Melissa Harris -Perry Allows Her Ego To Betray Her Common Sense

By now most MSNBC viewers know that Melissa Harris -Perry is no longer with the network and her weekend morning show is gone. Since 2012 this self-titled show "had a small but loyal audience averaging 400,000 viewers" according to a Feb. 29 WSJ piece by Joe Flint ("MSNBC - Host Part Ways After Pre-Emptions').  This referred to her pique on learning her opinion show (from 10 a.m.- 12 noon ET on Saturday, Sunday) would be pre-empted in parts for the Dem SC primary.

According to the WSJ report, Harris-Perry blew a gasket and asserted in an email she wasn't going to tolerate appearing "for four inconsequential hours" - when she could, of course,  be opinionating on this, that and the other. She instead demanded the network "return editorial control and authority that makes MHP distinctive".

Adding for effect in her staff email (ibid.)  that she "would not be used as a 'tool for their purpose' nor would she be 'a token mammy or little brown bobblehead"

Seriously? A "little brown bobblehead"? You are, or were, one of the few black women to have her own show and now want to piss that away out of some misplaced pique at election coverage pre-emption of your precious show? Really?

I admit I watched Harris-Perry on occasion and she sometimes hit the right notes at the right time, as in the case of the Baltimore cops beating up on Freddie Gray and also the bogus voter ID laws in many states, used to set up roadblocks to many black voters (especially older ones who may lack the credentials, i.e. birth certificates, to establish  a basis for a state ID. A fact many of the voter fraud boneheads don't get)

On the downside, Melissa - like other media blacks (Joy Reid, Michael Eric Dyson) -  often carried water for Obama and the Neoliberal state. This frequently caused mixed feelings in many African-Americans who on the one hand found the defense of Neoliberalism offensive (especially to justify SNAP cuts in the Obama-promoted "sequester" program) but on the other hand found it comforting to see a popular black commentator on the tube.

As one blogger (Margaret Kimberly) on smirkingchimp.com put it:

"Like Obama, Harris-Perry marketed herself as a progressive but spoke against the interests of black people in order to keep the rulers from feeling uncomfortable. While doing a story on the closing of public schools in major cities like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia she and her guests debated the role of race in this policy. They did so without ever mentioning the elephant in the room. The very goal of the Obama administration Race to the Top initiative demanded that public schools be closed and replaced by charters. The woman who now says that she isn’t a “token” was very happy to be one if doing so would relieve the president of any blame."

Harris-Perry also aroused my ire and that of many 4th amendment defenders (who are as avid in our own way as 2nd amendment defenders) when she came down on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.  I was especially enraged after "MHP" -  adopting the indignant pose of a Neoliberal security state fetishist -  insisted that Snowden should turn himself in and face a long prison sentence.  It was at that point I realized she was no liberal but rather another Neolib mouthpiece shilling for the elites and their hacks.

At the same time, unlike her denying and trashing Snowden's rights (such as not to have to face a rigged, kangaroo court) I allowed that Melissa had the right to bloviate on her show. I applauded that a well-educated, university prof African -American had such a stage as few do - especially to editorialize on events.

Alas, MHP took one step too far and the network took her up on her desire to instantly vacate - making it mutually acceptable- as in saying 'Hasta la vista!'

Margaret Kimberly in her article noted that MHP was likely hired in the first place because of attracting viewers during the reign of the first black President.   But she added that given this is Obama's last year in office, "the pressure to keep token black supporters on as talking heads has dropped."    Thus, if they erupt like MHP did - at having election coverage preemptions (which MSNBC said have occurred with all its various shows) - then they can expect quick exits. At least MSNBC host Al Sharpton understands which side his media bread is buttered on and is not going to make the same rash move as Harris-Perry.

  Harris-Perry ought to have exercised  more forbearance and caution and not yielded to her elitist sense of entitlement as a black prof. . She'd have fared better by not being so demanding about her official air time, or its supposedly inviolate content, realizing that shows like hers were rare in the corporate media firmament. Thus, preserving her voice and show ought to have trumped her irritations at election interruptions.

But Melissa H-P evidently let her ego and sense of entitlement get the better of her, as the campaign season heated up and more and more interruptions (especially after primaries) occurred.


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/margaret-kimberley/66262/bye-melissa

Unhinged Rhetoric Does This Nation No Good - Now James Woolsey Wants to Execute Snowden?

Former CIA head James Woolsey said the 'blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands'. No,  the blood of those citizens is on ISIS' hands, you fool!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

Let us admit in a time of hyped terror, with robed lunatics barking threats on almost every TV screen in a 24/7 medium, it takes courage for a citizen not to become petrified and hide under his or her bed. It also takes courage and character, as well as confidence in one's own positions, not to surrender to hysteria and especially political fear-mongering, to give these slime what they want, which is to change who and what we are as a nation,

So it's been disconcerting to hear the recent insane rhetoric coming out of assorted yapping mouths lately, mostly those who we knew were already detached from reality.

Such as Donald Trump now calling for a database to track all Muslims, and Ben Carson comparing the Syrian refugees (mainly women and children) trying to escape their war torn country to rabid dogs. Then there was former CIA head James Woolsey who actually said "the blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands" in a debased pop off that rivals those of even Trump and Carson.

What is this lunatic thinking? Where does he pull this from? Is he even remotely aware that the end-to-end encrypted devices and apps (like 'Whats App') used by the ISIS bugs weren't even around when Snowden made his revelations in 2013? (On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in their TextSecure application into each WhatsApp client platform. Prior to this there were numerous security holes and issues). Of course, it's all insanity ratcheted up and made to sound rational. It isn't. It's nutso talk. (Especially as it is the Tech companies which are now most adamant about not removing encryption for their apps because they believe it will degrade the devices' usefulness.)

