Politicians Welcome Chance To Discuss This NSA Surveillance Monster They Hid In The Basement
Over the weekend, various security officials and congresscritters were forced to go on the morning yap shows or talk to the press about the secret data collection programs exposed by the Guardian over the weekend.
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Dianne Feinstein was forced to go on ABC’s This Week and tell us about how sad she was on 9/11. Then she patiently explained that NSA programs thwarted terror plots, pointing to the 2008 Mumbai attacks as an example, and also, Najibullah Zazi. Of course, the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people over three days at two five-star hotels, a train station and a small Jewish community center, so maybe it wasn’t the best example? Maybe we should just be happy that NSA surveillance kept them from happening here, although our lack of a contested border region with Pakistan may also be a contributing factor. Oh, and Najibullah Zazi was actually thwarted by non-NSA wiretapping related police work, but nice try Dianne Feinstein!
Peter King, who is a well-known idiot, wants to prosecute whistleblower Edward Snowden for the leaks because “This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence.” Yes, surely the terrorists had absolutely no idea until now that their phone calls, emails, chats, and Skype convos were possibly monitored by their own governments or by ours, this is surely a tremendous revelation.
Lindsey Graham is actually really glad that the government is collecting information on our phone calls, because they are only doing it to “known terrorists.” Er, “suspected terrorists and people they may be talking to.” So basically, in spite of what you’re heard, they aren’t collecting “our” information at all, turns out, because “we” are not terrorists! And there is more good news! He is “sure” that this is the ONLY THING the NSA is using this information for, but perhaps he has forgotten about that one time that the NSA eavesdropped on soldiers and contractors in Baghdad’s Green Zone having phone sex with their wives? Or that other time when the Army spied on anti-war activists? Another question for Lindsey Graham: if it’s such a great idea to gather Americans’ metadata (it is not a great idea, but bear with us), then why just use it for stopping terrorism? Why not use it to stop crimes like, say, gun violence, given that Americans are more than 1764 times more likely to be killed in non-terrorism gun violence than in terrorism-related violence? Oh duh, because that would hurt freedom. We can’t have that, never mind.
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http://wonkette.com/519103/politicians-welcome-chance-to-discuss-this-nsa-surveillance-monster-they-hid-in-the-basement
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