Tuesday, June 11, 2013
In my opinion this conversation on "Now with Alex Wagner" this morning was the MOST interesting discussion about why, and when, we trust our government with our privacy and why, and when, we don't.
Courtesy of MSNBC:
In his book, “The Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy,” Hayes divides American thought leaders into two camps, arguing that figures like The New York Times’ Paul Krugman and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are classic insurrectionists, distrustful of institutional hierarchies, while Krugman’s colleague at The Times, David Brooks, serves as the model institutionalist.
That prompted Alex to ask Hayes whether 29-year-old Edward Snowden was an insurrectionist bent on tearing down the system or an institutionalist looking to fix it.
“I think the most dangerous thing for authority are people who were once institutionalists who later became radicalized, and I think a lot of whistle-blowers are that,” Hayes said.
“The entire national security state constructed post -9/11 has been shrouded behind secrecy, and because it’s shrouded behind secrecy, people’s opinions about how it functions and whether it’s justifiable tend to fall along these polarized lines of how much you, by default, trust authority.”
“People don’t really have a lot of information to operate on,” Hayes said. “And so what they do is they take cues from people they trust.” It was easier for Democrats to be more skeptical of the national security state when they were not running it.”
I found this conversation incredibly riveting this morning, and in fact was unable to complete my morning routine until it was over, because it seemed to answer a question I have had since this Snowden thing first burst into our public consciousness.
As all of you know I got very upset at early reports and predicted this would damage the President, in part because I believed that it should.
That assertion was met by irritation from a number of you for my perceived attacks against the President, and defensiveness over the fact that this was different because now the "good guys" are doing it.
However the question that we have to ask ourselves is should we be relaxed about this situation now because we perceive the people in charge of this as being on our side, and if we are relaxed about this now do we have the right to be indignant about it when the Republicans are once again in charge? After all THAT is how those on the Right are responding now, even though they were the most aggressive defenders of the program when Bush first started it.
For the record I am still pretty uncomfortable with this. Sadly it looks like I will just have to live with it, as the genie is out of the bottle and clearly has NO intention of ever returning,
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Another thing that is commonly believed to be his friend.
ReplyDeleteBut she had a way about her that you understand how to make your ex Will I Ever Get a girlfriend would really like a break up andthose that never see each
other on weekends.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-spy-access-20130611,0,171405.story
ReplyDelete...But analysts said that Snowden seems to have greatly exaggerated the amount of information available to him and people like him.
Any NSA analyst "at any time can target anyone, any selector, anywhere," Snowden told the Guardian. "I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email."
Robert Deitz, a former top lawyer at the NSA and CIA, called the claim a "complete and utter" falsehood.
"First of all it's illegal," he said. "There is enormous oversight. They have keystroke auditing. There are, from time to time, cases in which some analyst is [angry] at his ex-wife and looks at the wrong thing and he is caught and fired," he said.
NSA analysts who have the authority to query databases of metadata such as phone records — or Internet content, such as emails, videos or chat logs — are subject to stringent internal supervision and also the external oversight of the foreign surveillance court, former NSA officials said.
"It's actually very difficult to do your job," said a former senior NSA operator, who also declined be quoted by name because of the sensitive nature of the case. "There are all these checks that don't allow you to move agilely enough."
For example, the former operator said, he had go through an arduous process to obtain FISA court permission to gather Internet data on a foreign nuclear weapons proliferator living abroad because some of the data was passing through U.S. wires.
"When he's saying he could just put any phone number in and look at phone calls, it just doesn't work that way," he said. " It's absurd. There are technical limits, and then there are people who review these sorts of queries."
He added, "Let's say I have your email address. In order to get that approved, you would have to go through a number of wickets. Some technical, some human. An individual analyst can't just say, 'Oh, I found this email address or phone number.' It's not simple to do it on any level, even for purely foreign purposes."
Al Franken: I’m Not Surprised, This Isn’t About Spying on Americans
ReplyDeleteDuring an interview with the StarTribune, Senator Al Franken confirmed that the Senate Judiciary Committee is well aware of how the intelligence community conducts itself and he downplayed some of the more hyperbolic implications out there.
Franken: These are classified briefings. I can only discusses it in limited detail, but because I’m on the Judiciary Committee and because the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction on NSA, and on FISA, and on the Patriot Act, this is something I availed myself of these briefings so nothing surprised me. And the architecture of these programs is very well aware.
There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that’s not appropriate for the bad guys to know. That makes a lot of sense. So anything the American people know the bad guys know.
I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know it has been successful at preventing terrorism.