Snowden then was absolutely correct to expose the violations of our 4th amendment rights which even a subsequent   300-page report  by a commission (appointed by Obama himself)  found to be infringing on our civil liberties with dragnet collection of our personal information and data. What are we even worth as a country and a people if we succumb to so much fear that we're prepared to sacrifice our principles and liberties which is precisely what these fucktard terrorists want?

But given that the CIA also believed JFK was guilty of "treason" - and so had him terminated in an executive action- the words out of Woolsey's mouth perhaps aren't surprising.  In JFK's case, he earned the company's wrath by refusing to support their ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion with air power, and then fired Allen Dulles as CIA Director in the aftermath. Worse, he commenced a year's long secret rapprochement with Fidel Castro - certainly which would be viewed as a stab in the back, just like Snowden's revelations are now by Woolsey.

Thankfully more of the background details of this will be brought out in David Talbot's new work, “The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government,”  which extends out from JFK’s murder to investigate the rise of the whole shadowy network that Talbot holds ultimately responsible for the president’s assassination, and which metastasized in its wake. This is a work long since needed, and particularly how Dulles kept his little operations going on sub rosa even after JFK ditched him. (Dulles was later appointed to be on the Warren Commission by LBJ. Two real traitors working in league with each other to cover their foul tracks.)

As for the Reepo presidential candidate clowns popping off with their own whacked out rhetoric on the refugees, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson had this to say on Chris Hayes' All In last night:

"It doesn't surprise me coming from the right wing blather of the Republican Party. It's the kind of talk that surrounded the internment of the Japanese who were loyal to a fault. But we put them in concentration camps. It's the kind of talk that's extremely dangerous. It's the kind of talk that plays right into the hands of Al Baghdadi and Al Zawarahi, Al Musra and so forth.

Because that's what they want...they want us to act to bring about our own suicide".

That suicide, of course, also extends to killing our own constitutional principles in the interest of trying to get absolute security. But as Benjamin Franklin put it: "Those who would sacrifice liberty to gain a temporary security deserve neither liberty or security."

He didn't mince words. And why should he have? Liberties once lost, as Woolsey would have wanted us to do, are difficult if not impossible to win back. Once you give them up - say in the midst of combating these asshole terrorists (the latest attack was in Mali last night) you surrender to them, without even firing a shot.

Most citizens, indeed, aren't even aware our liberties (including the right to own guns) hang on a metaphorical knife edge. This concerns Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, which has remained in effect since and was actually activated after 9/11. The order stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001.  Later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

 According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes past protest movements like Occupy Wall Street and anyone who currently protests the Keystone XL pipeline, chemical toxins in water or fracking. (No surprise this meme is still lurking - ready to spread- as we learned in the Denver Post (Nov. 18) that certain citizens of Thornton, CO had their names and home locations placed in red on a city council map as "opponents to fracking". )

How much did Snowden reveal or confirm that we didn't know or realize before - bordering on coming this [[ close to a totalitarian state? investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham disclosed the extent of the spying :

"The following information seemed to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Are Americans really ok with all that indiscriminate snooping in a terror war? If so, they merit neither liberty or security. They are prepared instead to surrender their most precious rights to the ISIS or other rats at the drop of a hat. Blaming the French deaths on Snowden also shows Woolsey has his head where the Sun doesn't shine, just like the CIA's earlier mutations (e.g. Allen Dulles) who orchestrated Kennedy's executive action then blamed it on a patsy they set up.)

Former NSA code breaker Bill Binney  delivered the sane view after the Snowden disclosures emerged and those like James Clapper and Keith Alexander were making noises about the need for mass warrant, dragnet searches.

"First of all I don’t understand this being bamboozled into thinking that you have to do this to find bad guys. That’s false. There’s very simple principles you can use to find out who is the bad guy and who isn’t and you can do this without violating anybody’s privacy”.

Americans need to keep things in perspective as this current terror epoch continues and not surrender their brains and balls to the hysterical, unhinged voices spouting off on the tube. Better yet turn the tube off - as well as other media access- and reclaim your gray matter by doing some serious reading.  As author Harold Bloom put it:

"If we fail to read conscientiously and seriously we risk becoming lost in the visual media"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/64867/the-republicans-rhetoric-of-hate-and-fear


Excerpt:

"In the history of the United States, just the members of the white-hooded Protestant-professing fire-and-brimstone Klan killed and maimed more Americans than all the murders by non-Christian terrorists—and that includes 9/11. Add in the number of serial killers, the racists who killed children in churches, the zealots who killed health care personnel because they performed legal abortions, and the people like the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber, and the number of pretend-Christians killing Americans rises to hundreds of times greater than any Muslim attack."

Obama's Grades At The 6-Year Mark

Obama after his election in 2008. All things were possible then including straight A's

Time now to assess President Barack Obama's grades at the crucial 6-year mark. These assessments are based on examining his performance and decisions on multiple fronts, from peace diplomacy, to national security, defense of civil liberties, speech craft, environment, transparency, and executive leadership. Brief explanations will be given after each mark, and a lengthier one will follow the lone 'F' earned, for transparency. These objective assessments are more important than ever after watching some of the clips on Chris Hayes' 'All In' last night, featuring right wing crazies at public meetings with Rick Santorum yelping hysterically about Obama "gone crazy" and "destroying our country". Of course, any such jabber disqualifies these knuckle draggers from having any opinion worth consideration!

Now the marks:

Speech craft:   A minus

Based not only on his 'State of the Union' speeches but others given at various venues in the past six years.


Economy: A

Unemployment now down to 5.5 % and stock market at all time highs. What more can be said?


National Security:   A minus

Obama has done everything one can rationally expect on multiple threat fronts, from ISIS, to Iran. Only the crazies are dissatisfied with his approaches and want more wars- expending blood and treasure we cannot afford.

