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You are here: Home / NSA “Missteps” — Both Sides!

NSA “Missteps” — Both Sides!

by Anne Laurie|  August 19, 20134:28 pm| 116 Comments

This post is in: Bring On The Meteor, Security Theatre

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nsa bad touches toles

(Ted Rall’s website)

.
For us non-lawyers who read TNR, Benjamin Wittes descended from the heights of his Lawfare blog to explain why the recent NSA disclosures are a nothingburger, no big deal, quite standard actually, just not well explained:

… What with unconstitutional surveillance, hidden for months from the court, agency officials instructed to withhold information, thousands of privacy violations, and a court enfeebled in its oversight responsibility, you’d think we were dealing with COINTELPRO here.And certainly, the administration’s weedy and defensive response would do nothing to convince you otherwise. “We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official told the Post.Way to go, guys.The administration also issued a collection of statements that are cumulatively about as compelling as its protestations that it does not have to cut off aid to Egypt because it doesn’t have to decide whether or not a coup has taken place.Here’s what an administration here’s what an administration confident in itself, its compliance procedures, and its counterterrorism policies more generally and with the imagination to try to change the narrative would have said:

Shameful as it is that these documents were leaked, they actually should give the public great confidence both in NSA’s internal oversight mechanisms and in the executive and judicial oversight mechanisms outside the agency. They show no evidence of any intentional spying on Americans or abuse of civil liberties. They show a low rate of the sort of errors any complex system of technical collection will inevitably yield. They show robust compliance procedures on the part of the NSA. And they show an earnest, ongoing dialog with the FISA Court over the parameters of the agency’s legal authority and a commitment both to keeping the court informed of activities and to complying with its judgments on their legality. While it took a criminal act to make this record public, we are deeply proud of this record and make no apologies for it.

The underlying documents support every component of this statement the administration for some deer-in-the-headlights reason is not capable of making….

Since I am an optimist, for certain narrow definitions of the word, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else. Fortunately, ideological inversions don’t (directly) affect the physical world, or I’d worry about the wholesale shift causing a gravitational wobble.

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Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 19, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    Three TBogg Units in 24 hours? Could we?

  2. 2.

    burnspbesq

    August 19, 2013 at 4:34 pm

    Good on ya, AL. This is a must-read.

    And I apologize for assuming that you wouldn’t talk about the Wittes article because it’s inconvenient to the majority view around here.

  3. 3.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 19, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    Good lord, why? Why not look forward to the day when people start making those demands of Congress, which can actually write legislation restricting and prohibiting stuff?

  4. 4.

    Emma

    August 19, 2013 at 4:37 pm

    Not with me. New Rule: Whenever the front page poster ends the post by doing the stupid “NSA defenders on the left” snark, it’s time to call it a day.

    Besides, Presidents don’t write laws. Or did everyone here miss Schoolhouse Rock?

    Wanders away whistling: I’m a bill, I’m only a bill…

  5. 5.

    BD of MN

    August 19, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    “We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,”

    But never on the wrong side of the FISC, apparently. That’s where my non-lawyerness gets hung up on this…

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 19, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous

    Really? you’re going with “Obots”? This makes Betty’s post below look even better.

  7. 7.

    Belafon

    August 19, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    Let’s assume for a moment that the first three panels are true. It still doesn’t imply the final panel, simply because most people in this country are operating under the idea that if you haven’t done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide.

    I live in Texas, and I do not hear this being talked about, unless I bring it up, anywhere.

    Having said that, the second panel is crap as well.

  8. 8.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    August 19, 2013 at 4:40 pm

    Whenever the front page poster ends the post by doing the stupid “NSA defenders on the left” snark, it’s time to call it a day.

    Eh, this is better than John’s “climb up on the cross and wait for the nails to be pounded in” approach.

  9. 9.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    @burnspbesq: Which majority view?

  10. 10.

    Belafon

    August 19, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    @BD of MN: Once again, because the warrant can be changed at the court to address the judges concerns before it is approved.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne

    August 19, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Why not look forward to the day when people start making those demands of Congress, which can actually write legislation restricting and prohibiting stuff?

    Because it’s easier to whine about the president not acting like a king than it is to realistically deal with the demands of our system of checks and balances.

    I swear, half of the opposition to Bush is now revealed to be that he wasn’t acting like the right kind of dictator, and the poutrage that Obama is not acting like Bush did to enact liberal policies is deafening.

