I'm not happy about what is going on with the US. What with the President confessing on National TV to breaking the law and Congressional Republicans lacking the cojones to realize that he's dissing them. He can do pretty much what he pleases now by using FISA. Why diss the House and Senate?
He told them? Sure he did. He told them he was going to use new technology to spy on foreign signals that use US equipment. He didn't tell them he was going to listen in on all long distance calls to other countries.
"Hey Grandma, I'm coming to Hannukkah dinner"
breaking noise from listener; "Hannukah or Rammadan?"
"No Hannukkah Sir! -- don't you worry about me no sir!"
"Sonny who is that nice man?"
"I don't know."
"Sad we can't invite him over."
"Yes, very sad."
breaking Noise: "Was that 'Mossad?'"
What can you say?
We need for Democrats to get elected so that we can impeach the jerk. think that will happen?
I don't know.
Think that will stop the government from spying on us?
I doubt it.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michael/ledeen122005.php3
Meanwhile, I can count my blessings that the McCain amendment passed. I don't know if it has become law yet. Maybe the sordid history of the US and torture (and lying about it) can be put to rest.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/klein
Chris
I'm not alone:
<"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001373.html">Anne Applebaum puts the case that "Hollow Rhetoric on Rule of Law" damages our national security far more than any marginal improvement to security we may win from such spying, Eugene Robins "Imperial Assumptions" and William M. Arkin in "Inside NSA", Notes that our Enemies probably understand our spy capabilities better than most of us Americans do. David Ignatius at least sees a silver lining, "Revolt of the Professionals. What they all have in common is the dawning realization that this Executive is serious about exercising unlimited power. Even a Judge sitting on the FISA court has resigned in protest:&nsbp;"Spy Court Quits in Protest", like I said, impeachable.
updated 12/21/2005
Just when I thought the guy was about to moderate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121701005.html
Bush claims he bypassed FISA in 2002 because FISA was not designed to
deal with terrorists operating under cover of US citizenship.
However, this is a lie buried within a lie. Even if his statement
were true, it is a lie because Congress was ready and willing to give
him all the authority he wanted and did so with the Patriot Act 1.
That he ignored the FISA rules, pre-patriot act and post patriot act
tells us that this was an excuse not a reason. But the statement
itself is a lie, because FISA rules are very general, the courts are
secret, they almost never say no, and they allow one to ask for
permission after the taps. Which means he could have done his general
surveillance, sought permission only when something of interest
popped up, and only kept those recordings that were of "interest".
But aside from all that, one little fact shouldn't go unnoticed, all
this is illegal. Snooping on people isn't protecting security, it is threatening our security. The DISA act didn't make the courts optional. To
spy on citizens the US has to go through the courts. They can't just
flout the law and then claim executive privelage. That isn't
democracy that is rule by decree. Worse, stamping it with layers of
secrecy and trying to make leaks of the information subject to the
secrecy act just shows how far down the road towards dictatorship we
really are.
There should be an exemption to the secrecy act for whistle blowing about acts of high crimes and misdemeaners. If one is going to break the law, one should be prepared to pay the price, not enjoy impunity. I've been reluctant to call
for "impeachment" -- but after hearing this, this is not an issue for
a "special prosecutor". It is an issue for a "special prosecutor" and
an impeachment hearing. Bush should be impeached, tried and removed
from office for this.
But to get that we have to survive the next election. Bush has made
this an issue in an effort to divide and rule. He knows that this
revelation sabotages the effort to get a new Patriot act passed. He
isn't interested in any Patriot act -- he wants unlimited authority
and a rubber stamp congress. He wants what Augustus wanted. Will he
get it? Better believe THE issue in the next election will
be "national security" and those who stand against him will be
labelled as traitors. The US is looking more and more like that third
world Country I've come to know and love; Argentina.
I'm certain that this is going to escalate. I don't think Bush even
realizes (or cares) where this is heading. He wants a showdown to
take attention off of investigations into corruption and malfeasance
of his leutenants and to give the Republicans an issue to run on in
2006. But this is a challenge to American Liberty, to the survival of
the Republic, and to Democratic rule -- and I don't think this fight
can do anything but deteriate unless Republicans start showing some
backbone and love of their Constitution and say "Mr. President this
is wrong. You have to obey the law."
