Original Post: Fun with NSA Spying: Blackmail
What I want to know is, which Senators are being blackmailed to vote for telcom immunity by info obtained by NSA? Reid for sure, I bet. I'd like to start a campaign just to ask them up front. Are you being blackmailed, Senator/Congressman? We know GWB went right to work on getting the goods long before 9/11. That alone should be enough to make telcom immunity a non-starter. Why do we even want to put a check on unlimited spying by the gov? Here is a list of things you can do with such powers:
1. Spy on all protesters and activists, from pro-life to anti-war, so you know when they are going to unfurl banners in the gallery of the House of Representatives, then change the schedule.
2. Get the psychiatric records of anyone who leaks a "classified" document which is only classified because it shows the government continuing to fight a war which it believes cannot be won, oops, been there done that. His name was Daniel Ellsberg, he leaked the Pentagon Papers, and Nixon wanted his deepest darkest confessions to fish through for a smear campaign.
3. Find out who that pesky congressman is sleeping with,..
..who wants you impeached, see if homey wants to keep playing at this impeachment stuff.
- Give an old frat buddy, who already has all the money he ever wants, something more important to him now, the chance to settle an old score. We'll see what we can find on him, old buddy, everyone has some kind of dirt on him somewhere.
5. Keep looking. The Patriot Act says we can go through any records pertaining to you, bank account, car dealer, dentist, lawyer, real estate, telephone company, anything, understand? The NSA just makes it easier.
6. If we find nothing, why not just frame him? We don't have anything on him, but we do on the AG in that state. He'll know the truth but he won't say anything.
7. Tell that major league asshole of a reporter we're going to fax his girlfriend's abortion records, which we pulled up in a data sweep, to his wife if he doesn't lay off the tough stuff.
8. Always, always, make sure you are spying on your own people. Patriotic whistleblowers are among the most credible sources when they go to reporters. Everyone knows they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Declare him enemy combatant before he talks and have him waterboarded, the punk.
Telcom immunity in the FISA bill is exactly the same as a pardon in advance for crimes we don't even know about. An unprovoked war with over 4000 dead and America's image in shreds, a subservient Congress, and we'll never even know why these congressional poodles did it, what Bush had on them.
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AND SPEAKING OF BLACKMAIL, BREAKING, ELLSBERG SAYS FISA BILL OPENS TO PERMANENT BLACKMAIL OF CONGRESSMEN, ASKS 60 SECONDS OF ACTION NOW!
ADDED, 8:12 EST--This is the most cogent and complete summary of what the FISA bill is all about that I have seen. From the peerless Daniel Ellsberg of course. This patriot was ready to go to jail for the rest of his life for leaking a document which showed that America's sons were being sacrificed for politics, with no chance of victory in Vietnam. Now he is sounding the alarm. Ellsberg says of the FISA bill now before the Senate:
Ordinary citizens who want to live in a democracy — including those with nothing to hide — should be concerned about the ability of the government to use private, sensitive personal information to blackmail, manipulate, and intimidate their representatives, journalists and their sources, potential whistleblowers, and activists or dissenters of any sort.
He is asking every American for 60 seconds of action before the vote is taken and says it's not too late to stop this. From antiwar.com
What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Tuesday
July 7, 2008 in News by Daniel Ellsberg
Tomorrow, July 8th, could mark the beginning of official condoning of warrantless surveillance of law-abiding citizens in the US, not to mention foreign nationals. Much of this information has been covered by Glenn Greenwald in the past week.
In the video below, I talk about what every American needs to know — and do in the next 24 hours — about the new FISA (Federal Information and Surveillance Act) amendments. The interview, and below partial transcription, answers questions like...
-I don’t have anything to hide. How does this affect me?
-What if this type of surveillance is what has prevented another 9/11 from happening?
-What are common inaccuracies about FISA reported in the media?
Find below how you can make a real impact in less than 60 seconds. Every person counts — the Senators who will vote are watching the numbers. 41 Senators can block the bill, and it’s not too late.
