U.S. Spy Panel Is Loaded With Insiders 330
schwit1 writes "After a public backlash to government spying, President Barack Obama called for an independent group to review the vast surveillance programs that allow the collections of phone and email records.
The members of the review group are:
Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council for Clinton who later worked for Republican President George W. Bush
Michael Morell, Obama's former deputy CIA director
Geoffrey Stone, law professor who has raised money for Obama and spearheads a committee hoping to build Obama's presidential library in Chicago
Cass Sunstein, law professor and administrator of information and regulatory affairs for Obama
Peter Swire, a former Office of Management and Budget privacy director for Clinton
'At the end of the day, a task force led by Gen. Clapper full of insiders – and not directed to look at the extensive abuse – will never get at the bottom of the unconstitutional spying,' said Mark Jaycox, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group. The panel's meetings are closed after Clapper exempted it from the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would have required it to keep the public informed and hold open meetings, for 'reasons of national security,' according to a statement from the group sent from Clapper's office. 'While we are exempt from the FACA, we are conducting this review as openly and transparently as possible.'"
Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council for Clinton who later worked for Republican President George W. Bush
Michael Morell, Obama's former deputy CIA director
Geoffrey Stone, law professor who has raised money for Obama and spearheads a committee hoping to build Obama's presidential library in Chicago
Cass Sunstein, law professor and administrator of information and regulatory affairs for Obama
Peter Swire, a former Office of Management and Budget privacy director for Clinton
'At the end of the day, a task force led by Gen. Clapper full of insiders – and not directed to look at the extensive abuse – will never get at the bottom of the unconstitutional spying,' said Mark Jaycox, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group. The panel's meetings are closed after Clapper exempted it from the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would have required it to keep the public informed and hold open meetings, for 'reasons of national security,' according to a statement from the group sent from Clapper's office. 'While we are exempt from the FACA, we are conducting this review as openly and transparently as possible.'"
Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change itself (Score:5, Insightful)
BIG BROTHERS will never change it self.
Change does not come from within.
Real change must be made from the outside.
All the insiders - the careered politicians, the careered bureaucrats, the careered leeches who bled the public dry - will not change their ways.
If we are to have a REAL CHANGE we must make sure that NONE OF THEM remain inside the government.
Any less than that will be hot air, as usual.
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:5, Interesting)
So you're advocating violent regime change then?
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're advocating violent regime change then?
So you're saying violence is the only way to effect change from the outside? I don't know about that, certainly not clear to me that's what GP was getting at. Seems to me what you guys need is a third, fourth, fifth major political party with half a chance of, if not winning any election, at least offset the current status quo.
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The winners make the rules, so any party that doesn't have a chance of winning is a waste of time and effort.
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:4, Interesting)
The winners make the rules, so any party that doesn't have a chance of winning is a waste of time and effort.
I disagree. Even if other parties have -- at first -- no real chance of winning, having them at all might still make clear just exactly how similar the current major parties are.
When Ds and Rs agree on something that's a sure sign it is against most peoples' interests. I think that developing a wider frame of reference would make that more obvious.
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Yes he is. The US believes violence or money are the only two ways to solve any problem.
They cannot use money in this instance since all the money has been funnelled to the people operating the puppet government's strings while the people were sleeping.
Another more sensible way is to create a democratic movement. I don't know, maybe occupy some public spaces to get some attention called to the problems via passive resistance.
Surely america would get behind that?
Oh wait...
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:5, Interesting)
You should look into that.
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia has something called "double dissolution" where, to fit the US system, both the Senate and Congress would be dismissed in entirety and an election for all seats would take place.
You should look into that.
America used to use a quaint old system. It involved tar, feathers, and being run out of town on a rail.
Maybe we should revive it.
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But what sort of idiot would have interpreted the President's words to mean a panel made of people from outside government, without security clearances? He clearly meant people not currently inside the programs, who are already known and trusted by the government. Like, duh.
The funny part is that people who can't even understand the basics of the conversation are trying to call it out and blather on about how much wiser and more worldly they are.
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:5, Interesting)
Change does not come from within. Real change must be made from the outside.