  12. 12.

    jamick6000

    August 19, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    I bought a New Republic at the airport a couple months ago and regretted it ~5 minutes later.

  13. 13.

    Anton Sirius

    August 19, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    Actually, Anne, I’d apply the same standard to a HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name administrarion that I’ve applied to the Bush II and Obama administrations: namely, that I need to see proof of actual abuses before I’ll twist up my knickers.

    Sorry if that’s too reality-based for you.

  14. 14.

    LAC

    August 19, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    I wonder if folks will be concerned about other things – like jobs, voting rights, paying for college, etc. instead of having their heads done in listening to to the same self congratulory posturing by people who never seem interested in doing what Bobby Thomson stated, because it “never changes anything and dronezzzzz….” To bad a civics course is not required – it seems needed these days.

  15. 15.

    burnspbesq

    August 19, 2013 at 4:45 pm

    @jamick6000:

    I bought a New Republic at the airport a couple months ago and regretted it ~5 minutes later.

    That’s on you, not TNR. Epistemically closed is no way to go through life, son.

  16. 16.

    gogol's wife

    August 19, 2013 at 4:45 pm

    @Anton Sirius:

    I agree with you, but no one will be discussing this once Obama’s not president any more. It will go back to the status quo ante.

  17. 17.

    Keith G

    August 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm

    As I recall, this Wittes fellow received some flack for having a favorable view of Alito and Roberts. Therefore I am not surprised in seeing that, like some here, he pops a woody at governmental overreach.

  18. 18.

    BD of MN

    August 19, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    @Belafon:

    Once again, because the warrant can be changed at the court to address the judges concerns before it is approved.

    I hadn’t heard that. You’d think those accused of being rubber stamps would work a little harder to make this known…

  19. 19.

    MikeJ

    August 19, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Really? you’re going with “Obots”? This makes Betty’s post below look even better.

    Yeah, I liked how Hillary got lumped in with Christie and Bush.

  20. 20.

    Kristin

    August 19, 2013 at 4:50 pm

    Nice preemptive ad hominem you got there.

  21. 21.

    Li

    August 19, 2013 at 4:51 pm

    @Anton Sirius: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/nsa-report-on-privacy-violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/

    There you go! And, bear in mind, this report only covers abuses at Ft. Meade proper, which is only a tiny fraction of the NSA empire. If I wanted to run the records of every head of state for a massive program of blackmail and control, I sure as hell wouldn’t be running that op out of Ft. Meade when there are so many bases you’ve (quite intentionally) never heard of that I could use instead.

  22. 22.

    The Moar You Know

    August 19, 2013 at 4:51 pm

    Stammery. And factually incorrect on virtually all counts.

  23. 23.

    chopper

    August 19, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    eh, better than ‘you guys hate greenwald because he’s gay’.

  24. 24.

    Alexandra

    August 19, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    Green balloons!

  25. 25.

    jamick6000

    August 19, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    @Keith G: yep, you’re right. and there’s this gem from Wittes: http://www.amazon.com/Starr-A-Reassessment-Benjamin-Wittes/dp/0300092520 … his wonderful book “Starr: A Reassessment.”

    Many Americans and members of the press think that Ken Starr, motivated by conservative political ideology and seeking partisan advantage, was obsessed with bringing down the Clinton presidency. Few doubt that the Starr-Clinton confrontation was personal as well, a clash of cultures between Starr, a deeply religious man with a puritanical bent, and Clinton, a political animal of protean ethics and unabashed cupidity. Wittes, an editorial writer for the Washington Post, refuses to accept this view.

    hmm a WaPo alum who loves contrarianism… intriguing.

  26. 26.

    chopper

    August 19, 2013 at 4:54 pm

    when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    you’re embarrassing yourself.

  27. 27.

    jamick6000

    August 19, 2013 at 4:55 pm

    @burnspbesq: I still read it, it’s just not very good.

  28. 28.

    ruemara

    August 19, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Well, I see you’re adding to the well reasoned debate and Rall’s cartoon is not just well drawn, but articulate and not at all hyperbolic. It would be nice if other issues got this level of fervour.

  29. 29.

    Sinnach

    August 19, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Haven’t we already dumbed down the debate enough already? I know it’s just a comic but the argument that we either have no surveillance/espionage or too much is a decidedly libertarian stance to take.

  30. 30.

    max

    August 19, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    Huh? If a Republican gets into office then the wingers will suddenly discover the fabulosity of the NSA (and excellent reason to keep them in opposition). Your NSA defenders on the left will ‘resign’ themselves to attempting to achieve bipartisan agreement because whatever they say, as long as there’s a compromise.

