New Yorker: Don’t Blame Edward Snowden for the Paris Attacks

[villager]

<snip>

A reporter from the Guardian then asked Brennan, “What impact do you think Edward Snowden’s revelations had on everything you just talked about and that debate on privacy?” Brennan’s answer was, again, unmistakable. “I think any unauthorized disclosures that are made by individuals who have dishonored the oath of office, that they raised their hand and attested to, undermines this nation’s security,” Brennan said. He was interrupted by applause, then added, “And heroizing such individuals I find to be unfathomable as far as what it is that this country needs to be able to do, again in order to keep itself safe.”

Perhaps it would help Brennan to fathom the unfathomable if he remembers that, before the Snowden revelations, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, raised his hand and, in a Senate hearing, gave false testimony about whether the N.S.A. collected information on Americans. (The Times also pointed to false statements that Brennan made in connection with the Senate Report on Torture and civilian deaths from drone strikes.) Or he might read the opinion by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the phone-records program illegal, or the opinion from the D.C. Circuit, issued just two weeks ago, that it also likely violated the Constitution.

He might try to explain why intelligence agencies chose broad searches that could, as one judge noted, drag in and mark as suspicious anyone who had called someone who called someone who called to order from the same pizza place as someone who had caught the N.S.A.’s eye, when it had legal options, like individualized warrants, available to it. In terms of the mass collection of phone records, in particular, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was convened by the Administration after the revelations, found that the program wasn’t even effective, writing in its report, “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.” It also found that the program broke the law. This assessment makes it a particularly “disgraceful low,” as the Times put it, for Brennan to connect Snowden to the deaths of more than a hundred and twenty people in Paris. Since Snowden, the program has been modified, but only slightly, and in ways that may actually increase its efficiency by making it more targeted and excluding more of the noise of ordinary communications—large bureaucracies, which the N.S.A. has become, do not tend to make judicious choices in the absence of scrutiny.

Brennan didn’t mention a particular leak that would have made a difference in Paris, beyond implying that there were things the public did not know or was not expert enough to remark upon. The argument, insofar as he and others have articulated it, seems to be that terrorists are becoming more cautious and more interested in encryption—something that was already true—and that Americans regard their own intelligence agencies as less trustworthy. But Snowden’s revelations would not have had that effect if he hadn’t also revealed breaches of trust. One of his most important discoveries was that the N.S.A. had crafted a body of classified legal findings to justify broader surveillance, often by interpreting words in real laws—like “target,” “incidental,” “relevant,” “minimize,” and even “terrorist”—in ways that were far from their dictionary meanings and at times, frankly, absurd. In other words, Snowden revealed the existence of secret laws, which are something a free country is not supposed to have.

Brennan’s rhetoric was also clearly directed at an ongoing fight between the government and the tech companies, about whether there should be a limit on private encryption capabilities. The government wants to be able to read everything if it needs to; private companies point out that being asked to make systems more vulnerable creates its own security risks, quite apart from the civil-liberties hazards: if the government can get in more easily, so can hackers who want to steal the private passwords of, say, a power-plant manager, or a C.I.A. director. This is an important debate. The problem that Snowden exposed is that the government took the authority it had to do one thing and then used it to do much broader things. That has a cost in trust that comes due the next time the government asks for more powers. The way to address that distrust is to recognize that the behavior was bad, and that the public, Congress, and the courts do have something to say—and that the intelligence community will listen. There has to be good faith on both sides, and there has to be informed consent.

<snip>

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/dont-blame-edward-snowden-for-the-paris-attacks

[phantom power]

1. "there were things the public did not know or was not expert enough to remark upon"

Shut the fuck up, citizen, and let Big Brother do its job.

[Octafish]

2. Snowden raised his hand and pledged allegiance to Booz Allen Hamilton, a Carlyle Company?

Thank you, Mr. Brennan.

Great article, shows what Democracy is up against more than a bunch of terrorists Democracy's oath takers helped create.

Regarding what Capitalism's Invisible Army does with all that money and technology:

It's About Blackmail, Not National Security.

