus
@NickT: Not irrelevant. The UK uses its anti-terrorism laws to harass people it thinks it has a beef with. The UK harassed miranda and then let him go, strongly implying that it couldn’t charge him with any crimes.
cleek
@jamick6000:
you mean when he said some mildly nice things about Reagan in an interview ten months before the 2008 election ?
horror.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I haven’t made that particular argument, but I have made the one that I’m more concerned about what they do with my information (of which they have a lot more than the NSA would) than what the NSA would do with my emails or cell calls. And, in fact, you are wrong about them not being the same thing. The very information that Snowald put out there shows that Google, etc. are, in fact, providing them with the information they have on NSA targets. So they are co-conspirators with the NSA, to put it in the hysterics’ terms.
Cacti
@MomSense:
Team Snow-wald has not presented as particularly clever throughout this entire story. Some people have suggested that Glenn sent his boo as a ploy to generate more hype. I think that’s giving him too much credit. I think he honestly believed that airport security might not know who Miranda was since he isn’t The Glenn himself.
Bobby Thomson
@NickT: Agreed. or stated differently, when people say
what they really mean is, “It’s wrong to use the threat of terrorism to enact broad legislation that covers all sorts of things, including conduct having nothing to do with terrorism.” Which is absolutely true. And expressed a decade too late.
However, it’s hard to get bent out of shape out of spies being treated like spies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jamick6000: so you’re now bragging about not knowing what you’re talking about. Congratulations.
smintheus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s funny that you ignored the points you can’t cope with.
smintheus
@Yatsuno: When did he announce that to the world?
Villago Delenda Est
@NickT:
From other posts, it seems that the wish for some critical thinking skills from jamick are in vain.
hoodie
Can we get Kay to start a thread about something that really matters, like voting or education? This place is getting like Huffpost without the sideboob and travel tips.
Davis X. Machina
@jamick6000: There are no possible worlds where both of those can be true. Or no possible internets, anyways.
Belafon
@jamick6000: And yet you don’t get what Obama was saying when he mentioned Reagan, do you?
I’ll go to my favorite literary example for this case: Harry Potter. When Harry receives his wand, the shop keeper tells him that this wand matches the wand owned by one other person: He Who Shall Not Be Named. “The owner of that wand has done great things. Terrible things, but great things.”
Obama didn’t praise Reagan. He pointed out that Reagan was transformative: He started a chain of events that changed the course of the nation. It is what we were going to have to do to put the country back on track.
NickT
@smintheus:
Absolutely irrelevant to the point at issue. Do you need help understanding this line Using terrorism statutes to routinely harass Laura Poitras and detain Greenwald’s spouse for nine hours is wrong because they aren’t terrorists and my response to it? Did it contain too many long words and complex ideas? The point at issue is the scope of laws – and Betty’s understanding of how this works is ludicrous. Please, think for a change and work on your basic logic. You might also do a little growing up and try discussing matters like an adult, rather than a petulant teenager whose crush just started dating his best friend.
Yatsuno
@jamick6000: So more strawmen and incoherent babble from you? Duly noted.
@NickT: How UNFAIR of you good sir!
jamick6000
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ad hominem attacks don’t add to the conversation, Jim. How about we stick to substance?
different-church-lady
@jamick6000: Suggestion: next time don’t bother reading it at all.
Betty Cracker
@NickT: My point is that governments — on both sides of the pond — expanded their powers to deal with 21st century terrorist threats/methods, and we consented (our at least our reps did) to some loss of freedom because we deemed it necessary to deal with that threat. I don’t think it’s right for the governments in question to use that extraordinary power to harass pain-in-the-ass journalists or anyone else who doesn’t pose a real threat.
NickT
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think smintheus is still comfortably ahead as they approach the three furlong marker. They’ve got stamina les poutragés, if not much commonsense.
MikeJ
@Cacti:
“Teh gubbmint watches everything you do and knows all about you!”
“They’ll never suspect my partner.”
smintheus
@NickT:
A bad argument, not germane?
No, it’s an awkward question for which you have no good answer.
Bobby Thomson
@smintheus:
I see you aren’t familiar with the concept of bait. Also, too:
You can never go wrong with a default assumption of stupidity. Especially when past behavior justifies it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@smintheus: “can’t cope with”? you have an exaggerated idea of your rhetorical skills.
As it happens I think what the Brits did was pretty stupid and heavy-handed. I don’t know enough about British law to say whether it was justified, but the idea that they didn’t have some reasonable (again, from their point of view) suspicion that Miranda might have some illegally obtained materials seems pretty silly, and your standard of “knowing for a fact” is also silly. Police didn’t “know for a fact” whether or not the butler did it, but they would still investigate him if he had motive, opportunity, etc.
Comrade Dread
@smintheus: t’s not an assumption, it was part of the NYT story.
As to how they would know, I imagine they actors involved in this melodrama are under surveillance of one kind or another. Greenwald and his partner live in Brazil which is within the NSA’s jurisdiction to monitor and given the circumstances surrounding those documents, there are probably various other law enforcement agencies that have their names flagged in their databases to track visas, travel entry points, etc.
ruemara
@jamick6000: Did Reagan change the way Americans thought about government? Yes. Is that, on it’s face, a compliment? Possibly. Was it a truth couched in backhand based on the substance of the views of Barack Obama versus Ronald Reagan? Yes. Satisfied?
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker:
What about intercepting stolen spook stuff? And before smintheus objects that “They let him goooooooo” So the fuck what? It would have been negligent not to look.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jamick6000: you made one false statement and then bragged about your ignorance of the substance. I was just acknowledging your posts.
Would you like a cookie?
