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Yup, we spied on them at the 2009 G20 meeting in London. Like that is a surprise? You don't think that Russia spies every day in New York, Washington and other points around the country and the world? This Snowden revelation is a lot of smoke with no substance.
We remember how the US had to abandon its embassy in Moscow in 1985 because it was riddled with listening devices implanted during its construction. (NY Times:http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/20/world/deal-made-on-bugged-us-moscow-embassy.html) So spying is not anything new to the Russians and they should not be surprised that they were bugged in 2009.
If the balance of the information that Edward Snowden revealed to The Guardian newspaper is as meaningless as this story, then we have nothing to fear from his leaks and the information about the NSA will be the only blockbuster story. However, the question still remains, what else was he able to acquire? Time will tell if he is the criminal, treasonous man or a naive "do gooder" or something in between.
One thing we should not do is to jump to any decisions until we know for sure.
Britain, working with the United States' National Security Agency, intercepted phone calls and monitored computers used by officials taking part in two high-level international finance meetings in London in 2009, a British newspaper said on Sunday.
The latest report, leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, reveals that the U.S. specifically targeted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's communication signals, or "meta-data," back to the Russian embassy in London.
The effort, however, apparently didn't apparently reveal much beyond "a change in the way Russian leadership signals have been normally transmitted," the Guardian reported.
According to the newspaper, the NSA documents stated that "this is an analysis of signal activity in support of President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to London. The report details a change in the way Russian leadership signals have been normally transmitted. The signal activity was found to be emanating from the Russian embassy in London and the communications are believed to be in support of the Russian president."
Specifically, the details of the intercepts were in a briefing document prepared by the NSA and shared with high-ranking officials from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The disclosure reveals the importance of "the U.S. spy hub at RAF Menwith Hill in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where hundreds of NSA analysts are based," working alongside liaison officers from British intelligence, the paper concluded.
The Guardian said some delegates from countries in the Group of 20 - which comprises top economies around the world - used Internet cafes that had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their emails.
The report Sunday was published hours before leaders of the Group of Eight countries - all of which are in the G20 - start a two-day summit in Northern Ireland.
The Guardian said it had seen classified documents that detailed secret monitoring by British intelligence of officials at a G20 leaders summit and a finance ministers' meeting in 2009 and suggested it had been sanctioned at a senior level by the government of former prime minister Gordon Brown.
The aim of the monitoring, which included tracing who was calling who, appeared to have been to get an edge in the meetings and targets included South Africa and Turkey, the report said.
A spokesman for Britain's foreign ministry declined to comment. The Labour party, which held power in 2009, was not immediately available for comment.
The IRS/Tea Party Scandal doesn’t hold a candle to the size and scope of IRS abuses… So, it sheds no light on anything.
Let’s boil this scandal down to simple words; words like “Tea Party” and “Patriot” and “Constitutional”; words that when used in paperwork to become tax exempt organizations, keep the people filing from being treated fairly. And, before I get to the point… understand… everyone should be treated fairly… and with a 1st Amendment Right to speak and write and congregate… what we say or write should have no bearing on whether or not we are treated equally. Who disagrees with that?
Credit: UPI
Something is wrong if some words (speech) are tax deductible and some words aren’t. Something is wrong if the government gets to decide which ones are deductible and which ones are not. It’s a heinous encroachment on the 1st Amendment.
But really, why is it such a big deal if a powerful political group is not cheated fairly (I said “cheated” but I meant “treated”), especially when thousands without power and political clout are not treated fairly? It seems that’s no big deal at all, at least to the mainstream media and public — but not to those whose lives are ruined.
The real problem is having such a powerful and largely unaccountable agency whose job is to tax work — something that shouldn’t be taxed anyway — while also wielding carte blanche powers to ruin lives.