Environment:  B minus

His veto of the Keystone XL pipeline has gained many kudos from enviros, but this still hasn't damped disappointment with his support of fracking, intentions to do offshore drilling (off the east coast) and the export of low grade fossil fuels elsewhere (cf. The Denver Post, 'U.S. Exports Pollution, Offsets Advances' Dec. 9, p. 15A)

Peace Diplomacy:  B

Good, and again would be better if it hadn't been for the fact that he needed Russian help to ensure we didn't get into a Syrian debacle two years ago. Never mind, he seems to have found a backbone against neocon pressure for wars, for now. We need him to be especially alert he doesn't make any missteps by courting the neocons and assisting them against Russia in the Ukraine.


Executive Leadership:  B

While Obama began as a tepid leader, he's now become a "ball buster" with his executive orders and actions, including on immigration, health care and the environment. It gives the repukes fits but it warms the cockles of liberal hearts!


Defense of civil liberties: D

Let's see: his refusal to oust CIA head John Brennan after the CIA was busted for spying on the Senate, his pursuit and prosecution of whistle blowers under the 1917 "Espionage Act", his refusal to come to the defense of Edward Snowden when he exposed the NSA's awful overreach in the mass snatching of data - violating the Fourth Amendment. The only reason he avoided an 'F' is that he did (eventually) propose a review board for the NSA programs.


Transparency: F

Obama promised full transparency on his election and then promptly dropped the ball....or never wanted it in the first place. His going after gov't whistleblowers has already been noted, but the real wake up call for me was the failure to deliver archival records  (mainly from the CIA) on the JFK assassination in the 50th anniversary year of that event, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/06/national-archives-to-jfk-file-seekers.html

Those of us in the JFK assassination research community were severely disappointed given how many doors had already been opened under President Clinton's watch (when the JFK Records Act was passed.). By comparison it was a giant step backward under Obama.   We suspected that the CIA had notified Obama that they didn't want their 1960s "tradecraft" exposed, but really...seriously, that wouldn't be used any more anyway, including techniques such as: splicing the head of a patsy onto another's body (with a rifle), poison pens to kill witnesses, aerial imaging photography, i.e. frame by frame projection of a film to the rear of a glass screen with minute traces of paint added, then re-shot - which would have been used to alter specific frames in the Zapruder film.

In truth, the only reason NOT to disclose this antiquated tradecraft would have been to protect those actually involved in the conspiracy to kill JFK. After all, if the pertinent documents were released exposing it, then all and sundry would know it COULD be done and those knotheads that howl about "tin foil" hats and an implicit chuckle factor would be put down once and for all.

But while some may believe this National Archives' misstep to be unique, it's actually turned out to be part of a pattern. According to an article in yesterday's Denver Post ('Administration Sets Record For Withholding Documents', p. 11A):

"The Obama Administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by the Associated Press."

The article also noted:

- The gov't took longer to turn over files when it provided any

- More regularly stated it couldn't find any documents at all

-Refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be newsworthy

- Acknowledged in nearly 1 of 3 cases the initial decision to withhold or censor records was illegal

Worse yet, the backlog of unanswered requests grew by nearly 55% by year's end.  This despite citizens, journalists, businesses and others having made nearly 714, 231 requests for information.

While some may respond with rolling eyes and smug smiles at the seriousness with which files are pursued by some citizens, they really do not get it. They don't get that alert citizens have a responsibility to hold their government (and President) to account. And if they fail to do that - irrespective of whether the issue is the assassination of a past President, drone kills, or NSA secret programs - they don't merit being called citizens.

Obama, fortunately, still has time to pick up the two low grades, but like a student far behind in Calculus or Physics, it will take a lot of sincere effort and plain old hard work.  I for one am confident he can do it - assuming he really wants to!

Gov't Releases UFO Files: Don't Look For Alien Artifacts!

The release by the NSA of  thousands of  declassified UFO documents has the blogosphere and twitter-sphere ablaze and speculations running rampant that somewhere in those files is the 'smoking gun' for alien craft in the skies of our planet. The website for accessing the documents can be found here:

https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ufo/

But don't hold your breath trying to turn up evidence for extraterrestrials. There won't be any. Or, let me correct that by noting there might be some semblance of signal - but it's buried in tons of noise. Do you have the patience to sift through it all? When the JFK Records Act saw millions of files released from back in 1992, only a relatively few determined and hardy researchers had the diligence to plumb through them to turn up assorted nuggets, such as Oswald's CIA files - showing he'd at least been a contract agent for the 'company'.  Further work by stalwarts such as Peter Dale Scott also identified the key telegrams from the CIA Mexico City station showing indisputably how Oswald had been framed to take the fall. Of course, it's ironic that scads of lazy critics - who like to shoot from the hip on the whole JFK  assassination conspiracy issue - couldn't bestir themselves to lift one pinky finger to find a single file themselves.

Expect the same reaction from the lazy dopes if you happen to hit pay dirt by going through the UFO files from the link above. "The truth is out there" - yes, but few in the government want you to see it, as in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy.

Does this mean we are talking about actual alien ships? No, not necessarily. A common misperception is that UFOs are “flying saucers” or space ships. However, this is actually only one possible hypothesis among several. This is evident in the late J. Allen Hynek's  exacting UFO definition

“A UFO is the reported perception of an object or light seen in the sky, the appearance, trajectory and general dynamic behavior of which do not suggest a logical, conventional explanation and which is not only mystifying to the original percipients but remains unidentified, after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making a common sense identification, if one were possible.”

The gist of the definition - however lengthy = is that one must not automatically jump to any conclusion that conflates the UFO with an extraterrestrial craft.   The difficulty in formulating UFO hypotheses, and interpreting UFO reports, is a first-hand experience for me. Not only have I investigated other people's reports (inevitable if one is involved in astronomy)  and published the results[1] but I've observed a "UFO"  myself. The incident occurred in March of 1962 at the opening of a shopping center in Carol City, Florida. While awaiting the start of festivities I happened to look up at the night sky, being the amateur astronomer that I was. Amazingly, I witnessed a brilliant orange disc, at least the same diameter as a full Moon, moving rapidly from north to south.