Correct, and here's how to do it: WOLF-PAC [wolf-pac.com]. Launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood and publicly finance all elections. Since Congress won't pass such an Amendment on its own, the plan is to instead have the State Legislators propose it via an Article Five Convention. At least 34 States need to cooperate for this to work, but already many have reacted with enthusiasm, most notably Texas. If successful, the real problem should be fixed within one or two election cycles.
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Change does not come from within. Real change must be made from the outside.
Correct, and here's how to do it: WOLF-PAC [wolf-pac.com]. Launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood and publicly finance all elections. Since Congress won't pass such an Amendment on its own, the plan is to instead have the State Legislators propose it via an Article Five Convention. At least 34 States need to cooperate for this to work, but already many have reacted with enthusiasm, most notably Texas. If successful, the real problem should be fixed within one or two election cycles.
I am quite willing to sign up for this. But not everything wrong with US government can be laid at the feet of corporations. Some corporations do benefit from the current state of affairs, it is true. And some are greatly inconvenienced. By even if you wrote corporations out of the equation entirely, the real mover here is power and the people with the power are merely getting some of their funding from corporate sources. Getting their campaigns financed by other means wouldn't change the people behind it.
I
Re:You can never get the BIG BROTHER to change its (Score:4, Insightful)
It's great that you're willing to sign the WOLF-PAC petition, because money in politics does far more damage than you may think. Sure, democracy is a messy business even in the best of times, but it's always preferable to an authoritarian regime.
Corporate influence on our politicians should always be limited to prevent corruption, but right now very little limits that influence at all. This affects both parties, because 94-95% of the time the candidate with the most money wins the election, while most have found that getting their money from a small number of big donors is much more effective than getting it from many small ones. But that kind of money always comes with strings attached, which is exactly why Congress has such a low approval rating these days: they spend virtually all their time trying to keep their donors happy -- not their actual constituents.
Don't get me wrong here: we will always need corporations, because usually they are a force for good. For most things in our lives, we depend on the goods and services they produce. But certain rules need to apply to them lest things get out of hand. After all, they should serve us and not vice versa.
Of course, that's not how the corporations see it, for in the end the only thing that motivates them is profit. That's why to some extent all of them continue to bend and break the rules (pollution, money laundering, monopolistic practices, etc. etc.) whenever they think the benefits outweigh the costs. One of the tasks of government is to keep after them and make sure those costs (e.g. fines) always outweigh the benefits, but unfortunately it seems that Congress is no longer very effective at this. In fact, all they seem to be interested in is deregulation. Gee, I wonder why...
Re:Hope and change (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no difference between the two parties that run America. The last election was between the rich white right-wing religious crazy guy and the rich black right-wing religious crazy guy, each of them representing their rich right-wing religious crazy organizations.
Re:Hope and change (Score:4, Funny)
There's no difference between the two parties that run America. The last election was between the rich white right-wing religious crazy guy and the rich black right-wing religious crazy guy, each of them representing their rich right-wing religious crazy organizations.
Hey, at least neither one of them were christians.
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If they were Christians, they'd both still fit the description of "rich right-wing religious crazy guy".
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There's no difference between the two parties that run America. The last election was between the rich white right-wing religious crazy guy and the rich black right-wing religious crazy guy, each of them representing their rich right-wing religious crazy organizations.
You've picked an ironic day to spout that sort of nonsense. Today, October 1, 2013, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, started the major part of its implementation. That is a "gift" to the people of the United States from the Democratic party. There are plenty of difference between the two parties in terms of goals and policies. One thing they largely agree on is that allowing Americans to be killed in large numbers by terrorists is a bad thing. As a result President Obama has largely con
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You're not disagreeing with me, you're just saying that one right-wing religious crazy party has slightly different policies from the other right-wing religious crazy party.
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Maybe you could help me, then. Could you point out some country governed by a party that takes no actions to protect its citizens from attack? Communist governments protect their citizens, so I know the idea isn't unknown on the Left.
Re:Hope and change (Score:4, Insightful)
The United States of America.
Nothing they do actually protects us from attack because that is actually a ridiculously impossible goal. Its not even partially achievable in any meaningful way. Our only protection from attack is the lack of profit in actually attacking us that leaves all but an insignificant few even interested in trying, once in a great while.
No, the security apparatus and military is, AT BEST, security theater to make people feel safe, because the vast majority of terrorist attacks are the ones people imagine could happen.