NickT
@Betty Cracker:
You’ve got an awful lot of assumptions in that sentence. I’ll grant you that Greenwald is comfortably ensconced in the PITA demographic, although whether he or Miranda can claim journalistic protections while transporting stolen data seems pretty questionable, to put it mildly. What stops a mafioso from claiming to be a journalist when apprehended with stolen credit card details, by your standard of proof? How do you define “real threat”?
smintheus
@NickT: I can see your maturity from here.
jamick6000
@ruemara: my point is that neither was a big deal.
Suffern ACE
@maye: yes. You have not seen locked up abroad:)
Cacti
@Belafon:
I remember many over at DU(mb) getting their skinny jeans in a twist because Obama said some nice things about Bush 41 when he was a guest at a White House dinner.
I guess the proper reaction would have been for the host to spit on the guest and call him a honkey, or something.
NickT
@smintheus:
Good. Consider it the first step in your journey towards intelligent adulthood and the capacity to argue honestly.
Elie
I know, I know– we should be grateful to Snowden and GG or calling attention to the NSA and the need to examine what they know and how they use it. That said, their continued lack of respect for genuine role of this information for the US and other countries as well as their obvious contempt for this country and others, is not going to end well for them. GG and Snowden as well as to a lesser degree, Assange, are going to eventually be at each other’s throats… in the end there is only room for one prima dona and their mutual interest will someday erode enough so that more interesting perspectives on their character will come out. Till then, they will all build up what is termed HUBRIS… Protagonists in Greek tragedies always have a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall…Just a matter of when and how
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Thread needs kitteh.
And vigilante puppeh.
Looking over the comment feed, I’m wondering if we’ve ever hit two TBogg units in twenty-four hours before. We’ve got another thread closing in on a half unit.
jamick6000
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: hmm, that’s not much of an apology.
I’ve just eaten a sophisticated, adult meal for lunch, so your cliched attempt to infantilize me by offering me a cookie come at an inopportune time (for you).
NickT
@smintheus:
I see that your grasp of the facts in case is slightly less secure than your grasp of reasoned argument.
smintheus
@Comrade Dread: Greenwald is a US citizen. The NSA tells us that it continues to respect the law and does not spy on US citizens living abroad.
Mike N.
It’s not Greenwald’s job to advocate good politics. It’s his job to be the civil rights gadfly. That’s what he cares about, and so that’s what he writes about. Whether he’s libertarian or liberal has little relevance. And to call him arrogant is to say nothing. It’s the same as calling him “shrill” or “uncivil.”
But comparing him to Colin Powell and Tony Blair as a liar is false equivalence. Greenwald isn’t a world leader defending his government. He’s a journalist with all the political power of a “shrill” expatriate.
different-church-lady
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: The moment Corner Stone wanders in we’ll be heading well over a TBu in both threads.
ericblair
@smintheus:
Which is a fair question, and I don’t think we’ve got official confirmation of that. Also, from looking over the UK Official Secrets Act, it’s not clear to me whether it’s illegal under UK law to possess these documents since they weren’t released in violation of other sections of the Official Secrets Act in the first place. I think they did find encrypted information on Miranda.
So: either they found encrypted information but it turned out to be innocuous; or they found encrypted information and don’t know what it is yet since they’d have to break the encryption; or they did seize classified documents but possessing them isn’t illegal. Who knows, maybe we’ll eventually get something that looks like actual news about this eventually.
ruemara
@jamick6000: That’s not what you conveyed and there are integral differences.
Jesus Christ. Let’s just change the Constitution to say verbatim, “The Rights of White Guys to Do Whatever They Want, Shall Not Be Infringed”. Christ, the petulant whines. And throw in Journalamists We Agree With, so they can transport stolen state secrets around the world without being bothered by pesky laws.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oh, hell yeah. I’m sure there’s been lots of those.
Cacti
@smintheus:
David Miranda is not a US citizen, and is apparently taking an active role in the Snowden saga.
Chris
@MikeJ:
No conversation about Ron Paul should ever occur without that quote coming up.
raven
@Mike N.: He’s a schmuck, fuck him and his partner.
Belafon
@Cacti: I often wonder what happens at Christmas with some of these people:
Aunt Mabel: Thanks for having us over. I hope to see you soon.
smintheus: I really will be happy if you never come back.
liberal
@MomSense:
From a quote I found on OpenLeft:
Sounds like admiration to me.
NickT
@Belafon:
I have to thank you for the chuckle you’ve just given me. Chapeau,monsieur.
jamick6000
@ruemara: @ruemara: why are you injecting race & gender into this issue?
Marc
@jamick6000:
You admitted that you didn’t bother to read the actual post and then invented a sneering, distorted set of insults about what she must have said. This isn’t a way to get treated as anything other than someone arguing for the sake of it (at best.) Or as someone who just wants to sit in front of the computer, hitting refresh, and insulting everyone to get some attention. It’s August. Go outside instead…everyone will be better off, especially you.
gwangung
@Mike N.:
I think these should be mutually complementary goals.
Being correct is not enough; being correct and being able to make the changes you want should be the end goal.
Cacti
@Mike N.:
Fix’t.
gwangung
@liberal: Not to me. Obviously, YMMV.
piratedan
@smintheus: he’s also known to have aided and abetted a man who’s violated the Espionage Act and has already claimed in public, to hold more of those classified documents. You’re incredibly naive to think that as soon as this got published that he didn’t end up on somebody’s radar and as such, all of his known associates as well. That’s how Intelligence gathering works you know, it’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon for terrorist hunting. Who are your known associates and the like.
raven
NickT
Speaking of right wing hypocrisy:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ex-gop-operatives-cancer-struggles-make-him-obamacare
Chris
@NickT:
So, like gay rights all over again, then. “I’m against it until I or someone I love turns out to be affected.”