It hovered for two to three seconds above the crowd and I detected the odd "Oooh" or "Aaah" from random spectators. Thus, I knew I was not having a simple hallucination (at least not by myself!) The most ironic and notable thing to me was the complete absence of sound. No whirring, like one would expect from a helicopter's propeller blades, or engine noise. The object - if "object" it was - appeared to be a light source rather than just reflecting light from elsewhere. After about three seconds it took off due south at what I estimated to be an incredible speed. As a seasoned sky observer, even at the age of 16, I was able to quickly eliminate all known man-made or natural objects from consideration. The exceptional luminous and dynamical behavior allowed this. Nevertheless, to this day I am not prepared to pinpoint a specific hypothesis in any dogmatic sense. Nor am I prepared to assert it as a "craft" from another planet.

But let's say one is looking for some kind of signal from the NSA files that a real artifact exists, what would one look for? What sort of parameters, physical aspects?


As a good preliminary test,  one can do no better than enlisting Physicist Edward U. Condon’s Air Force- commissioned Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects (1969, NY Times Books) While most of the cases are exposed as either natural or meteorological phenomena – or possible hoaxes- one case stands out: Case 46, p. 396 from McMinnville Ore. (11 May, 1950) that concludes - and I quote, from p. 407

:"This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated: geometric, psychological and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object- silvery, metallic and disc shaped flew within sight of two witnesses. "

I found the best part of the case study was the photometric analysis (pp. 402-06). This was essential in order to discriminate luminance conditions between a hypothetical hand model nearby and an actual, extraordinary, distant flying object. The key observation made by the investigators was:

"The shadowed bottom of the UFO (see image) has a particularly pale look suggestive of scattering between observer and object. If such scattering is detectable it may be possible to make some estimate of the distance involved".
From there they list a sequence of possible interpretations, including: optical fabrication or double exposure (rejected because the UFO is darker than the sky background luminance); a retouch of a drawn image (rejected because analysis of the negatives disclosed they were unretouched); physical fabrication using a 'frisbee' hand spun model (rejected because the UFO displays an off-axis pole which is never seen displaced, i.e. in rotation); model suspended from a wire (similar positions in each photo -so possible), and extraordinary flying object (since photometry suggests a large distance).

So, in the end, the last two interpretations had to be analyzed for consistency with the least likely of the two rejected.

The investigators proceeded by computation of the luminance, or the apparent brightness of an object at a distance r, normalized relative to some intrinsic value B(o) at r(o), viz p. 402:

B = B(sky) (1 - exp(-br)) + B(o) exp(-br)

where b is the scattering coefficient. In the equation, the first term (with B(sky)) represents scattered light and the second term, extinction. As the investigators noted (ibid.):

"Since all measures must be based on the witnesses' two photographs, we will determine b for the given day from the photographs themselves. Normalizing all brightnesses (measured from the film and assuming that the images fall on the linear portion of the gamma curve (see- e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_correction) to that of the sky near the horizon, i.e. on a line within a few thousand feet of the ground, where the UFO is constrained to be by the reported cloud height and probable nearness to the camera, we have:

B = 1 + exp(-br)[B(o) - 1]"


From the above, if the object is sufficiently distant one would have:

exp(-br) -> 0

so therefore,

B = 1 + exp (0)[B(o) - 1] = 1 + [B(o) - 1]

and B equals the sky brightness. (in optical terms, the optical depth t >> 1)

To ascertain whether the claimed sighting photographed is a fake then, all that's needed is to solve for the distance r, given a zero distance luminance B(o) cmopared to an observed luminance B. As can be seen from the equation, to do this one needs to obtain the scattering coefficient, b.

The investigators used densitometric analysis to obtain an assorted range of values for the luminance B, for different objects appearing in the photographic image - these are presented in Table 2, from the Case Study. (Shown, with comparison of two plates, 23 and 24). Since the investigators knew the distance of 'Hill 2' at 2.2 km then photometry indicated B = 0.685 for the distance hill, while the foreground foliage yielded B = 0.403.

Processing all this data in concert, the investigators obtained the distance r = 0.32 km, or just over 1,050 feet as the distance to the object - nearly one fifth of a mile. The investigators graphically illustrated the domains of the two hypotheses via their graph (Fig. 3) which is appended here. As they note (p. 406):

"If the object is a model suspended from a wire only a few meters away the surface is some 37% brighter (B = 1.21 v. B = 0.885) than the tank and the shaded portion is probably more than 40% brighter than the shadow on the tank...nearly impossible to maintain in the face of the photometry.

The shadowed side of the UFO appears so bright that it suggests significant scattering between it and the observer"

In other words, conforming with the distance calculated from the luminances..

The investigators graphically illustrated the domains of the two hypotheses via their graph shown below:

The point of all this is there appears to be at least quantitative -photometric  evidence for the existence of extraordinary craft if one knows how (and where) to look for it.

The $64 dollar question is: Are most interested people qualified to be able to perceive the evidence even if it's staring them in the face?

I suspect that depends on one's scientific background, or at least exposure to basic physics principles. This includes those pertaining to luminance and relation to brightness,  as well as geometrical factors such as being able to derive linear scales from angular  - e.g. as observed against the sky background.

So, by all means have a look at the released UFO files, but always be aware of what it is you are seeing, and also whether the parameters, physical aspects are sufficient to make any kind of determination. And lastly, whether you are really qualified to make any determination.

-----
[1] Transient Optical Phenomena of the Atmosphere - A Case Study, in The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 74, No. 3, June 1980.

Obama Ought to do What JFK Would Have: Fire CIA Honcho John Brennan!

Why doesn't Obama have the same steely nerve as JFK? If he had, he would have handed CIA Director John Brennan his head on a platter instead of opining about what "a tough job" these guys have, and we need to show some compassion for them - and leave out harsh judgments. Sorry, Obama, you may do that but not citizens who respect the Constitution as you should!

