Rand Paul suing White House over NSA policies

[Redfairen]

Source: Associated Press

Republican Sen. Rand Paul says he is filing suit against the Obama administration over the data-collection policies of the National Security Agency. And on his website, he's urging Americans to join the lawsuit, in his words, "to stop Barack Obama's NSA from snooping on the American people."

In an interview airing Friday night on Fox News, the Kentucky Republican tells host Sean Hannity that he believes everyone in the U.S. with a cellphone would be eligible to join the suit as a class action.

Paul says that people who want to join the suit are telling the government that it can't have access to emails and phone records without permission or without a specific warrant.

Paul says the lead lawyer in the suit is Virginia's former attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli.



Read more: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/jan/03/rand-paul-suing-white-house-over-nsa-policies/

[xxqqqzme]

1. Remember near the end

of The Return of the King the ground cracked and started swallowing all the Orcs?

Rand Paul = Orc

Just saying.

[christx30]

2. The trouble with that

analogy is that the orcs didn't try to help Sauron destroy Middle Earth while claiming he was helping it.
So the orcs are at least honest about what they were trying to do.

[onwardsand upwards]

3. They're all orcs, man:

Democratic and Republican wings of the Orc Party.

Pop quiz: who is Sauron in this tale?

[xxqqqzme]

4. rushbo

n/t

[atreides1]

46. Nope

rushbo is one of the Nazgul!

[SummerSnow]

32. What represents the ring?

[freebrew]

34. BFEE

just sayin' ...

[onwardsand upwards]

91. Jacob Rothschild is Sauron

Rupert Murdoch is a Nazgul.

The US Presidency is the ring.

(Rushbo is Gollum ...)

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. What is that phrase describing a person who rushes out in front to disingenously make an argument...

...just to ensure that nobody genuinely does so?

Seriously, I forget what the word(s) for it is. Since there's quite a lot of that going around, it would be quite useful to know.

[DRoseDARs]

6. An asshole. nt

[Alamuti Lotus]

7. Aside from the obvious--perfectly accurate answer though it may be! *nt

[GoneFishin]

17. Luckily I swallowed my tea first, but then LOL for real. nt

[pocoloco]

33. Wrong!

In this case, a big fucking Hero!

The ass holes are the ones here condemning Snowden
and making excuses for the NSA!

And now excuses for the inaction of wimp ass dems who
should have done this long ago!

[Mysterysouppe]

53. Amen. n/t

[GoneFishin]

98. Ironically, I agree 100%, because I praise actions not personalities.

I confess to being conflicted because Rand Paul IS an asshole on most other issues.

[onwardsand upwards]

8. I dunno, I dunno, but it's a cool concept.

If no-one gives you the right answer, make something up.

Something German-sounding: Ratzenflugel or something.

[billhicks76]

9. Replaced

When we don't seize the opportunity to take action against injustice someone else will stand in and take credit for it. This is a big issue and we should be getting ahead of the Liberterian wing of the Republican party who will try to steal votes over this issue. It doesn't matter if Rand Paul is an ahole or not...he knows everyone feels violated and Democrats aren't taking their usual stand because it's their guy in power now. This issue and marijuana legalization can win a lot of votes for whoever decides to champion them.

[onwardsand upwards]

11. Hear, hear!!!

[Titonwan]

20. You are EXACTLY right.

The cheerleaders of the Democratic Party are working against their own interests defending this outrageous invasion of our civil liberties (first, fourth & fifth Amendments) just because it's 'our' guy in office now. Truthfully, I don't a rat's ass who's in office when this kind of crap is going down.
When Glenn Greenwald was criticizing the Bush Admin., there were GOBS of 'democrats' who rallied behind him but when he stayed consistent by doing the same thing to Obama- he's now some kind of 'traitor', 'thin skinnned', 'arrogant', self-serving glamor boy.
The rank stink of pure hypocrisy.