Fuck conservatives.
different-church-lady
@raven:
NickT
@piratedan:
Greenwald is in the position of a mafia don who claims that the Feds should never investigate his wife’s banking arrangements because it’s so UNFAIR to suspect people who willingly associate with him and profit from that association in terms of an improved lifestyle.
? Martin
@raven:
Vendettas are not journalism.
Belafon
@liberal: Question: Does the antisemitism and racism of Henry Ford completely prevent you from agreeing with his stance on worker pay and using it as an example in conversations?
MomSense
@liberal:
From the South Carolina debate with Clinton and Edwards.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Indeed. And yet this a##clown has the
lack ofbrains to support for Congress someone whose platform explicitly calls for eliminating the very healthcare reform he is about to benefit from and for which he’s advocating on FB. The cognitive dissonance: it burns.Cacti
@NickT:
Speaking of the mafia, The Glenn wrote that even the mafia doesn’t target people’s families.
And I thought…on what planet?
Emma
@NickT: That’s the guy I was talking about earlier. Except he also said he would still be voting for the Republican — who is committed to a compete repeal of Obamacare. I saw the story at Benen’s place.
PsiFighter37
Looks like I picked a good day to ignore BJ. Seems like we had a wonderful discussion about this crap again?
Emma
@liberal: I think he’s making a statement of fact. That was exactly what happened when Reagan got elected. He sold a lot of the voters a “morning in America” con.
raven
@? Martin: The idea that he’s going to run off at the mouth like this and they aren’t going top fuck with him when they can is just silly.
Chris
@boatboy_srq:
You know, if it was just them doing this to themselves, I’d say fine. There’s no law against being an idiot, and as far as I’m concerned being suicidal’s between you and God. (Or whoever, or no one).
But no, they’ve got to inflict their ideology on all the rest of us, too.
NickT
@Emma:
Sorry, Emma. Didn’t mean to duplicate what you had already said. I guess I just made a natural connection between Greenwald and right wing hypocrisy.
chopper
@raven:
so of course, england had no reason whatsoever to stop somebody believed to be ferrying some of these documents around for him.
schrodinger's cat
@Ramiah Ariya: He was never my hero, I find his writing long winded and his prose a tad overwrought.
raven
@chopper: ding
Cacti
It takes a brave man to send his partner or spouse out into harm’s way for them.
Glenn Greenwald is this generation’s Nathan Hale.
NickT
@Cacti:
I think it’s time for someone to have this conversation with Glenn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5IQnQhzMSI
Betty Cracker
@Mike N.: I’m not comparing Greenwald/Snowden/Assange to Blair and Powell. I’m comparing the uncritical belief in what they say to the credulity extended to Blair and Powell.
@liberal: There’s more to it:
It was clear to me it wasn’t admiration but rather Obama noting, correctly, that the times shaped the choices and conversation, for good or ill. YMMV.
Mandalay
@ericblair:
Folks here with an anti-Snowden agenda keep asserting this without providing any evidence. How do you know this is true?
I find it far more probable that once Snowden had forwarded the classified documents to multiple sources, he securely erased all the NSA data.
After the data was safely in the hands of people he trusted he had no reason to keep anything on the laptops.
scav
Silly Season might apply to blogs too. RDA O fairly high in the ecosystem.
Socoolsofresh
Another day, same shit from the commenters here. It’s no big deal! Other issues are being ignored! Only white males care about this! GG is the worst, and is not the right person who should be in the middle of this discussion! Obama has no part in this! Anything that Rand Paul says must be wrong! Add in some cacti cheerleading/mud flinging, and this is basically your current state of BJ.
Say what you want, and congress is horrible yes, but all that will happen if say, lightning strikes and democrats re-take the house in 2014, is then the blue dogs will come out and be the patsies for not doing anything progressive. And the same gross shit we see today will continue. Rights will be trampled, privacy will be eradicated. But ya, totally not Obama’s responsibility or Democrats in general.
And whoever Dems or Repubs put up for president in 2016 will most likely be all for the surveillance state and their invasive, everyone is a pre-criminal tactics, so it will be a vote for how far each can shove the 4th amendment up your ass. But, no big deal.
Davis X. Machina
@MomSense: This is the left. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
raven
@Socoolsofresh: And yet, here you are.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
And your magical eight ball has no doubt told you the solution to all these complex problems. How blessed we are to have a public intellectual like you among us.
raven
@NickT: The ghost of Mika the scold.
patroclus
@smintheus: I think the answer to your question is that it is not necessarily illegal in the UK merely to possess stolen classified documents, but that the UK authorities are building evidence regarding the custody chain so as to establish a legal case against the person who stole the documents and provided them to others. That is, no charges will ever likely be brought against Miranda, but the evidence he provided might be usable against Snowden. Miranda is just a witness here; hence his detention and subsequent release.
This was a good post by Betty. I don’t agree with all of it, but it is far more nuanced than John’s typical efforts on this issue.
Like I said last night, I was initially sympathetic to Dear Leader Greenwald’s initial spin that Miranda was an innocent gay partner wrongfully detained. After reading the NYT article though, he instead was really an admitted document mule and I am therefore no longer outraged at all. In fact, it seems reasonable that the UK authorities used this chance to learn more about the document custody chain.
NickT
@raven:
I think it’s the four consecutive exclamation points that give it away. Trolls just can’t resist some good old-fashioned crack-hysteria.
NickT
@raven:
I think it’s the four consecutive exclamation points that give it away. Trolls just can’t resist some good old-fashioned crack-hysteria.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Socoolsofresh: Another day, same shit from the commenters here. It’s no big deal!
