Remember those cake walks that were always at the local fairs?

[tavalon]

I know, this sounds like it should be in the Lounge, but work with me for a minute.

Even as a kid, I figured out pretty quickly, that the person controlling the music could actually pick the odd person out. Damn near every time. Needless to say, I lost interest, unless the person running the game was someone who liked me.

Why this quaint story? Well, it occurred to me that TIA (Total Information Awareness), I mean, PRISM (I have no fucking clue what that stands for, but it's just a new name for an old game) is like the cake walk. Someone or someones much bigger than any President is running the game, deciding when the music stops and who gets a seat and who get's left standing. In this game, though, the one left standing is the one who will be blamed, probably impeached and definitely will get no cake.

Now, we know this has been going on for a long time. Only recently did the technology to data mine, I mean, get metadata (I hate being lied to, don't you? words are ways to prevaricate) become possible. I can't remember the name of the fucker who was creaming over TIA during the Bush maladministration and then got "shut down", which is military industrial complex speak for got a new name. It started well before Bush but Bush was probably the first to have the actual ability to have the goods, maybe even sort the goods.

But here's the shitter. We at DU knew this was an impeachable crime, much like the dozen or so other impeachable crimes that cretin committed or was aware of (if dry drunks can be considered aware). But Bush got the chance to get a seat so no impeachment. Guess what just happened. The music stopped and our President is standing, not only standing by this travesty but standing. He's being hung out to dry for what many of his predecessors started.

Will Obama get impeached? And will he be removed? I have no crystal ball but I think it hangs on two things: How much the Republicans want President Biden and how badly the phrase, "The modest encroachments on privacy" plays out. That phrase sure took my breath away.

[DJ13]

1. Obama wont be Impeached over this

Both sides actively participated in creating the spy apparatus, theres probably very few with clean hands, and they would expose themselves if they tried.

[tavalon]

3. I'm hoping not

All those other "gates" were such fluff. This isn't. But you are right, there are many, many dirty hands. I just hope they remember that before they go full tilt boogie into the land of impeachment.

[Tx4obama]

2. Obama has not committed an impeachable crime.

What was done under Bush was illegal, but the laws that regulate the NSA are different now and the FISA Courts are also used whereas they weren't in the past.

You can say you do not like the current laws, but what NSA is doing is legal under current law.

And the Republicans will not want to impeach Obama due to the NSA, because IF the Republicans were to ever get into the White House they would not shut down the NSA either.

[tavalon]

4. I thought I lived in a country of laws

but when laws can be made up to cover up malfeasance, is it really a country of laws or just a really big banana republic?

[Tx4obama]

5. We are country of laws, and President Obama has NOT broken any of them.

And if folks believe in laws like they say the do then...

... can someone please explain to me why so many folks can not see that Snowden broke many laws by the crimes he committed and should be arrested and go to trial

[tavalon]

6. Because the laws created to cover the collective asses of Bush and Cheney

are bullshit and surely you know it. Snowden has done us a great favor, but yeah, he broke laws and his life is over, no matter whether he is imprisoned, murdered, or hides in exile the rest of his life.

I am not a person who says a law is absolute because it exists. There are good laws, dumb laws, outstandingly illegal laws, etc. The ones covering this situation fall firmly in the last category.

[HiPointDem]

7. i know it's beside the point, but I LOVED CAKEWALKS! i loved old-timey school carnivals &

stuff like that, so non-corporate, soulful & individual as opposed to disneyfied corporate childhood activities.

but i agree with your general point. we don't know who's really behind the curtain.

[wandy]

8. I think the name you are looking for is John Poindexter ...........

Why did John Poindexter get the job?
He was the Vice President of Syntek Technologies, a government contractor. Syntek and Poindexter worked for years with DARPA to develop Genoa, a surveillance device that's a combination cutting-edge search engine, sophisticated information harvesting program", and a "peer-to-peer" file sharing system. Kind of a military-grade Google/Napster for use in instant analysis of electronic data

http://www.hereinreality.com/bigbrother.html#.UcgMA93naUl

The ablity to manage massive amounts of data has been around for quite some time. It's just that the data center would have been considerably larger. That would have been offset by the fact that their was simply less data to collect.
The amount of data to collect vs. the size of the facility to collect it would have had an almost reverse one to one relationship.
More data and more advanced more compact equipment.

[tavalon]

9. Yeah, he damn near had his willy out, jerking off in public about how GREAT TIA is

And then they killed........................................the name.