The US court of appeals has ruled that the bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful, in a landmark decision that clears the way for a full legal challenge against the National Security Agency. – The Guardian, “NSA mass phone surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden ruled illegal,” By Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman
Editorial: To say that I’m not elated by this news would be an understatement. I’m on cloud nine right now, because, finally, somebody, somewhere had the courage to stick it to the N.S.A. And despite the best of efforts of the U.S. Federal Government to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. the other day the ‘vital importance’ of this program the Court said, “No!” You don’t get to go around collecting vast amounts of data and information, store it on your computers, etc. to use against someone [Americans] at a later date.
If you want to do that get out and do it. Get out from behind your computer screens and more, roll up your sleeves, and go to work. Courts. Warrants. Search and Seizure is far more important than your ability to stroke a key on some keyboard somewhere within the confines of the N.S.A.
And as I read through the Guardian article I couldn’t help but wonder about Mr. Snowden, who made this whole thing possible.
You say well, “Rhett. Ed Snowden didn’t do us no favors. C’mon man! We knew all about how the National Security Agency (N.S.A.) does business already. And so Ed Snowden he ain’t so hot bud.”
Well. I beg to differ. In regards to the favor ‘Ed Snowden’ did US. Before all we had were tiny, tiny microscopic, minute details about how the N.S.A. ‘does business’ in our name. Talk about ‘trickle down economics’. Ed Snowden shined the ‘sunlight of disinfectant’ on an otherwise little known problem. So. He did do us [all] a favor.
In my opinion: Edward Snowden needs parks, post offices, library’s, schools even federal buildings named after him.
This man is a hero of mine, and a great American patriot.
I wish him well, and pray for his safe and unmolested, unrequited return to the United States for his day in court. I can’t wait for that trial. Lets do this! Lets have an open debate and dialogue on the rights and wrongs of Edward J. Snowden.
Because in this Revelation and in the wake of the ‘Snowden Revelations’ the debate has truly begun. And the handicap and dependent upon aide and attendant, e.g. “National Security” [and the Homeland], need not apply.
–Rhett.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — I just finished reading an article from MSN News Services, via Reuters and the AP on the so-called Bush-era torture programs/enhanced interrogation techniques during the early days of the War on Terror and I must say I am experiencing and have been experiencing a myriad of emotions, a veritable roller coaster ride of feelings on this pending report for the last two weeks.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what, respectfully, Mr. Obama & Co. are hiding? Why the need to delay, and deny the American people, their right to know? Additionally why the need to provide cover for the Intelligence Community? Finally why, in this article I read, was a pending report from out of the White House, “accidentally emailed” to an Associated Press reporter?
These are but some of the many questions some of the many points of emotion I have been wrestling with, and again, for the last two weeks.
And so it goes…
I learned something this week and I also want to correct, publicly now, a record of standing I have long-held against a former President of these United States, Dwight Eisenhower. I contended that it was former President Eisenhower who started the C.I.A., it was not. It was in fact Harry Truman who started the C.I.A., BUT and his later years he, like so many of us do, had a change of heart on all things Central Intelligence Agency. Here, is where the change of heart began.
And so it goes…
I said all that to say this. The White House, more importantly this President, Barack H. Obama, II., and the honorable, had better come clean. He has but two whole handfuls of months left in his presidency to serve. He has a real opportunity. A real chance to level the playing field to correct the record as it were for the good of all mankind. To become something far more than what I have titled him under this #blogpost as, an ‘ACCIDENTAL’ Statesman.
Because, and I will close with this. Comments such as these from online news articles, though good and very informative, WILL NOT suffice,
“The report does not draw the legal conclusion that the CIA’s actions constituted torture, though it makes clear that in some cases they amounted to torture by a common definition, two people who have read the report said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the still-classified document publicly by name.
The Senate report, the State Department proposes to say, “leaves no doubt that the methods used to extract information from some terrorist suspects caused profound pain, suffering and humiliation. It also leaves no doubt that the harm caused by the use of these techniques outweighed any potential benefit.”
Those methods included slapping, humiliation, exposure to cold, sleep deprivation and the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.
The White House document is significant because it also reveals some of the State Department’s concerns about how the CIA’s tactics will be portrayed around the world.”
COMMENTS like these, for me at least, add up to duck and cover, run and hide, that age-old game of cat and mouse, that has been played throughout history both time and memorial by our fathers, grandfathers and forebears. The Cold War is over folks!
Yet Barack Obama, it appears wants to do nothing more than allow the Intelligence Community to play with the lives, fortunes and sacred honors of We The American People. It would appear to me, in the very least, that ,his attitude and actions of late, the Constitutional Law Professor has an obligatory disdain for the Rule of Law. It says, by his actions, that the Intelligence Community could give a fat rat’s rectum less about the Rule of Law OR that they only care about the Rule of Law when it is more than conveniently necessary for them to do so.
Such an attitude, such an approach toward governance and toward the everyday people who elected him to high office amounts to what Hollywood calls, “creative license”. And creative license will not cut it Mr. President! Respectfully.
Peace.
–Rhett.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, SHARE! PLEASE? THANK YOU. COME AGAIN.
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