The fact this guy's spook organization - now as out of control as the NSA under his watch (he late the lying James Clapper off last year)  - could spy on Senate staffers when the Senate is charged with their oversight is an abomination and affront to everyone. This is especially as the spying involved the Senate's investigation into CIA rendition and torture.

If it had been JFK under whose watch this had occurred, Brennan and likely half his senior staffers would now be taking a hike. But Obama seems to let everything pass, even when the evidence comes out in blinding fireballs of what the spooks are doing.

John F. Kennedy was put on notice from the moment he took office that the CIA believed they were ruling the roost. Without Kennedy's knowledge or oversight, the clandestine services under Richard Bissell had mounted an assassination program to target Fidel Castro. Specifically, the program operated under 'CIA Staff D', a SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security Agency or NSA. As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): “In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle”

With the Bay of Pigs invasion, JFK was further played, as Ike was with the 1960 U-2 fiasco.  JFK, however, retaliated by firing Allen Dulles, and his deputy Gen. Charles Cabell. (Recall that Cabell's brother, Earl, was Mayor of Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963) JFK also vowed to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds" so furious was he at the level of CIA treachery. JFK went further by emulating Ike in setting up a Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board - the express purpose of which was to bring the CIA under the control of the President. Kennedy addressed the group on May 15, 1961 and informed them he was "undertaking a total reassessment of U.S. covert action policies and programs".

Kennedy went further, creating a Defense Intelligence Agency, responsible to him, and soon mandating all overflights of Cuba be done by the Strategic Air Command, not the CIA. He also defined a list of directives on what the CIA could and could not, do.

Of course, this stuck in the CIA's craw - bit time - and the shit really hit the fan after they instigated the coup on the Diems in November, 1963. In an early September, 1963 meeting Kennedy was informed by a David Bell of AID (a CIA cover organization) that the funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program had “already been cut off”,  essentially assuring a coup would ensue with the Diem government in South Vietnam. (James Douglass, 2008,, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, Orbis Books, p. 192.   )

Kennedy was evidently livid and directly asked Bell who had told him to do that, to which Bell replied, “No one” (ibid.). The will to power disclosed here indicates the CIA felt it more powerful than Kennedy’s government or his decision-making. If they felt that way, there is nothing that they wouldn’t do to prevent the President from getting in their way. JFK made bold moves to cut the run amuck spooks off at the knees, but the coup went through, and then they took out JFK on Nov. 22, 1963.

 

Perhaps all of this backstory explains why Obama is playing nice with the whole national security state, including the torturing CIA as well as the mass surveilling NSA.

 

While Obama yesterday in a news conference did strongly criticize the CIA saying he could understand why the agency used its controversial "enhanced interrogation techniques" after 9/11, conceding "We tortured some folks", he didn't go far enough in exacting costs to the agency. He employed great rhetoric on how the agency "crossed the line" and he condemned torture, he then undermined all his remarks and moral courage by insisting we ordinary citizens "not feel too sanctimonious" - adding that he believed the spooks responsible were "acting under intense stress and fear".

 

Please, Mr. President! Don't treat us like puerile idiots.  It's not a case of "sanctimony" when we hold the spooks (and YOU!) up to constitutional standards. It's our discernment that this isn't a fascist state (yet) and we expect our officials and the security apparatus that proposes to keep us safe to follow the rules. Those rules are most specifically established in the Constitution itself, which one of my ancestors fought to make a reality during the War of Independence.  So don't tell a guy with such ancestors not to be "sanctimonious" over a bunch committing misdeeds you yourself earlier  condemned.

 

But this is typical Obama, and we've seen it before when he gave a pass to the NSA in its overbearing spying, including on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as Brazil's President., Dilma Rousseff.

 

Giving a pass for torture is one thing, but Obama overstepped the bounds of  legal propriety by not holding these fiends to account when he let Brennan remain on his perch - even after lying about spying on the Senate. There is simply NO justification for the actions of Central Intelligence Agency officials who intentionally and surreptitiously hacked into a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Worse, Brennan lying his ass off about it afterwards and declaring it never, ever could have happened.

 

Only a nitwit on the Constitution or historical fool would fail to see Brennan's Agency's antics are a breach of the separation of powers (as Sen. Mark Udall noted)  and not merely a crime. Hence, those who perpetrated - as well as those under whose watch it took place - have violated their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution as well as the trust of citizens. Worse, those who did it certainly knew it so are doubly accountable. IF it had happened under JFK, he'd have handed them all their proverbial heads.

 

But Obama gives them a pass, and this is a guy who supposedly had been a Constitutional law professor.

 

Given all this, the take of the Denver Post's editors is applicable:

 

"Heads should roll, starting with CIA Director John O. Brennan.  And it shouldn't end with the firings of those who should have known better."

 

Brennan especially needs to be sent packing after his March outburst where he put on his indignant face and warned that no one should accuse his agency about improper snooping. At the time, I felt he did protest too much, and thus there was much to hide, at least as much as NSA top spook James Clapper a year earlier - who insisted to the Senate Intelligence Committee that his bunch would never, ever do mass surveillance on Americans.

 

Oh no, perish the thought! The spooks are totally on our side and doing their best.

 

The Denver Post again (Editorial, Aug. 1):

 

"It makes us wonder about Brennan's character and competence. If he didn't know CIA employees were improperly searching computers used by congressional staffers.

 

At the very least he should have found out before denouncing the possibility."

 

Again, let's bear in mind that Brennan's   extraordinary apology was induced after the CIA Inspector General found that the Agency's personnel had improperly monitored computers set aside by Senate staff.

 

In many ways this CIA Inspector general's report reminded me of the one released on the Bay of Pigs invasion - and how it cleared JFK and blamed the Agency instead.

  As per a Baltimore Sun piece ('Internal Probe Blamed Bay of Pigs Fiasco on CIA', p. 6A, Feb. 22, 1998), it was noted:

"The 150-page report, released after sitting in the CIA Director's safe for nearly three decades, blames the disastrous attempt to oust Fidel Castro not on President John F. Kennedy's failure to call airstrikes, but on the agency itself.

