We're in some serious trouble here, boys and girls...
Edit: Crooks and Liars has more conservative wake up calls, from Joe Scarborough and NEWT GINGRICH:
Joe Scarborough:
Now, for liberals who‘ve long been going against almost all of these issues to defend privacy, the news has to be disturbing. But no less so the conservatives who have fought national ID cards and gun registration for years out of fear of big government.
Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it‘s hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse.
You know, I served on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Service Committee in Congress for four years, and no program I studied while using security clearances ever came close to the scope of this massive spy program. It is dangerous, it breaks FCC laws, and it endangers all Americans‘ right to privacy.
Newt Gingrich (you may recognize him as the former Speaker of the House):
But I don’t think the way they’ve handled this can be defended by reasonable people. It is sloppy. It is contradictory, and frankly for normal Americans, it makes no sense to listen to these three totally different explanations.
-------------------------------------------
I don't care what anyone may say, the new phone database program scares the shit out of me. Are we really to believe the claims of the government now, who have revised their story on this issue three times?!?! They claim that our names aren't attached to the numbers, and they're not listening in. We could go to a quote from our trustworthy attorney general for his thoughts on this (hat tip: mcjoan at the Kos):
In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales said the government would have to determine if a conversation was related to al-Qaeda and crucial to fighting terrorism before deciding whether to listen in without court supervision.
"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said, referring to the possibility of monitoring purely domestic communications.
Crooks and Liars provides some Jack Cafferty dropping science:
Cafferty: We better all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the
Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that
stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He's vowed to
question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the
government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other
Americans.
Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the
super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens,
all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don't you go find Osama
bin Laden, and seal the country's borders, and start inspecting the containers
that come into our ports?
The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page
story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all
this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department
suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because
the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security
clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret
government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to
investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole
thing. We're in some serious trouble, boys and girls"
---
Not to sound like Pardsbane, but this is it, folks. We're crossing a new threshold. I mean, this is something most of us already suspected was going on. I'm not horribly shocked. But if we can get the existance of this program to see the light of day, then who knows what they're cooking up deeper inside. This government is planning to nuke another country and is collecting information on millions of Americans who are not suspected in any crimes. We're talking high crimes against the American people, the people of the entire planet.
More than ever, we need to wake people up...
or start packing.
Joe Scarborough:
Now, for liberals who‘ve long been going against almost all of these issues to defend privacy, the news has to be disturbing. But no less so the conservatives who have fought national ID cards and gun registration for years out of fear of big government.
Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it‘s hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse.
You know, I served on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Service Committee in Congress for four years, and no program I studied while using security clearances ever came close to the scope of this massive spy program. It is dangerous, it breaks FCC laws, and it endangers all Americans‘ right to privacy.
Newt Gingrich (you may recognize him as the former Speaker of the House):
But I don’t think the way they’ve handled this can be defended by reasonable people. It is sloppy. It is contradictory, and frankly for normal Americans, it makes no sense to listen to these three totally different explanations.
-------------------------------------------
I don't care what anyone may say, the new phone database program scares the shit out of me. Are we really to believe the claims of the government now, who have revised their story on this issue three times?!?! They claim that our names aren't attached to the numbers, and they're not listening in. We could go to a quote from our trustworthy attorney general for his thoughts on this (hat tip: mcjoan at the Kos):
In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales said the government would have to determine if a conversation was related to al-Qaeda and crucial to fighting terrorism before deciding whether to listen in without court supervision.
"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said, referring to the possibility of monitoring purely domestic communications.
Crooks and Liars provides some Jack Cafferty dropping science:
Cafferty: We better all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the
Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that
stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He's vowed to
question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the
government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other
Americans.
Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the
super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens,
all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don't you go find Osama
bin Laden, and seal the country's borders, and start inspecting the containers
that come into our ports?
The President rushed out this morning in the wake of this front page
story in USA Today and declared the government is doing nothing wrong, and all
this is just fine. Is it? Is it legal? Then why did the Justice Department
suddenly drop its investigation of the warrantless spying on citizens because
the NSA said Justice Department lawyers didn't have the necessary security
clearance to do the investigation. Read that sentence again. A secret
government agency has told our Justice Department that it's not allowed to
investigate it. And the Justice Department just says ok and drops the whole
thing. We're in some serious trouble, boys and girls"
---
Not to sound like Pardsbane, but this is it, folks. We're crossing a new threshold. I mean, this is something most of us already suspected was going on. I'm not horribly shocked. But if we can get the existance of this program to see the light of day, then who knows what they're cooking up deeper inside. This government is planning to nuke another country and is collecting information on millions of Americans who are not suspected in any crimes. We're talking high crimes against the American people, the people of the entire planet.
More than ever, we need to wake people up...
or start packing.
posted by Ruby K at 11:56 AM
2 Comments:
i'm not packing for anywhere. if that's what you mean.
also, props to qwest, who refused to provide phone records beccause they were'nt convinced of the legality of the program.
Indeed, Schedule1, props to Qwest. In fact, there's a grassroots thanks Qwest site here:
http://www.thankyouqwest.org/
As for packing, I meant it in just about every conceivable sense of the term:
packing- arming ourselves
packing- for jail/detention centers
packing- for a country with no extradition.
packing- for a wedding to a nice canadian girl (that one's not for me, knucklehead, don't worry).
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