Is it just me, or is the NSA data collection scandal a watershed event?

[Jackpine Radical]

I've been through so many events in my lifetime, from the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations to the scandal-a-month Bush Administration and Fitzmas and the Benghazi non-starter to the BP Gulf oil spill to the present foofaraw, and it seems that each time I was a sucker to believe that great and positive changes would follow (Well, not in the cases of Benghazi and a few other other equally nutso screamfests by poorly-moored Republicans).

But this time seems somewhat different from all of those others, if only because you have the libertarian right screaming in tune with the civil-libertarian left, and the government doesn't seem to have many defenders outside the hackish likes of Diane Feinstein. The "ordinary people" I've heard discussing this are pretty pissed-off at waking up to discover that they are inhabitants of a spy state. Suddenly it feels like East Germany, and people don't like it.

Given my past experience of these things, I expect that it too will blow over as we proceed merrily along our way to a planetary Heat Death, soon to be overtaken by a missing blonde or a new kidnapping/sexual murder story of even more bizarre proportions than the last one.

But there is a nagging little voice deep within me muttering something about straws and camels' backs.

[graham4anything]

1. Yes, it is proving that there will be an 80-20 shortly, ...

like a circle, with the extremists going around to the other side of the circle and banging into each other,
and the mainstream being the 80 and in 2014,16,18,and beyond, getting legislation passed, instead of the obstruction
and smears that all turn out not to pan out in the end.

[Savannahmann]

21. Really?

You think that the people are going to flock to the Diane Feinstein class of professional politician who defends spying on the citizenry?

I don't know what medications you're on, but seriously, up the dosage, you're delusional.

[graham4anything]

24. Yup I do. She is extremely popular in the whole state.

Who is going to beat her? Meg Whitman?

[Savannahmann]

31. Feinstein will win in California

But you need to win elsewhere. I think this will hurt us elsewhere.

Remember, 40%of the people, myself included, will vote Democrat period. Including voting for that ass Feinstein. 40% of the nation will vote Republican, so the elections are won, and lost by the remaining twenty percent. These are the people that gave Reagan an overwhelming victory, and brought Pappy Bush into the White House for his term. They supported Clinton over Bush, and then for Bush's second term, gave him the win. But those same people switched to Democrat starting in 2006. In 2008 they stayed Democrat, and then in 2010, we got beat in the House, and the State elections. Now, thanks to Gerrymandering, we're going to be lucky to get a couple seats in the House, more likely in 2014 we're going to lose a few. Especially if we're the party that defends NSA invasions of Privacy.

It isn't that 20% are ruling the 80%. It's that 20% control the political fate of the nation. To earn their vote, we have to work for them, working to protect their rights, and pointing to the Constitution and declaring loudly we support the civil liberties contained therein. We could have been that party all along, and while it isn't too late yet, we show no sign of heading that way anytime. Like Bush in 2006, and McCain in 2008, we've been convinced that National Security trumps all other issues. It didn't work for the Rethugs in 2006, or McCain in 2008.

We stand to lose in 2014, and we need to get serious. Nobody wants the Government looking through every facet of their lives, and already moderates are making comparisons to East Germany and the Stasi secret police. The little old lady at the Grocery Store that I helped get something off the top shelf said that to me while we were chatting about things beginning with the size of Salad Dressing bottles. (They used to be bigger and cost less) to the size of eggs. (Large today were the medium of yesterday. She remembered sorting eggs on her farm). Then she asked if I'd heard of the whole deal with the FBI. I told her I was sure it was the NSA doing the deal. She made the comparison to East Germany. A seventy year old woman in a small town in Georgia at the only grocery store in town made the comparison.

The thing about your firing squad analogy you like to make is this. With a couple more bad moves on our part, we're the ones going to be on the wrong side of it. As for 2016? I'm don't know who is going to get the Nomination for our party. But I'm doubtful that Hillary has much of a chance. But if the electorate is still upset about all this crap, and we haven't learned and taken the lead, what do we do when some RW nutjob has the job? Do we once again start as a party to protest the NSA data collection we once supported to our detriment?

Graham I tend to be a tad pessimistic. You tend to be a lot optimistic. The reality is somewhere between us. Yet history hasn't shown it anywhere close to where you reside, and all too often, it is uncomfortably close to where I live. We as a party need to figure out what we can say to the Voters, because without them, we are the minority again, and the nation suffered badly when that happened. And right now, the average citizen, the little old lady mentioned above is but one, is pretty ticked off over this. Denouncing the messenger may work here, in a limited fashion. But it's not working out there. And there is where the voter lives.

[marions ghost]

39. +++++

I've heard of some other elders who are more than ticked off as well.

Excellent post.

