How many People reading this know or care that Dem leaders are about to endorse warrantless spying?

[Leopolds Ghost]

And immunize Bush and the telecoms for doing so now or in the past.

They are about to vote to stop a member of their own party from
filibustering -- they have enough votes for cloture to stop Dodd,
like they did on the Alito nomination.

The result will be permanent, irrevocable legal immunity
for telecoms which are funding the Obama and Clinton campaigns,
telecom giants CREATED BY CLINTON, and permanent secrecy for
the Bush industrial-telecom-media-espionage network which
OVERTHREW THE LAST CLINTON.

As a reward, the telecoms will put a Dem in the white house.

This deal has already been negotiated.

Only a tiny minority of the thousands of people on DU
understand or care about this issue.

They don't understand how the process works.

And that's looking over and recalling 3 years of discussion.

Do most DUers (never mind Americans) even understand what kind
of spying we are discussing here? This is not about regulating
cloak-and-dagger stuff, nor is it about J Edgar Hoover wiretaps
of specific Americans. This is about creating a framework for
electronically harvesting and sorting information on the phone
calls and e-mails of every man, woman and child in America --
and jointly immunizing the politicians, engineers and executives
who have already created this system as a classified endeavor.

The existence of this classified industry is an open secret in
Washington -- one of the largest consumers of electricity, not
just the largest employer or manufacturer, in the DC area is the
server farms run by NSA at Fort Meade and the main-line wiretaps
funneling into CIA branch division headquarters on the Dulles
broadband hardline corridor stretching from MAE-East to the
private server farms of major search engines and telecom giants
in Arlington and Dulles.

Do people who don't live in Washington even understand what the
national security apparatus is all about?

It is about the harvesting of information, which, when it
cannot yet be legally used to capture criminals or blackmail
people, is instead processed, temporarily stored "just in case"
and selectively accessed on a classified basis.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Contact your Senators and Congressperson NOW.

NGU.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. Who to contact?

I just learned this evening that this was back on the table
and that Dodd's filibuster was an empty threat, because the
"Gang of 14" will vote for cloture.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Not to mention that the Vichy Dems who run Congress will not vote to cut off a Republican filibuster

Unless it is blocking a bill that a DEMOCRATIC donor corporation wants to push through.

Often, and insiders will freely admit this, the Democrats will play-act
for their constituents, pushing a bill that the base wants but corporate
and media-political insiders do NOT want, and explicitly RELY on
Republicans to veto it (by filibuster).

They don't want to hobble Bush too badly so they rely on the filibuster
instead to ensure divided government after the next election. This keeps
the wealthiest and most powerful donors in charge by giving them a market
for options to defeat bills they don't like.

When a member of the ruling party filibusters a bill they want, they have
the majority leader strike down that filibuster, in violation of supposed
party unity after the party ruling elite has wholly and willingly allowed
the opposition to filibuster bills the DLC opposes -- in order to inform
constituents that their hands are tied.

[kelligesq]

13. Good name: Vichy Dems - for those too young to know - collaborators with rethugs

comes from WW2...those who collaborated with Nazis - Vichy French for examples

[librechik]

4. the telecoms want that info--to find out how old we are and what brand of shampoo we like

not to "stop terrorism"

That is laughable.

Carlyle group buys dexonline and telecoms in order to study our buying habits--oh and a side benefit: they can surveil their Democrat oppoients' strategy emails, no problem.


We are so screwn.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. Google is already doing this. Here's a frightening example:

When I plugged in an unrelated search term to research an article/subject
the other day, one of the top ten links Google took me to was an article
that had no mention of the search term I had entered -- but the subject of
the article was a topic I had PREVIOUSLY searched for using BOTH search
terms. In other words (to give an example)

Joe searches for "Orange growers revolt"

12 hours later, Joe searches for "union organizing"

Joe is directed in one of the results to an article
that does not mention "union organizing" but DOES
mention orange growers, because (to quote the unstated
Google Helpful Hint which is NOT posted) "you previously
searched for "orange growers revolt" and the terms
"orange growers revolt" and "union organizing" have
a high statistical correlation based on our past user
records. Would you like to see results for BOTH listings?"

Google and most telecoms rely on past user ratings to
define their entire search and advertising engine which
powers both their income and product. Much of the hardware
and software used by the telecoms and internet companies
is the exact same staff and skills used by the NSA to
create their parallel tracking systems which manage
several petabytes of data in the form of every phone
call and SMTP e-mail in America, every day.

This is a system which is being imported into a generalized
"consumer model" of citizenship rights, for instance in the
case of toll roads, where a carpooler on a PRIVATIZED toll
lane was monitored by infrared and fined for switching on
his transponder at the wrong time and past user statistics
indicated that there was a high probability that he was
a cheater trying to use the lane without electronically
paying via RFID. So the sirens got turned on when a
signal was electronically wired to the nearest speed trap.

(The Washington post did an article on this, and the military
origin of the technology being deployed to power the new
mechanized consumer society, where everything we say or
purchase will be monitored strictly for quality control
purposes.)