    And they show an earnest, ongoing dialog with the FISA Court over the parameters of the agency’s legal authority and a commitment both to keeping the court informed of activities and to complying with its judgments on their legality.

    Well, of course they do. Bureaucratic ass covering at its finest. Of course they’re going to tell the upper echelons about what a wonderful job they’re doing. The NSA certainly reported same to Truman even when they were sorta forgetting to tell him about VENONA. (As did also Edgar Hoover, when he was accidentally forgetting to tell Congress about his files and black bag jobs.)

    But then, *I* believe that the Bush administration made a sincere effort to correct the unintended abuses of torturing people that went on in various black prisons they didn’t exist. Because of course they did.

    In other dispatches from Orwell World:

    HONG KONG — Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they are being told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society. These seven perils were enumerated in a memo referred to as Document No. 9 that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, China’s new top leader. The first was “Western constitutional democracy”; others included promoting “universal values” of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civil society, ardently pro-market “neo-liberalism,” and “nihilist” criticisms of the party’s traumatic past. Even as Mr. Xi has sought to ready some reforms to expose China’s economy to stronger market forces, he has undertaken a “mass line” campaign to enforce party authority that goes beyond the party’s periodic calls for discipline. The internal warnings to cadres shows that Mr. Xi’s confident public face has been accompanied by fears that the party is vulnerable to an economic slowdown, public anger about corruption and challenges from liberals impatient for political change.

    The NSA and neo-conservatives undoubtedly feel their pain.

    max
    [‘Perhaps they should form a collaborative working group!’]

  31. 31.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    Weird how we can’t seem to solve this.

  32. 32.

    SectarianSofa

    August 19, 2013 at 4:58 pm

    That was not one of Ted Rall’s better efforts. Kind of crap, really. The rape analogy is especially high grade crap.

  33. 33.

    Anton Sirius

    August 19, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    @Li:

    There you go!

    I used the word ‘abuses’ very deliberately. Malice aforethought and such.

    Good try though.

  34. 34.

    Steve Crickmore

    August 19, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    In 2004, was this a misstep, or a merely a useful one? What did the NSA find out? (When he was a senator) All Obama’s phone calls and emails were scooped up – was there anything damaging? Such an action would be a great way to gain leverage over a politician and make sure they don’t cancel your program – Tice alleges it was also done to a wide variety of politicians and officials.

    No wonder, Obama has become so complaint with an enormous expanding NSA. Now if they, the NSA. actually started monitoring those ‘lone wolf terrorists’ and their prolific rants on the internet, instead of focusing on the surveillance of US and European politicians, UN officials and investigative journalists who might expose these surveillance programs, we might be getting somewhere.

  35. 35.

    jamick6000

    August 19, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    Benjamin Wittes, who wrote a book arguing Ken Starr was a decent man who simply misunderstood his role as independent counsel, has a new article with a contrarian take on the NSA … I GOTTA READ THIS BABY

  36. 36.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:04 pm

    @SectarianSofa:

    That was not one of Ted Rall’s better efforts. Kind of crap, really. The rape analogy is especially high grade crap.

    What, you were expecting Ted Rall not to be puerile and sophomoric?

    Good luck with that.

  37. 37.

    BruceFromOhio

    August 19, 2013 at 5:04 pm

    Ted Rall is one twisted motherfucker, and one of a regrettably dying breed.

  38. 38.

    Forked Tongue

    August 19, 2013 at 5:05 pm

    @SectarianSofa: He has better efforts?

    I’m not saying “Ted Rall should know from rape–it’s like what his ‘art’ does to our eyeballs” is a better analogy than his. I’m also not saying it’s worse.

  39. 39.

    gogol's wife

    August 19, 2013 at 5:05 pm

    @SectarianSofa:

    I hadn’t even looked at the cartoon until I read your comment. It’s pretty disgusting.

  40. 40.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 5:05 pm

    Wasn’t Wittes the twit that argued in the Atlantic years ago that Democrats could turn around their party’s declining fortunes by opposing abortion?

  41. 41.

    smintheus

    August 19, 2013 at 5:06 pm

    they actually should give the public great confidence both in NSA’s internal oversight mechanisms and in the executive and judicial oversight mechanisms outside the agency

    Those who have direct experience with the judicial oversight mechanisms describe them as fundamentally flawed. Nobody who has examined the statutory executive oversight mechanisms could credibly describe them as ‘robust’ or even workable. And I can’t help but laugh at the idea than anyone with direct experience with the NSA would argue that its internal workings should make the public feel confident. It struck me as nothing else than a freak show when I visited Fort Meade.