[truth2power]

26. You are correct. Exactly what I was thinking as I read through this thread...

If Democrats or Progressives or whomever aren't happy with Rand Paul doing this, then why aren't they stepping up and taking charge of the narrative?

This bears repeating: "It doesn't matter if Rand Paul is an ahole or not...he knows everyone feels violated and Democrats aren't taking their usual stand because it's their guy in power now." <emphasis added by me>

[Mysterysouppe]

62. A lot of Democrats have a "Dear Leader" complex.

They will dump liberal values (e.g. the right to privacy) in a second if "their guy" decides to violate them. Well, that's not liberalism, which traditionally supports critical thinking and speaking the truth to power.

[L0oniX]

68. Political American Idol ...too good for Fox.

[billhicks76]

84. This is exactly how Bush went down

Even regular republicans couldn't stomach him any longer by 2007. This shifted independents into the democratic camp by 2008. We don't want that to happen to us. Whoever stands up for the people will see a surge upward in the polls.

[NorthCarolina]

31. Exactly. nt

[Mojorabbit]

41. +100 nt

[pangaia]

52. Absolutely right.

[Mysterysouppe]

56. Paul is right on this issue and several others, e.g. marijuana, Syria.

I disagree with his economic theories, but that does not make him wrong about everything.

[customerserviceguy]

77. Excellent points

Who on our side is taking up the cause of the American people when it comes to the NSA's spying? Is it because Rand Paul figured it out faster, or Democratic representatives are afraid of making the President look bad?

All of those of you who disagree with me that Hillary is inevitable, THIS is a place for some truly progressive person to make a stand and seize the nomination and the election away from a woman whose fingers are in as deep on this as Barack Obama's. Or, we can let the Paulbots run with this, and after he's defeated, the American people can put up with NSA spying, just like they have with the jack-boot thugs of the TSA, and the selling of their privacy on Facebook, because it just won't be an issue anymore.

We are such sheep.

[billhicks76]

85. I think it's something else

I think those in our party at the highest leadership levels are afraid of the NSA and probably rightly so.

[rucky]

12. buttache

[Mysterysouppe]

54. There's nothing "disingenuous" about it.

Rand Paul believes in the right of privacy. He also wants to roll back all the gains of the US working class for the past 100 years. But that doesn't change the fact that he is right on this issue and is actually trying to do something about it, unlike almost every Democratic politician.

[DeSwiss]

90. NPD

- Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It tends to be concentrated in the Washington DC area and most state capitols.

[freshwest]

10. Hey, Aqua Bubbha! Just sue every member of Congress who passed the law, you lying dumbass! n/t

[Ash_F]

13. The NSA is massively unpopular right now with Americans

It was Republicans who built the NSA and it is primarily staffed with Republicans

We should not allow Republicans to get credit for fighting the the monster they themselves created.

We need to get behind Democrats who have had the courage to stand up, like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.



We do not need to keep making excuses for the right wing psychopathic behavior of the NSA. They are not the Democrats' allies.

[marble falls]

45. For the sake of factual accuracy, Harry Truman had more to do wth the NSA than any Republican.....

just saying, not implying anything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency#Black_Chamber

[Mysterysouppe]

55. Absolutely right. Only a mindless partisan would ignore this historical fact.

[Ash_F]

103. OK but the people who head the NSA are people like Alexander and Clapper

I am looking at the organization as it is in this era.

PS - Also the FISA court is 10/11 Bush/Reagan bots.

[marble falls]

104. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 .... that would be the President prior to Reagan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act

I voted for that President twice. And against Reagan. The mistake being made is partisan. There has been no good use of FISA or the NSA, ever under either party. Stop being partisan.