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> Are you sure that it isn't your evaluation that is ridiculous? There are people sitting in US prisons
> after arrest and conviction for terrorism related offenses, included attempted and actual attacks. If
> you were correct there shouldn't be anyone. There seems to be a defect in your reasoning.
There are lots of things. The existence of a handful of exceptions to the rule does not disprove the general rule. Had every single one of them been successful in their plan, the difference would be insigni
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Well there's the USA where the government takes an ever growing percentage of our economy to pay for overgrown military-industrial and surveillance-industrial complexes that make us less safe every day, would that work for you?
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That is a "gift" to the people of the United States from the Democratic party.
Ah, the gift of making people buy something that they couldn't afford.... or face a fine which they also cannot afford.
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Many people can't afford car insurance, but most people don't seem to have a problem with that "individual mandate". If you drive a car you WILL eventually get into an accident and need insurance. If you are alive you WILL eventually get sick and need insurance.
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So what happens when those who are uninsured get hurt?
Before? They get a bill that they cannot afford.
Now? They get a bill that they cannot afford, plus a fine that they cannot afford.
Have you actually thought about the phrase "cannot afford" and what it means? It means "can't pay even if they wanted to."
You have this grand dream where everyone gets health care... and your solution is to give everyone health care.. the problem is that not everyone can afford health care.. and you don't have a solution.. but you have that dream.. and that dream must be ac
Re:Hope and change (Score:5, Informative)
the problem is that not everyone can afford health care
You do realise that in Australia a 1.5% levy on income tax covers the cost of a "free" health system for all Australians (taxpayer or otherwise), our system also has significantly better medical outcomes than the US system. For a family of four that works out to close to 1/10th of what an American pays for similar cover. In fact you guys already pay a similar per-capita amount on health through your taxes. With the better economies of scale you have in the US that should easily be enough to ensure nobody goes bankrupt due to medical expenses (which is the real point of any health insurance scheme). Why the hell do you (or your employer) then need to go and pay another 9X that amount to a private middle man?
Oh, and lets not blame it on the doctor's hourly rates, our home grown doctors still drive around in nice cars and live in the "leafy avenue" part of town.
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The real blame is a step back from the doctors. Outrageously priced medical supplies of all sorts and charges piled on by hospitals.
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You do realise that in Australia a 1.5% levy on income tax covers the cost of a "free" health system for all Australians (taxpayer or otherwise),
That 1.5% income tax levy doesn't cover the whole cost of the healthcare system, not even close.
Expat guide to Australia: health care [telegraph.co.uk]
All taxpayers contribute 1.5 per cent of income to Medicare. Higher earners contribute 2.5 per cent. This falls very far short of the budget required. Most funding comes from central government.
Healthcare costs rise to $130bn, or $5800 per Australian: report [news.com.au]
Having said that, I think that the Australian healthcare system is interesting and probably a better model than some other national healthcare systems.
Re:Hope and change (Score:4, Insightful)
They can't afford it but the rest of us can...and do. Ultimately their care comes out of our collective pockets in the form of massive insurance premiums and hospital bills.
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... Today, October 1, 2013, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, started the major part of its implementation. That is a "gift" to the people of the United States from the Democratic party. ...
It's not a gift, it's them doing their job.
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There's no difference between the two parties that run America. The last election was between the rich white right-wing religious crazy guy and the rich black right-wing religious crazy guy, each of them representing their rich right-wing religious crazy organizations.
You've picked an ironic day to spout that sort of nonsense. Today, October 1, 2013, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, started the major part of its implementation. That is a "gift" to the people of the United States from the Democratic party.
I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want any "gift" I have to pay for.
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There's no difference between the two parties that run America.
I'm going to have to sort of ... uhh ... disagree with you there.
There's a big difference that actually matters: One of those rich right-wing religious parties believes that government cannot function properly. Not just that it doesn't function properly (any idiot can see that that's at least partially true), but that there is absolutely no way to make it so that government agencies do their job efficiently and well. That kind of belief means that when they're in charge, they think it's a good idea to put t
Re:Hope and change (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem being that 50+% of Americans actually believe Obummer's bullshit about "Hope and Change"
Except that wasn't the case at all. Most of the people I know who voted for Obummer the second time around were quite sick of his bullshit.
