Mined Out

There are days I do things beside dredge the Intertubes looking for news, and this has been one of those days. So I’m going to defer to other bloggers on the NSA/FBI/PRISM data mining story.

Good overview of what’s been happening and the constitutional issues involved — “How All Three Branches Conspired to Threaten Your Privacy” by Scott Lemieux

See also “President Obama’s War” by Charles Pierce and “PRISM Stopped Najibullah Zazi From Blowing Up Backpacks in the Subway” by Dan Amira.

16 thoughts on “Mined Out

  1. WWII.
    Ever since then, Congress has decided to let Presidents do, what Presidents want to do, regarding involving our military.
    And so, Truman went to the UN, regarding Korea, and Tonkin led to a full engagement in Vietnam, without too many complaints from Congress. And, in due course, Grenada, and the two Iraq adventures. The only real complaining I heard, was during Clinton’s term, and even then, we did what Clinton wanted to do.

    As wars go, so went our “national security” issues – with Congress bowing to the President.

    We can’t really complain now, because that “privacy” horse was led out of the barn, and let run free, a long, long, time ago. Now, people bitch about who’s riding the damn horse – but, after being let go, that point is moot.

    It all began during the Civil War, when letters and telegrams were read, in the interests of “national security.” The same thing happened during WWI, and following the Russian Revolution. It continued during WWII and the Cold War. The moronic “War on Drugs,” led to still further massive erosions of our rights to privacy. And, following 9/11, and the idiotic “War on Terror,” and “The Patriot Act,” we have basically given up whatever privacy we have.

    And people are shocked?
    Shocked, that the NSA, and other agencies, to “protect” us, are data-mining? This is nothing new. Our government has long had the ability to monitor us, and our activities.
    Have a land-line phone? They capture who you called, and when – or who called you. And they’ve had the ability to listen in, for well over a century.
    Ditto, with cell phones – which can also track where you went, and when, with their GPS technology.
    Have an EZ Pass? They can track where your car was.
    Use some thing-a-ma-bobs on your key-ring from supermarkets for discounts? They know what you bought, and when.
    Use the internet? ALL of that, is captured.

    Advances in technology are always used by governments, because the people in charge, want to stay in charge. That applied to Lincoln, and every President since him. And we can’t really say jack-sh*t about it now, because we’ve been relatively silent our whole lives. I was criticized, when I bitched about the privacy intrusions involved with our “War on Drugs.” What did I have to complain about, if I wasn’t using drugs? Surely, if I was bitching about it, I must be a drug-user, or trafficker. We’re only doing this, “to protect our children.” “What do you have to worry about, if you’re innocent?”

    I’m neither surprised, nor shocked, because I know this has been going on, my entire life.
    Do I like it? Hell no.
    Do you? Probably not.
    But at this point, what the hell can we do about it?

    All a President has to do, is say that something is in the interests of “National Security,” and most people will say, “Oh, please, protect us! Do whatever you need to do, to protect us, and our families.”
    Benjamin Franklin wrote, ” They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
    Keep that in mind, when the next terrorist attack occurs in America. Because, there will be one. And one after that. And after that one. And so on…

    We have traded essential liberty, for the temporary security, between terrorist events.
    That “privacy” horse has long left the barn. All we’re left with, is to criticize the person who’s riding it.
    We bitched about Bush. They’ll bitch about Obama. But that “privacy” horse is out of the barn, running amok. We’re the ones who are locked in, and being observed.

    And what can we do about it?
    We can bitch all we want, but the moment the next terrorist attack happens, we’ll all, again – or, most, or enough of us will – beg the government to protect us.
    So, what can we do about it?

  2. “So, what can we do about it?”
    If the “government” has all that info, it’s worthless unless they have anal-ists who can actually apply the info to something significant. Seems to me that being “random” with posts, phone calls, and purchases will make any gathered info totally useless. That is, unless a person is purchasing large amounts of fertilizer, ammo, and weapons, and they live in an urban area.
    While I don’t particularly like being spied on(especially by firms from outside the US), I think what is prompting the activity (besides “blow back” from the Bush wars) is the rise of domestic nut groups and associated threats to public officials. Letters laced with Ricin and anthrax ignite paranoia,go figure. If I could, I’d get as far away from this nut house as possible, maybe New Zealand or some remote Pacific atoll.

  3. OT – On MSNBC just now, Steve Kornacki had Col. Jack Jacobs as a member of his panel, and they were talking about how we use our military. The whole panel agreed that if we had a draft, there would have been rioting in the streets over W’s wanting to go into Iraq. And, afterwards, of course.
    And Jacobs had an interesting idea. ALL 18 year-olds, upon graduation from HS, would go to 8 weeks of Boot Camp. No draft, no 2 or 4 year commitment – 8 weeks. This way, everyone in the country will have a shared experience, and we’d be less likely to use our military indiscriminately.
    Jacobs also said that, after those 8 weeks, the problem will be deciding which ones to keep – and we can save billions of dollars on advertising. And we could still have an all-volunteer military – but one that knows what’s it’s all about.
    I’d be for that. I would have been for that, when I was 17, and the Vietnam War was winding down.
    That makes so much damn sense, that we’ll never do it.
    What do you folks think?