Under another President I voted for:

http://www.cnss.org/pages/foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-fisa.html

FISA Applied to Secret Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches in 1994

In 1978, the Congress had refused to authorize secret warrantless searches of homes and offices. After Attorney General Reno authorized a secret search of CIA spy Aldrich Ames' home and his attorney challenged it, the Clinton administration asked Congress to extend FISA to authorize secret physical searches of Americans' homes and offices. The civil liberties community objected that such secret searches are unconstitutional, but the Justice Department argued that it was better to have such searches authorized by the FISA Court than carried out solely on the signature of the Attorney General as had occurred in the investigation of Aldrich Ames.

In the summer of 1994 the House Intelligence Committee held a hearing to consider the Administration's proposal to extend the FISA to include physical searches:

Senate Select Committee Report on The Counterintelligence and Security Enhancements Act of 1994, No. 103-296 June 30, 1994
Testimony by Kate Martin, Director of CNSS, then a project of the ACLU, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
Testimony by Jamie S. Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
Testimony by Kenneth C. Bass, III, before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, July 14, 1994
CNSS/ACLU's memo about the proposed warrantless national security searches under FISA, August 9, 1994

During late summer 1994, Congressman Don Edwards opposed extending the FISA to authorize secret searches and Attorney General Janet Reno responded.

Letter from Congressman Don Edwards opposing the proposed FISA amendment, August 18, 1994
Letter from Attorney General Janet Reno to Congressman Edwards, September 12, 1994

Congress amended the FISA to authorize secret physical searches with the Counterintelligence and Security Enhancements Act of 1994, Public Law 103-359, Sec. 9. Afterwards, the Supreme Court ruled in a different context that the Constitution requires the government to give individuals "knock and notice" when searching their homes, as the civil liberties community had argued that it did. Wilson v. United States, 514 U.S. 927 (1995).

[L0oniX]

66. The NSA is a shit stain on the constitution.

[reddread]

100. the National Security State

Compartmentalizing the breadth and width of the problem into one untouchable agency is not really doing the problem justice.
I think we need to define the situation more accurately by framing the historical facts more broadly.
Pinning everything on some policy is ignoring the real issues at the root of the problem.
We should think about addressing what has really become of this country and our hopes for democracy since 1947.

[bucolic_frolic]

14. The Political Spectrum is Round

It's not too uncommon for the extreme lefts and rights to agree on some issues

Libertarian Tea Party Rand Paul is of such variety

Just as the Republican Party is an oxymoronic pairing of greed and Christianity

the Tea Party may be an oxymoronic blend of Libertarian Fascism supported by
Big Business Money.

The American People as a whole are not the brightest and are slow to grasp
what is happening, and slower to react.

But I think they've finally figured all this out.

Rebellion and the impulse to freedom runs deep in America, and a cell
phone is something all understand

Fake Rebellion sponsored by monied interests should not be allowed
to fool the American people.

[pangaia]

57. Good points.

I would only question whether or not the American people have " finally figured all this out."

Some yes, but I think a vast minority.

[BlueStreak]

71. I had a teacher in HS a long time ago

You never know who is going to leave the biggest impact on you. This was a guy who seemed like a dumb schmuck. He taught social studies, but mainly was there as a football coach. I didn't expect to learn much. And I can't remember his name, I'm sorry to say.

However, I still remember vividly the day he was talking about the spectrum of political thought. He reached his right arm far to his right and talked about American conservatives -- and other even more radically right. And then he stretched he left arm far to his left with the similar discussion about leftist politics.

And before we knew it, his arms had reached out so far his hands came together behind his back. And then have game a lucid explanation of how far right meets far left.

This may be the only thing I remember from that school year, but Coach was absolutely right.

And here's the part that is hardest for people at DU. When we have things in common with others we perceive to be distant from us, we SHOULD work together. I am just not going to agree with Rand or Ron Paul on some of the things they believe. But we should work together on the ones we do agree on. Just like my coach whom I underestimated, Rand Paul has more on the ball then we give him credit for.

[bucolic_frolic]

80. Making Political Hay

Yes, we should work together, but did GWB work with liberals?