The Republicans simply had to run anyone electable, anyone fucking at all to win.
Instead, we had fifty shades of religious insanity, a man confusing the White House with a pizza joint, and the very icon of "that sort of evil capitalist the Democrats are always going on about - holy shit, they do exist!".
Even with the stupidity of the Republican party - Romney had a chance. But he couldn't stop running his fucking mouth, spewing shit that should not be spoken by any politician seeking election.
Magic fucking underpants aren't going to save you when you directly insult massive fucking swaths of the voting public.
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Media picks the president and it picked Obama. It is as simple as that. People vote like they are told. MSNBC for example did not have a single positive story about Romney or a single negative story about Obama in the final weeks before the election (http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/press_release_7). Something like that is expected of MSNBC but the likes of ABC, NBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo etc etc weren't far behind.
Re:Hope and change (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the Republicans did themselves no favors. The economy had just been destroyed by Wall Street fraud, and the culprits brazenly waved their fistfuls of bailout cash at the public.
Who do the Republicans put up for their Presidential candidate? Mr. Wall Street
Had they presented a down-to-earth, moderate candidate for the election, the Republicans would have won it by a landslide.
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You know the really scary part though? Put Mitt next to almost any of the other contenders for the republican nomination and he looked incredibly moderate. A huge chunk of the party thinks that swinging further and further right is how they'll win elections and it simply doesn't work at the national level or in moderate or left leaning states.
Re:Hope and change (Score:4, Insightful)
And look at the other candidates who actually led Mr Romney at some point in the race:
- Newt Gingrich, who among other things divorced his wife in the hospital because he wanted to marry someone prettier that he had been banging on the side, at exactly the same time he was leading the effort to impeach Bill Clinton for getting a little action on the side.
- Herman Cain, who, as far as I can tell, had no clue what the job of President of the United States actually entailed.
- Rick Santorum, who's a religious nutjob.
- Michelle Bachmann. Ditto.
- Rick Perry, who seemed surprised at the idea that naming your family's country estate "N*****head" was seen as racist. Also, given his last job, and given how much recent success the country had had with former Texas governors being in charge, Obama would have had an easy win.
- Ron Paul, who has some really great ideas, and some really lousy ones. We tried things like bank-issued currency, and stopped because those practices caused all kinds of problems.
And who didn't ever come close to winning? Jon Huntsman, the candidate that the Obama people were actually worried about, because he's a moderate good-governance-get-things-done politician who had previously been a successful and highly popular governor in his state, and was saying sensible things on the campaign trail.
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Media picks the president and it picked Obama
The media hated Bush, and he got elected. Twice.
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Obama has done a number of things I can't stand.
Most of his attempts at things I do support were blocked by rabid republicans that would do anything to get rid of Obama.
Yes, I hate both parties and pretty much all politicians, but the head of the republican party deserve a special kind of hell. (Even a bunch of their own party see their leaders a rabid psychotics intent on destroying this country in their vain and pointless attempt to eliminate or mar
Changing the US voting system (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a large part of the problem is the primary voting system. A would-be presidential candidate first has to appeal to the extremists in their own party before they have a chance to try to appeal to the general public.
I have a proposal to fix this.
Step 1: To be on the presidential ballot, you must have reached some threshold number of votes in the primaries. This threshold should be set so that there will be about 4 to 6 presidential candidates. (Primaries are not party-based. All presidential hopefuls appear on the one ballot.)
Step 2: Voters rank the presidential candidates in their order of preference. These preferences are processed by a Condorcet method [wikipedia.org]. This ensures that if one candidate would win a two candidate election against any other candidate, they are elected.
With 4 to 6 candidates, there is room for at least two from each main party, plus the occasional independent/minor party candidate. The Condorcet voting encourages moderates rather than extremists. (In turn, this will encourage the selection of moderates in the primaries.) It also gives independents a decent chance.
(Note: I am not a US citizen, nor am I living there.)
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Good suggestions - which will never be implemented. A small addendum: As Condorcet already observed in 1785 (and before him Ramon Lull, Nicolaus Cusanus and possibly the Romans), Condorcet voting sometimes has no winner, so it needs to be modified/accompanied by additional voting rules to avoid Condorcet cycles. One of the solutions to this problem was suggested by Lewis Carroll.
