Doing right or wrong is secondary to the fact that every single person will subconsciously start limiting and self-censoring all that they communicate as a result of knowing they may be monitored. What kind of freedom is that? Always living with the fear of being investigated because they wrote or uttered one of thousands of key words. Not to mention that this is done to everyone and it's not free of charge.
Hold the phone. From what I've read and seen, It's not the "Intelligence" agencies that wrote those talking points.......it was politicians or unnamed staffers in The White House. From all accounts I've heard or seen, The CIA specifically said the Benghazi attack was a planned event. Now again, I'm not saying Rice was lying but, it wasn't an intelligence agency that wrote her finalized talking points.
It may actually be nice if folks started self-censoring anyway. The Facebook Generation is taking TMI to entirely ridiculous levels of absurdity. (Then again, after my plumbing rant, maybe I shouldn't be the one to cast stones...) I'm actually kind of troubled by the fact that we are privatizing our intelligence efforts. Do I really want my information farmed by "Rent-a-spy" contractors???
DNI James Clapper probably perjured himself on March 12th. [Oregon Senator Ron] Wyden asked Clapper: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Clapper responded: "No, sir." When Wyden followed up by asking, "It does not?" Clapper said: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect—but not wittingly."http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/james-clapper-clarifies-remarks-over-nsa-snooping-20130606 (I know it's the National Journal, but those are direct quotes) Now he's trying to walk it back. If Snowden goes to jail, he and Clapper should be cellies. Clapper needs to go, and probably Holder, too.
She was using the first talking points that came out, the ones out of the intelligence agency. So while what she said was incorrect, she wasn't intentionally falsifying things but rather relaying what the public facts were at the time. Which again, is all a moot point as she was the UN ambassador at the time and it would be like the Department of Agriculture commenting on the bridge collapse in Washington. And to your complaints about her being in a non-confirmed position as a big "fuck you", you're right, it is a big "fuck you" to the Republicans. Who rather than give any of Obama's nominees in any department a straight up or down vote, instead abuse the filibuster and won't even let them come up for a vote. Republicans are playing the obstructionist party. They're goal is to not to get people to hate the Dems but to get people to hate the government disfunction for two reasons. The first is the obvious Tea Party agenda of curbing the size and influence of the government. An unregulated market is amazing for true capitalists and will further concentrate monetary power in the hands of the 1-2%. Secondly, whoever is caught holding the bag when people hit the point of being livid is screwed. That is currently the Democrats. While the Dems have been trying to do stuff, all people will see at the end of this is that nothing got done and the Dems were in power. Republicans are scared shitless. In their own internal post-election assessments they realize non white, elderly, moneyed males strongly dislike them. They lose by 90 some odd points with blacks, 30-60 points with Latinos and 5-25 points among women. Want to guess which two groups are voting in larger and larger numbers? (hint, it's not blacks) The war on women and latinos has taken its toll. And yes, they are wars. When at a state level you illegally curb a woman's right to chose, you're waging war on women. Then on a federal level you refuse to renew the Violence Against Women Act. You're telling them they don't have control over their own bodies and it doesn't matter what happens to them. And latinos, they sure as shit haven't forgotten Republicans have been denying them an easier path to citizenship, thus why the Repubs are trotting out Rubio and now deciding immigration reform might be a good idea. Ever watch Firefly? Know how they all speak an English and Chinese hybrid? It's wrong. It'll be some Spanglish and Chinese hybrid in the future (ie 2050). Oh, and millennials with our massive and crippling student loan debts? Guess who we're going to blame. That's right, the new right and far right boomers (yes, generations have done it before and yes the pendulum has swung before). The right likes to complain that the Dems are too liberal and destroying America with entitlement programs. Millennials aren't stupid and we're as interconnected with the world as ever. We see that the Dems are now the centrist party. Obamacare? Yeah, that shit IS Romneycare AND the same program the Republicans' (the pro Violence Women Act Republicans of Bob Dole's era) plan from the mid-90s. But woooo boy, watch out, that shit will destroy America so let's try to repeal it thirty-seven times. Or will it? Is the left perfect? Hell no. But at least they're a side of productive policy rather than just obstructionism and obfuscation. A two party system needs two parties to work, the Right doesn't want to play right now.
Nothing is new, the current prez is just carrying on an agenda of domestic spying that's older than most on here. timeline:
Bill Maher (facetiously): "OK, we record the calls, but we don't listen to them. . . Well, yeah, we really do listen to them, but we don't masturbate to them."
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-13-NSA Surveillance/id-132379417b9742b2a35dd685de12bb67 new government motto : how well does everyone trust our elected now? Better yet: how well do you trust that big data will be used as claimed when the ones saying that "all the data is benign and won't be dangerous to law abiding citizens and is not an invasion of privacy"..............are proven liars? I don't fear our electeds, I simply don't trust them any further than one of my pubes will stretch.
Man, Obama just can't keep from stepping on his own dick these days. Normally it's not a big deal, but timing is a big deal in politics. This is a trip you take when you're out of office, or at least, after some successes.
There has not been even one riot let alone a revolution. Perhaps he does consider himself and all his fellow hucksters very successful.
If only Mitt Romney was elected, his Mormon underpants would have sent this out of orbit and saved the world!
My only solace is that the non-libertarian wing of the Republicans would be as bad or worse at enabling this. Of course the Government couldn't get their hands on all this data, if we weren't so free at giving out all this data for our own convenience. A good rule of thumb is "once you type it and hit the button, the info is out there for everyone to point fingers and laugh their buttockal muscles off at." or as I like to put it: "Ew! That old guy who lives alone, buys WOMEN'S UNDERWEAR online!" As I've written (ranted) elsewhere:
Why else do you think that texting is encouraged? It doesn't even fall under the electronics surveillance laws at all. sure the guv doesn't may not listen into phone conversations, but all those texts are free gratis for them. Given your quote there, how can anyone trust what the talking heads on TV are saying. Now that the man knows that most people will put up with this shit...there are no limits. I get a kick out of the hard sell that's happening whenever a authority figure talks on the subject. And preoccupied and/or ignorant people eat that shit up.
If they do it to their own.....they do it to us: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013...625?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=76