The CIA's ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance toward the 1,400 exiles it trained and equipped to mount the invasion was responsible for the fiasco, said the report, obtained by the Associated Press yesterday.

The document criticized almost every aspect of the CIA's handling of the invasion: misinforming Kennedy administration officials, planning poorly, using faulty intelligence and conducting an overt military operation beyond 'agency responsibility as well as agency capability'."


Some things never change. Unfortunately, other things and people do. Kennedy didn't tolerate the Bay of Pigs engineers - firing CIA Chief Alan Dulles as well as his second, Cabell.

If Obama wants to walk in the steps of JFK, as opposed to being a wimp, then he needs to do what Kennedy did.

At the very least, he needs to stop making stupid statements, like:

 “I have full confidence in John Brennan"

And:

“Keep in mind though that John Brennan was the person who called for the [inspector general] report and he’s already stood-up a task force to ensure that lessons are learned and mistakes are resolved.”

 Not good enough, Mr. Prez! His head still needs to roll and I think you know it! At the very least he's shown himself incompetent and his character questionable. You would be impeached for less so don't make light of it.

We, the citizens, expect you to act - even if it might mean taking some "T".
 

 Clapper kept his job after his lying before the Senate, this should not be a repeat! Show the same respect for the Constitution as when you taught it, sir!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kevin-zeese/57350/demand-that-clapper-and-brennan-be-fired

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/weldon-berger/57366/folks-torturing-folks-obama-plants-his-flag-firmly-on-the-wrong-side-of-nuremberg

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tom-engelhardt/57357/the-fourth-branch-the-rise-to-power-of-the-national-security-state

Ideological Polarization: Why It's a Rational Expectation in Today's America

So, okay, a  a new study by the Pew Research Center suggests that ordinary voters are almost as sharply divided as the lawmakers who represent them. The authors write, “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines — and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive — than at any point in the last two decades. These trends manifest themselves in myriad ways, both in politics and in everyday life.”

That conclusion is based on “the largest study of US political attitudes ever undertaken by the Pew Research Center” — from January through March they interviewed more than 10,000 people."

The question is why this is even news. Given the Repuke Party has consistently denied reality (waging wars of choice still believing we will prevail, denying human caused climate change, denying evolution etc.) it is amazing the polarization isn't even greater - so obviously, if one is a true liberal (not a wine and brie variety) he or she will distrust any or all Repubs -whether in casting ballots, or holding office. One could call it a natural law. (As the graph shows on the right side)

Hence, no survey wonk ought to express any amazement that my opinion of the typical Repuke is only slightly better than the dengue fever mosquito or cholera. Still, there are significantly more Republicans who think that Democrats are “a threat to the nation’s wellbeing” (36 percent) than there are Democrats who believe the same of Republicans (27 percent).

I attribute a lot of that to the fact Repukes are more likely to be national security fetishists - who'd easily sell their civil liberties for a song (to the NSA)  if they could feel "safe"  24/7 from terrorists, and hence most likely to call Edward Snowden a traitor. Also, it's no surprise that Repubs are innate warmongers - most of them. They'd never met a war they didn't like, or a nation (weaker than the U.S.) they didn't want to butt into for resources, hegemony or the biggest BS of all, "democracy".

So, no surprise I do not trust this country being in their hands - in terms of the determination of national policy. I am sure they feel the same about me, but the difference is that their own specious delusions make their paranoia more unjustified than mine about them.

Another interesting finding from the Pew results is that the most innocuous citizens are also the least politically engaged, the so called "moderates" or what I call political dummies. They lack any compass for guiding principles, hence lack any ideology, so naturally  are less imbued with the energy to go out and dig into the deeper underlying  politics, agendas. Hence, they are less likely to KNOW what they are voting for or to vote in EVERY election, including mid-terms. 

Last night on Bill Maher's Real Time, guest panelist Krystal Ball acknowledged this as well, and suggested that, in her opinion, the best solution would be passing a law to ensure everyone votes - such as they have in Australia. If such legislation was passed and enforced, people (moderates) would have to get more involved and engaged politically and understand the issues enough to cast intelligent votes. 

I like Krystal Ball, but suggest her conclusion is a bit naïve. All the moderates will do is find the nearest "Voters' Guide" and use that as a template to do their thinking-voting for them. We will still have the hyper-politically engaged (the extreme Left and Right) and the inevitable polarization.

Is there a way to delimit the polarization and make it less severe? Yes, once the Repugs educate themselves and cease detaching from reality. Other than that, there is no way I am making friendly with any GOOp who really believes humans have nothing to do with climate change and it's all a "hoax" created by liberals and climate scientists to get grant money.

Having said that, I do live in perhaps the most conservative city in the nation, Colorado Springs. I just take care to only associate with liberals like myself.

See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/14/ugly_paranoid_divisive_politics_the_gop_are_all_know_nothings_now/?source=newsletter

Neolib Hack Samuelson Defends NSA Invasion Of Privacy

"In every interview Snowden has relied on the simple notion that informed the founders of our nation regarding the primacy of truth in public discourse.   His commitment to that ideal cannot be comprehended by a mass media culture of careerism informed by public relations that trivializes all differences of truth and logic into incomprehensible mulch. His is instead the simple veracity of the once honored slogan that the truth shall set us free and that it is overwhelming government power that is most threatening to that freedom." - Robert Scheer, on  smirkingchimp.com

I figured that eventually the WaPo Neoliberal hack Robert Samuelson would chirp up in a column to praise the NSA, and diss Edward Snowden - while again seeking to confuse his readers in conflating truths and jabberwocky.   Before even getting to his nonsense, it really ought not be a stretch to grasp that arch-Neoliberals would be wholesale salivating for the national security state, just as they drool for the military.