[YoungDemCA]

34. argumetum ad populum

[Autumn]

2. From your mouth to God's ear.

rec

[quinnox]

3. it feels that way to me too

I watched the interview with Snowden, and was almost in awe at the guy and his courage. He was basically saying he was scared of what might happen in the future (tyranny) if people keep on not paying attention so he was willing to do this and take the heat for it. This whole thing seems to have some kind of monumental feel somehow.

[reformist2]

4. I don't know, but this one has penetrated the consciousness of America...most people are creeped out

[beaglelover]

5. No one at work is discussing this issue.

I don't think it has spread much outside the bubble of people who watch the news. I really don't have a big issue with the NSA collecting this information. I had assumed they were doing it anyway after 9/11. I've got nothing to hide.

[Demit]

11. Hopefully no one you've ever spoken to, or been in the same place as, turns out to

come under government suspicion. Or someone in your family, or a friend, has spoken to or been in the same place as someone who comes under government suspicion. You'd be asked to explain your associations. Might bring it home to you then.

[Laelth]

15. People on "the list" are going to be quite upset, I think.

If you're interested, there's more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core

and here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2994778
and here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022994791

-Laelth

[Hekate]

6. Sadly, no more than the Newton School massacre was

This too will pass from the public eye, leaving wreckage in its wake -- wreckage that we who are not directly involved in will step over on our way to and from work the way we step around the homeless on the sidewalk.

Sorry, I'm feeling exceptionally down about our prospects today.

[zipplewrath]

10. Exactly

Because of the very secrecy under which these programs operate, the scandal machine can't be continuously fed. Pretty soon the information becomes stale and the public gets bored and moves on. Those in power benefit from these programs and ultimately they won't change them. Do you see Gitmo closing?

Someone pointed out that this scandal is almost a blessing in disguise for Obama. It wiped Bengazi and the IRS right off the screen. By the time it peters out, those will seem like "old news". One could almost believe that Mr. "7 dimenisional chess Obama" dreamed this one up on purpose.

[Hekate]

13. I don't believe he would ever create such an event, but he is exceptionally nimble...

... in his ability to manage them.

As for Gitmo, the GOP in Congress still will not close it, and the CIC can't do it by special writ, can he? Or it would have been done 4 or 5 years ago.

I have a friend in the peace movement, a veteran of the Korean War, who says he thinks that Obama's first day in office consisted of a chat in the WH basement with members of the intelligence community/CIA along the lines of "Nice family you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to them. Now here's how things work..." In other words, this wise old man doesn't hold Obama 100% accountable for everything, even though he expects more than Obama has managed to achieve, and still holds out hope.

Anyway, it certainly gave me something to think about.

[kath]

27. What your friend says is a lot like what Bill Hicks had to say:

I have this feeling man, 'cause you know, it's just a handful of people who run everything, you know … that's true, it's provable. It's not … I'm not a fucking conspiracy nut, it's provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-fucks who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down … and a big guy with a cigar goes, "Roll the film." And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before … that looks suspiciously like it's from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, "Any questions?" "Er, just what my agenda is." "First we bomb Baghdad." "You got it …"

This is available on you tube as well:

[zipplewrath]

37. Which is the friggin' point

As for Gitmo, the GOP in Congress still will not close it, and the CIC can't do it by special writ, can he? Or it would have been done 4 or 5 years ago.

That's the point after all. Bajeezus, the public can get in all sorts of up roars, but if the powers that be have no intention on changing things, they aren't gonna change. Newtown is a perfect example. And so will be the NSA schtick. Lots of media will make money selling lots of soap as they get people to watch the news for a few weeks. But the people will get bored, and the media will find new reason for them to watch soap commercials and it will be over, unless the powers that be decide they want things to change.

Heck BOTH candidates ran in 2008 on closing Gitmo, and yet the powers that be FROM BOTH PARTIES decided it wasn't going to happen, and it has not.


Now do you get the point? I know defending Obama is a full time job, but ya might wanna take two steps back every once and a bit and realize that not every observation requires a defense of his accomplishment or lack thereof.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. One difference I noticed was that My Favorite Wingnut, who

dismissed Newtown & just talked about how it would increase the value of his "investment" in quasi-military weapons (tactical shotguns, assault rifles, etc.), is now talking about how this has all been going on for years, how Obama is only following in the footsteps of the Bush Administration, and how the politicians on both sides of the aisle are under the thumb of the "Dark Forces" (he doesn't use that term).

I think a lot of Rand Paul types are beginning to have trouble--really serious trouble--with the Republican Party.

[Junkdrawer]

7. It's being "discredited"...with ambiguity....

The media has been playing it as a "Flawed Source" story. The FISA rubber stamp of the phone "meta data" and the God-knows-how-capable PRISM aspects of the story are fading leaving behind a vague fear of Big Brother.