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That's due to the insanity of the tea-party faction of R. He has to say all kinds of crazy things that he believes and will do in office in order to get past the R primaries, just so the people that WILL vote in the primaries will pick him.
It's the ones with the bat-shit crazy ideas that can be counted on to drive to the voting station and actually vote.
Regular R voters spread their votes between the candidates, and it's the wack jobs that push one candidate over the top.
Hell, that's what is happening righ
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This ignorant tool right here hates the tea party so much that he has invented a fantasy world where Romney was cow-towing to the tea-party.
You know who tea party folks voted for? They wrote in "Ron Paul."
I know where you got this complete fantasy view too... the ignorant shit you just spit out came right out of the mouth of Rachel Maddow.
Here is an idea.. when you don't know what you are talking about, which is always the case when all you really have to say is to repeat what some ultra-
Re:Give us the option to vote against someone, the (Score:5, Insightful)
Or else, who the fuck are we supposed to vote for ?? Most of us already know that those appearing on our ballot tickets are scumbags.
Please explain why you consider either Gary Johnson [wikipedia.org] or Jill Stein [wikipedia.org] to be "scumbags". Both seem to me to be people of high integrity. Gary got my vote last year, and Jill got my respect. If neither of them got your vote, maybe you should consider that people like you are the root of the problem.
Re:Give us the option to vote against someone, the (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm waiting for the GP to respond with something along the lines of "blah blah you wasted your vote blah blah you acted as a spoiler" ... and when millions of people think that way, there's no chance of any third party candidate gaining any traction. The real problem here are apathy, excuses, and herd mentality. People don't vote on issues, hell they hardly understand what issues are at stake with any particular candidate. On the whole, people tend to vote for the political equivalent of their favorite sports team. So we get what we get, which is a horrible mess.
I have no idea how to to fix this, aside from watching things get so bad that people are rioting in the streets in every major city in the nation, and subsequently saying something like "well now, now that you all seem to care about what's happening since you can no longer ignore its direct effect on a massive number of peoples' lives, your own included, how about we figure this out."
Re:Give us the option to vote against someone, the (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the message I try to put out as well. Too bad most people can't understand we don't actually have a "two party system".
As for myself, I voted for Jill Stein, even though I oppose most of the Green Party platform. She was willing to be arrested to uphold democracy, protesting the first debate between Romney and Obama for not including all national candidates. So even though I don't agree with the Green Party on much, some things are more important than my personal beliefs.
Re: Predictable (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/ [salon.com]
Bans, taxes, cognitively infiltrate, gov funded counter speech....
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Wait a second... (Score:5, Informative)
Now that the government is shut down, does that mean the domestic spying program is also?
And while I'm at it, would it be unpatriotic of me to suggest that the government shutdown may be a tactful diversion from the domestic spying program? Snowden's Sunday leak [rt.com] was largely ignored Sunday by the major news networks in favor of the impeding shutdown.
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"Defense Finance and Accounting Services, which learned yesterday it would continue issuing paychecks for most employees of the department."
The interesting aspect is exempt versus nonexempt civilians and the staff numbers now depended on by the DoD.
The US learned a lot from the MI6/Mi5 and GCHQ 1950-80's years - keep your clandestine staff funded or Moscow will
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Now that the government is shut down, does that mean the domestic spying program is also?
No, only non-essential government programs were shutdown.
along with 75% of federal employees (Score:2)
I've been told the "non-essential employees" that are affected make up 25% of the federal payroll, most publicly visible customer-service type jobs. All the bureaucrats are "essential" and won't be going anywhere.
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It's taking a bigger bite than just the customer service type jobs. Of course in any budget dispute the more visible jobs and services are cut first. But even the Defense Department and intelligence agencies are taking a hit.
NSA, intelligence workers 'stretched to limit' by shutdown, official says [cnet.com]
400,000 DOD Civilians to Get Shutdown Furloughs [defenseone.com]
US shutdown: Bad for Pentagon workers, not so much for defense firms [cnbc.com]
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Even better they might get new laws to ensure future shutdowns bypass their "staff".
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IMHO anything more that absolutely minimal governance is evil.