  42. 42.

    burnspbesq

    August 19, 2013 at 5:06 pm

    @jamick6000:

    Right, because you find it inconceivable that there are any intermediate states between right 100 percent of the time and wrong 100 percent of the time.

  43. 43.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Right, because you find it inconceivable that there are any intermediate states between right 100 percent of the time and wrong 100 percent of the time.

    Your own abysmal track record doesn’t help make your point.

  44. 44.

    RandomMonster

    August 19, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    Since I am an optimist, for certain narrow definitions of the word, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else. Fortunately, ideological inversions don’t (directly) affect the physical world, or I’d worry about the wholesale shift causing a gravitational wobble.

    Why bother arguing facts when you can just reduce your critics to a bunch of knee-jerk ideologues? But as someone else pointed out, it is a more sophisticated argument than You Hate Greenwald Because He’s Gay and AMERICA FUCK YEAH.

  45. 45.

    Seanly

    August 19, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    I was going to leave some troll bait re: Ted Rall, but decided to keep my impure not-quite-progressive-enough thoughts to myself.

  46. 46.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 19, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    @Cacti: But how can you resist the signature Ted Rall artwork, which looks like a right-handed person took an X-acto knife in his left hand, inscribed a random bunch of lines in a potato, inked it and applied it to a piece of butcher paper he found behind a halal deli?

  47. 47.

    jamick6000

    August 19, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: lol

  48. 48.

    Keith G

    August 19, 2013 at 5:11 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Why not look forward to the day when people start making those demands of Congress, which can actually write legislation restricting and prohibiting stuff?

    I am. We are.

    The problem with what you typed is gerrymandering. In many states run by Republicans, Congressional district lines have been squiggled in such a way that liberal population clusters have been divided up between several GOP majority districts – like mine. I can and, and do, contact my representative, but he does not represent anything about me.

    No. Congress is going to stay fucked up for quite a while. That is why, more often than not, the ball is there, waiting in the executive’s court.

  49. 49.

    smintheus

    August 19, 2013 at 5:11 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: He’s the jerk who’s argued for permanent detention without trial of people the govt doesn’t feel it can convict. He also argued that we should embrace Gitmo as a model prison. And then there was the love note he penned to Ken Starr. Just the tip of his gnarly iceberg.

  50. 50.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 5:13 pm

    @smintheus:

    He’s the jerk who’s argued for permanent detention without trial of people the govt doesn’t feel it can convict. He also argued that we should embrace Gitmo as a model prison. And then there was the love note he penned to Ken Starr. Just the tip of his gnarly iceberg.

    That explains why Burns ejaculated all over him.

  51. 51.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:15 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    But how can you resist the signature Ted Rall artwork, which looks like a right-handed person took an X-acto knife in his left hand, inscribed a random bunch of lines in a potato, inked it and applied it to a piece of butcher paper he found behind a halal deli?

    I admit it, secretly I’m a sucker for 3rd grade-level artwork, mixed with middle school locker room political commentary.

  52. 52.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 19, 2013 at 5:16 pm

    Since I am an optimist, for certain narrow definitions of the word, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state

    Since I am a pessimist, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2024, when the bulk of today’s would-be civil libertarians start kvetching about how they’ve already been crushed with disillusioned disappointment by incoming President Elizabeth Warren’s polite remarks about the Google corporation.

  53. 53.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Since I am a pessimist, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2024, when the bulk of today’s would-be civil libertarians start kvetching about how they’ve already been crushed with disillusioned disappointment by incoming President Elizabeth Warren’s polite remarks about the Google corporation.

    I look forward to 2016, when Cole comes out of the closet and endorses Rand Paul or Chris Christie for POTUS.

  54. 54.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:21 pm

    @Emma:

    It is a pretty boring little game that Anne Laurie keeps playing, that’s for sure. Apparently Mr Snark has moved into the place that used to be owned by that nice Ms Analysis. Can’t say it’s added much to the neighborhood.

  55. 55.

    Keith G

    August 19, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    What Benjamin Wittes would have wrote in 1974

    Shameful as it is that these tapes were leaked, they actually should give the public great confidence both in Richard Nixon’s oversight mechanisms in the executive as well as his personal bravery in leading a very dedicated White House during some turbulent times.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 19, 2013 at 5:23 pm

    @NickT: Anne Laurie used to analyze?

