Not to dredge up this topic again, but I just saw this today, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the Democrats who supported the new FISA bill…
Greenwald has more. Hear an interview with Greenwald here.
Update: Good idea from the comments section. Doctor up the bags before you take them to the convention. My suggestion:
Zifnab
I’m sure its just a coincidence.
Thanks for the FISA vote, Obama! This knife feels great!
*grumble* *grumble*
horatius
Ya think?????
Phoenix Woman
Al Giordano agrees with Glenn on this, surprisingly.
Napoleon
On a related matter NPR’s morning edition did a story on the whole Strangebedfellows/accountability now pac thing that is raising money to run adds against people for the FISA vote. They didn’t mention Greenwald but Jane H. was on. My favorate part was they ran the ad that is running against Chris Carney and reported that Carney’s people had told NPR they should not be running a piece on the matter.
Your Democrats at work protecting civil rights like freedom of the press and the 4th amendment.
Michael D.
There’s still a Fourth Amendment?
joe
Since Democrats voted against the FISA bill, and against telelcom immunity, by large margins, that’s probably not a very good explaination.
Phoenix Woman
Chris Carney is extra special in his backstabbery. He got the aid of the netroots by pretending to be more prog than he really was. His hide is almost as sought after as Lieberman’s.
Mr Furious
Isn’t Qwest Colorado-based? This has got to really be a slap in the face for them…
Billy K
Please tell me that’s a ‘shop. Please tell me they’re not that indifferent/clueless.
The Other Steve
This FISA/telecom thing is what fucking pisses me off about Democrats.
I don’t mean the politicians. I mean the gullible stooges who keep beating the drum.
It was never that important. And why all the focused energy on something that helps the Bush administration frame the issue?
Perry Como
The Kucinich hearings are starting on CSPAN. Get ready for some lulz.
The Other Steve
More fun
Make your own
http://pentdego.com/obama.aspx
myiq2xu
FISA was very important.
Whatever the Bush administration was doing was outside of FISA. Most likely they were spying on domestic opponents, just like Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. (that’s why FISA was passed in the first place)
FISA immunity closed the door to us ever finding out.
There is no issue for the Bushies to “frame.” The bill didn’t need to be rushed through, and the only people supporting it were the telecoms. There were no votes to lose opposing it.
The Democratic leadership (including Obama) sold us out.
Billy K
Is this sarcasm? This is sarcasm, right? Irony or something?
Evinfuilt
Yes, Qwest is Denver based. From the site of the Convention you’ll be able to see their building with name emblazoned up top.
I hope they’ve learned their lesson now, and will be truly patriotic in wire-tapping all those Americans.
Chris Johnson
Maybe Obama will fly into a rage and flip over a table laden with these bags and order all the merchants out of his Father’s House? :P
montysano
Oh Jeebus, here we go. This is no way to spend a Friday.
Read this. I thought it was a good, levelheaded take on FISA. Then let’s talk about beer or somethin’.
The Other Steve
Informed opinion rather than outraged hyperbole.
This issue was never important. This idea that you were going to investigate the government by filing lawsuits against private companies was cowardly. If you want to put the iron to the fire, then make Congress investigate this themselves.
Gus
Yeah, that’ll happen. Some real investigative bulldogs in that Democratic Congressional delegation.
ThymeZone
Sure, in the sense that gum wrappers are the cause of trash, or that jaywalking is the cause of crime.
FISA is a symbol and and icon, and you will never get the drumbeaters to agree otherwise because, you know, they feel so good being righteous about it. But in fact, FISA is a tiny manifestation of a huge, ugly problem that is around 65 years old, and which is not even being discussed or acknowledged on any meaningful level. In ways, and for reasons, already explained at length on these pages.
You live in a country that has been conducting extra-constitutional wars for decades, and trained to bark about things like FISA in order to deflect attention from the giant trainwreck going on in the background. You can undo all of FISA going back to its origins and you will have done exactly nothing to reverse the fact that your country has abandoned its constitutional restraint on the power to make war. Zero, nothing, nada.
Where were the FISA drumbeaters for the last 65 years? Asleep, apparently. So now they wake up and start barking at the moon. I have no respect for them whatever. They are simply making it easier to keep ignoring the real threat to the American Experiment.
John S.
But not your gal, Hillary!
She stood, stalwart like a Colossus across the shores of freedom and privacy. Maybe we should have gone with her as our nominee after all!
Napoleon
I have my doubts they ever would, but there was a long piece put up on Salon in the last few days that says the Democratic leadership is planning a massive series of hearings into spying on US citizens that will go all the way back to Bush I or Reagan.
John S.
Really?
It read to me like Al was mocking Glenn.
Brachiator
Yawn. You’d think by this that Obama’s was the swing vote that guaranteed passage of the FISA bill.
You’d think by this that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership had never painted Obama into a corner by declaring how deliriously satisfied they were with the “hard compromise” they worked out on the FISA bill.
You’d think by this that the Democrats hadn’t spent the past seven years rolling over and doing nothing every time the Bush Administration shredded another piece of the Constitution.
And you would think by this that voters who gave a shit about civil liberties would have elected some Democrats (and maybe even Republicans) with a little backbone to give Obama cover.
But of course, you would be wrong.
whocoodanode
ThymeZone says: “Where were the FISA drumbeaters for the last 65 years? Asleep, apparently. So now they wake up and start barking at the moon. I have no respect for them whatever. They are simply making it easier to keep ignoring the real threat to the American Experiment.”