I wonder about Rand Paul too. He has sound political instincts for
seizing a political opportunity, but he's still a Tea Party regular, and
by that I mean that he's only pushing the NSA Cell Phone litigation
because it's working against Obama. If Obama had gutted the NSA,
Rand Paul would be trashing Obama for being weak on national security.

Opportunist.

[Th1onein]

83. I absolutely agree with you, BlueStreak. United we stand, divided we fall.

Those in power want us to be polarized. But it is against our best interests. Those things we can stand together on, we NEED to stand together on.

[BlueStreak]

92. Or to put it another way, why should we stand with Diane Feinstein on this issue?

She needs to stand with us, not the other way around.

[Th1onein]

106. Absolutely.

[onehandle]

15. Rand Paul is the Michelle Bachmann of the Senate. nt

[BumRushDaShow]

35. Actually Ted Crudz is the Michelle Bachmann of the Senate.

[Orsino]

42. Except that now he's right about something. n/t

[marble falls]

47. You're one of the very few to say it, though many, me included, agree. I hope you don't get ....

shit stormed over it.

[Orsino]

49. I have no doubt that if asked to string together more than two sentences on the subject...

...Sen. Paul would still manage to say something both stupid and terrible.

[marble falls]

50. True, too.

[baldguy]

16. All the Snowden fans should be ecstatic.

Sen. Dr. St. Rand is doing exactly what they've been calling for to happen.

[Titonwan]

21. Where's the Democrats on this?

Which Democrat is suing the NSA? We certainly know it ain't gonna be Dianne Feinstein, as she's up to her ears in corruption. Why isn't Bernie Sanders not suing? The ACLU has got a lawsuit, so who are the Democrats screaming about this travesty?
Sure, Rand Paul is cray cray, but he's smart enough to get ahead of the trend (people tiring of invasion of their privacy) and that's called "politics".
Where does the President stand on this?
http://www.660news.com/2014/01/03/government-lawyers-appeal-ruling-that-threatens-nsa-phone-surveillance-program/
Democrat fail.

[truth2power]

30. Yes, Where ARE the Democrats on this? It seems that

most posters on this thread get it. I'm encouraged.

[Bradical79]

105. Not really

Knowing Rand Paul he's likely pretty clueless about what is actually going on and is only going to deflect attention away from legit debate and argument over the program, and confuse people. It's an attempt to take a populist stance that looks like it fits in with his libertarian image. I'm sure loyalists like yourself who could care less about right and wrong and our constitution are far more excited about this than any Democratic critics of the NSA. It gives you another shot at using character assassination to deflect from your complete inability to grasp the situation and present an intelligent argument.

[baldguy]

107. Did you even bother to read any of the replies on this thread?

The anti-Obama crowd on DU has been championing Rand Paul for weeks now. This is just the latest example. Don't blame me when they go out of their way to praise this asshole.

And you say "loyalist" like it's something to be ashamed of. DAMN RIGHT I'M A LOYALIST! When faced with a raging lunatic like this, the only question is: Why aren't you a LOYALIST too? I'll entrust the Constitution to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party any day over any objectivists, libertarians, Republicans, Teabaggers, and any damned fool who believes the propaganda from the likes of Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald and Ed Snowden which pretends that they give a rats' ass about your freedom, liberty, privacy, the rule of law, or the Constitution. THEY DON'T!

[appacom]

108. I'm with you, baldguy.

[GoneFishin]

18. All the authoritarians should be thrilled. Now anyone who defends the 4th amendment can

be called a Paul-Bot.

[Titonwan]

22. Thank you n/t

[baldguy]

27. And yet the world that Rand Paul & Ed Snowden advocate is more authoritarian than you can imagine.

RW libertarianism is nothing but corporate feudalism, isn't it?

[freebrew]

36. AFAIC...

libertarianism beats fascism or authoritarianism any day of the week.

It seems that right now, we have serfdom.