I've been saying that that was the plan all along, but that and $3.50 gets you a cup of coffee at Crazy Mocha.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

8. Actually, it's just you....and these people

[railsback]

9. Best photo analogy yet

[Zoeisright]

16. LOL!!!

[Skittles]

29. mmmmmm..........no

more like this guy:

[MuseRider]

35. Nice find Skittles.

I have never seen this one. Comes in handy I would assume.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. It's a watershed moment.

[Laelth]

14. This certainly feels different to me. n/t

-Laelth

[KittyWampus]

17. Oh please, who the heck have you heard talking about this? East Germany? The hyperbole is asinine.

And fuck anyone who calls me an "apologist". I have issues with the NSA but they involve using contractors and lack of oversight.

[MindPilot]

18. I sure hope so.

Something has got to come along to break up this cancer of authoritarianism. At some point Americans will say "enough". Have we reached that point? Again I hope so.

[carolinayellowdog]

20. perjury to Congress helps makes it so

along with the president's endorsement of the man who did it

[KoKo]

22. Jakepine...Have you seen the DEBATE of the 21st Century! Please Watch

and do a post about what you think about this debate. Have always respected your posts here on DU...and you are one that I would like to see your opinion of when you have time.

The Transcript is probably up by now...if you want to read rather than watch...but, this is an incredible debate to watch for those of us who have cared so deeply for so many years on this site...and been through the battles.

Is Edward Snowden a Hero? A Debate With Journalist Chris Hedges & Law Scholar Geoffrey Stone

Last edited Wed Jun 12, 2013, 03:25 PM USA/ET - Edit history (8)
VIDEO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cKmkxptPLSw

Edward Snowden’s decision to leak a trove of secret documents outlining the NSA’s surveillance program has elicited a range of reactions. Among his detractors, he’s been called "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison," (Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker), who’s committed "an act of treason," (Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate intelligence committee). To supporters, Snowden is a hero for showing that "our very humanity being compromised by the blind implementation of machines in the name of making us safe," (author Douglas Rushkoff), one whom President Obama should "thank and offer him a job as a White House technology advisor," (American Conservative editor Scott McConnell). We host a debate with two guests: Chris Hedges, a senior fellow at the Nation Institute and former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times; and Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Stone served as an informal advisor to President Obama in 2008, years after hiring him to teach constitutional law.

Guests

Chris Hedges, a senior fellow at the Nation Institute, he was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for fifteen years and was part of a team of reporters that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. He is the author, along with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, of the New York Times bestseller "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt."

Geoffrey Stone, professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Served as an informal advisor to President Obama in 2008, years after hiring him to teach constitutional law.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/12/is_edward_snowden_a_hero_a

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023001082

[Jackpine Radical]

41. I side pretty much with Hedges.

Hi KoKo--I saw your post earlier but didn't get a chance to look at the transcript until this morning. It seems to me that Stone vastly underrates the informational value to be derived from merely examining patterns of communication without having to know the specific contents of those communications. Whom you call is often far more informative than what you say to them--and I would presume that identification of "suspicious" patterns can be used to justify warrants to examine the contents of the messages if they want to do that. For example, Hedges points out that Snowden could not keep secret his contacts with Greenwald, from which his whistleblower status could easily be determined.

There is the further problem of a general erosion of privacy. If our conversations with each other are frozen in recordings for possible later examination, then there is one less barrier for any nefarious soul who wants to illegally dig through it all. For example, within the constraints of today's technology, one could easily set up search algorithms that would scan the contents of all these communications for certain words, phrases, names….Ask yourself what Monsanto might do with that kind of information, or Blackwater/Xe (or whatever the hell they are calling themselves this week).

The simple fact of the matter is that I don't trust anybody, government or private, to resist the amazing temptation of all that data to mine. Governments like to search for dissidents, politicians love opposition research, and corporations are already doing everything the can, legal and illegal, to spy on each other and get insider information. A sudden burst of communications between two companies might be an advance signal of an impending takeover, for example. A little money spread in the right places could open up whatever doors need to be opened.

I think the politicians themselves ought to be scared of all this surreptitious data manipulation and retention. I have always believed that J. Edgar Hoover stayed in power long after his normal expiration date because he had files, assembled by both legal and illegal means (e.g. wiretapping), on everyone who might be a threat to him. JFK--all those affairs, the cocaine, etc. LBJ--God knows what Hoover might have had on him. Sexual adventurism, certainly, and maybe evidence of illegal activities from his days in the Senate.