I don’t believe that the American people should have to take the government’s word for it. I think there should be enough transparency so the American people understand whats happening. I think maybe they do to a greater degree now understand, but I can assure you that this isn’t about spying on the American people. This is about having the data available so that if there are suspicions about foreign persons or persons that have connections with terrorist organizations that we can connect the dots.
Look I am chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law. There’s probably no one in the Senate that looks at these issues in terms of American’s privacy more than I do.
[...]
There’s certainly going to be – it’s very proper – for the Justice Department to do the investigation to see whether this will be a problem.
Quite frankly, I trust the words of Senator Al Franken, and I consider him to be far more credible than vague implications made by self-interested writers who have produced no evidence of what they claim.
Confirmations that the NSA’s Prism program does not apply to American citizens and that it does not lack oversight are piling up, while the claim that the NSA has been granted sweeping direct-access to American’s data at all times remains unsubstantiated and unconfirmed.
And more to Franken’s point that the Judiciary Committee was well aware of this — beware of Republican congressmen running to the cameras to feign outrage and shock-horror. If they weren’t aware, it’s probably their own fault, just as it was their own fault that they failed to attend a classified briefing on Benghazi and then spent the next several months claiming they haven’t been informed.
http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2013/06/al-franken-im-not-surprised-this-isnt-about-spying-on-americans.html
I have to say that of all the people in Congress, I find myself trusting Al Franken the most. He's whip smart, reasonable, well thought and well informed and has been doing a stunning job since he was elected. I enjoyed his interview and encourage all to listen to him. He has a way of calming the waters and informing in a way that does not talk down to people. I'm glad he's one of our guys.
DeleteAnon 6:28 : I agree with you. Al Franken and Bernie Sanders are the two people I trust most out of all our gubmint officials. Not so sure about our President anymore, but then I also know that he is an excellent chess player...
DeleteI also trust Al Franken. I think he's an exemplary senator.
DeleteAnd, frankly, I do not mind what the NSA is doing. We live in a world that is an odd place - where phone and computer data can perhaps prevent events like 9/11 or help find terrorists like Osama bin Laden. We have to choose. Ignore the ugliness of the world we find ourselves in or deal with it. I'd rather deal with it. I'd rather go about this subtly than invade countries by mistake.
Hysteria, hysteria, they name is the modern, twenty-four-hour-a-day American media. Just because President Obama is doing as good a job as anyone could possibly do with a seditious opposition party in place, something has to be found to use against him. The media is bored and unwilling to deal with the GOP's sequester, not a very "sexy" (in the political sense) story, their members have been jumping on every possible bandwagon.
Hypocrisy is another name the American media could go by. It was all well and good when the Bush Administration did more information mining and did it less well. But now, because it's a different administration, it's horrible. And where was the American media during the second Bush Administration when the economy was beginning to tank and war in Iraq was becoming seemingly endless? The American media was nowhere to be found.
And I simply do not understand the comparison between Paul Krugman, a respected economist and columnist, and the most recent guy to break laws and spread government secrets for personal notoriety and money. There is simply no comparison. I've never had the impression that Paul Krugman wanted to destroy the country or hijack the government. Snowden is a traitor.
Beaglemom
James Clyburn: NSA Leaks Part Of Effort To “Embarrass” Obama
ReplyDelete“There is an attempt by several people to do political harm to this president. I just think this is part of that,”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/james-clyburn-nsa-leaks-part-of-effort-to-embarrass-obama
HELL YEAH! It is becoming more and more apparent to me that this is exactly what is happening. The bigger the SHINY OBJECT, the bigger the stink on the cable channels, the more I'm convinced that it's planned and orchestrated with the intent of destroying President Obama's presidential legacy. It's gonna get uglier and it's gonna get louder as time passes. They just can't let the 'black' guy have a successful legacy. Especially if it's trumps the white guys.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteSince Booz Allen Hamilton is mostly owned by the Bush group Carlyle and managed by Republican operatives (the chief National Security Professional and Management Consultant, Eric Hoplin, is former Chairman of the College Republican National Committee – IOW, in charge of recruiting young republicans 'into the fold' and training them to do his/their bidding). It was no coincidence that Snowden's hero is Ron Paul, that he was personally tapping into Bill Clinton's email account, and that he was reading a book about Dick Cheney at the time he was exposed.
The real crime (in addition to the fact that an uneducated, unrestrained know-nothing was given such high-level access) is that republicans will stop at nothing, literally nothing, including the compromise of sensitive national security, in their effort to destroy this president – even if it includes exposing legitimate intelligence sources to grave personal risk or death.