[baldguy]

39. Then you don't know what the real issues are.

If you don't like the NSA, try and stop Microsoft or Facebook from spying on you in Snowden's world.

[freebrew]

81. I know the issues...

my responses aren't usually taken so seriously.

Just to set it straight, I back the actions taken by Snowden. He deserves clemency and/or praise.
I don't have to agree with his idea of good forms of government.

I do think that Rand Paul is a major idiot trying to capitalize on a current issue with which most of the populace
are having issues.

[GoneFishin]

97. Your caption contains an oxymoron. I support good ideas and actions.

I am glad that the NSA information is coming out.

Ed Snowden destroyed his career, gave up a cushy life, and risks a life sentence behind bars to expose what he believes are violations of the constitution.

Rand Paul is an opportunist advancing his career by jumping on an opening left vacant by milquetoast democrats afraid they might wrinkle their suits if they dare to stand up for the 4th amendment.

[truth2power]

28. Yes, thank you, GoneFishin. n/t

[RC]

19. If Sen. Rand Paul is doing this, then that means the NSA is doing all right and good then, correct?

According to some around here, that's exactly what it means. You know like Snowden being a Libertarian, so therefore he is a traitor, and we are supposed to ignore why he did what he did and the criminality of the government agency he exposed?

Why is there such Black and white thinking on a supposed Left leaning web site in the first place?

The NSA is a runaway agency, headed by a would be dictator. We need all the help we can get to stop them, assuming it is not too late now.

[GoneFishin]

23. +1000. Why indeed? No, really. Why?? Hmmm.

" ... such Black and white thinking on a supposed Left leaning web site ..."

[Titonwan]

24. Puzzling, isn't it.

Rank and file 'democrats' are not liberal nor progressive when they cheerlead crap that goes against their own self interests. I used to think blind obedience to party was a rethug thang, but not so much, anymore.

[Enrique]

25. because the President is a Democrat

as some people see it, when a Democrat is president, all U.S. wars are noble, everyone we kill had it coming, all oversight by Congress should stop, and all reporters should stop asking questions.

[RC]

58. You noticed that too, huh?

Party before principle, every time. Sounds like a rather Conservative mind set to me to me.

[L0oniX]

64. ^^^this^^^

[freedom fighter jh]

43. It's not easy to stand with those you are thinking of as the enemy

and against a president that you may have helped re-elect 14 months ago. When I think of Rand Paul I think of his goon stomping that young woman protestor's head into a curb during his campaign. And Cuccinelli wanted to bring the Dark Ages back to women in Virginia.

There must be a better way to protest the disrespect of our rights that the spying program is.

[Mysterysouppe]

59. Some Democrats place party over everything else.

So they denounce someone like Snowden even when they know he is doing the right thing by exposing the Democratic administration's continuation of illegal and unconscionable spying.

This attitude reminds me of high school: we have to support our team and oppose all the other teams, and denounce anyone who exposes our team for wrongdoing.

That is mindless loyalty, which is plenty evident on this site.

[L0oniX]

63. There is plenty of that going on here my friend. It's pathetic at best.

[L0oniX]

61. Not only that but now a ton of assholes are going say you love Rand if you hate the NSA.

[RC]

67. I bet I can even come up with some well known DU names among those

assholes bullies and disrupters.

[L0oniX]

69. Like that would be hard to do?

[RC]

70. It should be, but sadly, it is not.

[Laelth]

29. Even a broken clock ...

... but I won't be joining any lawsuit against the government that Senator Paul is filing.

-Laelth

[TwilightGardener]

37. Rand Paul and the rest of Congress could defund the NSA like THAT, if they wanted to.

There's already legislation in the works to curtail their activities. Paul has no standing to sue, as he's a member of the body who let NSA run amok to begin with, but that won't stop the attention whore from seeking attention--from lefties as usual, the old trick his dad used.

