This has been covered in the ‘More Obama fuckery’ thread (and on the front page at qt3), and maybe a few other places, but in hindsight it probably deserves it’s own thread as it covers pretty much everything from general national security concerns vs spying on your citizens en-mass (and only a truly naive person would think this is not ‘normal’) to the role of Corporate America and even our gaming consoles. Some of the best coverage of this i have seen so far comes from the source, the guardian newspaper in the uk:
Other than the Republicans calling for the arrest of this guy (predictable) in their usual knee-jerk ‘your with us or against us’ mind-glazed mental stupor, i’m sure what kind of detail of coverage you are getting in the usa, but all the info at the guardian website is worth a read (or two).
Now in principle i have no particular issue with our governments (or government bodies) keeping their ears open to our general wider chattering, it is a time honoured tradition and pretty much essential in any large society. Having said that there probably is a line that should not be crossed by any free democratic society and i am wondering if this case in one such example maybe?
To be fair it is not Obama’s fault, other than not stopping what had already been started under Republican approval post 9/11. I’m very certain the Republicans will try to pin this all as Obama’s fault, and like the drone strike program, will conveniently suddenly forget they started it. Just you watch.
And at a very important level this kind of transcends bi-partisan political choices. This is all about the power behind the throne and what it wants for your america (world).
Yes, it is Obama’s fault, in that he set himself up as being very much against such things (see his speech while he was in the Senate on the inherent evil in parts of the Patriot Act.) It is Bush’s fault, sure, but he is no longer president. Today, Obama is, he knows about this, and he allows it and does not oppose it. It is the fault of everyone in political power today.
As for this being something “everyone knows” I don’t think most of America knew that every email, every phone call, every text, every post was open to the government reading/viewing/listening to it with no warrant or oversight. Certainly the NSA and government think the revelations are powerful enough that the guy who came out and told the Guardian (and it is sad that it was a UK and not a US media source that made the big reveal on this) is in hiding and being sought for prosecution.
I have to agree with this. Obscure things aren’t necessarily the fault of the administration, which is one reason I don’t give a damn about the IRS “scandal.” However, runaway national security intrusions, the Patriot Act, and overseas combat operations are things he should have known about day one.
I think the NSA scandal beats all the others by a long shot. IRS targeting conservative groups? Yah, how about the government using the constitution as toilet paper and gathering data on your every digital movement. They tried to assuage our fears by saying “its only anonymous metadata,” yet if their system finds “suspicious” activity they can get your individual information with a quick signature. The only corollary I can think of is being forced to allow police officers to search “every” home, but they can’t know the homeowners name. However, if they find something suspicious in the house they can use what they found as justification for “probable cause.” By doing that you defeat the whole purpose of the 4th amendment.
He’s not just passively shrugging his presidential shoulders. He’s made things actively worse in a number of areas, which is why I didn’t vote for him a second time. Like Midnight Son, I feel bitter/betrayed, and expressed that feeling at the ballot box.
Yeah, he’s better than Romney, but between the president he said he’d be and the president he is he has a lot of room to squeeze right in and go fuck himself in all four directions.
Ya know, I nod my head at that statement, and then I struggle to think how he’s better than having Romney in this term. He may be hurting the chances of Congressional Democrats (not that I’m fans of them, it’s just that anything is better than the Tea Party) with people who were moderates/independents who believed that Obama actually believed in what he presented.
+1 Flowers. Actually +∞ – and I had to bring up the character map and everything for that!
I blame Obama for all of this debacle. Sure, the GOP started it, but Obama had the option to continue or not. Moreover, his administration is very diligent about seeking out and destroying whistleblowers, more so than any I remember in the past. As regards security and surveillance, they are generally secretive, disingenuous, authoritarian, and paternalistic, enough to make even MI5 smile. And they lie outright about their desire for increased “transparency”.
I have no doubt that McCain or Romney would have done the same or worse, but that doesn’t let Obama off the hook at all.
It’s like that theoretical duty of an officer to disobey unlawful orders. It’s an automatic court-martial if you do, so almost no one does; but it can be done. Same ethical issue applies to whistleblowers. They may screw up and betray a true confidence, or they may reveal a terrible malfeasance; and it’s up to them to decide in every case, because no one else can do it for them.
A terror attack happens and the first cry is “Why didn’t we know this was going to happen? This is why we have a CIA and NSA!”. In the next breath the same people cry “don’t monitor phone, email, and internet! Invasion of privacy!”
That was Obama’s point. Decide what you want. Do you want the government to be able to find and stop terror attacks before they occur? Or do you want 100% privacy with the occassional building blowing up?
My concern is the slipperly slope. Today the data is used to look for terror attacks and most will be fine with that. Tomorrow it might be to monitor for human trafficking, and most would be fine with that too. But what happens if that slowly expands to the point where it’s monitoring for discussions of stolen goods? drug communications? planning of a crime? Some might be OK with that. At that point, everything is being read, checked, and investigated. 1984 becomes a reality.
There’s where I diverge from most people. I accept the occasional attack as the consequence of liberty we (should) enjoy. I just want us to head in the “more liberty, less security” direction rather than the opposite, because losing 3,000 people once a century is, frankly, no big fucking deal. Concentrate on policing NBC weapons around the world and in our ports, that’s going to prevent the big attack far better than trying to catch some radicalized college student with a home-made pipebomb. Not to mention fix our fucking foreign policy and wrap up Afghanistan, maybe tell Israel to take a flying fuck at a rolling bagel unless they clean up their act, and there will be a hell of a lot less problems in the first place.