With data-mining firms like BAH in control, it is NO WONDER that leaks about this president are developing almost daily, and at full-speed. I expect them to continue and intensify, and hope that every single one of them fails utterly, totally, and completely, and that all the guilty are brought to severe punishment. Using national security data for personal political destruction is no different than what Kim Jong Un is doing in North Korea.
The facts are with this view. Snowden was in contact with Greenwald and the movie producer a full month before he took the BAH job. Greenwald is a notorious Obama hater and this is just up his alley, ala O'Keefe style. So much of what Snowden claims is blatantly false and over the top, I would bet he was fed his lines by Greenwald in an Alex Jones style beef up of some vague information Snowden gave Greenwald.
DeleteIt's worse than a lame Clancy novel.
A few thoughts on Snowden, Greenwald, and the NSA
ReplyDelete...We all know that the extreme Right is overcome with Obama Derangement Syndrome. But what the past few days have proven without a doubt is that the same applies to the extreme Left. Neither wing can tolerate that Barack Hussein Obama is President, and is not kowtowing to either of them. The Right wants him gone because it sees him as not American. The Left wants him gone because he doesn’t govern according to their dictates, ushering in a Chavista regime north of the Rio Grande. And then you have the likes of Maureen Dowd calling Obama “Peeping Barry”, an infantilization she never performed on George W. Bush. A strong and exceptional African American man has been elected and re-elected to the presidency, and it simply makes people lose their stuff.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/06/a-few-thoughts-on-snowden-greenwald-and.html
Of course, they were planned, but not by Obama. The President wouldn’t leak classified information just to score political points. The fact that Greenwald states that he started working with Snowden before he had been hired as an NSA contractor raises all sorts of questions which, hopefully, our feckless media will pursue. How did a high school dropout get hired to work on sensitive security programs? Who is paying his living expenses in Hong Kong, the most expensive city on the planet? How can a man who believes that stuffing pillows in his door will prevent eavesdropping be accepted as an authority on national security overreach? And, most importantly, who is coordinating these leaks, and to what purpose?
ReplyDeleteSnowden is not Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, and to say he is is an insult to those two heroes. Dr. King wrote his letter from a Birmingham jail, not from a penthouse in Hong Kong. If Snowden has the courage of his convictions, he can return to the US and face his day in court. Otherwise, he’s just another coward, sniping at those who face real dangers head on.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/06/a-few-thoughts-on-snowden-greenwald-and.html
>>And, most importantly, who is coordinating these leaks, and to what purpose?
DeleteA very good question and one that has been in my mind as well. The fact that this came through Glenn Greenwald is a red flag for me, since he's been on an Obamaphobia rampage for years now. But he's just a flak in this. This is way bigger, with powerful hands pulling the strings. It will come out if our media decides to dig deep and do their job, but only time will tell. Why anyone would blindly belief someone who is a thief, a coward, a traitor and clearly a very troubled person, is beyond me. This Snowden character is in someone's pocket, and we're gonna find out who that is sooner or later.
JMO, but I believe somewhere we may find Rupert Murdoch's fingerprints on this. He is well-connected to China, having both an enormous mansion and a well-connected Communist Chinese father-in-law (and mother-in-law) there. He also has a well-known past of tapping into sensitive government conversations and data bases. Just ask Scotland Yard.
Deletesurveillance
ReplyDeletehttp://theobamadiary.com/2013/06/11/surveillance/
LOL! That's pretty funny!
DeleteEdward Snowden, the now-former NSA contractor who leaked secret documents to The Washington Post and the Guardian, said he didn’t want to become the story. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing,” he told The Guardian.
ReplyDeleteBut Edward Snowden dumped a bunch of documents, made a lot of claims, and then fled. He’s the only one who can clarify or confirm the statements he’s made, or demonstrate his comprehension for what’s in the documents he leaked, and he’s made himself unavailable to do so. The public is trying to collect and digest all the facts, and some still have questions.
So, fair or not, the story turns to Edward Snowden, and to a few of those discrepancies that some in the public are trying to understand.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/five-clarifications-we-cant-ask-of-edward-snowden/
The NSA programs Snowden exposed may be questionable, but what they don’t appear to be is illegal. They’re simply secret because — guess what? — there’s almost no way to maintain national security without at least some amount of secrecy; to believe otherwise is staggeringly naive bordering on outright stupid. Edward Snowden decided that we all needed to know about these programs because he personally found them offensive. He wasn’t an elected official. He wasn’t representative of the United States people other than in a role he personally chose for himself. He decided what was best for the entire nation because his values — values that perhaps should’ve precluded him from ever working for the NSA in the first place — were violated.
