Re: Russel Tice. A universal tap on a blackmailed "lapdog" press?

[Poll_Blind]

 I always thought it was amazing how much the press jumped into Bush's lap. Some, including myself believed it was misguided patriotism post September 11th or maybe pressure from fat-cat media owners. I mean, those would be arguable and reasonable motives for the horrid behavior of most of the mainstream press in handling the Bush administration with kid gloves, even after revelations of unconstitutional behavior which would make Nixon blush.

 But watching Russel Tice on Keith Olbermann just now reminded me of a piece I wrote a few years ago for DU, entitled The Search Engine Confessional - AOL's snapshot into very private lives in which I picked a few searches from AOL at random and gathered as much information as I possibly could about the individuals.

 Some searches didn't turn up much, but most did. Names. Addresses. Phone numbers, even credit card numbers on occasion. And also, even more personal information: Medical conditions, sexually transmitted diseases, drug addictions, the entire spectrum of sexual peccadilloes: the pedestrian, the kinky, the perverse and the outright disgusting and illegal. And, occasionally, searching for information on how to kill a spouse or individual and get away with it.

 So point being: If you can track just a person's internet web searches you can learn things about them that maybe no-one else in the world knows. Not a spouse, not a best friend, not a religious confessor.

 Russel Tice intimated that whole segments of the American press (mainstream news reporters, for instance) were 24/7 being tapped (both internet and telephone). In his words "Everything.

 Can you imagine? Enough information to destroy the lives and careers of many in the mainstream media in our entire country. I'm not talking about toe-suckers like Dick Morris, either. Think about how much leeway you could have if it was made known, in some little way through a third party to, say, A Major Mainstream U.S. Reporter, that you know, say, that they did cocaine last week with their ex-wife. Or are trying to find ways to get out of their contract with their current employer. Or any of an almost infinite number of very personal, damaging facts.

 All recorded, digitized, able to be burned to CD and sent out, anonymously, to their competitor. Or spouse. Or employer. Or parents. Or church.

 Powerful stuff, eh?

 I'm not saying they did. I don't have any proof of that. But I do have to say after the history of lawless, manipulative...ruthless behavior, would it be all that surprising? And did any of these digitized recordings get copied? Man, you wanna turn a quick buck? Selling dirt from Person A to Person B (or Government A to Government B and vice versa could get to be a lucrative biz, don't you think?

 Just thinking out loud, but I don't think it sounds beyond the pale for the Bush administration.

 More like Par for the course.

PB

P.S. If this topic interests you, you might read the article I reference in my second paragraph at the top. I track a young man, just one of the searches, and find out more than anyone would ever imagine.

[Mnemosyne]

1. Add in that one section of PA2 that makes 'news-gathering' illegal and

voila - total control through fear and greed. Cause you know the talking heads have been well paid even if scared silly.

[joeunderdog]

2. Some say Elliot Spritzer's hooker story was outed

when he was busting the chops of the banking industry and making the Wall St gang uncomfortable. He was inconvenient and somehow the revelation miraculously appeared.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I'd put money on that one.

It was just too neat.

[Poll_Blind]

7. I've also suspected that- the timing was too perfect not to attract such notice.

I wonder how much of the world, or our corner of it, works like this?

PB

[HamdenRice]

15. The Wall St. Journal reported that there was total surveillance of elected officials

and that that was how Spitzer got caught. It wasn't just financial monitoring of >$10G transactions.

It was Orwellian, like Total Information Awareness applied to all politicians in the name of preventing "corruption." Wish I had saved the article.

[Poll_Blind]

17. TIA, especially when applied to elected officials = Fascism.

Period, y'all.

PB

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Here is something else you wrote on that thread.

I think it deserves repeating here.

I grew up watching alot of Wild Kingdom as a child and I always remembered the lions attacking and killing the zebras. I think there may have been something in the contract to habitually show, at some point in the program, a lion chasing one down.

And I will always remember when the camera would pan back to the other members of the zebra herd, who'd stopped running, slowed to a trot and begin grazing. I remember that there are always a bunch of zebras in the herd who would watch that lion tearing the flesh from the zebra they'd caught. I wondered if those zebras, safe for the moment, ever realized that they could stampede, en masse and drive the lion away from their injured member, saving it.