As Thomas Frank observes in his remarkable expose of the market worshippers, One Market Under God, the Neoliberal basic imperative is "let them eat stocks" (or mutual funds). This despite the fact that since the investment trusts of the 1920s (precursor to today's mutual funds) the traders and brokers have regarded the ordinary public as a "dumb herd" (p. 109) and sheep to be shorn. After the 1960s the message softened  - in order to lure more proles into the market - but the subtext has been the same: popularize the "Street", make people believe they're big shots too, and wait for the crash to suck up their assets.

The main message of the Neoliberal imperative: People must not depend on the government for their security, including for Social Security, veterans' benefits, Medicare or Medicaid.  If they are to sustain themselves they must be cajoled to do it by investment in the market where all factors are "democratized"  - and no one suffers, i.e. by having to pay more taxes so some old fart can get his prostate cancer treatments, or pay his monthly heating bills.

And to ensure this imperative is met, the Neoliberal pushes the political matrix to allocate ever more resources to military and national security interests, thereby leaving little for domestic social insurance programs. This, in fact, is what we beheld last month, when in a "bipartisan" deal, the Dems allowed the Reepos an extra $23b to use for military spending, while their side sucked up the loss in compensating domestic cuts - mainly by disallowing the extension of unemployment insurance.

For the same reason, a hack like Samuelson would plump for the NSA and the overall national security budget (now at $71b /year) increasing - again to put more pressure on domestic spending programs, including food stamps, Medicare etc. Samuelson actually has the nerve to spout this disingenuous tripe:


"There is more than a little hypocrisy to the outcry that the government, through the National Security Agency (NSA), is systematically destroying Americans’ right to privacy. Edward Snowden’s revelations have been stripped of their social, technological and historical context. Unless you’ve camped in the Alaskan wilderness for two decades, you know — or should — that millions upon millions of Americans have consciously and, probably in most cases, eagerly surrendered much of their privacy by embracing the Internet and social media."


Let's back up so that casual readers aren't lured into buying this bollocks. As I noted before, people willingly putting out their information in the expectation of social communication or comity- say on a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter, is NOT the same as having their social intent perverted by some impersonal spook technology to vacuum up every word for filing and cross-referencing.  In the latter case,  collecting every fucking thing surreptitiously then compiling it into a database for which criminal intent or terrorism might later be associated (including domestic terrorism for protesting against a fracking operation, or demonstrating against Wall Street shysters.)  Recall that investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham learned that  NSA's Main Core:

"Can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”


Thus it  ought to be a no brainer that Samuelson's efforts to assuage doubts are not to be trusted. Apart from which, the casual blog poster, or FB poster doesn't expect his words to be collected by these disreputable sneaks and assembled in a program called "Main Core" - because those words were interpreted by some snotty eggheads as being indicative of "an enemy of the state".

None of that downside is noted by Samuelson, but we know this sort of 'dodge and hide' template is his forte.   Indeed, after his initial codswallop Samuelson seeks to further justify it by writing:

"The Internet is a vehicle for self-promotion, personal advertising and the pursuit of celebrity"

Again, even if it is, it doesn't mean people ALSO welcome having all their ruminations, images, beliefs, philosophies compiled by spooks into some nefarious hidden database that regards these as evidence for being an "enemy of the state".  No, people expect that IF that is done - and indeed it is using the NSA's MUSCULAR, PRISM and Xkeyscore programs - they want the fourth amendment followed and that means an individualized warrant brought before a proper FISA court - not the rubber stampers we have now.

Oh, and then we have Samuelson's brilliant  "solution":

"If Americans think their privacy is dangerously diminished, there are remedies. They can turn off their PCs, toss their smartphones and smash their tablets"


Yes, seriously, these are the very words of this character. If you are humbugged by the notion of the spooks vacuuming up all your words, beliefs, pictures and filing them into a Main Core program for "enemy of the state" profiling - you can always disconnect! Toss that Ipad or notebook down the chute and let not your hearts be troubled!

Oh, and then there's the "commercial scare" routine again:


"To these conscious sacrifices of privacy must be added murkier, collateral losses that are orchestrated by the world’s Googles, Facebooks, service providers and “data brokers,” writes Alice Marwick of Fordham University in the New York Review of Books. They scan users’ digital decisions (sites visited, products and services purchased, habits and hobbies favored) to create databases, often merged with other socio-economic information"


But again, Google, Facebook, ISPs etc don't have the power to take away your freedom, like the government does (say by invocation of its 'Continuity of Government' program - with all the data they've gathered on you being an "enemy of the state")

And then the hack strikes again:


"The NSA’s damage to privacy is dwarfed by the impact of market activity...... Suddenly, Big Brother looms. In our mind’s eye, we see the NSA’s computers scouring our every phone call. We’re exposed to constant snooping and the possibility that the government will misuse the information it finds.

The reality is far more limited. The NSA is governed by legal restrictions. It does not examine the full database. It searches individual numbers only after it has determined there’s a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that a number might be linked to terrorist groups"  


Puh-leeze! All of this amounts to disinformation. The same sort of twisted nonsense Samuelson delivered earlier regarding "deficits" being created by JFK, during his administration, which I have already skewered. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/thats-right-now-blame-60s-jfk-for.html

The reality is that Samuelson's cited "legal restrictions"  governing the NSA are little better than the merest figleaf. Those (original) restrictions ceased to exist when the FISA law was changed after the Bushistas' illegal wiretapping over 2005-08. Instead of prosecuting the Bushistas, a compliant congress and the courts excused the transgressions and actually made them lawful!  Hence, whatever protections people think they have disappeared when the illegal variant of the FISA law was extended back in 2011.