Shining A Light On The Real Scandals: The Ruining Of Lives
I handled the remnants and ashes of a case in Walnut Ridge, Ark., where Gordon Kahl, a tax protestor, was assassinated by Sheriff Gene Matthews in 1983. Then Matthews was killed by “friendly fire” as he left the scene of his violence and was mistaken for the tax protestor. Then gasoline was poured onto the building to destroy the evidence… and the place lit on fire. The IRS, U.S. Marshals, FBI, and local Arkansas sheriffs arrested Norma Ginter, a housewife, brutalized her and charged her with harboring Gordon Kahl and murdering Sheriff Gene Matthews. Norma was eventually found not guilty on the trumped-up murder case — I was her attorney. If you read the old papers back in 1983, Norma looked like Ma Barker … except Ma Barker was guilty and Norma was a sweet heart housewife guilty of nothing.
And, I was there after the trauma in West Virginia when IRS motivated SWAT teams threatened to kill a family dog, and a little 7-year-old girl hurled her body in front of the red dot from the sniper gun to protect her dog. Terrorized, handcuffed and restrained parents wondered if their daughter would be killed. Home not burned — just wrecked.
A teenager forced from a shower at gun point, so the IRS could “check out” her parents’ home.
A short, round-faced tax preparer attacked by an IRS SWAT team. The kind little man standing back while his secretary messed on herself out of fear, staring into the barrel of IRS guns.
Photographs of a grandmother in her nightie taken by IRS undercover spies, trying to prove God only knows what.
A business man arrested at his golf course… and shackled and chained… by a half dozen armed IRS special agents with guns drawn.
A family’s house foreclosed on because all of their money was seized, by mistake, a mistake not corrected for another five years… and all their checks bounced.
A public company with a factory and workers, chained closed by the IRS because of a mistake on payroll deductions.
Taking a little girl’s tap dance shoes because the IRS claims her parents owe taxes, macing the parents and falsely charging one of them with assault.
Threatening to seize the wheelchair of a quadriplegic.
Committing a fraud against 1,300 war veterans and pilots tying them up for 30 years in Tax Court… then after getting caught, and admitting wrong-doing, fighting them four more years.
Convicting two outstanding senior citizens from Colorado on 64 Federal felony criminal charges, then confiscating their home and their vehicle – Jim and Pamela Moran’s false and malicious convictions were overturned and they were acquitted of all charges. Read the story, “64 Felony Charges Beaten.” We subsequently got their home and their jeep returned to them.
I’ve seen some really bad stuff.
So now, the “acting” commissioner of Internal Revenue Service (the real commissioner already left in November) resigns in disgrace because some bullies way under him are being very unfair to the Tea Party.
And, he is replaced by another “acting” commissioner. Maybe we should get someone who isn’t acting? Or maybe we should just quit trying to make an evil organization legitimate… admit we can’t, close it and move on.
Do I defend the improper government administrative actions against groups who don’t like the IRS as part of their political agenda? No. I don’t need to help the Tea Party out either. There are apparently thousands of people on both the left and the right, the media, the Congress and the administration clearly willing and able to do that.
I just have to wonder out loud when they are doing so much that is so much worse against so many who have no power… Is this the nastiest thing the politicians can find? Is this the most important human rights violations by the IRS that our media can point to?
When are we going to get some sanity in this country. We suspend an 8th grader for wearing a NRA t-shirt and in the same week we allow children to buy the "morning after" pill. Isn't that a bit incongruous? We say that a 10 year old is old enough to end the life of her fetus (child if someone other than the woman kills the fetus) yet we kick out of school a much older child for wearing a shirt with which the powers to be at school disagree.
A shirt never ended someone's life but the morning after pill definitely does. Why can't we understand that once we make life so easy to end, that we too might have our lives ended quickly if we disagree with someone in power.
The Nazi regime did not start by killing healthy people, they started with the mentally ill. They were a burden on society.If they were not using valuable assets, the rest of the country would have more. So goes the same argument with abortion.
Those who believe in killing babies believe that most if not all of those terminated would have become a burden on society. They would have to be fed, educated and would eventually end up on welfare--so goes the argument. We think this might be true for a small minority of the cases, however, not for most. We are sure that there are some who will present "data" meant to show how out of touch we are, but that does not take away the argument that an abortion or the morning after pill does kill a human being. We cannot forget that fact.
For those who argue that "it is only a mass of cells and not a human" we would ask them why then have some courts ruled that the killing of a pregnant mother and her "child" makes the perpetrator a murderer of two? T'his incongruity must mean that there are some that still believe that a child's life begins at conception.