But the zebras seemed content: As long as it wasn't them, directly, that was in the mouth of the lion, they were content to graze, watch, and try not to be the next meal but dreading, in some way, that there never is any, ultimate, escape from the lion: All of them will have their chance to be the slowest running away and all will have a chance, in their terminal thrashing, to spot the rest of the herd looking at them and doing nothing.

I'm worried that most Americans may be like that.

[gratuitous]

6. The Bush Family Evil Empire knew its prey

And they knew that the potential for the presstitutes to band together for their good, and the good of the nation, was about the same as that herd of zebras on Wild Kingdom kicking the living snot out of those lions. That is, not a chance in hell.

Thanks a lot, Fourth Estate. I guess the days of "without fear or favor" have gone the way of the dodo.

[Poll_Blind]

8. Huh, I'd forgotten about that. You're right, it does deserve repeating.

 If Obama, for instance, doesn't choose to go after the Bush Crime Empire it's probably going to be more zebra gawking while the BCE's victims continue to writhe off in the distance.

PB

[notadmblnd]

5. I always believed that their SOP was to get the dirt on their subject and then use it if

they went against them.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Ya, I think the same way. At a certain point- I just wouldn't put ANYTHING passed the...

...Bush administration. After the never-ending litany of fuck-ups and exposed greed and cronyism, this seems like an uncontroversial and reasonable extension of their mindset.

PB

[bleever]

9. This is going to be a mushroom cloud by tomorrow.

Great work.

So many segments of our society will have separate interests in getting to the bottom of this, an avalanche will follow these confirmations of our worst suspicions.


(And I went back and read the original to discover that I was the first to rec that thread.)

[slipslidingaway]

11. Remarks of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold

In Opposition to the FISA Amendments Act

http://feingold.senate.gov/statements/08/07/20080709.htm

July 9, 2008

"...In sum, these improvements are not enough. They are nowhere close. And so, Mr. President, I must strongly oppose this bill.

When you consider how we got here, this legislation is particularly discouraging. We discovered in late 2005 that the President had authorized an illegal program in blatant violation of a statute, and that Congress and the public had been misled in a variety of ways leading up to this public revelation. Congress, to its credit, held hearings on the program, but was largely stonewalled by the administration for many months until the administration grudgingly agreed to brief the intelligence committees, and more recently the judiciary committees. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the House and Senate have never been told what happened. In 2006, when the Republicans tried to push through legislation to grant massive new surveillance authorities to the executive branch, we stopped it. But now, in a Democratic-controlled Congress, not only did we pass the Protect America Act, but we are now about to extend for more than four years these expansive surveillance powers – and we are about to grant immunity to companies that are alleged to have participated in the administration’s lawlessness.

Mr. President, I sit on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program. And, based on what I know, I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen either due to the Inspector General report, the election of a new President, or simply the passage of time, members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation. I am also familiar with the collection activities that have been conducted under the Protect America Act and will continue under this bill. I invite any of my colleagues who wish to know more about those activities to come speak to me in a classified setting. Publicly, all I can say is that I have serious concerns about how those activities may have impacted the civil liberties of Americans. If we grant these new powers to the government and the effects become known to the American people, we will realize what a mistake it was, of that I am sure.

So I hope my colleagues will think long and hard about their votes on this bill, and consider how they, and their constituents, will feel about this vote five, ten or twenty years from now. I am confident that history will not judge this Senate kindly if it endorses this tragic retreat from the principles that have governed government conduct in this sensitive area for 30 years. I urge my colleagues to stand up for the rule of law and defeat this bill."

[bleever]

13. This is worthy of its own post.

Prophetic, not in the sense of predicting a murky future, but in the sense of being a lone voice of truth when all around you have consigned you to the desert.

[slipslidingaway]

14. Nicely stated...

he sure is a voice we need.

:)

[Poll_Blind]

16. Wow, that really does deserve its own post! Thank you!

PB

[MiniMe]

12. Makes me wonder what really happened with Dan Rather

Blackmailing his bosses?