[arcane1]

73. They could repeal the Patriot Act, too

[TwilightGardener]

74. Sure--that's what you do when you want to be EFFECTIVE and make real changes.

When you file a vanity lawsuit instead, you're just riding the issue and have no intention of actually doing anything about the nuts and bolts of the problem.

[Turbineguy]

38. That should be fun...

[randome]

40. Snowden's hero is making a stand!

Has anyone said the obligatory 'Fuck Rand Paul!' yet?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[treestar]

44. No standing eom

[Ikonoklast]

48. Grandstanding.

And fooling the gullible.

[heaven05]

51. fuck rand paul

[appacom]

112. Every day, all day.

[Thinkingabout]

60. The plot is beginning to play their hand, the muddy water clears more with each

revelation. Rand Paul shows more with every statement he is not capable of holding public office, surely is not capable of being president. His thinking has been warped by years of crap being fed to him. There has been some postings suspecting Libertarians of perhaps some involvement in pushing this issue. True to the Paul method, Ron attaching earmarks to bills and then voting against the bill. Rand is guilty of the same. They don't like guberment involvement but Rand Paul doesn't mind using guberment to rave and rant.

[ucrdem]

65. Kentucky Fried southern strategy

from Colonel Pat's secret recipe.

[sadoldgirl]

72. Yes, where indeed are the Democrats?

Still, Marc Udall has tried to bring this issue to the floor, but the secrecy commitment does not allow him to say much. Those Democrats, who are quiet about the NSA, are the ones to enable someone like Senator Paul.

[struggle4progress]

75. Let me see if I've got this straight: Paul plans to file suit against the current administration

for certain record-collection activities conducted pursuant to warrants issued by the FISA court, which was established by Congress about forty years ago and the current judges of which are all appointees of SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts? And he plans to do this under some class-action theory, in an era when SCOTUS has been diligently undermining class-action?

[polichick]

76. He sees his opening for a 2016 run.

[bearssoapbox]

78. Will that lawsuit against the Obama administation be filed at the same time as the other lawsuits?

If he's filing against this administration shouldn't he be filing against Bush the Lesser, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. and /or other past administrations?

Shouldn't everyone in Congress and the Senate that voted for the NSA policies, for at least the past 12-13 years if not longer, also be sued?

Has he said why he is suing this administration and not the last one?

Seems like there's plenty of lawsuits to go around once the can of worms gets opened and someone has the where-with-all to file them.

Is there some reason that Bush the Lesser's administration shouldn't or can't be sued?

Not trying to be a smart-ass but it seems like there's plenty of blame to go around.

Am I missing something or being to simplistic????

For the record, I'm plenty pissed about the NSA spying and collecting data on us. It just seems like some are trying to lay most, if not all of the blame on this administration.

[hughee99]

82. When did congress vote on procedures for the day-to-day operations of the NSA?

I missed those votes, apparently.

[bearssoapbox]

87. I don't think I specified any one thing.

"Shouldn't everyone in Congress and the Senate that voted for the NSA policies, for at least the past 12-13 years if not longer, also be sued?"

I'm just saying that if Paul is going to sue one administration then why not sue everyone involved with the NSA and their policies.

Here's 217 reps names. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130724/17110423931/217-representatives-who-voted-to-keep-nsa-spying-all-your-data.shtml

I'm just wondering why he's going after Obama and not his predecessors?

The 2001 congress?

Can't congress vote to defund NSA or is it entrenched to deep in the defense/Pentagon funding?

Or is he just being Rand Paul?

[hughee99]

88. Congress can defund the NSA, or the White house can just tell them to stop doing

this specific thing. His lawsuit specifics are a joke anyway, but if he wanted to sue the NSA over constitutional violations, his suites would go back a lot farther than the last 12-13 years.

[bearssoapbox]

89. Thanks for the info

I was being somewhat facetious in my post because just how far back and how many lawsuits could be filed?

Maybe he shouldn't listen to that thing on his head.