It is odd to see public posters attack or dismiss those who are actually fighting what they are supposedly against. Unless you are a Dem partisan, in which case by all means carry on: it’s all Nader’s fault, don’t you know.
Note to Sleepzone: your respect is not sought, expected or needed.
Librarian
I see nothing wrong with “dredging up” this subject- especially when you consider that the government will use that law to “dredge up” information on millions of Americans for some time to come. Forever, actually, unless Congress finds the nerve to repeal it, which I highly doubt.
joe
The amusing part is, the post directly above this one is about how “right-wingers” like to take things out of context to make them look worse.
Tsulagi
That bag pretty much says it all. All it needs near the top with an arrow is “Insert Democrat here.” Then under “at&t” at the bottom add “28%ers thank you.”
br
Phoenix Woman,
That Al Giordano post shows that Greenwald’s blog features an ad from Verizon. It’s very hard to pass the anti-telecom purity test.
The Other Steve
Well, that’s a problem.
But then also consider this. Since the telecoms have immunity, why wouldn’t they answer a few questions? They got nothing to fear from telling the truth, right?
The Other Steve
If I was a Republican, I would suspect that the reason the Democrats got their undies all in a bunch over telecom immunity, rather than attacking the Government directly for spying on the people…
is because Democrats hate corporations, but love Big Government.
Shygetz
You’re ignoring the issue that real people had their real rights really violated. It’s NOT just a backhanded attempt to investigate the government, it’s also an attempt to help us retain our civil rights. They wouldn’t need immunity if they hadn’t done anything illegal.
LanceThruster
Convention attendees need to doctor their bags with something to indicate their displeasure with telcom immunity. Let’s see AT&T deal with some bad publicity.
Brachiator
Fixt
ThymeZone
Uh, right. Translation: How dare you disagree with me, or attack my righteous attack? Your mother wears combat boots!
Well argued, really. I’m sure you will get a lot of new subscribers to your newsletter.
Every time I read that sentence of yours that I blockquoted, it gets funnier. You aren’t fighting what I am against, you moron, you are part of the smokescreen. I’m against unconstitutional wars and war powers. FISA gets you nothing in that contest. The fucking Republicans themselves said earlier this year that they intended to draw Dems into a fight over it to keep their “issues” in the limelight. Let me know when you get tired of being a rube. Try reading the site at my url for six months, and then come back and make a substantive argument about how important FISA is. Your government is a war machine, and it’s running roughshod over you right now. It’s using you as a cover. You’ve been had.
nepat
Does Greenwald have a phone? An internet connection? This is just so friggin silly.
Corner Stone
I didn’t realize you were only 65.
TenguPhule
And his head almost as prized as a stuffed wall mount.
If it’s Political Season, why can’t we hunt them?
LanceThruster
Great graphic and great slogan. (is the CIA the [only] ones privy to our private communications? I think the names/acronyms that get to rummage through our stuff would almost look like NASCAR sponsors [more opportunity to add corps that are abusing our rights in the name of Homeland Security). What could also be added to the logo itself that would be a cool visual would be eyes poking through with fingers holding open the slots as if peering through venetian blinds. This could be done with a black marker on the spot over the blue bands and would almost look like a mummy’s head (The Mummy’s Curse!). For the more craft oriented, googly eyes and doll fingers glued onto the bag for a 3-D effect. This could be the most prominent meme of the whole convention. Citizen delegates leap-frogging and co-opting the corporate commercial message and indicating their extreme group displeasure over their (telcoms) role (and by association) the politician’s role in enabling this outrage).
It should also be easy enough to find a bulk of those bumper stickers that say “I am not afraid. Please do not create a POLICE STATE on my account!” and slap that right under/over the AT&T logo. Again, if a substantial portion of the attendees did this, it would be impossible to ignore.
It would also be good for a belly laugh (in the most sardonic sense) to watch the media ignore thast all bags have googly eyes (giant oversize googly eyes over AT&T’s logo could give the effect of the Moony Rims, or Mickey Mouse silhouette [hell you could also add/glue Mickey Mouse ears for the same “listening in” meme and draw the eye) Be sure to make those eyes wiggle or ears flap when you hold up your bag behind someone being interviewed for TV. Let AT&T “bask” in the glory of their infamy. It will be nice for them to pay for their own counter-propaganda for once.
LanceThruster
[small addition to theme variations] Eyes (preferably bloodshot from all that peering) *and* ratty ears, drooling mouth (even protuding snout) could turn it into the “Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth” Rat Fink. That works on several levels. The more visual it is, the quicker the info is absorbed by those glancing at it as well as being instantly different/eye-catching/interesting with or w/o the text message.
LanceThruster
[slogan for the above]
“Rat Finked? Hell, we’ve been Rat F*cked!”
LanceThruster
[easy to add characters to “at&t”]
R at&t urncout/t-raitor
R at&F ink (docter ‘t’ to capital ‘F’]
t at&t ling
pr at&t(s)
at&t he front of PRIVACY INVASION
Phoenix Woman
That was my point.
Eric
Isn’t Qwest Colorado-based? This has got to really be a slap in the face for them…
July 25th, 2008 at 8:59 am
——————————————
Why not ditch the ATT bags and buy Qwest bags instead? Also in presenting the FISA issue to the general public maybe we should rather emphasize the monetary benefits from winning a class action lawsuit to gain public interest and support?