ReplyDeleteAnd make no mistake: His goal wasn’t to simply shine a light into the dark and allow people to decide for themselves if they like what they see there; if that were the case he wouldn’t have handed the information he stole off to someone like Glenn Greenwald, who was almost certainly going to use it to try to damage the Obama administration. Snowden’s goal was to end the secrecy that he felt was wrong. Again, he decided what was best for all of us.
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/edward-snowden-hero-or-villain/
Give me a break with all this "GOVT" watching me crap. In today's technology you have regular people knowing all your business & been this way forever. This is a bunch of trumped up BS to discredit this President. Nobody has had the Govt banging at their door over an overheard conversation unless you are plotting against the US.
ReplyDeletePlease, how do you think people steal your ID, how do you think people can tell where you live just by logging on the internet. How about businesses that have all your info that you don't even know about. KILL THE BS OVER THIS TRUMPED UP BELT-WAY DRIVEN CRAP. Maybe they should have reported the truth about WMD's and lives could have been saved.
Just consider what a 'cookie' is that gets dropped into your computer, unbeknownst to most, and has the capability to track your online activities, your passwords, your shopping habits...for me that's even more disturbing than the government doing their job to protect us.
DeleteTry installing Ghostery, an add on for Firefox and you can see for YOURSELF how many entities are after your information. Every time you open a web page, up pops a box that give you a list of them. If you think this new Disguis thing that is used in commenting sections is benign, look again. Every single time you comment, it records everything and anyone can go and check your record. No privacy, no oversight. Once I found that out I stopped commenting altogether, other than on Gryphen's blog, and I pray he doesn't even put it in place. It's a creepy deal.
I also installed Peerblock and within seconds was BOMBARDED with hits from around the world, everything from China to Saudi Arabia, to telecoms from India, Italy and Russia. I had NO IDEA this was going on until I installed the blocking program. What the fuck do they want with me? I'm just a plain and ordinary citizen of the US, not doing anything untoward or illegal. I don't even frequent porn sites.
People can be all bent out of shape about this NSA thing, but truly, the private companies that do this kind of surveillance, tracking and intrusion is massive and 24/7 with NO court oversight, NO congressional review.
So if you want to jump on the NSA bandwagon, go check your cookies folder and install those little programs I suggested and you will have your friggin' socks blown off by what you discover.
Also make sure you set your Firefox to private browsing so those cookies get deleted when you sign off.
DeleteBut the government has a hell of a lot more power than private companies do. Are you really telling me that you're worried about private companies tracking you for marketing purposes, but not by the federal government, which has the potential to put you on a no-fly list, haul you in for questioning, audit you, or drag you off to jail? Or even kill you - since the federal government has said it has the discretion to kill US citizens they believe are involved in terrorism?
DeleteGranted, I am not saying that any of this is happening, or will happen soon, but the system certainly has a great deal of potential abuse built into it, and I'm glad we're finding out more about it. We need to have a national discussion about what we are willing to put up with in terms of privacy intrusiveness in order to support national security. The president said something recently about how we can't have 100% security with 100% privacy. But I don't need 100% security and I don't even believe such a thing is possible. I do believe we have behaved like a nation of cowards since 9/11, and completely over-exaggerate the risk of terrorism.
If you haven't already, I recommend you go to andrewsullivan.com to read the discussion he's published on the debate over the issue. He is not concerned over these programs, but has published good arguments for the other (my) side from his readers and others. It's the kind of debate this country needs, and we couldn't have had it without Snowden's disclosures.
The entire Republican establishment was lined up in jingoistic lockstep behind the Bush administration’s efforts to eavesdrop without warrants and spent countless hours both scaring their listeners to death while shaming liberals and the Democratic Party over any and all resistance in codifying the administration’s lawless covert wiretapping.
ReplyDeletehttp://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/if-youre-wondering-how-the-nsa-eavesdropping-began-here-are-some-familiar-names/
It should be known that America is not engaged in these trumped-up, so-called scandals to discredit this president. We all know the white man lost his mind completely when the black man was elected and thank goodness they are monitoring calls. Probably saved our president's life many times over since threats against him are beyond history.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, everything one does and has done is being monitored in one way or another. it's a fact of life. The Govt has not intruded on anyone who didn't deserve it. So you are more concerned with Govt spying on you than your fellow man who are stealing identities and are able to be captured by Govt use of monitoring.
