We Are Living in the World Dick Cheney Made

[Beacool]

By Howard Fineman
3/4/13

WASHINGTON -- The capital's dysfunction is leading some thinkers here to conclude that "power" no longer exists. In a tribal and digital world, the theory goes, top-down authority is dead.

Anyone who believes that -- and every other voter in America -- needs to see R.J. Cutler's calmly voiced yet disturbing new feature documentary called "The World According to Dick Cheney." It's a cautionary tale of unchecked zealotry in action. "We need people of principle who have deep conviction," Cutler told me. "But deep conviction can also take down a democracy."



This is not too promising:

The portrait is riveting because we know what Cheney's ascent led to: our seemingly irrevocable, full-blown security state, with all the attendant risks of constitutional and civil liberties abuses; wholesale destruction and civilian deaths in swaths of Afghanistan and Iraq; more than 6,500 dead and more than 50,000 wounded U.S. soldiers; the rise of remote-control warfare, now embodied by drones; and a relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds arguably more antagonistic than ever before. The film has the dreadful fascination of a road trip you know ends in a car wreck.

Since Cheney left the capital, President Barack Obama not only hasn't dismantled most of the "world according to Dick Cheney"; in many cases, he has either actively ratified it (drones and intrusive surveillance and monitoring of leaks). In other cases in which he has opted for rollback (Afghanistan), Obama has moved with extreme caution.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-fineman/dick-cheney-documentary_b_2806670.html

[Octafish]

1. The NAZI's out of the bag.

Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

[Beacool]

2. Cheney is a really scary individual.

But what's also scary is the knowledge that probably no future president will dismantle what Cheney, et al. put together. The loss of certain civil liberties and the use of drones to fight remote controlled wars are here to stay.

Ain't this new world grand?

[Octafish]

3. Absolutely frightening guy, perfect for gangster times that Frank Church warned us about in 1975.

Regarding the National Security Agency and its ability to eavesdrop on all communication (before the World Wide Web made it easy):

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3510598

Regarding Fineman: The guy has seen the light. His paper has at least tried to warn us:

Top Secret America

Secret Government means some citizens have access to information their fellow citizens do not. On Wall Street, that's inside trading. In the Beltway, that's business as usual, whether it's to make a killing on the DJIA or whether it's to cover up a killing by the FBI.

[Beacool]

12. It's amazing, isn't it?

Trickle, trickle, those are our civil liberties being limited or eliminated little by little.

It's also apparently OK to now kill Americans without due process and if his 16 year old son gets in the way, that's just too bad. They call that "collateral damage", don't they?

[Mnemosyne]

4. And we thought Hitler was bad. Fuck Godwin. nt

[Octafish]

8. You are correct, Mnemosyne.

Since What would the world look like if the NAZIs had won World War II?, I've been holding back.

I am not holding back, any more.

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam



PS, for those who actually think the NAZIs are a thing of the past:

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

and...

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn t win WWII, so they backed Bushes

and...

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

So. When can we expect to see the traitors, war criminals, warmongers and sundry gangsters thrown in the slammer?

[Mnemosyne]

16. I don't think we should hold our breaths, Octafish. Why do evil bastards go on and on, while decent

men die young?

Kepp educating on the BFEE! I know it seems like an ant fighting an elephant, but it does matter that these things are not forgotten.

I know Karma will kick their butts, sooner or later, but I do so want to live to see it. I'll be 55 this month, think I stand a chance at living that long?

[Octafish]

17. My friend, I'm 10 months ahead of you...

Even at this advanced age, I plan on seeing them answering to justice.

When the net was new, I thought we had a better chance.

They monitor, manipulate, and misinform through that now, as well as in all the ways Frank Church warned us about.

And, thanks to cell phones, they can send in the drones.



PS: I still think we have the edge on our side, that is the Truth. That's why its dissemination through the press and wherever Americans gather is the most important thing in a democracy. It's also why the pen is mightier than the sword.

[Bandit]

5. There are three people that will make me smile when they DIE

Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and Anthony Scalia... Can't happen soon enough for me....

[Tikki]

6. NO FUC**N LIE and we should be resurrecting his sorry miserable failures in the media daily..

..we are letting he and boosh get away with crimes...

Tikki

[Beacool]

11. Hear, hear!!

[Skidmore]

7. Cheney is O'Brien in the flesh.

[ProSense]

9. What utter bullshit

"Since Cheney left the capital, President Barack Obama not only hasn't dismantled most of the "world according to Dick Cheney"; in many cases, he has either actively ratified it (drones and intrusive surveillance and monitoring of leaks). In other cases in which he has opted for rollback (Afghanistan), Obama has moved with extreme caution."

The media pundits are once again playing people. They're pushing war with Iran, and using Obama to validate Cheney. It's not Cheney' fucking world. That evil asshole needs to crawl back under a rock, not hyped by the media.

President Obama is not continuing Dick Cheney's policies. "Intrusive surveillance"? The laws were abused by Bush/Cheney. Where the hell is there evidence that the President is continuing illegal spying?

If anyone cannot tell the difference between Cheney and Obama, they need help.

