I wonder why the ostensible opposition party in this country busies itself with shouting about immigrants and muslims and god and guns and taxes and other obfuscating stupidity instead of fucking doing its job and actually opposing shit like this.
Itâs almost like they want the ability to do the same shit when they get into office and cry âdouble standard!â when the Dems complain about it.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
And also, why are more people treating this, security overreach, drug prosecutions, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum, as though they are the actions of some wacky, loose-cannon employee.
Who is this guyâs boss again?
the short answer to that is that when the obama administration is spying on the public, prosecuting reporters, killing pakistanis with drones, etc he is doing things the republican party believes are in the national interest and would be delighted to do themselves had they control of the executive branch. although there has rarely been a republican in office over the past 20-30 years who has been averse to outright hypocrisy, these are things they believe in so deeply they canât shake it off even to attempt to oppose them for political gain.
Even worse, the authoritarians treat the surveillance overreach as if Snowden and Wikileaks were the perpetrators! (If they hadnât revealed what they did, the government wouldnât have been spying on everyone, or some such.)
At risk of pedantry, doesnât âtarnishedâ imply a relatively thin, often removable, layer of undesirable material on the surface of an otherwise salvageable object?
ThatâsâŚnot exactlyâŚthe word I would choose for Eric Holder.
I understand Sterling stole the plans for the rotary dial telephone. There was an article on BB a while back about it.
Which totally justifies all the police-state tactics.
/s
They always want such capabilities.
I am afraid we are alone in the fight, with only our thoroughly compromised technology as a weapon.
There are ways, I believe; make every machine also act as a honeypot. Everything under surveillance, everything considered hostile - the same way They look at Us, but with Us looking at our machines potentially compromised by Them.
An unknown âzerodayâ exploit has a high value. By putting our little eyes everywhere, a wide palette of different kinds of eyes, the adversaryâs exploits will be much more likely to be detected when deployed. This itself can serve as a decent deterrent against their use.
We are armed. We are dangerous. We just arenât aware of it. Itâs time to realize that, and to make Them realize that too.
Wondering when citizens are going to understand that our rights are really no concern to politicians. Oh sure, they may give lip service to your rights (well, some of them), but they are focused on the agenda of who they really work for: The Very Wealthy.
Actually, most politicians work for themselves - the priority is to get re-elected by whatever means. Complacency is what gives the wealthy disproportionate power. Thatâs on the rest of us.
Excellent article, but for me, unfortunately, I view the DoJ largely as being heinous.
Partly because the entire criminal justice system is under them, and Americaâs criminal justice system is up there with North Korea, China, and other totalitarian countries. Which is a real shame because in many areas of criminal justice America has advances that are admirable. Though, of course, it is especially a shame because Americaâs patriotism is deeply wrapped around concepts of âfreedomâ, concepts many in government pay lip service to while literally working towards tyranny.
Granted, ideals and governments rarely ever come together, and lip service to higher ideals in many ways is simply the way countries are run. Though, I would note lip service to higher ideals and actions which show they are actually vehemently opposed to those very ideals are hallmarks of tyrannical systems of the worst sort.
The intelligence exposures during Holderâs term were severe, and the actions of the Justice Department over those exposures were weak. Not that anyone should be holding their breath, this is the very same department Hooverâs FBI was under. The Justice Department whitewashed the wiretapping of really just about every American, yet according to their own standards each and every instance of that should have been a single felony charge.
Apparently, if you have a badge and break the law it is okay, but if you do not have a badge, then it is not. Which means that the badge is effectively one of lawlessness and equivalent to a membership in the Cosa Nostra.
Still, it is deeply shameful that they harassed and illegally wiretapped this reporter and shows that their view of âfree pressâ is that there is no free press at all. So, if they are enemies of the Constitution, what country is it, exactly, that they are really working for? Why do they even still pretend lip service to these ideals, when clearly they are working towards a new Soviet Union, and wish that they were in North Korea instead of the US.
But what really concerns me when considering these cases singularly is that the history of governmental abuse of secret surveillance and the history of governmental abuse of damaging secret programs aimed against their own people is one where they tend to not get caught. So, any singular case should be seen as a âtip of the icebergâ and any major exposure, such as Snowdenâs, should be considered as ânot, at all, the full story, nor even the worst of itâ.
Now that Holderâs leaving, Obamaâs next choice, Loretta Lynch, seems to be very similar in terms of lack of respect for reality or the Constitution. Maybe sheâs not John Ashcroft or some worse Republican, but none of them should be in office.
Iâm one of those people who confuses the pollsters who think âObamaâs doing a terrible jobâ means I support Republicans. I rate Obama as terrible because of all the ways heâs been acting like a Republican. (Iâm a Libertarian, so Iâm not thrilled with all the ways he acts like a Democrat either, but too often heâs chickened out and not done those.)
But Terror!
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