There will be no need to actually abuse the resulting data through
unlawful prosecution; selective enforcement based on statistical data
analysis of customer patterns is all that is needed to create a climate
of fear (consumer flexibility) and a sellers market for consumer products,
since the buyers will not have access or control of the information
on other consumers or sellers in the marketplace, including the
knowledge of who to vote for. We are creating electronic cartels
powered by access to information, since we manufacture no actual commodities.

[annabanana]

5. Have you seen this update?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2759902&mesg_id=2759902

REID: Will NOW Support Dodd's Filibuster

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Thank God, of true. Let's hope it's true.

Reid comes off as one of the most slippery individuals I've ever heard speak.

At least the Republicans usually tell you exactly what they're going to
do. Sort of like Bin Laden, they telegraph every move and still manage
to get away with murder.

[wiggs]

10. Check it carefully and don't be fooled. Dodd will filibuster to keep

immunity from being included and he may be successful. Your original post still applies though: the government will continue to eavesdrop, data mine, and spy on US citizens. Immunity issue is a smoke screen that will be given up in order to get spying.

[swoop]

6. This is very interesting!

Who here do you know has been blackmailed with this system? And what can we do to help them?

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. That's the point -- there's no way of knowing. It's really about creating a climate of fear

Actual blackmail is less useful because it requires letting someone know
that you have information on them. As we have seen in Russia, it is FAR
more valuable and empowering to let everyone know that you have
information on EVERYONE and that you will keep their information private
(whether or NOT they have any skeletons, EVERYONE wants privacy) so long
as they behave.

If they upset the applecart, suddenly every local news channel knows
about their private e-mail statements as a political activist in the
1970s, thanks to "a source" who claims to be an old college room-mate
of theirs; or "a source" mentions he or she had an affair, and that
becomes the story whether or not it is true. But it is not necessary
to actually persecute people -- the information is far more valuable
as a tool to sell to advertisers, thereby generating the information
needed to FUND these unfunded mandates (server farms) that the telecoms
so desperately want to keep.

[halobeam]

17. Where's Anonymous when u need them!

[upi402]

8. i wish there was an opposition party n/t k/r

[lonestarnot]

12. Well Dodd is going to fillabuster.

[robinlynne]

14. Oh, i care. It is probably the most important thing happening in this country right now.

I sjut signed on to see what is happening in the senate.

[peacetalksforall]

15. I think I may drop out if Dems betray us. It is too painful. I can't think

of one thing that they have done for the country. Why should I care about them or consider anything they ask.

Dick Cheney is more important to them than I am or you are.

Feingold - the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act.
Will be be alone again?

Is it hopeless?

[Ino]

16. I wrote to McCaskill last Sept...

lambasting her for having voted to extend the Patriot Act. Here is her answer, dated Sept 19:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Protect America Act of 2007 (S. 1927). I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the chance to respond.

On August 1, 2007, I was faced with a stark reality: the Director of National Intelligence sent a letter warning the Senate of the heightened threat of international terrorism, and urging us to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before the August recess “to ensure that we do not have critical gaps in our ability to provide warnings of threats to the country”. The call to quickly revise FISA in order to reflect developments in telecommunications technology was echoed by four Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I chose to heed these urgent warnings.

I voted for two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I preferred the legislation offered by Senators Rockefeller and Levin; however, it failed to gather the 60 votes needed to pass. I also voted for the Bond-McConnell version, which did receive enough votes to pass. Corresponding legislation was later approved by the House of Representatives, and the President quickly signed the bill into law.

It is important to recognize that this legislation is a temporary fix to provide our intelligence community with the most immediate tools needed to protect our country – it will be in place for only six months, and it cannot be renewed before it is thoroughly reviewed and authorized by Congress. This gives us six months to create a more acceptable permanent intelligence collection process that that allows us to effectively monitor terrorist communications overseas while also protecting the privacy of law-abiding American citizens. I can assure you I will be one of the Senators working hard to re-establish the constitutional protections that have been eroded by this President and this temporary FISA legislation.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance.

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

Today she voted with the Repukes. What's the point?!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

18. K&R n/t

[dorkulon]

19. How many know Bush & telecoms began working on this seven months before 9/11?

Whoops, there goes their justification!

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/13/warrantless-wiretapping-in-place-before-911/



edited to add link

[burrowowl]

20. And of course

Hillary and Obama are no shows!

M$M have chosen our canidates to show that a woman or a Black can be elected, the Corporations have won, this will calm the people to elect one of them and will not change anything.

[Political Heretic]

21. I've given up on them.

I now endorse a scorched earth policy when it comes to federal government. I'm just going to sit back and watch it burn. You can call me when we hit bottom and people are actually listening again.

[Quantess]

24. Yep.

Stick a fork in it.

[WA98296]

22. They do this because they KNOW you will vote for them no matter what.

They have nothing to lose.

[Greyhound]

23. Little good it does, but I know. K & R n/t

:kick:

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. I do, but I fear nobody cares about the Constitution INSIDE the beltway

I mean, for them, it is a fucking piece of paper