At
The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes
How the U.S. Is Spreading 'Procedures of Totalitarianism':
On Wednesday evening, Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center delivered the first in a series of lectures at Columbia Law School on Edward Snowden, how to conceive of his leaks, and the impact they're likely to have on the course of world history.
Moglen, a professor of law and legal history at Columbia, felt compelled to begin speaking on these subjects due in part to the radical position being taken by the U.S. and allied governments. As he put it, "We are being told that spying on entire societies is normal." In order to carry out that spying, the U.S. is employing "procedures of totalitarianism," he argued.
Those are strong words.
On reflection, I find it hard to argue with them. The Obama Administration has been careful to pretend that it favors strict limits that prevent Americans from being spied upon, but no one denies that when it comes to the citizens of foreign countries, the U.S. believes we should be totally unconstrained in hovering up whatever information we see fit, targeting not just foreign militaries and bureaucrats but regular citizens too. In our view, their phone calls, emails, and web-browsing habits are all fair game, even if citizens are not at all suspected of terrorism or any other crime. It is no exaggeration to say that we've constructed sufficient infrastructure to gather and store more information on innocents than any government in history, totalitarian or otherwise. And our occasionally explicit goal is, in fact, total information awareness. [...]
For now, I just want to restate my belief that spying on entire societies is not normal, and to say that the United States does not have the right to subject every nation on earth to "procedures of totalitarianism." Insofar as we assert the right to spy without constraint, we betray founding values, diminish our standing, and violate core rights of free people. [...]
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—And the media played stupid: vicious harpy edition:
Let's get right to it. Michelle Malkin. Again.
We all know the long story. The short version here is that she's decided it's fair game to stalk the family of the 12 year old kid who had the temerity to use the SCHIP program and say he liked it, and that you might, too. This was evil, of course, because although Malkin's family faced pretty much the same predicament three years ago, her family is Republican and presumably has a lot of American flag lapel pins, while this kid's family is a bunch of Jerkoff Nazis from Planet Stalin.
But here's how, despite the outrage, the media insists on being dumber than Malkin. As emptywheel points out, when the New York Times finally takes note of the fact that Malkin is a corrosive bottom-feeder, they forget all about her syndicated newspaper column and semi-regular TeeVee appearances (including substituting for Bill O'Reilly) and she becomes...
Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts....
Yes, only an icky-poopie blah-grr would sink so low. Didn't you know?
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Tweets of the Day:
Single mothers deprived of WIC baby formula during shutdown are launching a 7-figure ad buy against lawmakers, sponsoring ads in Politico.
— @lhfang
Just kidding. They're just screwed and helpless.
— @lhfang
On
today's Kagro in the Morning show, is a debt ceiling cave coming?
Greg Dworkin on the crazy
AP story that wasn't about Terry McAuliffe. Rs getting serious shutdown backlash from home. Cruz does his own poll, finds the same as everyone else & divines a win. Gop fractures over pivoting away from Obamacare. Two shocking #GunFAIL verdicts from SC & MD. Finally, more on the right wing coordination on the shutdown fight. David Weigel in
Slate argues that the Kochs have less to do with it than other stories have alleged. And Lee Fang in
The Nation says there are bigger and badder gangs driving things.
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