  57. 57.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    I also look forward to 2016, when Hillary blows “Inevitability Part II: electric bugaloo” listening to Anne Laurie angrily blame it on sexism, rather than Hillary’s lack of talent as a politician.

  58. 58.

    Comrade Jake

    August 19, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    Well we are all Obots now it seems.

    I blame Ted & Hellen.

  59. 59.

    Comrade Dread

    August 19, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    Since I am an optimist, for certain narrow definitions of the word, I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    I doubt you’ll get any takers beyond the current ones aligning themselves with Snowden/Greenwald now.

    This is a bipartisan program with support from senior Congressional leaders and for all the sturm and drang on here about the whole affair, it would seem that most Americans are just not that passionate about it. They weren’t that passionate during the Bush administration either.

    And I think most people who are concerned that things have gotten out of hand are resigned to the fact that this sort of thing will continue regardless of our feelings and the best fight we can hope to win is that fight to get Congress to move to bring more light and accountability to the security state apparatus and beef up the FISA court.

  60. 60.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:32 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Anne Laurie used to analyze?

    Anne Laurie has two settings: gardening and hating Obama.

    Maybe someday she’ll throw us a curve ball and do an “I hate Obama when I’m gardening” post.

  61. 61.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I was trying to be nice.

  62. 62.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:35 pm

    @Cacti:

    I am betting on an Obama droned my tomatoes thread in about.. oh say three days from now.

  63. 63.

    PopeRatzo

    August 19, 2013 at 5:37 pm

    @Emma:

    Besides, Presidents don’t write laws.

    No, they only abuse them.

  64. 64.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:37 pm

    @NickT:

    I am betting on an Obama droned my tomatoes thread in about.. oh say three days from now.

    FTW

    You may pick up your internets at guest services.

  65. 65.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:39 pm

    @Cacti:

    I am just waiting for the knock at the door and the PUMA Stasi to take me away. I doubt I’ll get the chance to pick up those internets, but the thought of them will console me in the cyber-gulag.

  66. 66.

    PopeRatzo

    August 19, 2013 at 5:40 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    This is a bipartisan program with support from senior Congressional leaders

    So was the Iraq War.

    I don’t remember you carrying the flag in big pro-Iraq War parades. So what’s changed? Oh wait…

  67. 67.

    PopeRatzo

    August 19, 2013 at 5:42 pm

    @@NickT:

    I am betting on an Obama droned my tomatoes thread in about.. oh say three days from now.

    I’m pretty sure it will be the UK droning the tomatoes, as a gesture of solidarity with the President. Better hope the kids aren’t in the garden at the time, because apparently family is fair game.

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 19, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    @PopeRatzo: s/he didn’t express support for the program, I think this pretty clearly expresses disapproval

    And I think most people who are concerned that things have gotten out of hand are resigned to the fact that this sort of thing will continue regardless of our feelings and the best fight we can hope to win is that fight to get Congress to move to bring more light and accountability to the security state apparatus and beef up the FISA court.

    I feel the same way, but given the vote on Conyers-Amash I’m a bit more optimistic that this program will be reviewed and reigned in.

  69. 69.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 19, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    @Cacti: One more setting: finding Corner Stone delightful.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    @PopeRatzo:

    Better hope the kids aren’t in the garden at the time, because apparently family is fair game.

    I don’t think Anne Laurie would send a loved one out to take the heat for her.

    She’s no Glenn Greenwald.

  71. 71.

    taylormattd

    August 19, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    @Emma: The lily white derangosphere will never, ever go away. Ever.

  72. 72.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @taylormattd:

    Punk will never die!

  73. 73.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 19, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    WTF is going on with Rall’s math, BTW? Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt right down the line, he should have said that 1.6% of Internet traffic is _enough_ to cover all your email, rather than implying that the 1.6% the NSA touches _is_ all your email. If pesticide restrictions affect X% of people, and X% of people are Zoroastrians, that doesn’t mean that pesticide restrictions are targeted at Zoroastrians.

  74. 74.

    cleek

    August 19, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    looks like it’s time to get the pie filter to work on the front page, too.

    life’s too short to read this kind of nit-witted trollery, or to look at Ted Rall’s appalling drawings.

  75. 75.