Pretty much nobody said that
Other issues are being ignored!
They are.
Only white males care about this!
again, if you can’t make your case without distortion, you can’t make your case
GG is the worst, and is not the right person who should be in the middle of this discussion!
true, best thing he could do advance his cause is leave it to the Guardian, Bart Gelman et al
Obama has no part in this!
again, who said this?
Okay, Tiger, take a breath, have some juice, and then google “Conyers-Amash”
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
Should I be flattered that your personal pique is aimed at me?
The basic facts concerning the globe trotting of Greenwald’s sweetie pie are as follows:
His expenses were being paid by the Guardian.
He was traveling to visit Snowden co-conspirator Laura Poitras.
Snowden has previously leaked national security information about British intelligence gathering activities.
He transited through London on his way from visiting co-conspirator Poitras, potentially in possession of purloined national security information.
Now, go ahead and tell us:
1. Why the UK had no interest in his detention
2. Which laws of the UK, European Union, or norms of international law were violated by his detention
3. How all of it was actually Obama’s fault
Take your time.
? Martin
@raven: And it casts journalism in a petty and destructive light. If he had information about Britains intel services that was in the public interest to know, why the fuck didn’t he publish it sooner? If it wasn’t complete or wasn’t verified, fine, but now that he’s been personally fucked with those standards are out the window?
It doesn’t invalidate what GG publishes, but it makes him look like a shitty journalist and makes civil liberties reporting look juvenile.
NickT
@patroclus:
Hell, one of the noisier passages at the Nuremberg rally would be more nuanced than John Cole these days.
marshall
@MomSense: Doesn’t mean that Republicans don’t run against them. There were no hippies in 1980 either, but Reagan rode that train right into the White House.
Socoolsofresh
@NickT: How scary is it that there is no real counterweight on the Dems side to Rand Paul? He is going to fill a void that Dems should be owning, but can’t cause they are going all in for the surveillance state.
When congress was retaken by the Dems this is exactly what happened. All the sudden, blue dogs were everywhere, being worried about their election in their red state, voting mainly conservative. If you think that won’t be the case if it happens again, you have been willfully blind to the current state of the Democratic party.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
If you think Baby Doc is going anywhere except back up his daddy’s racist ass, you’ve got a very strange perspective on political reality.
joes527
@Cacti:
that’s un-indicted co-conspirator to you, bucko
Comrade Dread
@Socoolsofresh: So vote Libertarian.
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
Other than the internet dudebros, who else is going to overlook baby doc being racist and anti-choice?
raven
@? Martin: And a schmuck.
Chyron HR
@Socoolsofresh:
What about that guy on Salon.com who calls Eric Holder the n-word? He’s pretty close to a left-wing Paul Jr.
cleek
@liberal:
and just for the record, note that his statement was made at the very start of the 2008 primaries, long before Obama even looked he could win the nomination.
the idea that people here don’t bat an eyelash when Obama praises Reagan is both anachronistic and ridiculous.
DennisMunro
Glad to see the Greenwald Derangement Syndrone is alive and well here in the BJ echo chamber. Because Ron Paul or something. Totally coherent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Amazes me that people so ignorant about politics can get so worked up about it. Do the names Udall, Wyden or Merkley mean anything to you? They were talking about this when Rand Paul was complaining about they tyranny of the desegregation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Eh? who’s that?
NickT
@Cacti:
And let’s face it, there aren’t enough of them to fill a moderately sized Galt’s Gulch, never mind a GOP convention. More to the point, Baby Doc is negatively advantaged on the charisma front, morbidly ignorant and has all the strategic instinct and self-restraint of a rabid raccoon inside a dumpster filled with crack candy.
patroclus
In a “normal” world, the passion on this issue would be used to pressure Congress to change the NSA/FISA laws so as to make them less onerous, more transparent and much more adversarial. A privacy ombudsman at the FISA court, advice and consent on the appointment of FISA judges, much less classified information and a ritualized reporting mechanism to Congress and the people are desperately needed. Sadly, Congress is useless and nothing is likely to be done at all. Obama seems only mildly pro-reform and there are precious few allies, and the leftists are all perversely blaming Obama and trusting the Paulistas would be very unwise. I don’t foresee any changes whatsoever.
Cacti
Can’t we all just agree that the Brits have no interest in seeing that their airports aren’t used for international trafficking of stolen materials?
-Greenwald fan
Socoolsofresh
@Cacti: Here we go. Okay, he didn’t need to be detained for 9 hours, which is the max amount of time and usually used for someone they really suspect is a terrorist. Miranda was no terrorist. So this was an abuse of a terrorism law. No one has confirmed what documents he did/didn’t have, this has just been automatically assumed by people here that he had top Snowden secrets, and then misconstrued to mean him having said documents as highly illegal, when it isn’t.
If also you don’t believe that the U.S. government has been putting high pressure on its allies for any of this Snowden stuff, then not sure what else to say because if that basic fact can’t be believed, then anything more complicated is pretty much moot.
NickT
@Cacti:
But, but… the free market! The invisible hand! Liberteh!!!
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
I do marvel at the way in which you gallop valiantly from one collapsing assumption to another without apparently noticing the bridge falling into the abyss behind you.
Mandalay
@smintheus:
Exactly. Carrying electronic media is just about the worst possible way of securely moving data from point A to point B. Greenwald appeared naive about data security a few months ago, but I am sure that he is much more aware now.
It does not seem too improbable that Miranda was carrying nothing at all, and the sole purpose of his trip was to see what British authorities might do.
Greenwald just dangled the tempting bait and they took it, hook, line and sinker.