While I tend to agree with the sentiment (though evil isnt really appropriate in such a context), I might remind you that theres a huge chunk of the populace who disagrees with your interpretation of the role of government. I think they might be called "democrats".
Surprised? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
President Barack Obama called for an independent group to review the vast surveillance programs that allow the collections of phone and email records. The members of the review group are:
... Doesn't matter. You're asking the foxes to guard the hen house. If you work for the government, you can't really be expected to provide an impartial audit of government activities. The end. The only time Congress appoints actual outsiders is when the majority party is able to excert enough power to get them appointed. Of course, this is heavily politicalized as well -- they don't appoint people without knowing what their answer will be.
This is dinner theatre for one.
Re:Surprised? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's amusing to me is that those in favor of big government seem not to realize that this same principle applies to everything government does. It is oil industry that writes oil industry regulation, pharmaceutical industry that writes pharmaceutical industry regulation, banking regulatory agencies are staffed with former bank executives etc etc.
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Every once in a while we get an Elizabeth Warren and that individual (or two) usually fixes things for a few decades.
Elizabeth Warren puts on a good show, but don't expect her to do anything.
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Dinner Theater indeed. Two Wolves and a Sheep are deciding whats on the menu. It is all fine and good to watch this theater, until they run out of sheep.
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heh...
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Actually, it's much worse than that. The truth is that if by some miracle they did do an in-depth audit that recommend drastic measures
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. The truth is that if by some miracle they did do an in-depth audit that recommend drastic measures that radically acknowledged the inherent unconstitutionality of the acts and called for trials, jail time, etc, it'd all well be ignored.
It wouldn't take just a miracle.. it'd take a note from God and an act of Congress too. And frankly, I'd believe news reports that Jesus had blasted his way back to Earth on a unicorn with rainbows crapping out all over the place and orchestras of angels blasting on trumpets over news that Congress decided Congress was in the wrong and decided to throw itself in jail.
Who watches the watchers? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If this doesn't matter to enough people to vote them out, then the abuses will continue to happen. People are more concerned about Obamacare and the government shutdown right now. "Democracy doesn't guarantee the best government, it guarantees the government the people deserve." It's lame for people who deserve better, but that's always going to be a problem when living with other people.
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Suppose, in 2016, by freak chance, the vast majority of jurisdictions in the United States elected representatives from non-mainstream parties—Libertarians, Greens, whatever else you guys have these days. Enough variety to represent every likely perspective, of course.
What do you think would happen to the president when he or she tried to fix the intelligence community? Or the military? Or, heck, even something relatively compact like the FDA? Simple: just ask Jimmy Carter. (And, I would contend, Obama five years ago, just after his first election.) Nothing would get done. The agencies, the companies, and their collective lobbyists would do all they could to undermine the elected representatives, because they themselves are partisan, right down to the core—partisan to anyone who protects or could protect their paycheques and opportunities for advancement, that is.
You cannot vote them out. You cannot even try, but even if you succeeded in voting away the names you know about, the rest would remain and stage coups. Even appointed agency directors have been defeated by the momentum, culture, and job-security-fearing mobs in these places. The rot goes all the way through, and it doesn't want to leave.
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time labor, anti war, law reform, minority and indigenous groups tried to work together they where shattered.
Left, right, poor, faith, wealth, city, race, suburban groups would be played off against each other against a setting of scandal.
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And, I would contend, Obama five years ago, just after his first election.
That's optimistic. He put bankers in his cabinet, continued the surveillance, voted for the surveillance before entering office.....
Once again you're running into the problem that the majority is kind of ok with this surveillance. If they weren't, then things would change.
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Think of the regional cash expansion of long term 'holding' buildings and related services, the expert guards needed, interrogators, language experts, cleared psychologists, cleared psychiatrists, medical teams for force feeding, cleared maintenance staff, expanded fly in fly out support and quality local accommodation. Thats a lot of instant state contracting and generational federal funding. *Lawyers not included.
A wise contractor and state could even draft lucrative occupancy g
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I was reading earlier today about nuclear reactors in France. Apparently in France, people welcome nuclear reactors near their towns, for the reasons you just stated. In America, we have wealthy neighborhoods without cell reception because the residents don't want an unsightly cell tower.