    Xantar

    August 19, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    If I wanted to discredit the civil liberties segment of the political spectrum, I would ensure that all of its most prominent spokespeople are thin-skinned polemicists who never admit that they got something wrong and who spend all their time insulting the other side (even those with a thought out, honest disagreement) rather than making a sincere effort at dialogue and mutual understanding. I would then have these people publish incessantly even when there isn’t anything new to add such that everyone would get sick of the subject.

  76. 76.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 5:52 pm

    @Xantar:

    Shhh! Don’t give the game away. It’s taken us years to get Greenwald into position for Operation Crackpot Imagine Gish Gallop.

  77. 77.

    eemom

    August 19, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    @Cacti:

    Anne Laurie has two settings: gardening and hating Obama.

    Well, to be fair, the premium subscription includes the full lineup of faux feminism channels, featuring I’m Totes Not a Hillbot For The Starz.

  78. 78.

    Howard Beale IV

    August 19, 2013 at 5:54 pm

    @Anton Sirius: Bradley Manning, tortured.

    ’nuff said.

  79. 79.

    Comrade Dread

    August 19, 2013 at 6:00 pm

    @PopeRatzo: Really? Really? A war that kills thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, destabilizes a nation, destroys its infrastructure, results in the looting of national treasures, and ultimately leaves the place a bubbling powder keg that is going to explode into more horrific violence as soon as we’re completely out is the equivalent of having the NSA collect the data from emails and phone calls that pass through our borders and still needing a warrant (even a rubber stamped one) to view that data?

    Sigh… I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

  80. 80.

    The Sheriff's A Ni-

    August 19, 2013 at 6:02 pm

    I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    You mean the same time the Firebaggers suddenly find President Hillary’s national security state no longer objectionable?

  81. 81.

    cleek

    August 19, 2013 at 6:02 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Bradley Manning, tortured

    ’nuff said.

    not quite.

    Thomas Drake, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, James Hitselberger, Shami K. Leibowitz, John Kiriakou – all charged under the Espionage act under Obama, and yet, somehow, counter to what Greenwaldians insist must happen to those who leak under Obama, none of them were tortured, or even “tortured”.

  82. 82.

    Thomas

    August 19, 2013 at 6:02 pm

    @cleek: For the great majority of the BJ commentariat, “trolling” has become synonymous with “hearing arguments I don’t like, or that are at least not couched in gentle terms favorable to the sitting president.” When John, Anne, or mistermix attempt, however subtly, to tell the truth, the howls of “sensationalism!” come ringing from this crowd to try to drown them out.

  83. 83.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    When John, Anne, or mistermix attempt, however subtly, to tell the truth, the howls of “sensationalism!” come ringing from this crowd to try to drown them out.

    Why yes. Cole is the model of subtlety and nuance. Especially when the topic is or is related to Glenn Greenwald.

  84. 84.

    cleek

    August 19, 2013 at 6:07 pm

    @Thomas:
    fuck that. she’s trolling. she’s insulting what she knows to be a large part of the readership in order to generate comments.

    it’s transparent and pathetic.

  85. 85.

    Howard Beale IV

    August 19, 2013 at 6:07 pm

    @cleek: Manning is being made as an example-also helps that he’s military, which adds its own unique twist.

  86. 86.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 6:10 pm

    @cleek:

    You mean we shouldn’t give Thomas credit for being a masterful satirist?

    I feel so terribly disappointed.

  87. 87.

    Thomas

    August 19, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    @Cacti: Well, first, I don’t think anybody comes to this site for subtlety or nuance. No one minds snark here when it’s directed at the cartoonish Republicans. Second, John restrained himself for awhile while some profoundly stupid shit about both the NSA & Greenwald was being emitted by some of the dumber front-pagers here. I don’t blame him for pushing back forcefully.

  88. 88.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 6:20 pm

    @Thomas:

    John restrained himself for awhile

    So, he held off for an afternoon or two, before it was back to “Glenn Greenwald is the most correct person on earth, and you’d know it too if your head was as far up his ass as mine.”

  89. 89.

    chopper

    August 19, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    @NickT:

    I am just waiting for the knock at the door and the PUMA Stasi to take me away.

    is that anything like the suede-denim secret police?

  90. 90.

    Seanly

    August 19, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Rall is assuming that NSA doesn’t collect your streaming of Netflix or downloading of warez games. They’re only interested in communications between people which would be 2.9% of internet traffic. His implication is that NSA frames the number in a non-threatening way but in actuality, they’re getting everyone’s emails, tweets & etc.

