Spymaster wants to outlaw reporting on NSA spying

[villager]

<snip>

In the movie plot of a spy thriller, our hero gets captured by agents of a repressive government, and they take him into a dark interrogation room, where the sadistic spymaster hisses at him: "We have ways of making you talk."

Meanwhile, in real life, the director of our National Security Agency hisses at journalists: "We have ways of keeping you from talking." Well, not quite in those words, but Gen. Keith Alexander, chief spook at NSA and head of US Cyber Command, did reveal a chilling disrespect for our Constitutional right to both free speech and a free press. In an October interview, he called for outlawing any reporting on his agency's secret program of spying on every American: "I think it's wrong that newspaper reporters have all these documents… giving them out as if these – you know it just doesn't make any sense." Then came his spooky punch line: "We ought to come up with a way of stopping it… It's wrong to allow this to go on."

Holy Thomas Paine! Spy on us, okay; report on it, not. What country does this autocrat represent? Alexander's secret, indiscriminate, supercomputer scooping-up of data on every phone call, email, and other private business of every American is what "doesn't make any sense." It's an Orwellian, mass invasion of everyone's privacy, creating the kind of routine, 24/7 surveillance state our government loudly deplores in China and Russia – and it amounts to stomping on our Fourth Amendment guarantee that we're to be free of "unreasonable searches and seizures."

That's the real outrage we should be "stopping." But no, our constitutionally-clueless spymaster doubles down on his dangerous ignorance by also stomping on the First Amendment. If this were a movie, people would laugh at it as being too silly, too far-fetched to believe. But there it is, horribly real.

<snip>

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/8232#.Ut6wgRDTldh

[2naSalit]

1. What I think would fix this

"problem" of unwarranted spying would be a number of the workers deciding to revolt and design a virus to basically destroy the NSA's capabilities. I would love to see that.

[sked14]

2. Instead of this,

"We ought to come up with a way of stopping it… It's wrong to allow this to go on."

It should be this:
We ought to come up with a way of stopping Gen. Keith Alexander...It's wrong to allow this man to go on like this.

It's govt. officials like him that scare the hell out of me, he should be removed and a wholesale, top to bottom audit of the NSA and appoint a civil rights oriented director.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. ,

,

[Octafish]

4. We the People now are the Enemies of the State.

And some people believe these aren't NAZI times. Guess they find nothing strange in secret government, wars without end, and treason.

Thanks for the heads up, villager. The General holds the most power of any one man in history. It seems to have gone to his head.

[villager]

5. As it always does, without checks and balances..

Too bad even some of those in a self-described virtual "Underground" have become apologists for the absence of such checks....

[Octafish]

6. Here's the antidote for ignorance and tyranny...

The Truth:

Alfred W. McCoy

The Making of the US Surveillance State

(One 29min. program)
30 second Preview/Promo

In July 2013 an article appeared on line in TomDispatch that gave an up to date and chilling analysis of the unprecedented powers of the US Surveillance state. It’s author, University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor of history Alfred McCoy, credits Edward Snowden for having revealed today’s reality. And McCoy adds his perspective of the intriguing history that led up to this point - and he makes a few predictions as to what to expect in the near future. That article in TomDispatch caught the attention of radio host, writer and Middle East expert Jeff Blankfort who allows me to broadcast the highlights of his interview with Professor McCoy.

McCoy studied Southeast Asian history at Yale University before coming to Madison. In 1971 he was commissioned to write a book on the opium trade in Laos and discovered that the French equivalent to the CIA had financed its covert operations from the control of the Indochina drug trade. He also found evidence that after the US replaced the French the CIA took over the drug trade. Not surprisingly the CIA tried to block publication of the book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. But after three English editions and translation into nine foreign languages, this study is now regarded as the “classic” work on the global drug traffic.

Professor Alfred W. McCoy is the author of: The Politics Of Heroin (in 1972) and A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror (published in 2006) A film based in part on that book, "Taxi to the Darkside," won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2008. McCoy’s latest study of this topic, Torture and Impunity (Madison, 2012), explores the political and cultural dynamics of America’s post 9/11 debate over interrogation.This program was first aired on July 24, 2013 at KZYX Radio in Philo, CA.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175724/

http://history.wisc.edu/people/faculty/mccoy.htm

The 35 minute version is here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/69998

A387For a broadcast quality mp3 version click HERE

SOURCE (scroll down for links): http://tucradio.org/new.html

Like turning the light on, the stuff also makes cockroaches scurry under refrigerators.