[Rex]

5. If we had a real press in this country, Brennan would have never made those comments.

Funny how much misery Carlyle has brought upon this world and how little press it gets. Same will Halliburton.

[Octafish]

6. Rupert Murdoch and Friends are just doing Satan's work on earth.

War. Treason. Mass Murder. Theft...All first must spring from the Lie.



The plan spelled out, by a lawyer for Big Tobacco soon-to-turn Supreme Court justice:

The Lewis Powell Memo - Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

Greenpeace has the full text of the Lewis Powell Memo available for review, as well as analyses of how Lewis Powell's suggestions have impacted the realms of politics, judicial law, communications and education.

Blogpost by Charlie Cray - August 23, 2011 at 11:20
Greenpeace.org

Forty years ago today, on August 23, 1971, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.

Powell and his friend Eugene Sydnor, then-chairman of the Chamber’s education committee, believed the Chamber had to transform itself from a passive business group into a powerful political force capable of taking on what Powell described as a major ongoing “attack on the American free enterprise system.”

An astute observer of the business community and broader social trends, Powell was a former president of the American Bar Association and a board member of tobacco giant Philip Morris and other companies. In his memo, he detailed a series of possible “avenues of action” that the Chamber and the broader business community should take in response to fierce criticism in the media, campus-based protests, and new consumer and environmental laws.

SNIP...

The overall tone of Powell’s memo reflected a widespread sense of crisis among elites in the business and political communities. “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack,” he suggested, adding that the attacks were not coming just from a few “extremists of the left,” but also – and most alarmingly -- from “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including leading intellectuals, the media, and politicians.

To meet the challenge, business leaders would have to first recognize the severity of the crisis, and begin marshalling their resources to influence prominent institutions of public opinion and political power -- especially the universities, the media and the courts. The memo emphasized the importance of education, values, and movement-building. Corporations had to reshape the political debate, organize speakers’ bureaus and keep television programs under “constant surveillance.” Most importantly, business needed to recognize that political power must be “assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination – without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/

In the process, their greed and lies work to destroy the planet, along with peace, prosperity and democracy.

Controlling the press makes it so EASY even idiots on SCROTUS can get away with installing George W Bush of the BFEE into the Oval Office.

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)

The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971

Introduction

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="red"]Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]

Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)

So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.

CONTINUED...

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

This story continues through the present day, where we have Chief Justice John Roberts shepherding corporate friendly law through the court, let alone appointing nothing but BFEE-friendly pukes to the FISA Court, making sure the Spys-R-On-Us is A-OK and legal-like.

[951-Riverside]

3. Terrorists were terrorizing way before cellphones ever became popular

and when you're dealing with people who plan on killing themselves after an attack, no amount of electronic surveillance can stop them especially if they're not known but if they are known terrorists then why not just arrest them instead of monitoring them?

[Blue_Tires]

4. Is he directly responsible? No...

But it's naive to think America's enemies haven't derived some side benefits from him selling us out to Russia...

It's also telling that the special snowflake has been AWOL from Twitter for an entire week, like the cowardly, sniveling little traitorous shitstain he is...

[villager]

7. You seem to get a little more bitterly rightwing with each and every post....

n/t

[Blue_Tires]

8. I'm already labeled as such, so I might as well play the role...

DU needs me now more than ever so y'all can point your fuckin' collective finger at me and say "That's the BAD guy!" Wha'chu think tha' make you... good? Me? I always tell the truth -- Even when I lie...

SO SAY "GOODNIGHT" TO THA BAD GUY!!!!

[villager]

9. "Play?"

[Blue_Tires]

10. What the fuck do you care anyway

whether I'm playing the role or I've really turned to the dark side??

Maybe I'm harboring a longtime against certain posters... Maybe I'm trying to get even with the entire forum for some perceived slight or offence... Maybe I just like fucking with Snowdenistas because they're easier to play than a glockenspiel and the anguished music that comes from them is ten times as glorious...

[villager]

11. Hmm... perhaps the least disingenuous post you've made in ages!

Last edited Sun Nov 22, 2015, 08:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Congrats!

[Bradical79]

12. lol

so angry...