  91. 91.

    Cacti

    August 19, 2013 at 6:24 pm

    Really Greenwaldians, no need to panic.

    The NSA doesn’t care about your Sailor Moon hentai collection.

  92. 92.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 19, 2013 at 6:29 pm

    @Seanly: But they probably “touch” some of those other uses of the Internet too. For instance, if they want to know who’s downloading copies of _The Innocence of Muslims_, they might want to track YouTube or BitTorrent or whatever. I think what he means is that 1-plus percent of Internet traffic sounds like nothing but would be enough to scrutinize every email. But he phrases it such that the 1-plus percent that they’re “touching” _is_ every email.

  93. 93.

    NickT

    August 19, 2013 at 6:35 pm

    @chopper:

    Much, much worse. They have these really vicious attack kittens.

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    August 19, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    @Thomas:

    No one minds snark here when it’s directed at the cartoonish Republicans.

    I was under the impression that the Republicans were our enemies and thus fully open for snark volleys.

    I was not aware that anyone who did not agree with Glenn Greenwald in every line and comma was also an enemy, but I guess I’ve figured that out by now.

  95. 95.

    askew

    August 19, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Really? you’re going with “Obots”? This makes Betty’s post below look even better.

    Remember, Anne Laurie is the resident PUMA here. She is bitter that Hillary got beat by the unworthy Obama and never hesitates to find another reason to attack him or his supporters.

  96. 96.

    Suffern ACE

    August 19, 2013 at 7:03 pm

    @askew: keerist kriminy. It’s amazing you don’t cut yourself sitting down with skin that thin.

  97. 97.

    burnspbesq

    August 19, 2013 at 7:15 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    Your own abysmal track record doesn’t help make your point.

    Hear me laughing? and I’m not laughing with you.

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    August 19, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:

    That explains why Burns ejaculated all over him.

    That’s got a ways to go to get to pathetic.

    Are you substituting for T&H today?

  99. 99.

    geg6

    August 19, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    Anne Laurie, I’ll always be grateful to you for getting me my beautiful Koda. But you should be ashamed of yourself for posting this disgusting cartoon. Rape? Pedophilia? The same as the NSA downloading your emails (and never looking at them)? You’ve got to be kidding. This has nothing to do with my political disagreements with you on Obama: Devil or Lucifer? and this NSA issue. This is about a woman who I thought was a feminist thinking rape is a proper analogy to use for this situation. I wouldn’t have thought you would do this. I’m shocked and disappointed.

  100. 100.

    Abster

    August 19, 2013 at 7:23 pm

    Regardless of the public battles over these issues, I fully expect a surge in the market for personal products that help us protect our privacy ourselves. Already hearing talk about email encryption services like TOR and personal cloud devices that let you store your digital media at home like Cloudlocker. It’s no longer considered “paranoia” to talk about such privacy options…and honestly, that’s a little sad.

  101. 101.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 19, 2013 at 7:29 pm

    @burnspbesq: Don’t pull me into your sordid affair with the site troll.

  102. 102.

    NobodySpecial

    August 19, 2013 at 7:30 pm

    Pretty funny how we’ve gone from “The NSA doesn’t do that” to “The NSA only does that if they’ve got a warrant” to “The NSA is only supposed to do that if they’ve got a warrant, and any time they didn’t have a warrant and did it was a mistake” with the bonus of “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about” Republican framing. Of course, it makes sense, given the number of Juicers who used to be mild Republicans radicalized like Cole over the W administration….

  103. 103.

    fuckwit

    August 19, 2013 at 7:32 pm

    Oh for FUCK’S SAKE, people.

    PRESIDENTS DO NOT MAKE LAWS. CONGRESS DOES.

    Oh my god how fucking thick do people need to be.

    How can anyone say that the President needs to do something to fix this because we might not always have a Democratic President, when anything the President does CAN AND WILL GET REVERSED BY THE NEXT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT.

    What the fuck? Get with reality please.

    This problem belongs in the Congress. #1 priority needs to be electing Democrats in 2014, which is pretty much right the fuck now. Alternately, you could try putting pressure on this Congress to get something passed, but consider the clown show they are. Until that changes, you really are wasting your time with any kind of “but if it was a Republican President you’d be outraged!” argument. Null and void, because as mentioned above, no permanent change can happen from the Executive branch. And if a Rethug gets elected, we’re fucked on so many levels it’s not even funny, and the NSA would honestly the least of my worries.