Socoolsofresh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ya haha Udall, Wyden and Merkley get a lot of praise around these parts and amongst the Democratic establishment. I hear that one of these guys could be considered front runners for the 2016 dem presidential nominee spot. Oh wait, I hear nothing like that.
NickT
@Mandalay:
So Greenwald and Miranda are no longer innocent little bunnies raped by the evil British-Obamafascist tyranny, but skilled provocateurs and post-Maoist guerillas.
Good to know.
Does this mean that the whining and victimhood from the Cult of Glenn will now be put on abeyance?
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
And you know this based on what?
And you are familiar enough with the particulars of the statute used for detention, to give a qualified opinion on whether it was misapplied?
True. All of his electronics were seized, and if national security information was found on them, it’s improbable that this would ever be disclosed to the general public. Also, British authorities knew that he was traveling between the location of one individual with stolen national security, to the location of another. His travel expenses were also being paid by the Guardian. Plenty of reasonable suspicion to believe that Miranda wasn’t going to Berlin to talk with Poitras about the weather.
Snowden also leaked information concerning British intelligence gathering activities. Does this not constitute ample reason for them to detain Miranda for their own reasons, as he might have been in possession of more of the same?
Socoolsofresh
@NickT: Um, I was responding to cacti’s questions.
How is the bridge falling? You don’t think there are blue dogs? You don’t believe that both 2016 candidates will be pro-surveillance? All I have heard from you is heh, Ron Paul is racist!
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
Why would you measure their success only in terms of possible presidential nominations, especially 3 years out – and with the big question being what Hillary intends to do? Do you ever factor reality into your political genius calculations?
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
Why would you measure their success only in terms of possible presidential nominations, especially 3 years out – and with the big question being what Hillary intends to do? Do you ever factor reality into your political genius calculations?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Socoolsofresh: Ya haha? so you only know what you see on CNN and Meet The Press?
I didn’t mean to interrupt your adolescent tantrum with facts, when you’re being so bold and noble and standing up to Big Brother by screeching about “privacy being eradicated!” so brave, so heroic. Fight on, young Ajax.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
So, your argument is that both candidates will be pro-security state. And yet, here you are worrying about Rand Paul. Do you even make sense to yourself?
Socoolsofresh
@Comrade Dread: Not sure about libertarian. But I know how it goes with you people and third parties. This guy called Nader 13 years ago ruined the 2000 election and was single-handedly responsible for Bush, so never again! It is a two party system forever or you are a naive bitch.
FlipYrWhig
@NickT:
Also, the pelt of the same raccoon.
NickT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled.
The ship went down and how he yowled
As the waves closed over his head.
Bobby Thomson
@Socoolsofresh:
Well, there’s what this guy said.
But, yeah, I can understand why you’d be skeptical. He’s not terribly reliable.
YAFB
I’m going to post this again (it’s also on the “And then there is this” thread, but the troll I engaged there isn’t up to much sparring), since it keeps coming up, and I respectfully disagree with Betty here:
This is how the UK Terrorism Act defines terrorism:
Bearing in mind allegations that Miranda was acting as an info mule between Poitras and Greenwald (Among other things, why else would he have visited Poitras? Tourism?) I think the pertinent sections the authorities may rely on in justification (they’ve officially been asked to account for themelves) might end up being (2)(e) (“is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system”) and at a stretch (2)(c) and (2)(d), which underpins (1)(b) (“the use or threat is designed to influence the government …”) and (1)(c) (“the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause”).
As others have pointed out, it doesn’t really matter in practice because the authorities can do pretty much whatever they want under the TA, even in the absence of suspicion, as long as they don’t overstep the time allowed for detention. Great, innit?
And this
leads this Brit to say a hearty:
Fuck you, Mr. Greenwald. Either this information is of public import and should be released, or it’s not. It’s not a tool for you to use to further a personal vendetta in a fit of pique. It’s time the Guardian’s editors and legal department told you to wind your neck in.
FlipYrWhig
@Socoolsofresh: Maybe Ron Wyden should run for president, then, on a civil libertarian platform, to keep all these issues aloft.
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
Ron Paul is a racist.
Glenn Greenwald might be able to swallow that one whole, but others, not so much.
moonbat
@Villago Delenda Est: That was my point. We can’t demand protection at all costs and not have a police state. I just remember all the recent screaming after the Boston bombing affair. “Why didn’t we know and prevent this? This guy was posting scary stuff on his facebook account fer chrissakes!” Implyng that the government should have been tracking his facebook account: the kind of thing we DON’T want the NSA doing to us.
And if we don’t have protection at all costs we are going to have to accept that bad things are going to happen in these United States. And thus far your average American has not been able to wrap his/her head around that. They want it both ways and it’s just not possible. And this is why craven folks on both sides of the aisle don’t want to address the issue, they don’t want to take any heat after the next bomb goes off. They’d rather let the president take the heat for security overreach.
Socoolsofresh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What facts? You seem to be full of name calling and bluster, but not much else. All your guys you mentioned aren’t really getting much praise around here or elsewhere, meanwhile, Paul has been seen by some to be a top republican presidential contender. I was saying it is too bad there really isn’t a dem counterweight.
FlipYrWhig
@YAFB: I think I wrote on the other thread that, from what I could tell, British civil libertarians have been complaining that Section 7 authorizes searches and detentions at ports and airports specifically _without_ the need to demonstrate suspicion about terrorism. To me that suggests that “being held under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act” has nothing to do with being suspected of being a terrorist. It’s just the name of the law that authorizes searches at whim in those settings. Am I correct in that?
