Jim Hightower: Why Pay for Illegal Spying if it Doesn't Work?

[marmar]

from the Progressive:


Why Pay for Illegal Spying if it Doesn't Work?
By Jim Hightower, Feb. 5, 2014


President Obama's support for NSA's domestic spying program prompted a critic to say: "Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: 'trust us, we won't abuse the data we collect.'"

Oh wait, that wasn't a critic speaking – it was Obama himself! He was trying to shush critics by insisting that the threadbare slipcover of reforms he was throwing over the massive spy machine should satisfy us that all is well, so please, people, just go back to sleep.

Less than a week later, however, a blaring alarm went off in Washington, shattering any drowsiness that Obama had hoped to induce. The alert came from a small, little-known federal agency called the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, set up by Congress back in 2007 to be an independent monitor of the spook establishment's privacy infringements. In a stunningly-blunt, 238-page report, the five-member panel of legal experts concluded that NSA's bulk data collection is illegal, probably unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments, a serious, ongoing threat to Americans' privacy and liberties – and essentially useless at stopping terrorist acts.

"As a result," wrote the board's majority, "the board recommends that the government end the program." ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://progressive.org/why-are-we-paying-for-an-illegal-spying-program-that-doesnt-work

[TorchTheWitch]

1. It works beautifully

Last edited Thu Feb 6, 2014, 11:01 AM - Edit history (1)

for the ACTUAL intended reason... not the rubbish they claim it's for. These claims are so stupid particularly given the fact that until the fall of the USSR most of us grew up under the "Red Scare". Alllll the time we were told how terrible the Soviet Union was because they spied on their own people. And now somehow they expect us to forget all that when it was fed to us with mother's milk.

[xchrom]

2. du rec.

[reddread]

3. We are all Peace Fresno now

When Peace Fresno was the beneficiary of Joint Terrororism Task Force resources spent infiltrating and monitoring peace advocates
at the height of the BOGUS war on terror, you could only wonder what potentially real threats to public safety were being overlooked or of less concern to the now proven corrupt participants in the process.
In the aftermath of their BUNGLED operation, the Sheriff at the time was "discouraged" from running for Sheriff again, as a response to a number of his crooked and questionable missteps. Im not gonna say Richard Pierce wasnt a special case. The hubris of accepting serious money for "consulting" with a company that named itself Fresno County Security, and painted its vehicles in color schemes echoing the Fresno County Sheriff Department vehicles (that they in fact were, before being sold for less than a pittance through the largess of this sheriff to a company that was paying him a decent amount every month) speaks volumes about the bare knuckled criminal corruption that roams freely through Fresno Law Enforcement and city government. It was only obvious passing through Arizona previous to the small scale uproar locally, that similar behavior in Arizona was outright illegal and led to firings made clear on the front page of the local newspapers.
Pierce's invitation not to run for Sheriff again, is all we received in return for his numerous transgressions while in office, up to and including the questionable surveillance of peace advocates, their spy attending meetings and taking so many notes that he was tasked with minutes on occasion.
While much of Aaron Kilner's sickening story is well known, what is not so clearly understood is how the ACLU felt about standing up for the rights of Californians at the time.
The sense was that previous standing decisions would be jeopardized by any immediate challenge.
In retrospect, we can see where that cautious approach got us today.
I can only hope that the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights will again someday extend their protections to the US as a whole,
and the entire web of corruption built into these activities will be exposed.
It is clearly too much to hope or expect for prosecution of the wrongdoing that any observer of history has a right to expect exists.

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch. Way to go, Jim!