The Rude Pundit Nails the Surveillance Issue

[riqster]

As he so often does: http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-phone-record-collecting-and.html?m=1

Snips: " Once the Patriot Act was passed and mass surveillance by the federal government was legalized, the cherry was popped. You can't unfuck the deflowered virgin."

"What we are left with is merely electing people who we believe will be wise shepherds of this power to invade our privacy whenever they wish in order to "protect us" from "terrorists" or the fake existential threats of the future. That is a sad reduction of democracy. That is the opposite of hope, no? Merely wanting to be led by people who won't harm us?"

Good stuff, worth reading.

[The Magistrate]

1. Home Truths, Sir

The Rude One, as he so often does, has it nailed in one....

[djean111]

2. yes.

And the "won't harm us" has been redefined. Quite a lot.
We are expected to boot-lick now. No matter what. Because the other guy(s) will inflict more harm.
yay.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. "The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same."

Marie Beyle (Schopenhauer)

[riqster]

4. Great quote. nt

[1-Old-Man]

5. This has to be the first time I've ever said the Rude Pundit is full of shit

[backscatter712]

8. Your authoritarianism is unwanted here. n/t

[1-Old-Man]

16. Do you understand how ironic it is for you to say that?

[Aldo Leopold]

29. LOL!

[tavalon]

20. Because he said that ship has sailed?

He's right. I'm just as sick about this as I was when this happened under Bush (though my tin foil hatted head said it had started well before). No one will ever turn back. When our society falls, as all who overreach do (no, I'm not talking about this issue, I'm talking about imperialism, We will fall. All empires do), then nobody will be surveilling, but the stuff will still be there, just like the Russian nukes, unguarded and unnoticed, by most.

[uponit7771]

26. why?

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. As sure as the Sun rises in the East, you can bank on the

fact that the awesome capabilities of modern intelligence gathering will be used to further the personal goals of those that weild them at some point in time.

Total surveillance by government is much more dangerous to our democracy than any group of "evil-doers".

[premium]

10. Yep.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Seems the previous and present Executive and legislative have learned this lesson very well.

[Dustlawyer]

14. This power is exercised by elected and UN-elected government officials for the benefit of their

Masters.
They do not wish to be surprised like they were with OWS. It is another element of control to use when we get upset enough to protest some symptom of the corruption or another. The corruption of our political process should be the only thing we talk about and fight to fix. The rest, (e.g. Background checks for assault weapons) is eneffectual because we are fighting the symptoms of the corruption (90% of Americans were for background checks yet they still did not pass). We will be bitching about shit like this forever and it will not stop as long as we keep up the fiction of Democrat vs. Republican and blame the other party for the problems caused by the corruption!

[DinahMoeHum]

7. Agreed. The surveillance horse left the barn a long time ago.

n/t

[bigtree]

9. nominate and elect a president who is diametrically opposed to these policies and laws

. . . and advocates for their unequivocal repeal.

What Rude is really lamenting is the lack of will or ability (so far) of enough Americans to elect a sufficient number of legislators who will uphold our rights.

Presidential candidates like I describe above don't normally survive primary season - who knows if they'd have enough moxie to win the general . . .

[SlimJimmy]

11. The problem is that *our* candidate for president said exactly that when he was running. He said he

would review all of the surveillance laws and repeal those that didn't protect our 4th amendment rights. Well, that just didn't happen. As a matter of fact, under his watch, it was expanded. So, what do we do now? Do we have each candidate take a lie detector test to prove their veracity? Short of that, we have to hope that what they promise is what they deliver.

[bigtree]

13. Obama shifted before his first election

Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 02:13 PM - Edit history (1)

from July 9, 2008:


In February Obama voted in favor of the an amendment from Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., to repeal retroactive immunity for telecoms, saying, “I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty. There is no reason why telephone companies should be given blanket immunity to cover violations of the rights of the American people – we must reaffirm that no one in this country is above the law. We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law, or our basic rights and liberties.”


Free from the political pressures of the Democratic primaries, Obama now says he will vote for the FISA bill even if it doesn’t include retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

And moreover, he will no longer support a filibuster of the bill if it doesn’t include telecom immunity.

“My view on FISA has always been that the issue with phone companies per se is not one that overrides security interests of the American people,” Obama told reporters on June 25. “It is a close call for me but I think the current legislation with exclusivity provision that says that a president — whether George Bush, myself or John McCain — can’t make up rationales for getting around FISA court, can’t suggest that somehow that there is some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps.”