Re:Who watches the watchers? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think it's a matter of the general public being okay with it; rather they don't understand it and can't be bothered to find out why it's a bad thing. The vast majority of the voting public in this country range from the working poor to the middle class. These people are usually working two or more jobs per family (when it's not a broken family; even then the single parent often works two jobs) and simply don't have time to find out who is doing what in the government, much less do something about it. They vote along established party lines based on their upbringing, and probably hope that one asshole will screw the country over just a smidge less than the other one. Given that situation and attitude, it's no surprise that most Americans default to "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care if they listen to my phone calls and read my email."
I think if the curtain was truly pulled back by someone with a public face (i.e. not just one whistleblower that no one heard of before June), people would begin to realize what is really going on and why it's so wrong. But panels like the one in the article exist to make sure that never happens. Someone above referenced the fox guarding the hen house, and that's a great analogy.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's a matter of the general public being okay with it; rather they don't understand it and can't be bothered to find out why it's a bad thing.
Those two are basically the same.
Re: Who watches the watchers? (Score:2)
No, because being okay with it implies that they understand it and don't see a problem with it. I'm saying they don't understand it and don't want to take the time to understand it. Apathy does not equal approval.
How will the group meet if it's furlough time? (Score:2)
Okay, how will the group meet if it's furlough time?
Or as Uncle Remus would say (Score:5, Funny)
Checks and Balances, and NSF not NSA (Score:5, Interesting)
It just seems that no-one in the government is at odds with the NSA spying program. The idea was always to have checks and balances in the system so that if things spiraled out of control, there would always be counter-forces that would set it right.
However, the white house, senate, supreme courts etc doesn't seem to care. They're all acting like it is no big deal and we should forget about it (or maybe that is how the media is portraying it).
Though on the other hand, this kind of social interaction data is a goldmine for sociologists and social psychologists to industrial psychologists. It could really be the killer technology that drives the next generation of marketing and advertising. Social networking is the fusion of sociology and computer science.
This is especially a goldmine if election candidates can understand and measure how people are deciding to vote. Before it was just spend billions of dollars on a blanket advertising scheme. But, what if they can really get feedback and data on how people are deciding to cast their votes.
Why doesn't the NSF find ways to anonymize the data and use it for scientific research and make everything open.
After social networking, this could be next big thing. Non-survey based measurement and quantification of what people are doing and thinking and how ideas are spreading and problems they are facing.
read "white house" as "white noise". coincidence? (Score:2)
Where you wrote "the white house" my eyes read "the white noise". Poor vision or insightful pupils?
Re: (Score:2)
Where have we seen this before? GRU vs KGB? GCHQ vs UK gov demands for crime related intercepts to be used in open/closed courts?
Who would be at odds with the NSA spying program within the US gov?
The NSA has had a huge raise to fame, power, political access and departmental prestige over the past 10 years (~in public).
That has not gone unnoticed by the CIA and other powerful factions. The NSA was seen in a mor
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It just seems that no-one in the government is at odds with the NSA spying program. The idea was always to have checks and balances in the system so that if things spiraled out of control, there would always be counter-forces that would set it right.
However, the white house, senate, supreme courts etc doesn't seem to care. They're all acting like it is no big deal and we should forget about it (or maybe that is how the media is portraying it).
I think that you are overlooking the possibility that the checks and balances functioned as designed, and that the three branches of government signed off on the major aspects of the NSA's programs. That's not to say that there weren't compliance problems, or that the NSA's programs may have gone too far at various times and in various aspects. But the overall information seems to indicate that the NSA's programs were more or less supported by all three branches of government.
The very idea that such a th
Re: (Score:2)
"with modern transportation and the transformational nature of modern communications" so we are back to a nice friendly "living document" view of US rights that makes illegal domestic surveillance not illegal.
What has "fundamentally" changed Cold is the vision of a legal 'lock box' via domestic surveillance ending up in domestic court at the whim of political l
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Perhaps you could be so kind as to specify which program(s) you think to be illegal?
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Asking which programs is a dick move and you know it. The stonewall secrecy due to "terrorism" and "national security" excuses prevents us from even discussing the programs in the open, and even the panel that is supposed to be investigating it is closed.