Cable TV news audiences are way down on all channels, Sane America is not buying this everyday BS out of Washington and bloggers
The government has not intruded on anyone who didn't deserve it? How the hell do we know that? We didn't even know about this program until recently. The government certainly has intruded on people in the past who didn't deserve it? Did Martin Luther King Jr. deserve to be bugged? Did John Lennon deserve to be spied on? I could go on, and on, and on. Was Nixon and his administration such a paragon of virtue? Come on. And I'm not a white man. I'm an Asian woman. Did Japanese-Americans deserve to be put in concentration camps? It's a terrible mistake to think the federal government needs no oversight.
DeleteIt's becoming very clear that Snowden and the Guardian reporter have an over-inflated sense of self importance bordering on a Messianic complex with respect to guarding our Democracy.
ReplyDeleteIt is always true that there is potential for abuse when it comes to intelligence gathering. Perhaps it's Snowden and the Guardian who have abused our trust. Their zeal to "expose" the NSA is not too unlike the fireman who starts fires and then saves the day.
The truly hypocritical thing concerning "privacy" is, democrats went apeshit over the Patriot Act, something that was so much smaller by scale than measures today. AND there's so much proof this admin immorally targets conservatives while lying out of their asses in their hideyholes in DC.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happens when a country elects a President (+mysterious devilous backers) solely based on exterior and doesn't care if he's untelligable (when left to his own devices) or the most unaccomplished adult in the free world.
You lie.
Delete635 There you go talking loud and saying nothing. It's obvious you are blind and a racist. I'm glad "thinkers" like you are few and are dying off. gop will never get in the WH again.
DeleteNovember can't get here fast enough. We will control every damn thing and gop can stick the filibusters up their white, flabby, do-nothing asses.
I think you are the one who is unintelligible, especially since you don't know how to spell the word. And it grieves me because you are right to notice some hypocritical behavior among Democrats who distrusted these kinds of programs when they were controlled by Republicans, but it is matched by the hypocritical behavior of Republicans who had no problems with these programs when they were under Bush's control, and are now howling because they are controlled by a black Democratic president.
DeleteHey Gryphen, you're a little concerned about Govt spying on you, maybe you should be concerned Sarah Palin and her fruitcakes can track your every move. Oh, did you ever hear of GPS, wow, that tracks your every move.
ReplyDeleteDid you know cell phone companies keep all your texts, did you know stuff on computers are not completely deleted??? See the foolishness in all this?
Joan Rivers felt sorry for Bristol, and thinks she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.accesshollywood.com/joan-rivers-dishes-on-celebrity-wife-swap-with-bristol-palin_article_80628?__source=rss%7Cimdb%7Clatest-originals
Ha! b was scared of Rivers. She isn't so nice in her little fiefdom.
DeleteI'm sick of seeing that picture of Palin - should she run for Congress or not from Alaska?!!!! You have to be friggin' kidding me!
ReplyDeleteJoan Rivers is a nice lady - turning 80!!! How many women are still working at her age? Not many! She's been a comedian for years - appeared on Johnny Carson often - stand up. She has two successful shows on TV, designs clothing and jewelry. Money isn't her issue, I'll betcha - she likes keeping busy!
ReplyDeleteWho cares? She's snooze-ville.
DeleteGryphen, here is an interesting article. The last sentence says it all. :/
ReplyDeletehttp://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18018-when-the-surveillance-state-is-used-to-investigate-and-prosecute-whistleblowers-the-occupy-movement-and-environmental-activists
How can we trust a government that is so stupid it exposes security risks like Snowden to top secret information?
ReplyDeleteThe government didn't do this: a private firm, owned and run mostly by republicans, and using your tax-dollars, did this. This case is Exhibit A of how government functions really DO get performed more professionally when they are performed by civil servants, instead of by 'private contractors'.
DeleteFor those who don't mind NSA surveillance of thier phone and email records...”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” - Benjamin Franklin
ReplyDeleteAmen. I'm ashamed of our country for being so cowardly.
DeleteAnother take on this very same issue, Eric Garland in a recent post on "Medium" quite interesting: https://medium.com/editors-picks/cbd920225634. In a nutshell, he says that the intelligence community has a public relations problem because it has failed to acknowledge the grevious damage it did to its reputation, by aiding/abetting the shrub administration in its insistence on going to war, preemptively, against Iraq. Until/unless those failures are acknowledged, and the people responsible for them are punished, the intelligence community will face out and out mistrust. The revelation that those actually doing the data mining are neither the best, brightest, or most senior members of the intelligence community only adds fuel to the already-raging fire of distrust.
ReplyDelete