Other References for todays article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/17/AR2005121700018.html
We don't know which secret program the President was talking about, we know it was NSA, as an IT person and someone generally familiar with the outlines
(what is in the public arena) of NSA[I lived down the road from it for 10 years], it had something to do with compututerized surveillance. He probably had his listening devices searching for key words and such. We've all suspected this activity for years. We can continue to suspect it. The President has made it
clear that he doesn't care if he was breaking the law. In that he is continuing a tradition of Presidents or of their bureaucrats at lower levels.
The Government never really stopped spying on us, except
maybe the brief period between 1974 and 1991 -- and I doubt it really
stopped then. I once was told that during that period NSA would get
the Canadians to spy on us and in return spy on the Canadians for
them. I've also read allegations that the real reasons why 9/11
occured is that the CIA and the FBI weren't talking to each other. If
so that's not new either. I have some books on the History of the CIA
and FBI, they have been rivals from the beginning. Wild Bill Donovan
started as a J. Edgar ally and became an enemy. This is nothing new.
He is not protecting our security, he is
threatening our security. Snooping leads to secret evidence, secret evidence is by it's nature sloppy, imprecise, and often false. Secret evidence gets the wrong people locked up, the wrong people killed, and leads directly to tyranny. There is a joke in todays post:
Good news today.
1. Congress did the right thing and passed the McCain amendment banning torture.
2. Bush promised to rebuild the Levees in New Orleans. [We'll see if he is serious later].
3. The Patriot Act could have been worse.
Chris
From a dialogue I'm having on ARBN:
> Well Mark, Ichinen Sanzen makes a good starting point for your studies.
>I've thought I understood Ichinen Sanzen thoroughly at some 3 points in
>my career. Now I realize how much I don't understand Ichinen Sanzen,
>which itself is a kind of enlightenment -- but no where near "final
>enlightenment."
Mark:
> Well, thats exactly it. You can never fully understand it until you
> achieve Buddhahood, but the small awakenings to it are very rewarding
> in themselves. Understanding the nature of life is what Buddhism is
> about. The hard part is adopting it into your life. Thats is the
> difference between theoretical and actual ichinen sanzen.
I don't think "fully understanding" Ichinen Sanzen, at this point, for
me is even a valid goal. Like Dependent origination itself, the only
thing each realization has given me have been jumping perspectives;
first, an appreciation for both the "elephant" of life -- and the flea
that is me compared to that elephant. Heck the flea on the flea on the
elephant.
next, an appreciation for how "I" myself am an "elephant" compared to
how I conceptualize myself, "I".
and third, an appreciation for the perspective that "I" am a cartoon
compared to the ultimate.
fourth, an appreciation for the cartoonist for his wonderful skill and
sense of humor.
and fifth, the notion that some times "I" am the cartoonist and other
times the cartoon.
Chris with a little humor.
:-)
I swore I'd never post again at ARBN. Oh, well people change.
Old arguments live on. Even if the arguments used by a group are completely refuted and the group nearly destroyed and dispersed, somehow the emotional energy of those arguments seems to have a life of it's own. Like a "Demon" or spiritual being, this load of emotion manages to find it's way to influence formation of new groups with the same emotion, and slightly different arguments.
This thought impressed me while discussing the history of scientific racism, eugenics, and it's related expressions. In the period from 1888-1920 scientific racism included the notion that groups expressed genes in such a way that the groups could be classed as superior or inferior by the genes they expressed. This notion was coupled with anti-semitism by Northern Europeans and that is what ultimately came to be expressed in Nazism. Everyone claims that Nazism was permanently destroyed and refuted in WWII, yet I keep finding disturbing reminders that the Germans weren't the only avatars of those ideas and that they are neither dead nor gone -- just morphed into new forms.
Moreover every negative idea exists as a counter to other negative ideas. Thus there should be no comfort that the people who had similar ideas to the Nazis should have been their most ruthless opponants during WWII. Nor should it be a comfort that the modern avatars of anti-semitism live within a brother semite (ethnicity and language-wise) culture.
I guess we have to accept that as part of the good and the bad of human nature. It is comforting that if bad ideas never die, neither can good ones be killed. If bad ideas oppose and cancel, good ideas can create resonances and synergies. Bad ideas are delusional, false, illusional [by definition]; and usually based on outright lies or distortions. That makes them self-limiting. When bad ideas are based on a kernal of truth that makes them defeatable by defeating the kernal of truth they are based on. That is enough for now. It's not a depressing subject after all.
Chris