Obama also said the FISA compromise was an improvement since it would put an “inspector general in place to investigate what happened previously gives us insight what has happened retrospectively. So, you know, that in my mind met my basic concerns and given that all the information I received is the underlying program itself actually is important and useful to American security as long as it has these constraints on them. I thought it was more important for me to go ahead and support this compromise.”


read: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/obamas-fisa-shi/

[SlimJimmy]

15. Good information. Thanks. (nt)

[uponit7771]

25. +1

[Maven]

35. So in other words

Once he had duped the party and we were stuck with him as our candidate, he revealed his true position for the general...and that means he has integrity?

WTF.

[uponit7771]

19. +1

[frylock]

21. i thought that i did..

silly me.

[AnnieK401]

30. There are only 2 politicians I can think of who I really believe might stop this if POTUS

- make that 1. A BS crazy libertarian named Rand Paul. Think he's make a good POTUS. Think for a minute that he could get elected.

I haven't researched Elizabeth Warren's stand on this. She might stop it, then again not sure if that would be her top priority. Even though I think she's great, I wouldn't put her chances of getting elected very high either.

[meegbear]

12. Link ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022958449

[riqster]

22. I prefer to link to the author's site when possible.

That way he can get whatever bennies there are from the traffic.

[meegbear]

33. I link there as well ...

I've been posting him here, with his blessing, for a few years now.

[riqster]

34. Excellent.

I put his link in my OP. Gotta love the "tenured radical".

[SHRED]

17. you want privacy?

Cash only transactions, no bank accounts, hide your IP address, use prepaid phones. And that is just for starters.

[Savannahmann]

18. There is always time to turn back.

This isn't pregnancy, it is more akin to Slavery. A reprehensible practice that we have a choice, we can stop it, or we can continue it. Remember, it was JFK who said we choose to go to the Moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

[TheKentuckian]

31. No doubt. The bullshit narrative that paints this like overcoming the laws of physics is pitiful

We have too many people who seem to live best in the most expansive definition of impossible that can be found, I suspect in vain hope of avoidance of disruption which seems to ignore all the folks being disrupted. I guess they hope or believe they are special and will not be disturbed.
One cannot fail to do the right thing when nothing can be done, see. They are absolved, in fact they deserve accolades because they by definition did the very best they could and you can never ask for more than that.

This way everyone gets to put themselves to sleep with a belly full of faith that they made the right call. One can simply convince themselves that the person they voted for is harm reduction, it is self justifying because no matter what terrible thin "your guy" does the "other guy" would have found a way to do worse and/or your guy was doing what they thought was best among bad choices. Failing that there is always "they know what we don't know" to fall back on.

I don't see that as decent, what world are we building for the future? To allow this shit to fester and grow, hoping we roll benevolent overlords every time (or ever) over eternity is so far past crazy that the town of Batshit is just a speck in the rearview mirror. That will never bear out. This has to be stopped.

[librechik]

23. completely fucking true and well said.

and in the intervening years the same fuckers who brought us the Patriot Act have done everything they can to make it impossible for ordinary folks to un-do.

[ismnotwasm]

24. Wow

Nailed it is right.

[still_one]

27. Well I am sure things like that did not happen before the patriot act. /nt

[LWolf]

28. I guess that has to be true if

you won't elect people who will repeal The Patriot Act, or AT LEAST someone who will not vote to extend it, or sign that extension into law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/patriot-act-extension-signed-obama-autopen_n_867851.html

Personally, I'd like the U.S. to elect some people with some god-damned integrity, myself.

The two senators I voted for on that extension:

Merkley, along with Wyden, is especially upset that a provision of the current law that allows law enforcement to collect a vast array of business records, emails, phone numbers, even DNA from anyone deemed "relevant" to an investigation. Merkley and Wyden both want the law to include a more detailed legal definition of "relevant" to lessen the chance that sensitive data is collected on innocent people.

And from the same article:

The White House is pressing Congress to act so there will be no interruption. Specifically, the provisions to be renewed would authorize the FBI to use roving wiretaps on surveillance targets; allow the government to access "any tangible items," such as library records, in the course of surveillance; and allow the surveillance of "lone wolf" targets who are not connected to an identified terrorist group.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/post_30.html

So...who was pushing the extension of the Patriot Act through in a hurry? The White House? Who is that? Barack Obama.

"You can't unfuck the deflowered virgin?" Bad metaphor. This law was supposed to expire. Congress and the president can damned well let it, or repeal it.

[Skraxx]

32. Yup, You Can't Unfuck a Fuck

You deal with the aftermath as best you can.

[Blue Owl]

36. Spot fucking on

[mick063]

37. Bin Laden won.

As far as I am concerned, we have now officially lost the war on terrorism.

Fly a couple of airplanes into New York skyscrapers and destroy American privacy forever.


Gotta hand it to the dude. He won brilliantly.


I'm pondering joining the doomsday prepper crowd. The "black helicopter" stories don't seem that far fetched now.