    You outraged people of the left are getting played like a Super Nintendo. Stop it. If your outrage causes an R (even Rand Paul) to be sitting in the oval office in 2016, the ghost of Ralph Nader will haunt you for another generation.

  104. 104.

    kc

    August 19, 2013 at 7:37 pm

    @geg6:

    I hope you didn’t break your strand of pearls there.

  105. 105.

    taylormattd

    August 19, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    @Thomas:

    When . . . Anne . . . attempt[s], however subtly, to tell the truth

    I’m sorry, when did this “subtle” attempt at truth telling happen? Was it this, right here?:

    I look forward to Thanksgiving 2016, when the bulk of today’s Security Defenders ‘on the left’ will reverse polarity to explain that incoming President HClinton/Booker/Gillibrand/Christie/Walker/JBush/Paul/Insert-Name had better immediately dismantle the ridiculous & overreaching trappings of the security state, or else.

    No, that her typical passive-aggressive trolling.

  106. 106.

    geg6

    August 19, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    @kc:

    GFY. As a woman, a feminist, and a victim of rape, I find this post, that cartoon, and AL’s endorsement of it insulting. You I find to be too stupid to be insulting. Just a clueless idiot, probably a “civil libertarian”. And we all know how concerned THEY are with women’s rights and actual civil liberties that affect REAL people’s lives. Which would be not at all. Too busy worrying about the fantasy they built in their little minds about the blah guy reading their chats on Match.com and knowing how truly sad and pitiful they are IRL.

  107. 107.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    August 19, 2013 at 8:51 pm

    @cleek: Well, I know that THAT guy got it bad… but look over there!

    Seriously, BFD that they didn’t get tortured, doesn’t wash the torture of Manning (or Padilla, or John Walker Lindh, not to mention all the non-US citizens they either tortured directly or helped along to others willing to do the dirty work) from the hands of the American People.

    It’s pretty much as laughable as Russia lecturing the US about black people while repressing homosexuals and Pussy Riot. Not really seeing a lot of daylight there.

  108. 108.

    different-church-lady

    August 19, 2013 at 9:24 pm

    Mr. Rall? Meet Mr. Munroe. Mr. Munroe, Mr. Rall.

  109. 109.

    different-church-lady

    August 19, 2013 at 9:30 pm

    @geg6: Ah yes, Ted Rall: all the subtlety, nuance and insight of your average Home Depot cinder block.

  110. 110.

    Jockey Full of Malbec

    August 19, 2013 at 9:32 pm

    Well, as long as you’re not comparing anyone to Nazis.

    Because that would be a cheap rhetorical tactic.

  111. 111.

    Ted & Hellen

    August 20, 2013 at 1:09 am

    @cleek:

    Pie the entire Intertrons, while you’re at it.

    Best option to protect your delicate fee fees and empty head.

  112. 112.

    Ted & Hellen

    August 20, 2013 at 1:17 am

    @cleek:

    It’s really breath taking to once in a while ponder the profound WATB nature of the prominent Botulist cohort around here.

    No wonder a motherfucker needs a fucking filter to get thru the day here: Motherfucker is a WATB.

  113. 113.

    Ted & Hellen

    August 20, 2013 at 1:22 am

    @geg6:

    I’m shocked and disappointed.

    lol

  114. 114.

    A Humble Lurker

    August 20, 2013 at 9:21 am

    @Ted & Hellen:
    There is an edit button.

  115. 115.

    Li

    August 20, 2013 at 10:19 am

    @geg6: I initially thought that this cartoon was crass and poorly framed, but now I actually think that the rape analogy is perfect, as the arguments in favor of this program on this thread have been mostly boiling down to “If you weren’t such a pervert you wouldn’t mind some faceless computer ranking and scoring your entire life.” The fact that even rape victims such as yourself have internalized the sex-shaming of the patriarchy to this extent goes a long way towards explaining how rape culture continues to be so pervasive in this society.

  116. 116.

    geg6

    August 20, 2013 at 5:45 pm

    @Li:

    As I believe I said above, GFY. Rape analogies are never okay. And I’ve internalized the sex shaming patriarchy? No fucking idea what the hell that means. I’m not ashamed of sex and I’m not ashamed of being a rape victim. Get yourself raped and then tell me how it compares to someone downloading your emails and never reading the fucking boring shit you write or forward. You’ve gotta be a man or a very young and stupid woman. Only those who have no experience with the life of a woman in this society could say something as ignorant as this.

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