President Obama Shows No CISPA-like Invasion of Privacy Needed to Defend Critical Infrastructure

By Michelle Richardson

Last night the President signed an executive order (EO) aimed at ramping up the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure. Overwhelmingly, the EO focuses on privacy-neutral coordination between the government and the owners and operators of critical infrastructure (CI)—such as the banking, communication, power, and transportation sectors—which have long been regulated because of their fundamental role in the smooth operation of society. Now that these important entities are all connected to the internet, the administration insists that their cybersecurity be on par with their physical security.

There are two important information sharing advancements in the EO, and this time they are good for privacy. They do not include the many problems of legislation like the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act (CISPA) because an executive order by definition cannot take away the privacy protections granted by current statutes. In other words, the EO cannot exempt companies from privacy statutes, or let the government collect new information. It can only act within its existing power to change policies and practices.

Two cheers for cybersecurity programs that can do something besides spy on Americans.

The first information sharing advancement greases the wheels of information from the government to the private sector. Section 4 lights a fire under agencies and directs them to share more information with companies—information they already have and can legally collect under current law. Information flowing in this direction is nowhere as near as problematic as the opposite direction. To the extent that corporate and congressional advocates claim that CISPA is needed for this purpose, the administration beat them to the punch. The EO directs the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the secretary of homeland security to set up a system to get threat information to critical infrastructure owners and operators. They have four months to pull it together.

The second information sharing provision is a net positive for civil liberties. Section 5 directs the Department of Homeland Security, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) and the Office of Management and Budget to evaluate current interagency information sharing. There is plenty of cyber information floating around the executive branch and across different agencies. There doesn't appear to be any publicly available regulation of how that information is protected for privacy purposes, and it may very well be that it is protected by a mish-mash of originating statutes that treat different types of information with varying protections. By holding the agencies accountable to the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs)—transparency, choice, minimization and more—we may see a government-wide cybersecurity privacy regime evolve. To get it done right, PCLOB will need to be funded and staffed up, and advocacy will be needed to keep the agencies true to the FIPPs, but the President has now declared them the bellwether for cybersecurity information.

Overall, the EO is a win for privacy and civil liberties. It's a good reminder that while some are focused like a laser on turning our internet records over to the National Security Agency, there are a lot of other things that government can do to advance cybersecurity instead. Now it's up to all of us to make sure Congress follows the President's lead.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/president-obama-shows-no-cispa-invasion-privacy-needed

[Octafish]

10. Seeing how things in the USA PATRIOT Act are so secret, we don't know WHAT we need to know.

Ask Senators Wyden and Udall, a pair of liberal Democrats:

Senators Wyden and Udall still fighting against Patriot Act secrecy

by Steve Ragan - Mar 19 2012, 17:55
The Tech Herald

EXCERPT...

Section 215 is in the spotlight because FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts have issued legal opinions on the section in secret. It’s a public statute, but how it is interpreted by the FISA courts, or anyone else in the government for that matter, is unknown. However, it’s clear that the section vastly expands the government’s power when it comes to intelligence collection.

While the government has given Congress details on their interpretation, the data was so highly classified that most Congressional members do not have anyone on staff with the clearance to read them.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Holder by Senators Wyden and Udall, this fact was highlighted, along with a note that if their colleagues were fully aware of the data, they would likely be “surprised and angry” to learn how the Patriot Act has been dealt with in secret. So would everyone else the letter says.

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what they government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says,” the Senators wrote.

SNIP...

“However, in a democratic society – in which the government derives its power from the consent of the people – citizens rightly expect that their government will not arbitrarily keep information from them. Americans expect their government to operate within the boundaries of publicly-understood law, and as voters they have a need and a right to now how the law is being interpreted, so that they can ratify or reject decisions made on their behalf. To put it another way, Americans know that their government will sometimes conduct secret operations, but they don't think that government officials should be writing secret laws.”

SOURCE: http://www.thetechherald.com/articles/Senators-Wyden-and-Udall-still-fighting-against-Patriot-Act-secrecy/16433/

Then, there's the matter of Obama saying he wouldn't forgive the TELCOs for illegal domestic surveillance, or the banksters, or the CIA torturers, then he did.

There's more. Without all this secret government these days, putting it down might make a drone come flying my way. Shouldn't be that way in a democracy.

[Beacool]

13. How about this that was just posted on The Huff.

Eric Holder: Drone Strike To Kill U.S. Citizen On American Soil Legal, Hypothetically

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration believes it could technically use military force to kill an American on U.S. soil in an "extraordinary circumstance" but has "no intention of doing so," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter disclosed Tuesday.

Holder's March 4 letter was disclosed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had asked whether the Justice Department believed President Barack Obama had the legal authority to order a targeted strike against an American citizen located within the United States.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/05/us-drone-strike_n_2813857.html


He may not have any intention of doing so, but another president may be willing to do it. It's a slippery slope the one we are going down..........

[Octafish]

14. The next Bradley Manning won't know what hit him.

Here's what they really don't like:

Know your BFEE: WikiLeaks Stratfor Dump Exposes Continued Secret Government Warmongering

[smirkymonkey]

15. God, how is that bastard still alive?

He should have been dead years ago. I think he is just staying alive out of sheer spite.

[Beacool]

18. Around here we had a real tragedy.

A young Hasidic couple was killed. The woman was 7 months pregnant. The couple was in a cab on the way to the hospital because she wasn't feeling well. A guy broadsided the cab and killed the couple. In the hospital they were able to do a C-section and the baby boy survived, but unfortunately died the following day. So much sadness, and this guy despite his many health problems is still around. Go figure.