A Citizen’s Proposal: Presidential Commission on National Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism

7 Comments

1. 

   on June 10, 2013 at 4:07 pm

   A presidential commission? You don’t really expect the bullshit-artist-in-chief to do anything about looking into the national security state he has been building, do you?

   The Church Committee was a United States Senate Select Committee. The president had nothing to do with it. The whole point of the committee was that Congress had come to the realization that it had trusted the president (Nixon) too much.

   • 

     TarheelDem on June 10, 2013 at 4:20 pm

     The Congress is too partisanly dysfunctional and too complicit with the national security state to create a Senate Select Committee.

     Yesterday, I made the argument, which pissed some folks off, that it was necessary for the White House to get ahead of the public outrage on this issue or it would damage his Presidency.  This was just an excercise in constructive proposal on that point.

     There seems to be little support for it on Daily Kos, here, or at Firedoglake, which pretty much covers everyone to the left of John Boehner.

     Almost everyone seems to be in waiting-for-the-Apocalypse mode or business-as-usual mode.

     Our descendants will remember this failure only if they are allowed to know about it.

     • 

       on June 10, 2013 at 4:45 pm

       OK, thanks, I understand your reasoning now. Today’s Congress is not the Congress of 1975, of course. And I agreed with you when you wrote yesterday that the “White House staff needs to seriously get ahead of this”.

       However, when you consider that Obama’s response to the NSA leaks was that “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy”, which, as Dave Lindorff has noted, is utter bullshit, one has to accept that there is no hope that this administration will ever take any measures to restrict the metastasis of the national security/surveillance state.

       To quote a remark I made yesterday, the NSA programs exist not to create security, but are driven by “bureaucratic mission creep, fueled by new technology, and the same drive for profits that has such an influence on ‘defense’ spending.” One can add that another motive behind the NSA’s programs is simply to spy on other countries—NSA’s original mission, which no longer has an acceptable purpose, now that the Cold War is over—and to engage in cyberwarfare.

       • 

         TarheelDem on June 10, 2013 at 5:21 pm

         Hope of change doesn’t end until January 2017.

         Obama’s response is what I have been referring to as bubblespeak.  It is platitudes that don’t address the details–exactly the wrong response.  The proposal was in hopes some folks close to the bubble might hint at it.

         Yes. Grasping for straws.

         With contractors driving the requirements gathering, it is more than mission creep (in the traditional sense) that is going on.  It is active boondoggling.

         And don’t get me started on the idea of the most cybervulnerable nation in the world engaging in offensive cyberwarfare.  Massive amounts of braindead in that proposition.

         • 

           on June 10, 2013 at 6:13 pm

           Most Americans back NSA tracking phone records, prioritize probes over privacy

           with a Democratic president at the helm instead of a Republican, partisan views have turned around significantly.

           Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say terrorism investigations, not privacy, should be the government’s main concern, an 18-percentage-point jump from early January 2006, when the NSA activity under the George W. Bush administration was first reported. Compared with that time, Republicans’ focus on privacy has increased 22 points.

           The reversal on the NSA’s practices is even more dramatic. In early 2006, 37 percent of Democrats found the agency’s activities acceptable; now nearly twice that number — 64 percent — say the use of telephone records is okay. By contrast, Republicans slumped from 75 percent acceptable to 52 percent today.

           More Democrats than Republicans find the NSA’s practices acceptable becaause—Obama!

           It’s really very sad. I don’t think the plutocracy ever thought that choosing a black candidate for president would prove to be so effective in continuing and extending Bush’s policies.

         • 

           Marie2 on June 10, 2013 at 7:33 pm

           It’s really very sad. I don’t think the plutocracy ever thought that choosing a black candidate for president would prove to be so effective in continuing and extending Bush’s policies.

           Oh, they had some idea.  While Democrats/liberals continue to rail against the Reagan/GHWB policies, they ignore/overlook that the real slasher of New Deal regulations was Clinton and they are eager for Clinton II four years from now.  

2. 

   TarheelDem on June 11, 2013 at 11:42 am

   Signs of life in a movement.

   86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying

   We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s and the FBI’s data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

   1. Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;
   2. Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;
   3. Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.