The nation is now focused on the Olympics of which security concerns are high profile and why the U.S. Congress is backed off the NSA surveillence issue for now but this will pass. The NSA grip on our mass communications may also pass but the immediate fortune of Obama and the Democratic party is in dire jeopardy. Obama's support of NSA mass surveillence or bulk spying of all of our communications, phone and internet, is a dagger to the heart of support for otherwise sane policies in government and most importantly a resuscitation of the opposing political party which this week turned and declared it will oppose mass surveillence after years of fully supporting NSA mass surveillence and this of course only after the heat is on Obama for supporting mass surveillence with the point being you cannot trust the GOP to continue opposing the NSA. You should regard it as a trap but it is hard to refuse any help now in opposing the NSA.
Obama has struck a near fatal blow to support from young people and internet users across the age spectrum. That is a lot of people and so therein the basis for Obama's 37% approval rating although the media right now strangely exclude this from his ratings analysis just as they exclude any talk of anything NSA but that's another story.
In June this year Obama introduced reforms to NSA spying but what it amounted to were merely tweeks and adjustments to NSA mass surveillence essentially leaving the spying structure fully intact. After all the recent protest of the NSA bullying it's will upon the nation and for that matter the world Obama had a chance to right much of the damage he had done to his civil libertarian credibility back in June but instead came right back out now with about the same milquetoast reform he offered last summer. Support for Obama from young voters and internet users was clearly strained to the limit but Obama decided now to go ahead and cut the thread he is hanging by. This blog has long supported Obama on most issues but I'am now finding myself on the wrong side of that thread.
One has to wonder if the NSA has a "gun" to Obama's head or just what. What has transpired is essentially political suicide for Obama and to top it all off he only refers to the issue in his state of the union speech infering that privacy rights are not being violated but what a slap in the face of all of us that believe goverment access to all of our communications is the primary danger to our nation. The spying network locks in the nation to the total control of a very possible future American dictator or despotic regime. The NSA and it's operatives that support mass surveillence seem to have little respect of history crying out in protest and warning of this danger.
I have stopped trying to figure out what could possibly be going on with Obama's support of NSA mass surveillence. It has been clearly demonstrated that the threat of terrorism does not justify this so if they are not going to tell us and reveal the real impetus behind their NSA support then we must assume they are under it's control. Perhaps that shadow dictatorship or forceful plutocratic corporatocracy is already established.
What it all comes down to then is the people's forcefull will upon our government of which the U.S. constitution provides. I do not mean violent force but protest that cannot be ignored and if it comes to it the impeachment of this Whitehouse. Healthcare for the poor and the confidence of community it generates is of vital importance. Raising the minimum wage and concern for the widening gap between rich and poor needs an administration working for that concern but one has to have a sense of what is most critically important. A mass surveillence superstructure established now with drone extension is the biggest threat to our republic since the revolutionary war. We are at the crossroads now on this issue and prevention of this kind of control is the only way and the only time it will be possible to stop it. Spying on suspects is one thing but spying on all communications is another.
Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) said after his investigation of the NSA in 1975, following leaks about President Richard M. Nixon's use of the NSA to spy on his enemies, opponents of the war in Vietnam and others:
"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. ... We must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." 1.
And that was the danger of NSA technological capability in 1975. Do you see that we are now surely at a crossroads of which one way leads down to the edge of that abyss?
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 but he would have been easily impeached for his part in spying. The catch here and now is the claim that present day mass surveillence is not illegal however legality established under duress of war cannot be continued and should be viewed with a suspect eye when continued too long. Many parties agree the NSA's surveillence is illegal and impeachment of Obama not out of the question. The very fact the president wants to continue to violate our privacy rights and put the nation in danger of future turnkey tyranny ignoring the foresight history provides is enough to remove him from office.