[ctsnowman]

99. Nailed it.

[democratisphere]

79. I AGREE with this fundamentalist RW Tea Party Nut case.

I don't hear any DEMS stepping up and being vocally LOUD about this gross abuse of power.

“There will come a time when it isn't 'They're spying on me through my phone' anymore. Eventually, it will be 'My phone is spying on me'.”
― Philip K. Dick

[Blue_Tires]

95. You realize in the long run this suit will accomplish fuck-all in addressing the issue, right?

And if Paul was truly serious about doing something, he would, I don't know, probably be trying to get it done through the senate, right?

[blkmusclmachine]

86. HA HA--Pot calling the kettle black. GOP LOVES the NSA. True bipartisanship w/the spooks. Hypocrites

[mitty14u2]

93. Inside the mind of NSA chief Gen Keith Alexander

Inside the mind of NSA chief Gen Keith Alexander

A lavish Star Trek room he had built as part of his 'Information Dominance Center' is endlessly revealing

It has been previously reported that the mentality of NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander is captured by his motto "Collect it All". It's a get-everything approach he pioneered first when aimed at an enemy population in the middle of a war zone in Iraq, one he has now imported onto US soil, aimed at the domestic population and everyone else.

But a perhaps even more disturbing and revealing vignette into the spy chief's mind comes from a new Foreign Policy article describing what the journal calls his "all-out, barely-legal drive to build the ultimate spy machine". The article describes how even his NSA peers see him as a "cowboy" willing to play fast and loose with legal limits in order to construct a system of ubiquitous surveillance. But the personality driving all of this - not just Alexander's but much of Washington's - is perhaps best captured by this one passage, highlighted by PBS' News Hour in a post entitled: "NSA director modeled war room after Star Trek's Enterprise". The room was christened as part of the "Information Dominance Center":

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/15/nsa-mind-keith-alexander-star-trek

[Blue_Tires]

94. Paul doing what he does best

which is create a meaningless publicity-whoring symbolic gesture which makes him look like he's taking the lead on the issue when in reality he's doing nothing...And predictably, the Paul sycophants will eagerly lap this shit up...

Not surprised in the least that Cuccinelli has his scummy claws all over this "lawsuit"

[Dopers_Greed]

96. I agree with the suit itself

However, the fact that the Hair Plagiarist and the Cooch are behind it makes me want to run far away.

[JoeyT]

101. And today we learn why it's stupid to defend

vile policies. Because then the opposition can paint them as YOUR vile policies, even if they used to be their vile policies, and will be their vile policies again the second they manage to wrest control from you.

The NSA is all Obama's now. It doesn't matter that right wingers crafted it and developed its culture and it's been used against Democrats, and it's more or less run by right wingers. He thought it was awesome, so now he can own it. As the man once said "Eat your peas.".

[Tarheel_Dem]

102. My my! Look at all the "liberals" consumed by this non issue.

This is about Rand Paul's presidential ambitions, nothing more. It's also an issue that routinely ranks near the bottom of concerns for the American people. Why the "liberals" here aren't marshalling forces to get unemployment back for 1.3 million people, to get a jobs bill through this worthless Congress, and to elect more Democrats to stop obstructing and move in a more "liberal" direction is of great "concern". But, I suspect that's not really the goal here.



It's important to remember that anyone can be an "internet liberal" as you have no idea who you're communicating with, or what their agenda is.

[Adam-Bomb]

109. Right now, I don't care WHO is going after the NSA

as long as SOMEBODY is.

Enough is enough, dammit.

[Blue_Tires]

110. But Paul isn't going after the NSA

this is a publicity stunt and nothing more...

When Cuccinelli was AG he sued the White House two or three times...They were all meaningless, but the teabag nutbars absolutely loved him for it...

[NobodyHere]

111. Paul is still doing more than the majority of Democrats

Ineffective as he may be.

This is quite frankly embarrassing to the Democratic party that Paul is right on this issue and they're wrong.