Socoolsofresh
@Bobby Thomson: Ya they could have been marked up future articles, but you guys assume it must be top secret Snowden material.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
SCSF said this without being autobiographical and the universe did not immediately implode? Truly, we have seen a miracle today.
polyorchnid octopunch
It’s like nobody here has ever heard of “abuse of process”, or, as seems more likely, it’s only abuse of process when it happens to someone one likes… or in other words, High Sullyism.
FlipYrWhig
@Socoolsofresh: There would be plenty of “dem counterweights” if said Dems felt like getting off their asses. Do they? If not, why not?
Cacti
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Or maybe, when you cut through all of the outraged howls, there’s very little objective evidence of the above.
FlipYrWhig
@Socoolsofresh: Check the Savage story at the NYT. It’s not drafts of articles.
Socoolsofresh
@NickT: Nice poem! You couldn’t answer any of my questions though. What might also happen is we could have an Obama type who before when he was a candidate said he was against all this encroachment on civil liberties, being a constitutional prof and all, and then continue business as usual once elected. That could happen as well.
Comrade Dread
@Socoolsofresh: First of all, let’s deal with this:
Not specifically which documents he was carrying, but we know he was carrying documents. I quoted a NYT article for you up thread.
It’s not an assumption. It is a fact based on the available information we have.
As to your political affiliation, vote your conscience. Just understand the trade-offs you’re making. Vote Libertarian and you will be supporting the scaling down of the national security state at the cost of the safety net, the environment, worker protections, and business regulations.
You want to make a difference? Get involved at your local level in the Democratic party, support candidates that agree with you on the national security apparatus, volunteer for them, donate money to them.
Socoolsofresh
@FlipYrWhig: We will see how seriously Ron Wyden would be considered if he ran for president. But that would be fine with me.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
We could also have a moon made of green cheese. Any more hypotheticals you’d like to conjure up from under your bed?
fuckwit
@cleek: Thank you for performing that crucialy important service. It’s amazing how many grown adults who vote and comment on blogs, seem to have slept through Schoolhouse Rock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TI8xqLl_-w and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPd98CbbMk
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
Or you could have a POTUS that talks like an adult about these issues, saying that it’s not possible to have 100 percent safety, 100 percent privacy, and zero inconvenience, and that it’s up to the American people to decide what to prioritize.
I’m guessing that one sailed right over your head.
Bill Arnold
@cleek:
Pretty much. My eyebrows were raised, I carefully read Obama’s statement about the Reagan era, and saw that it was a description of a political context. Which was interesting in and of itself; it was more evidence that BObama was/is a pragmatist who works within a political context.
YAFB
@FlipYrWhig:
Sort of, but I’ll refer you to the Guardian (which did cover this stuff before Greenwald was invented):
That doesn’t mean it’s a good thing, of course, and there’s been movement to legislate to change it. If this kerfuffle doesn’t muddy the waters too much, it may yet happen.
FlipYrWhig
@polyorchnid octopunch: IMHO this is the UK ports-and-airports version of stop and frisk. Unfortunately for the polemical effect of the story, this particular case doesn’t seem like random harassment, but rather an instance of legitimate suspicion. I mean, you can’t wiretap everyone to see if they’re in the Mafia, but if you see a guy leaving a meeting with a Mafia guy counting hundreds and carrying a duffel bag, getting a court order to wiretap him ain’t exactly Big Brotherish.
NickT
@FlipYrWhig:
Also, this has happened once to Miranda, not repeatedly, which makes it fairly hard to see where abuse of process would be involved.
Socoolsofresh
@Comrade Dread: Documents could be anything.
Not really about the whole of libertarian-ism. Civil liberties is an issue that is also important to progressives. But I know the folly of suggesting third party around here. Even though many other First World nations have multiple parties, it is considered gospel here that there is only the two party system forever and always in the US.
different-church-lady
@chopper: It’s like an episode of Columbo, except that Columbo doesn’t actually say anything and just stands there while the murderer babbles his way into revealing himself.
A good night’s sleep, Glenn: it’s not as overrated as you think.
Emma
@Socoolsofresh: It is considered gospel because there has never been a successful third party in the history of the United States. Meaning one that has held enough political power to disturb the other two’s grip on Congress and the Presidency. Feel free to start the ball rolling.
(edited for typos)
Socoolsofresh
@FlipYrWhig: I think there are a lot of people you consider ‘Dem’ voters who have given up on the party and would vote if there was a third option, not a Democrat but something more to the left. Democrats have mainly drifted to the center these days and repubs have become extreme right, but there is a void in progressive politics. Yes, it would eat away at Dem votes but I think a lot of those would be considered reluctant dems because of no other option.
cleek
@Socoolsofresh:
ask Rudy Giuliani about the worth of predictions made more than three years before the first primary vote.
Cacti
@Socoolsofresh:
For political third parties to be viable on any significant scale in the US, we’d have to amend the constitution to get rid of single member congressional districts.
NickT
@cleek:
Or remember the juggernaut that was Rick “Ooops!” Perry. I don’t think anyone seriously considers Baby Doc to be a top-drawer candidate for 2016 at this point.
different-church-lady
@Socoolsofresh: Look, I’ve been avoiding getting into it with you, but for fuck’s sake, the NYTs article is the source that says they were Snowden docs:
If you want to take issue with the NYTs be my guest, but people here didn’t just pull this out of their ass.
Bobby Thomson
@Socoolsofresh:
Why would Snowden have marked-up articles? Or did you miss this part:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NickT: You saw Tweety predicted Rand Paul would be the nominee? TDS did a great recap of some of his other predictions. Pretty funny and worth watching if you like to laugh at Tweety.