Unreasonable search and seizure covers quite a lot of it in my mind. Spirit of the law regarding freedom of speech. NSA complicity in assassinating US citizens. That Clapper lied to congressional committee, should have been charged with lying under oath, an
Re: (Score:3)
It just seems that no-one in the government is at odds with the NSA spying program. That's not actually true, if you look at the votes in congress, you'll see that a little more than half support them, but nearly half oppose the programs. It is not divided along party lines, each party is divided on the issue. Generally senior members are more likely to support the programs, they are part of the establishment, but there are a lot of exceptions.
It's not surprising that a little over half of congress supports the NSA spying, since that's approximately the percentage of voters that support it too.
Transparency, authoritarian style (Score:5, Interesting)
When I worked in support, the management began taking a drift towards the overly authoritarian side. I don't think they wanted to face up to it though. One particularly absurd thing they did was place a suggestion box next to the desk where all the managers sat. What was wrong with that? It was transparent. Yep. Anybody who put a suggestion in there would be seen putting it in, and the fold size or color of the paper would be matched up with the face, subconsciously or otherwise.
This panel is about as useful as that suggestion box. It's transparency, authoritarian style.
Morrell is not "Obama's" (Score:3, Interesting)
Mike Morrell is a former career CIA guy. He was responsible for the daily president briefings and I believe he was the one to inform President Bush of 9/11. Very experienced and definitely spooky. His secrets have secrets! He would probably be a very awesome guy to meet. Definitely not Obama's unless you hold presidential turnover against him.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sound insider to me. Predisposed to lean on the side of surveillance, which is the point. Doesn't matter who he is loyal to. Career spook gives it two thumbs up.
as openly and transparently as possible. (Score:2)
Why do I get both the urge to infinitely face-palm AND the mental image of Frau Farbissina doing her "Lies! ALL LIES!" line?
Window dressing (Score:3)
What the FUCK has happened to this country?
Re: (Score:2)
He knows he doesn't have to give a shit. He could be caught with a dead intern in his office, and a bloodstained knife in his hand. He could have his wife and the Boston strangler handle the investigation, except of course if he had fucked the intern, in which case shit would get serious.
This is for placating public outrage (Score:3)
The panel's meetings are closed after Clapper exempted it from the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee Act ... for 'reasons of national security,'
Congratulations Mr Clapper, I vote for a round of applause. Why is everyone being spied on? OH! that's right:
for 'reasons of national security,'
Almost forgot for a second.
You know, the internet is about the people, not the governments. Stop complaining about the governments collecting information and start collecting information about the government. If they do it, it's got to be ok. After all, every threat to the US population for the last 50 years has been specifically caused by the government. Couldn't spying on the government be considered national security?
Richard Clark is a good man (Score:3)
Richard Clark has shown himself to be a good man. He was regularly trotted out during the Bush years to decry what was going on. I see his name at the top of the list as a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
I would rather see a panel consisting of a deaf mute, a quadriplegic, a rabbi, an ACLU lawyer, and Joe Plumber.
They would accomplish more than the panel that Obama put together.
Re:Technically... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is by design. Nobody who cares about our rights would pass the background check.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Richard Clarke? (Score:4, Insightful)
In April 2012, Clarke wrote an op-ed in the New York Times addressing cyberattacks. In stemming cyberattacks carried out by foreign governments and foreign hackers, particularly from China, Clarke opines that the U.S. government should be authorized to "create a major program to grab stolen data leaving the country" in a fashion similar to how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security currently searches for child pornography that crosses America's "virtual borders." Moreover, he suggests that the president of the United States could authorize agencies to scan Internet traffic outside the United States and seize sensitive files stolen from within the United States. Clarke then states that such a policy would not endanger privacy rights through the institution of a privacy advocate who could stop abuses or any activity that went beyond halting the theft of important files. The op-ed did not offer any evidence that finding and blocking sensitive files while they are being transmitted is technically feasible
I don't know if Clarke was being naive there or if it was just lip service, but I suspect he's working for interests that are more interested in controlling the internet and don't really care about our rights.
He also endorsed Obama, so he's definitely on the "friend" list, which is also suspicious.
So yeah, I think he's done good things in the past, he might be the best member of the panel, but he's still not someone I'd want on a panel charged with upholding our right to privacy.