"The fundamental reason for the conversion of the state into a gigantic spy apparatus is the nature of deeply destructive domestic and foreign policies which the government has so forcefully pursued. The vast expansion of the police state apparatus is not a response to the terror attack of 9/11. The geometrical growth of spies, secret police budgets, and the vast intrusion into all citizen communications coincides with the wars across the globe. The decisions to militarize US global policy requires vast budgetary re-allocation , slashing social spending to fund empire-building.
Mass spying is designed to identify the citizens who oppose both imperial wars and the destruction of domestic welfare.” – James Petras, in an article on American loss of liberty
“If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged” – Cardinal Richelieu
The news from The Washington Post that the National Security Agency has "broken privacy rules" (transl. the 4th Amendment!) or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, has civil libertarians hopping mad again. And demanding the cowardly congress get off their keysters for once and put a leash on this super snoop agency which Sen. Frank Church once described as being a path to all out tyranny if not reined in. Why should ANY citizen in the true sense have a difficult time grasping this? Anyone who's ever studied the U.S. Constitution ought to process this and how these transgressions of the 4th amendment are intolerable as well as exposing those politicos who have not upheld their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution!
Yet we still have looney tunes blaming Edward Snowden and calling for his head, when HE was the one that provided the channels to expose this law breaking! The guy should be awarded a fuckin' medal for god's sakes! Also, if Obama has any balls left by the time he leaves office, he ought to issue an executive pardon for Snowden - which will allow his return to the U.S. and free of sanctions!
Look, let's clear the air here for any stupid hypocrites: two CIA-hire terrorists orchestrated the destruction of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 off the southwest coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976. (The actual 'mechanics', i.e. planters of the bombs, were Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lusano who joked about it while deplaning in B'dos). I was at Paradise Beach with my nieces when it occurred, and they are still as traumatized as when the bloody body parts first washed ashore in the aftermath. The two terrorists, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch have walked Scott free thanks to the two Bush presidents. See e.g. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/042606.html
Excerpt 1:
"Not only did the first Bush administration free Bosch from jail a decade and a half ago, the second Bush administration has now pushed Venezuela’s extradition request for his alleged co-conspirator, Posada, onto the back burner."
Luis Posada Carriles: A Terrorist long before bin Laden!
Excerpt 2:
"Reporter Juan Manuel Cao interviewed Bosch, who had been jailed for illegally entering the United States but was paroled in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush at the behest of his eldest son Jeb, then an aspiring Florida politician.
But when Cao asked Bosch to comment on the civilians who died when the plane crashed off the coast of Barbados, Bosch responded, “In a war such as us Cubans who love liberty wage against the tyrant [Fidel Castro], you have to down planes, you have to sink ships, you have to be prepared to attack anything that is within your reach.”
“Did you down that plane in 1976?” Cao asked Bosch.
“If I tell you that I was involved, I will be inculpating myself,” Bosch answered, “and if I tell you that I did not participate in that action, you would say that I am lying. I am therefore not going to answer one thing or the other.”
Tell that to the families of those victims, you degenerate! Tell it to my nieces who still are traumatized and can't sleep as the bloody images of floating heads, arms, legs and torsos - seep into their brains in the dead of night! Tell it to my wife who worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at the time and had to perform radiographic identification when some bodies were too mangled to allow effective ID. And when you do make sure you understand WE who were there regard you rat fuckers as every BIT the terrorists that al Qaeda and bin Laden have been, and I don't give a shit what excuses or rationalizations you come up with. And oh, btw, the loss of life as a percentage of national population was vastly greater than that wrought by 9/11 in the U.S. and Barbados didn't go batshit crazy taking away its citizens' rights!
So hear me out - IF two TERRORISTS can be given relative freedom by the 2 Bush presidents, then Obama can sure as shit pardon Ed Snowden for fulfilling the duty of a real citizen and whistle blowing on government transgressions of the Constitution! See also: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/51088/restore-honor-and-pardon-edward-snowden
Anyway, the NSA's violations have been exposed as a result of an internal audit and other top secret documents. (Thanks to Snowden, a 4th amendment HERO!) Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that result in interception of U.S. emails and telephone calls.
The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And then we wonder why congress can't do proper oversight over this most dangerous and threatening agency of them all! Again, bear in mind Sen. Church's words here:
"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in
Is anybody paying attention? The capacity to make tyranny total? Every red-blooded real American ought to be on his congress critters to get a regulatory oversight leash - a real one- to deal with these guys. They are out of control! "National security" is their cover. Asked about this information, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court told The Washington Post that the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often government surveillance breaks the court's rules that aim to protect the privacy of Americans. Without drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of government claims that all the violations its staff reports are unintentional mistakes, the judge said.
But let's be clear about a couple things here:
1) The only reason this is even an issue is because the original (1978) FISA law was trashed and the Bushies illegal mass wiretaps were made legal retroactively! But see, the Bush II lawbreakers didn't want to be slowed up in grabbing warrants. They wanted it done wholesale despite the fact the 4th amendment specifically mandates separate warrants with each manjack identified and the reasons set out. Too much trouble? Tough SHIT! That is the Constitution! And I will damned sure defend the 4th to the hilt as much as the 2nd amendment gun guys defend their right to own Glocks, Bushmaster .223s and AR 15s despite the fact that when the 2nd was written only single load muskets were common arms!
2) If the 4th were followed according to the letter as opposed to being trashed by a bastardized Patriot Act "retread" version - validated by weasels in congress, there'd be no need to have additional funds or resources. This is because the time trajectory would be too stringent for the technology the NSA uses, i.e. to scoop up personal data. My point? You can't have faithful adherence to the 4th amendment and also the PRISM and XKeyscore technologies to grab data indiscriminately. In other words, the technologies used are precisely what's violating the 4th amendment.
In a response this morning over CBS News, the NSA offered the excuse that they were "only human" and hence could make mistakes. But this only reinforces my point that they need a strong leash with constitutional oversight instead of the usual pussy footing around it our congress critters have been doing. Any agency that can make such mistakes, especially in terms of repeatedly exceeding its authority - then lying about it like Clapper did to the Senate back in March - needs to be brought under a stronger hand, which is what congress is supposed to do. They are not supposed to roll over like beaten whelps.
"Aw me, oh my! I wanna be protected from them bad guys!" At the cost of the Constitution? If so, you don't deserve to call yourself an American! See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/too-many-americans-dont-deserve-liberty.html
The tragic fact is that the more we let a crew of troglodytes like the NSA break our most fundamental amendment, the more clear it becomes that bin Laden and al Qaeda have won the so called "terror war". They have beaten our butts to a bloody pulp by getting we the citizens to do to ourselves what the robed loonies couldn't do on their own in a million years!
Should anyone need to get their brain adjusted more clearly on this, I suggest reading Ted Koppel's excellent article ('Nine Years After 9/11 Let's Stop Playing Into Bin Laden's Hands' ) in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090904735.html
For more on the Cubana Airlines terrorism, go to:
http://morallowground.com/2012/10/06/on-this-day-1976-the-bombing-of-cubana-airlines-flight-455/
No comments:
Post a Comment