It's Much More than NSA Spying

[shance]

Saturday, December 17, 2005

It's Much More Than Just NSA Spying

Now that we know that President Bush, through the misuse of secret executive orders, authorized the super-secret National Security Agency to monitor domestic phone and Internet communications without any involvement of the courts, it's time to recall Admiral Poindexter and his Total Information Awareness project.

(snip)

Without calling it TIA, our government too has begun massively snooping on Americans’ private communications.

Every inch of the way, as new steps towards totalitarian control are proposed or introduced--things like John Ashcroft's Operation TIPS citizen/neighborhood spy scheme, Poindexter's TIA, a national ID card, or a chip in everyone’s passport--a cry has gone up from the public, left and right, and the administration has publicly backed off.


But then after the furor dies down, they've gone ahead and done it in another, quieter way--a smaller version of TIPS, uniform state drivers licenses that will be a national ID in all but name, and a supposedly less invasive chip in new passports, etc.

(snip)

These people have no respect for the concept of civil liberties. No respect for privacy. No respect for the rule of law.
What they respect, and what they want is total control.

There is still time to stop this march to dictatorship.

Some members of Congress, sensing the public's unease, are starting to make a fuss. They'll do more if the American public starts to really get angry at what is being done to traditional American freedoms by the White House gang, but only if we all start making it clear that we've had enough.

The terrorism threat is a sham.

9-11 happened not because the U.S. was a free society, but because the people in charge were either asleep, didn't want to be bothered, or, more sinisterly, actually wanted for some "Pearl Harbor-like event" to happen.

The real threat to America and to Americans is not some radical religious zealot with a bomb, but a gang of power-hungry politicians bent on making their control in Washington permanent.

That threat will be defeated not by giving up our freedoms, but by defending them all, fiercely and without compromise.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/

[liveoaktx]

1. And don't forget that that "chip" is RFID which is going to be in every

single item that is sold and is a unique identifier because it has a different serial number for every item as opposed to a bar code for a class of item.

Caspian calls them "spy chips"

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Only good point of RFID's

Lost cats and dogs.

[Poppyseedman]

2. I find all this brouhaha rather funny

Our government has been spying on us for years in various different illegal forms. The NSA and other government agencies has been doing this for years.

As information technology grows and becomes more sophisticated, our government has to scrutinize more information and be more intrusive.

I have family member who worked at the NSA for twenty years and is now retired, get a couple of beers in him and he will tell you a few stories. He's probably laughing his ass off right now.

Is it right? No.

Guarantee, this will go nowhere because the heat will get pretty hot and way TOO MANY rocks will be over turned and all sorts of information MANY people of all political persuasions do not want to get out. That will not happen.

It will go to an congressional investigative committee and be BURIED

[shance]

3. Does it need to be more intrusive so that it may abuse more Americans?

Because that is all it is really. It's abuse of power in a rather predatory and cowardly way. Its a convenient way for those abusing their power to continue violating others without any accountability.

[Poppyseedman]

5. I'm not condoning it, just think the amount of outrage

being generated is rather amusing if the real amount of government domestic spying was really known to Americans.

I'm talking about systematic across party lines and administrations for years.

I also find the outrage a bit selective as the Clinton administration was probably as bad as bushco, but not as aggressive. He particularly abused the IRS and Justice Dept as his personal political hammers.

Anybody that doesn't think that is true is not really being honest about the Clinton administration.

I'm for honest and corruption free government first, then party loyalty second.

[shance]

6. That may very well be true, however, the issue remains the same

is it right?

[Poppyseedman]

7. Very much so.

Whether it's bushco now, or Feingold, or McCain or whoever wins the next election, that administration should be corrupt free and as honest as national security allows it to be.

Bush should be as open as possible to any NSA shenanigans and tell the American people

[shance]

12. Yes I certainly agree. They should, and yet, they aren't.

And as a result, Americans are now being targetted for their opposition to Bush/Cheney policies.

That would include myself.

[Terran1212]

8. Having family in Homeland Security..

"I'm not condoning it, just think the amount of outrage
being generated is rather amusing if the real amount of government domestic spying was really known to Americans."

I have to say this quotation is about as true as it gets.

[shance]

11. Having myself been a direct recipient of such domestic violations,

because of my opposition to Bush/Cheney policies, it is larger than just phone calls and emails.

I have had my privacy and personal life monitored, violated and intruded upon and my daily activities as well.

How do I know it? I just do.

[Terran1212]

15. I was a roleplayer in counterterrorism simulation

Where the threats to look out for were people stopping at a newssstand and glancing at the Capitol building or sitting at a Church bench.

If you've been in a mass urban area, you've probably been recorded and analyzed by Homeland or one of its affiliates. It's what they do.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. care to back any of those allegations up?

they spent his entire presidency saying crap like that, and could only impeach him over a cumstain

see "The Hunting of the President"

nice try, though

[Poppyseedman]

14. Ask Billy Dale

If you think the Clinton's didn't violate this man's rights, you simply aren't able to separate facts from ideology.