I see the secrecy of the NSA communication tracking as parallel to the secrecy of Nixon's bombing of Cambodia. It was no secret to the Cambodians or North Vietnamese that we were doing the bombing. Likewise, it's no secret to Muslim extremists of all flavors that they are being tracked and eavesdropped upon. In both cases, the target of the secrecy is the American people, and the motive behind the secrecy is to keep us from knowing what our own government is up to. From our most narrow, self-interested perspective, the current case is worse than the Cambodian bombing. We weren't the subjects of the bombing that we weren't being told about, but in the present case, we are the subjects of the surveillance.

BTW, thanks for asking about this. I didn't know until I started writing that I had this much to say.

[bvar22]

23. I certainly "hope" so.

Maybe now something will "change".

...but I thought that Pushing the 3rd Rail of Social Security into the Pot
would be a "watershed" moment.
I was wrong.
Apparently, the Democratic Party has moved so FAR to the Conservative Right that "negotiating" cuts to Social Security, the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, is no big deal.




[font color=firebrick][center]"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will STAND UP for Working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone [/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]


[font size=5 color=firebrick]SolidarityOWS![/font]

[xiamiam]

25. IT is time to discuss the constitution and its abuses.whistleblowers, freedom of the press

that is what this moment has brought us to.. Thank God we have a document. The abuse has got to be called out and defended by those who come up with the least untruthful answer or their ilk. Its out of control and veering off the cliff so I have to agree with you.. Obama will be long gone and giving speeches and we'll have some jackass in the whitehouse running even more amok if we don't put a stop to it now. I have to agree we have reached the tipping point...or close

[warrprayer]

26. this might be the end

of the surveillance state as they wanted it to be

[ucrdem]

28. Next week it will be something even scarier.

Smart meters that spy? GMO catfood? Tune in next week to RNC Theatre Presents!

[MuseRider]

30. I would like to think it is

but I am beginning to lose hope that anything will stop this.

They have already begun trying to make this look like nothing, smearing him. I am afraid that is what sticks these days. It is far far far too early to really know about this guy and his information but sadly all we ever have anymore that is even close to the truth is what we get right away before the media and the politics make it into something else entirely.

He will become the next guy everybody loves to hate and it will happen because media personalities who someone loves and trusts (why do we LOVE and TRUST anyone on "our" TV these days?) says he is a bad guy. Our elected leaders will fan the flames and whatever is the truth will die as we lose interest and the next big thing takes our attention away. Who knows, maybe he is a bad guy. I don't think so, I would tend more toward the good intentioned citizen but I don't think that is a choice anymore. Good guy/Bad guy. Always those two choices.

We are a nation of tired people. Many of us stupid but most not by choice. We work way too hard and way too much to have the time to relax let alone think about our government. We let ourselves think it is OK because we elected them to take care of us and our country. They have become our heros and anyone who challenges the "bad guys" gets adulated and anyone who challenges the "good guys" gets pummeled into dust. No middle ground ever and if you make one wrong move, under the bus you go even if you were the nations savior just please don't ever agree with the likes of Nader or one of the Pauls, we must discredit everything they say. We are like schools of fish. There is the shiny thing, we all go after it because it might be good for us (food) or at least it distracts us from the boredom or fires up our emotions for a little party of anger at someone else.

Sorry, all I really needed to say was I would like to think it is.

[Progressive dog]

32. Another scandal of the week, brought to you by the party of no

and starring a cast of dozens.

[Savannahmann]

33. It isn't just you.

By taking the authoritarian side of the issue, we've put ourselves outside the view of the voter. I think we may be in big trouble in the next election, or two. If we lose more seats in the House, and a couple in the Senate, switching sides then is tantamount to suicide.

That's why I always council principle over party. If we have solid liberal principles, principles that we hold dear in our hearts, principles that we can argue forward and backwards and we can argue passionately, we can win the day with the voters. If all we have is vote for the Democrat, he's not quite as fascist as the Republican, we are left with a popularity contest. And those never end well for anyone.

Principle over party, it must be our guiding light, and it must be our bedrock. Anything less and we are no better than the ones we run against, and they are pretty damned bad.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Otoh at the dentist today

"It's always been going on, why the scandal?"

Though you might be onto something. At lunch a couple gents were complaining of how this could kill gub'mint contracts...

When they left they had Caqui badges on, damn Mercs!!!!

[sibelian]

38. I think 9/11 was the last "watershed" moment.

I think it unlikely that there will be any more.

[cherokeeprogressive]

40. This cat ain't going back in the bag. n/t

[treestar]

42. It is just you and a few others

There will be eight other watershed events in the next 3 months, as there always are.

[Jackpine Radical]

43. I certainly recognize that possibility.

I thought Deepwater Horizon would result in some permanent changes in deepwater drilling policy for example.