Comrade Dread
@Socoolsofresh: They were specifically cited in the Times as documents that were a part of the stash given to Greenwald by Snowden. Which would imply classified stolen material, unless Greenwald was setting this up as a publicity stunt and made sure the documents he gave him were about the NSA potluck dinner or something inane. But they were stolen documents from the NSA per the story.
NickT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Just imagine the excitement of Luke Russert’s future punditry.
FlipYrWhig
@Socoolsofresh: No, there are not many of those people out there waiting to be converted from nonvoters to voters. Take a look at the number of people who when polled say that Obama is too conservative. Trying to appeal to them may be righteous; it’s not that they’re not good people. But it’s not a winning move in the cold calculus of electoral politics. It’d be like making a big push to capture nonvoters who want to eliminate the penny. A reasonable view but not widely held.
Socoolsofresh
@Emma: I’m no political leader, haha to the relief of many here. But when you have a congress and senate that are consistently scoring truly awful ratings with the public, I think this is fertile ground for a third party, even if history hasn’t been too kind. It’s just too bad that it can only really happen by a power mad billionaire, and not a coalition of normal folks, but that’s how it goes in the age of the 1%.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
You’ve got it exactly the wrong way round. A third party that’s a billionaire’s pet project won’t go anywhere, but a well-organized coalition of ordinary folks might have some potential.
Anton Sirius
@Socoolsofresh:
Gosh, I wonder what would happen if a third party to the left of the Dems ate away at their votes…
Too bad we don’t have a real-life example within the last 13 years or so of such an occurrence.
Jim Pharo
What’s with the anti-Glenn crap? In what universe is he an egotistical manic? Flaming asshole?
Why is he being mixed in with Assaunge and Snowden? Sure he knows these guys, has written about them, is perhaps friendly with them. So what?
Is there any evidence that his husband has anything to do with anything?
I’ve read Glenn for some time and find his work to be scrupulously fair, honest and insightful. He is in my view a global treasure who is doing as much as anyone to try to save our society from its worst impulses. I have joked for some time that I hope my children or grandchildren will one day get to attend The Glenn Greenwald School of Journalism at some appropriately snooty institution of higher learning.
There’s a kind of careless throwing-under-the-bus quality to much of the statements about Glenn that is a) hugely unfair, and b) hackish.
If he warrants criticism, I’d like to understand the basis for it because I’m not seeing it. And I read (read) T-Bogg!
Socoolsofresh
@different-church-lady: Ah, I have read elsewhere that GG and Poitras already have full access to Snowdens documents, so not sure why they would need to further exchange unless it was collaboration on future articles, using notes taken from the documents.
I understand why the British would want that stuff, but it is bad optics for them, 9 hours is unnecessary, using terrorism laws is an abuse of power, and is setting a precedent for journalists (and their extended family) as being considered terrorists, which isn’t a good look. So not surprised that the Labour party is looking into this and Brazil is outraged.
different-church-lady
@NickT: A well organized coalition of ordinary folks entails actual work. Which is not really a component in the value system of the internettedly “outspoken.”
different-church-lady
@Jim Pharo: Pull the other one!
Betty Cracker
@YAFB: My wording could have been better, but my point was more “this is wrong” rather than “this is illegal,” meaning it’s not okay in my book to expand extraordinary powers crafted specifically to deter terrorism to hassle people who are being investigative journalists or even provocative assholes. Can we all agree that the detention power you cited is frighteningly broad? I don’t know what the US equivalent is, but I’m certain it’s similarly open to abuse from accounts I’ve read of non-Greenwaldians caught up in the net while traveling.
LarryB
Disagree with the premise, Betty. Everyone has an agenda, including and perhaps especially, whistle blowers. The point is we wouldn’t be having this important national conversation about government spying on it’s own citizens if a) a conflicted guy named Snowden hadn’t broken a bunch of rules to blow the whistle; and b) A showboat ideologue called Greenwald and a few others hadn’t amplified it so loud the Feds couldn’t bury it. Anyone who says differently believes that Obama’s internal investigation will reveal or correct any significant wrongdoing. Any such person must have been asleep in class when they were talking about Vietnam and Watergate. “Trust me” just doesn’t cut it, long term.
Socoolsofresh
@NickT: Ya, i’ll wait for fast food and wal mart workers to form a union before I believe there will ever be a viable regular folk party.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim Pharo: Man, that reminds me of this:
I don’t think you’re Greenwald’s sock puppet, but . . . dude.
NickT
@different-church-lady:
Glenn Greenwald is the Pyramids and the Colossus of Rhodes – also a dessert topping and a floor wax.
different-church-lady
@NickT: He is. And this is his trusted servant, Patsy.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Jim Pharo:
You left out “concise”.
Socoolsofresh
@different-church-lady: aka, people on the internet will always be considered lazy. Not there are major powerful interests who will crush any type of third option. Especially one built outside of the establishment. But ya, stick to the narrative. I know how Nader in 2000 still gives people around here the chills and we must never forget that.
NickT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Not to mention his claim to be the greatest living master of the long-form haiku.
Cacti
@Jim Pharo:
You left out…
“He is also a kind and sensitive lover” Mr. Miranda.
different-church-lady
@Socoolsofresh:
Maytag repair man was in the wrong business.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
Hey kid, your bus is leaving.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim Pharo: The Glenn Greenwald School of Journalism sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. Like the Claudine Longet Invitational ski competition.
chopper
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Lol.
Richard
@Jim Pharo:
Thanks for giving me a good laugh.
YAFB
@Betty Cracker:
Heh. I wasn’t sure you’d see that comment so far down, so I just sent you a heads-up email as a courtesy.