The Clinton's simply could have replaced the man. It was their prerogative as newly elected occupants of the WH. Instead the called the FBI to indict him and arrest him out the door and install their own people. The man was found not guilty and it almost financially ruined him for the Clinton's to save themselves from the scrutiny of the press.

I'm not knocking the Clinton's for putting their own people in, it's the way of DC. They pissed all over the man because the ends justified the means. It was an eye opener for me.

Care to tell me Billy Dale should have been arrested, indicted and financially ruined instead of just let go. BTW, it did cost the taxpayers $426,000 to clear this legal matter up and make it right for Billy Dale.

Nice try though.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. oh, please, with the Billy Dale/Travelgate garbage

thanks for making my point for me

if you're serious about defending that lying embezzler, why don't you provide some links that don't include cites from Ted Olson's pals, or tell us what became of the horrific depredations of the Travelgate Scandal

you know, the one they impeached Clinton over?

or was it Whitewater, the one in which the original prosecutor, in his summation to the jury, explicitly stated that the Clinton's were the VICTIMs of Hale, McDougal, and Tucker

tell us all again which hideous scandal he was impeached over

for those who care, here's the CJR/Billy Dale story, by Conason, whose THOP book has NEVER been successfully refuted, despite efforts of a scale matching the slander of BFEE whistleblowers

http://archives.cjr.org/year/96/2/travelgate.asp

in which he does mention the vindictiveness of the WH, of course, but, perhaps they had a REASON to be like that, do ya think?

[Poppyseedman]

17. Then why did Congress authorize

$426,000 to pay for his legal bills when he was found not guilty?

Thanks for making my point about ideology being more important than facts.

I voted for Clinton twice, but it doesn't mean I don't think he pulled some pretty sleazy things.

At least I can be honest about the man I supported unlike the bush boot licker's who think King George walks on water.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. jesus...did you even bother to read that link?

do you know the genesis of the Travelgate Scandal?

what year does is have its origins?

you have a point in WH overreaction, but Dale was a CROOK, who was crooked with both parties, and, more importantly, with the MEDIA.

that's why it became the story it did, just like Whitewater, cause it was (with much help from the right wing propaganda pushers) FED by the media, who was, in this case, mightily POd at the perks lost.


and, as for congress giving him a refund, you ARE joking, aren't you? totally apolitical judgment there, right? didn't they refuse money to the Clintons for their legal expenses, following the inquisition/impeachment? and who does the impeaching around those parts?

not that I'm a big fan of either Clinton. the point here is that ANYbody who goes up against the fascists that have taken our country from us will do ANYthing it takes to regain/maintain power

the nine year attack on the Clintons merely allowed the media to poison the well against the 'voting' populace to allow the BFEE to get close enough to Gore for them to steal the election the first time

can we agree on that much?

whose side are you on, anyway? are you comparing the pettiness of the Clintons to the ineffable, indescribable, unCOUNTABLE depredations being committed by the kleptocracy?

what?

[rman]

24. Sure, but does that make complaining about it, "funny bruhaha"?

Don't you think it is about time that Americans become informed about these things?

It's not exactly insignificant or irrelevant, contrary to what calling complaining about it "bruhaha" suggests.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Yes

He said, "As information technology grows and becomes more sophisticated, our government has to scrutinize more information and be more intrusive."

Throw in that we have more and more people, in addition to more and more information through the growth of information technology, along with the fact that civilization requires order to function(see entropy) and yes, it will need to be more intrusive.

At least that's how I see it working out in my crazy brain.

[babylonsister]

9. Scary. Thanks for sharing this. nt

[TahitiNut]

10. Aw, c'mon. They do have respect for those things. It's a matter of price.

Poor people pay with their lives.
Rich people make campaign contributions. :shrug:

[spindrifter]

19. Look your house up on the google

earth thing. They are watching all of us any time they want.

[shance]

20. Does that allow for potential abuse? Ask yourself that question.

My take is to have one way mirrors where one person (or organization) can see everything, and those being monitored can see nothing is a ripe situation for rampant abuse, and there are absolutely no fingerprints.

It seems to be across the board in every realm of technology abuse of power.

[The2ndWheel]

21. I'd say get used to it

Technology doesn't seem to be going away. Just getting smaller and smaller.

http://cartome.org/panopticon1.htm

"Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen."

[Hubert Flottz]

23. Is it grape Kool-Aid, or is it just the purple Jesus talking?

Let us never forget, all our soldier's sacrifices. American soldiers have bled and died to uphold and defend our Constitution for two centuries and this AWOL Commander in Name, wants to trash the Constitution in one slick move. If America takes this one laying down, the next step will be the full police state boogie.

The Bushcos have Lady Liberty in a rear strangle takedown and that's a tough one to get out of.

[greiner3]

25. With deleto in the SCOTUS;

It makes it that much harder when all the forthcoming Constitutional issues come flooding in within the next year or two.

[RazzleDazzle]

26. What's with not providing a real link?

What gives? You're no newbie. Not like you don't know better. I don't get it.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/2005.12.01_arch.html#1134826725336