    • I remember some years ago proposing a law that would mandate both a draft and a tax increase whenever a U.S. “military action” lasted longer than, say, two weeks. The purpose of this was not to support the military action but to force all Americans to pay for it, which in turn might cause the armchair commandos to re-consider whether the action should be done at all.

  4. I’d be all for that, too.
    W, was the only moron in the entire history of the moronic human race, who waged two wars and occupations, while giving people tax cuts.
    And I distinctly remember being told to shut the f*ck up – oh, and what was I gonna spend MY $300 bucks on?
    Feckin’ eedjits.

  5. I think it sucks that we have lost so much privacy over the last ten years but I think even without 9-11 it was inevitable (read Ted Kaczynski’s manifest, he was a kook but he predicted a lot of what is happening with the internet). It’s the natural progression of technology and the ability to store data. Someone is going to use it for questionable reasons. What needs to happen is the congress needs to pass laws limiting the power of the president and the various agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.), I don’t see it as President Obama’s job to throttle back what is being done in the name of “Homeland Security”. Everything he is doing was passed into law as far as has been reported so…. When he was first elected all we heard was if we get attacked again, blah, blah, blah, the right and the MSM set him up for zero-tolerance of terrorist attacks. If were President Obama I’d be doing the exact same thing. This country is fine with continuous war but will not accept any casualties (See Benghazi). What’s a commander in chief supposed to do?

  6. Oh and I think Glen Greenwald is fast becoming the Glenn BecKKK of the left!

  7. And I distinctly remember being told to shut the f*ck up – oh, and what was I gonna spend MY $300 bucks on?

    Never look a gift horse in the mouth? I remember thinking that this is going to cost me when I got mine, although at the time I didn’t know how great the price was going to be.

  8. Swami, I thought the price would be WW3; but when you think about it, it ain’t over yet. W’s crap has boiled over into Syria and now Lebanon. The chance of a world war is much greater at this time, and the chance of terrorism is also much greater—- consider the Chechen brothers in Boston and the right wing Teahadists rattling their sabers for revolution. The Neocons said “real men go to Tehran”; the march has yet to end. Who’s running this popsicle stand? and why would anyone even CONSIDER Jeb Bush a viable candidate for POTUS?

  9. Maha, I’d be for the congress required a vote, then cutting off a finger than a draft; the chance of war would be near zero.It’s only a finger,unless you’re a hopeless narcissist or a psychopath -which seems to be a requirement for political office.

  10. Sept 11 proved beyond any doubt how dangerous a small band of zealots could be. It doesn’t matter if they are crazed Muslim jihadists or right-wing skin-head Nazis. People are willing to kill innocent bystanders to make a political statement. It’s easier now then ever before to find instructions how to build bombs or manufacture toxic substances – the lethality is limited only by your creativity and resources.

    There was a major shift in emphasis after Sept 11. Up until the World Trade Towers fell, law enforcement would track down and prosecute murderers, including mass murderers – after the fact. Now the government is expected to interdict an attack before it happens. President Obama knew from the day he won the election in 2010, a successful terrorist attack would be politically exploited as the result of a liberal weakness. This zero-tolerance standard places huge pressure on government – they HAVE to adopt totalitarian methods or risk a failure with huge political consequences.

    Therin lies the rub. Either the public at large has to accept the risk of some terrorism in our midst – and not allow a Boston-style attack to become political fodder – OR – we allow, encourage and virtually mandate an almost total lack of privacy outside the bedroom. There’s not a lot of middle ground.

    Everyone supports the idea police can wiretap and spy with a court order which should require probable cause. If that’s where you draw the line, you have to accept the higher risk of terrorism as the price of freedom and privacy – and you have to give politicians and police some slack when there IS a failure. This is and either/or discussion no one is having, though there are strong camps on both sides of the issue. What’s missing is that neither side is addressing the trade-off objectively.

  11. uncledad..Just the dumb stuff? That’s a lot of editing you’re asking for. Maybe I’ll ask Maha to spruce me up also. I don’t think she can do it, because it would take one hell of an algorithm to sort my quality comments from my dumb ones.

  12. FINK!!!

    And if they come for me first, I’ll negotiate for a better sentence, by ratti… informing the government, of everyone in this Commie cell.

    YOU’LL all end up in the GULag – I’ll be doing my time, at a prison with a 3-hole golf course.

  13. uncledad..Just the dumb stuff?

    Yeah like I said just search “uncledad” and delete that should cover it!

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