Please do the following: How I ask you to spend 60 seconds
- ALL AMERICANS: Go to the EFF website here and put in your zipcode to find your Senator’s phone number. Call them and read the short script on the same page. If no answer, click the link at the bottom of the page to e-mail them.
(Tell others verbally to go to "www.eff.org" and click "take action")
- OBAMA SUPPORTERS: Go to My.BarackObama.com here and join the group requesting he oppose (as he did earlier) the amendment. This takes about 30 seconds. I suggest changing "ListServ" in the bottom right to "Do not receive e-mails." (Tell others verbally to search "obama please vote no" on Google and My.BarackObama.com will be in the top 3 results, currently #1)
What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Tuesday, July 8th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.
Some Highlights of the interview:
- Why does the vote this Tuesday, July 8th matter to normal people who have nothing to hide?
Ordinary citizens who want to live in a democracy — including those with nothing to hide — should be concerned about the ability of the government to use private, sensitive personal information to blackmail, manipulate, and intimidate their representatives, journalists and their sources, potential whistleblowers, and activists or dissenters of any sort.
- Couldn’t it be argued that this type of surveillance ability has prevented another 9/11 from happening? Isn’t it possible that this type of legislation has saved American lives?
The administration has claimed that is has, but without presenting a single piece of evidence that this is so, even in closed hearings to Senators with clearances on the Intelligence Committee. The FISA court has granted warrants in virtually every request that’s been made of it that has any color of helping national security. The administration’s decision to bypass that court, illegally, leads to a strong suspicion that they are abusing domestic spying, as some of their predecessors did, in ways that even the secret FISA court would never approve.
- What are the most important factual inaccuracies about FISA found in the media?
Advocates of the bill take pride that it makes this amended FISA the exclusive basis for overhearing citizens, but that exclusivity is, in fact, in the current 30-year-old FISA bill already. President Bush simply ignored it in bypassing FISA, and there’s not reason that he and his successors would not continue to do the same here.
It’s been inaccurately stated that if this amendments didn’t pass, FISA would expire. This is flatly false. FISA is open-ended and will continue as it already has, adequately for 30 years. What would expire are some blanket surveillance orders authorized last year, which the majority of Democrats, including Senator Obama, voted against.
The current bill does include one useful amendment to FISA, which could be passed with virtually unanimous approval in an afternoon, to allow warrantless interception of foreign-to-foreign communications that happen to pass through the United States. No one opposes this.
Various administration officials have claimed that the requirement of applying for a warrant from the FISA court deprived them of speed and flexibility. This is false. The FISA allows for surveillance to be implemented in an emergency situation before a warrant is sought, and that could undoubtedly be extended with Congressional approval without controversy.
What the administration seeks, and this bill provides, is permanent warrantless surveillance.
- Let’s consider an analogy: police officers have the legal right to stop you if you’re going 56 mph in a 55-mph zone, but this right isn’t often abused or applied to harass citizens. What makes you think the administration would abuse their surveillance powers if this amendment is approved?
The abuses of surveillance to which governments are drawn are those that keep them in office, used to intimidate and manipulate their rivals, and to avoid debate and dissent on their policies. These are exactly the abuses that the Church Committee discovered in 1975, which had been conducted on a wide-scale by the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and in some cases even earlier, which is what lead to FISA in the first place.
To remove judicial oversight, which this amendment would effectively do, is to invite the same kind of repressive abuse that lead to FISA in the first place.
- Why would the current administration want this amendment to pass, if not for safety of citizens and prevention of attacks?
Using NSA to spy without judicial oversight or constraint on American citizens provides the infrastructure for dictatorship. George W. Bush has frequently said what other presidents may only have thought: "It would be a heck of a lot easier in a dictatorship, if only I were the dictator."
Other presidents have violated the law and the Constitution in much the same way as Bush, so long as they could do it secretly, but they haven’t proclaimed that as a right of their office as Bush, Cheney and their legal advisors have done.
The oath of office they took, along with all members of Congress, was to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic. I believe that, in the matters we’ve been discussing, the Founders had it right, not only for their time but for ours.