I do not like any of this. I would plead to the president to reconsider this and quickly offer discontinuation of bulk mass surveillence. His presidency should depend on it and his political party's immediate future is tied to it. Obama's approval ratings are at 37% and the mid-term elections will see both houses of congress in Republican hands if he doesn't relent and end bulk communications spying but there are more important things than the politics of it, it just happens that it will all turn this way if the biggest mistake of the last 100 years is continued. Regardless of the political considerations mass surveillence of all our communications must end now for all our sakes and most importantly for our childrens children.
1. The "risk of total tyranny" excerpt in italics from the article "Return To Nixonland: How The NSA Slipped It's Leash" by Lisa Graves
Obama has struck a near fatal blow to support from young people and internet users across the age spectrum. That is a lot of people and so therein the basis for Obama's 37% approval rating although the media right now strangely exclude this from his ratings analysis just as they exclude any talk of anything NSA but that's another story.
In June this year Obama introduced reforms to NSA spying but what it amounted to were merely tweeks and adjustments to NSA mass surveillence essentially leaving the spying structure fully intact. After all the recent protest of the NSA bullying it's will upon the nation and for that matter the world Obama had a chance to right much of the damage he had done to his civil libertarian credibility back in June but instead came right back out now with about the same milquetoast reform he offered last summer. Support for Obama from young voters and internet users was clearly strained to the limit but Obama decided now to go ahead and cut the thread he is hanging by. This blog has long supported Obama on most issues but I'am now finding myself on the wrong side of that thread.
One has to wonder if the NSA has a "gun" to Obama's head or just what. What has transpired is essentially political suicide for Obama and to top it all off he only refers to the issue in his state of the union speech infering that privacy rights are not being violated but what a slap in the face of all of us that believe goverment access to all of our communications is the primary danger to our nation. The spying network locks in the nation to the total control of a very possible future American dictator or despotic regime. The NSA and it's operatives that support mass surveillence seem to have little respect of history crying out in protest and warning of this danger.
I have stopped trying to figure out what could possibly be going on with Obama's support of NSA mass surveillence. It has been clearly demonstrated that the threat of terrorism does not justify this so if they are not going to tell us and reveal the real impetus behind their NSA support then we must assume they are under it's control. Perhaps that shadow dictatorship or forceful plutocratic corporatocracy is already established.
What it all comes down to then is the people's forcefull will upon our government of which the U.S. constitution provides. I do not mean violent force but protest that cannot be ignored and if it comes to it the impeachment of this Whitehouse. Healthcare for the poor and the confidence of community it generates is of vital importance. Raising the minimum wage and concern for the widening gap between rich and poor needs an administration working for that concern but one has to have a sense of what is most critically important. A mass surveillence superstructure established now with drone extension is the biggest threat to our republic since the revolutionary war. We are at the crossroads now on this issue and prevention of this kind of control is the only way and the only time it will be possible to stop it. Spying on suspects is one thing but spying on all communications is another.
________
The risk of total tyranny
Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) said after his investigation of the NSA in 1975, following leaks about President Richard M. Nixon's use of the NSA to spy on his enemies, opponents of the war in Vietnam and others:
"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. ... We must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." 1.
_______
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 but he would have been easily impeached for his part in spying. The catch here and now is the claim that present day mass surveillence is not illegal however legality established under duress of war cannot be continued and should be viewed with a suspect eye when continued too long. Many parties agree the NSA's surveillence is illegal and impeachment of Obama not out of the question. The very fact the president wants to continue to violate our privacy rights and put the nation in danger of future turnkey tyranny ignoring the foresight history provides is enough to remove him from office.
I do not like any of this. I would plead to the president to reconsider this and quickly offer discontinuation of bulk mass surveillence. His presidency should depend on it and his political party's immediate future is tied to it. Obama's approval ratings are at 37% and the mid-term elections will see both houses of congress in Republican hands if he doesn't relent and end bulk communications spying but there are more important things than the politics of it, it just happens that it will all turn this way if the biggest mistake of the last 100 years is continued. Regardless of the political considerations mass surveillence of all our communications must end now for all our sakes and most importantly for our childrens children.
1. The "risk of total tyranny" excerpt in italics from the article "Return To Nixonland: How The NSA Slipped It's Leash" by Lisa Graves
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