I’ll copy and paste something I wrote on that earlier thread to express my misgivings as I have to go do some chores. Hope you don’t mind, it’s not intended to be offhand.
It’s not helped by the fact that all the coverage in the UK I’ve seen so far (the BBC’s been leading on it all day) ignores the NYT claim that Miranda was serving as some sort of mule. However, since I follow US politics pretty closely online at unearthly hours, it’s not unuisual for me to be 12 hours or so in front of the UK news cycle, so I’ve no idea whether that’ll be taken into consideration in later coverage here.
It does play into long, extreme unease in the UK with our anti-terrorist legislation. Whether it’ll spur changes or just fizzle out, we’ll have to wait and see (I’m afraid I suspect the latter). Revisions are likely eventually anyway (Section 44 went for a Burton a couple of years ago), barring another successful terrorist attack here in the mean time, of course.
Socoolsofresh
@different-church-lady: Oh right, it was no fault of Al Gore making mistakes in his campaign, or the Supreme court, or Republican aggressiveness, or mainstream media trashing Gore, it was all Nader’s fault. So much easier and simpler to blame it on the weakest guy.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@NickT:
(Borrowing from an old cartoon in the Village Voice sports section concerning then-junior-league-hockey-player Eric Lindros)
His body contains the second largest bauxite deposit on Earth.
NickT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
He’s not completely debauxed then.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Betty Cracker: the expression you’re looking for is abuse of process, and it is rampant in the West.
NickT
@Socoolsofresh:
Indeed. When we crucified Saint Nader head down we wronged an innocent egomaniacal jerk-off who later turned out to have some less than enlightened views on race. Funny how that seems to be a common thread linking all your heroes, isn’t it?
Cacti
@NickT:
I would guess that SCSF was in elementary school during the 2000 general election.
But his parents Moonbeam and Aquarius told little SCSF all about why they’d be casting a principled vote for Ralph.
boatboy_srq
@Chris: Did you see the article about the Teahadist rep who wants to be exempted from the
pre-born-murderingcontraception coverage in the PPACA just because he’s RC? Does he also not want to pay for the Coast Guard because he lives inland, or the federal highways in Hawaii because he lives in Missouri? Wow – just wow.NickT
@polyorchnid octopunch:
You keep repeating abuse of process, but you haven’t shown that it remotely applies to the Miranda case.
LAC
@Xantar: Sad, but true. Meanwhile, his hyena crew stampedes through every comment site for the 24 hours it takes to get the facts, distorting and spinning everything. And yet, I am supposed to be on my hands and knees, thanking bejebus, that a “dialogue” is being opened.
LAC
@Cacti: “and his rough exterior hides a sensitive soul”
there goes my lunch… :)
Emma
@Socoolsofresh: The problem of a third party is that it has to overcome (1) political power; the existing party will make it hell on them (2) political identification; people identify with the existing party, in some cases to suicidal levels (3) media inattention; the only time the media discusses a third party is when “a power-mad billionaire” creates one simply because it gives them eyeballs and clicks. And those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.
A good solid third party working within our political structure has to build from the bottom up. Capture local races, then state races, then nationals. With a lot of good luck and no massive screwups it would be viable. Maybe.
The problem is that people like me aren’t yet willing to throw their votes towards a third party because if, as in your hypothetical, we draw from the Democrats that would end up electing Republicans. And considering what the Republican party looks like these days, Vlad the Impaler would get my vote over one of them.
tones
@Ramiah Ariya:
Thank you, exactly this.
God Bless Glen Greenwald , I appreciate what he tries to do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And bless your heart
ambzone
The fact that so much of the text on this page (OP and comments included) focuses on extensively documenting the personality of individual Greenwald or Snowden or Mary Poppins while pretending to address a historical revelation about the seminal Western democracy and its immediate allies is — a disgrace?
Nah, it just means this site is at the far end of the rump government loyalist train. Enjoy being an artifact of circa 2013 PR apparatuses, all.
fuckwit
@ambzone: Government is not bad. Have yourself some more rule by private corporations for a while, and see how you like it. Last I checked, you have zero rights to anything, let alone privacy, in a corporation. They are fully authoritarian institutions. I do not want to live in that kind of corporate world, and resent living in as much of it as I have to do already.
Better, how about we make use of our representative government, and have it WRITE SOME FUCKING LAWS to prevent these rights violations happening again? Or maybe use the judicial system and try to challenge some of these laws on 4th Amendment grounds?
See, government, of the people, is how we are supposed to be kept safe from abuses by our own government, as well as by other governments, and by private corporations and individuals.
But you know, that’s hard and takes time. You have to campaign. You have to volunteer. You have to educate. You have to wait sometimes generations for signs of success. It’s soooo much easier to just whine in a blog about the security state and demand that the kind of omnipotent autocrat you say you don’t want to live under actually existed and would fix this, instead of doing the actual democratic work to rein it in.
(/me gets tired of explaining the fucking Constitution again and again)
Odie Hugh Manatee
Mostly well said Betty. ;) I have a few quibbles on some small points but overall you state it well.
OT: A good read over at Stonekettle Station where the author clubs Stossel and the glibertarians he’s wooing like they are baby seals.
Bill D.
That should be *dogies* (rhymes with bogeys). Not the same as doggies at all nor an alternate spelling for same, though confusion there around is much. Google has more.
brantl
@mk3872: Except, he has no PROOF. Period.
ambzone
@fuckwit
You’re responding to your own perception of my use of the word “government”. If you think the real debate here is with some libertarian fringe you just underline the massive intellectual misdirection happening on this site. When you’re done buttressing your in-group credentials and want to give reality a chance, try and step outside this here bubble.
Medicine Man
Thank you for the common sense, Betty.