We also know that it isn't necessary for NSA programs "to search the whole database" and that the Main Core will assemble suspicious words whether a human person searches or not.  This is also why the Occupy Wall Street protestors literally came under the gun.  Finally, even one of the original authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, insisted he never intended it to go as far as it has, and as Snowden revealed.  As he was quoted in a UK Guardian piece two months ago"


 "Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

Sensenbrenner was referring to NSA honcho James Clapper lying before a Senate hearing  months earlier, when asked if the NSA did mass surveillance. So if Clapper was lying, it is obvious that Samuelson must be too by his specious defense of the NSA - and that those poor little souls aren't doing anything beyond the limits of Sec. 215 at all.  Oh no, so just rest your little heads! All is well!

Is Samuelson calling Sensenbrenner a liar?  If the original author of the Patriot Act believes the NSA overstepped the bounds of the law who the fuck is Samuelson to claim anything different?

Oh wait, he's a Neoliberal hack!

Next time you see anything from Robert Samuelson and wonder if it has some veracity, consider the source. Would you drink water from a sewer ditch? Of course not, so why take anything from Samuelson as useful information you can trust?

See also (from someone you can trust):

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/53531/exposing-public-wickedness-is-more-american-than-apple-pie

Edward Snowden Vindicated by Judge's Ruling That NSA Dragnet Program is Unconstitutional

"I have little doubt the author of our Constitution, James Madison,  would be aghast"

"The government does not cite a single instance where the program actually stopped an imminent attack"

 - Federal Circuit Judge Richard Leon ruling against NSA super dragnet spying yesterday.

Richard Leon is another hero and defender of the Constitution irrespective of whether or not his momentous ruling on the NSA monster spy programs are overturned on appeal. We know it only takes one voice, even in the minority, to espouse truth and constitutional principles even if liars, reprobates and traitors are arrayed against them - to the extent of re-doing earlier laws (like the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to render the illegal, legal.

Judge Leon, in a 68 -page ruling issued in Washington on Monday, argued that the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records by the National Security Agency is likely to violate the US constitution, in the most significant legal setback for the agency since the publication of the first surveillance disclosures by whistleblower  and constitutional hero, Edward Snowden.

Judge Leon declared that the mass collection of metadata probably violates the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and was "almost Orwellian" in its scope. In a judgment replete with literary swipes against the NSA, he said James Madison, the architect of the US constitution, would be "aghast" at the scope of the agency’s collection of Americans' communications data.

You have nailed it, Judge Leon, and I already noted this in many previous posts. The 4th amendment is VERY clear that specific warrants must be issued, not mass warrants! I don't give a fuck how "inconvenient" it is or how long and arduous that process might be. Tough shit! Either adhere to the principles or admit you're traitors to your constitutional oaths. People can read the words of the Fourth for themselves below:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Read it slowly and carefully, especially the emphasized portions over again. Clearly, the NSA MASS-grabbing of data violates directly the 4th amendment, and yeah, I'm as much a stickler about the 4th as the gun people are about the 2nd.

As I noted before, "secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

It is clear to me that Judge Leon recognizes this, even if neoliberal coward and administration mouthpiece Jay Carney (calling for Snowden's return and prosecution) doesn't. Will Carney ever pull his head out of his ass? Probably never!

But what do you expect from Carney? The ruling, by the US district court for the District of Columbia, is a blow to the Obama administration, and sets up a legal battle that will drag on for months, almost certainly destined to end up in the Supreme Court. It was welcomed by campaigners pressing to rein in the NSA, and by Snowden, who issued a rare public statement saying it had vindicated his disclosures. It is also likely to influence other legal challenges to the NSA, currently working their way through federal courts.

Judge Leon expressed doubt about the central rationale for the program cited by the NSA: that it is necessary for preventing terrorist attacks. “The government does not cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack".

Leon added:

“Given the limited record before me at this point in the litigation – most notably, the utter lack of evidence that a terrorist attack has ever been prevented because searching the NSA database was faster than other investigative tactics – I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.”

If such instances  of actual success - based specifically on the dragnet programs - are not cited, then obviously we can't ascertain if the protection of the program is all based on some BS smokescreen  or not. Telling us that to provide the information would "risk national security" is horse patootey and insults our intelligence. It also gives cover to the spooks to do whatever the hell they want.

Leon’s opinion also contained stern and repeated warnings that he was inclined to rule that the metadata collection performed by the NSA – and defended vigorously by the NSA director Keith Alexander on CBS on Sunday night – was unconstitutional. (Alexander, treating us all like untutored children or idiots insisted he saw no other way to do the collection other than by mass dragnet - as one cheeky Denver Post letter writer put it, he could as well "put us all in prison then he can see and hear what we're doing and when any time he wants.")

Leon added:

“Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of showing that their privacy interests outweigh the government’s interest in collecting and analysing bulk telephony metadata and therefore the NSA’s bulk collection program is indeed an unreasonable search under the fourth amendment,”

Leon also said that the mass collection of phone metadata, revealed by the Guardian in June, was "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary" in its scope.  He also wrote:

"The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,"

Referring to the year in which the US Supreme Court ruled on a fourth amendment case upon which the NSA now relies to justify the bulk records program. But he also implied that the later revision of that law was the main outrage: since it was done after the Bushies perpetrated warrantless wiretaps after 2005.  The pusillanimous punk traitor congress- instead of holding Bush to account and impeaching his sorry ass - let him get away with it by changing the 1978 FISA law to make mass warrantless wiretapping legal. It is amazing how few know about this and that all appeals to the later revised "law" are bogus.

Meanwhile, in a statement released subsequent to the ruling (related to Glenn Greenwald), Snowden said:

“I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.”

We can only hope and trust this is the case, and that if and when it ends up at the Supreme Court they will perform their constitutional duty irrespective of their ideology.

Lastly, I was delighted to see Colorado Senator Mark Udall, a leading critic of the dragnet collection, welcomed the judgment.  In his words:

"The ruling underscores what I have argued for years: [that] the bulk collection of Americans' phone records conflicts with Americans' privacy rights under the US constitution and has failed to make us safer,"


Maybe one of these days, Mr. Obama - a  constitutional scholar at one time - will begin to see that.