Abortion in any form is a terrible thing. It kills a human and psychically hurts the mother, who never recovers from the loss of her child. It is very negative and those who promote it should be ashamed of their stand.
Yet, it is legal and wearing a t-shirt with an NRA statement gets you suspended and facing a year in jail. Does that make any sense?
Conservative Tom
8TH GRADER SUSPENDED, ARRESTED OVER NRA T-SHIRT NOW FACES $500 FINE AND A YEAR IN JAIL
The West Virginia eighth-grader arrested and suspended over his National Rifle Association T-shirt with an image of a firearm is now facing a $500 fine and a year in jail.
A judge is allowing prosecutors to move forward with charging Jared Marcum, 14, with obstructing an officer, WOWK-TV reported.
Image source: WOWK-TV
Marcum got into an argument with a teacher over his “Protect Your Rights” NRA shirt at Logan Middle School in April. He was arrested for disturbing the education process and for obstructing an officer — the latter, according to court documents obtained by WOWK, because Marcum refused to stop talking, thus hindering the arresting officer from doing his job.
After Marcum was suspended from school, he returned to class wearing the exact same shirt, as did other students in a show of solidarity.
“Every aspect of this is just totally wrong,” Marcum’s father, Allen Lardieri told WOWK. ”He has no background of anything criminal, up until now and it just seems like nobody wants to admit they’re wrong.”
The family’s attorney, Ben White, said there no mention in the arresting officer’s petition of Marcum making any threats or acting violently.
“In my view of the facts, Jared didn’t do anything wrong,” White said.
White is seeking to have the charges against Marcum dismissed. The teen is due back in court on July 11.
In the following blog by Bob Livingston, he lays out the reasons that the political class in Washington seems to be ready to send Snowden to the gas chamber after convicting him in abstentia. If Bob is correct, we have more to worry about than one lone wolf who might have given up some secrets. Tell us what you think. Conservative Tom
The massive and hyper-Orwellian nature of the surveillance state as revealed by Edward Snowden and The Guardian seems to have caught the majority of Americans by surprise.
Even some of the criminal class in Washington, D.C., responsible for writing the laws that established the surveillance state, claimed surprise and feigned outrage, though many of them endorsed it and went on the attack against Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story. The reaction of the psychopaths who inhabit the D.C. cesspool under the mantel of “public servant” is indicative that they covet power above all else and to them the U.S. Constitution — which they swore an oath to defend — is a meaningless and antiquated document.
Representative Peter King (Fascist-N.Y.) said he believes journalists involved in reporting stories about the surveillance programs should be investigated.
Weeper of the House John Boehner called Snowden a traitor because what he did was “a giant violation of the law;” Senator Diane Feinstein (Communist-Calif.) also invoked the “T” word. Senator Barbara Mikulski (Socialist-Md.) wondered how someone who didn’t finish community college could be “exposed to some of our most significant secrets.” That the politically opposed criminal class would side with one another on blatant violations of the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments and against the American people is evidence that government is an enemy of the people.
What Snowden revealed is not new and certainly not surprising. In fact, reading about it reminded me of something I wrote in October 2001 for publication in my printed newsletter,The Bob Livingston Letter™ (subscription required) in November 2001:
It Was War On Drugs.
Now It’s War On Terrorism.
Both were created by the U.S. establishment and both never intended to be won.
Both were designed as esoteric war on the American people under a mask of “patriotic” war fever.
Is there a hidden power, a shadow government behind the Pentagon and Trade Center Towers attack — a force using an Arab terrorist mantra?
The vast modern military operation to ferret out and bring to justice “Arab terrorist” Osama bin Laden and company is a comical production sold as real by the controlled media and bureaucrats of the establishment. The “success” of the charade will be the beginning of widespread terrorism and fear hysteria on the American people…
The terrorist scare is providing the excuse, as expected, for new police powers against the American people. There will be a massive surrender of what we have left of liberty. This drama against us is quickly unfolding. All phases of our public and private lives are at stake. Manufactured crises always provide the cover for seizure of human rights. Phony patriotism is strong leverage against a population ignorant of the ways of treason by “our own government.”
Osama Bin Laden, U.S. ally and a CIA contract agent in Afghanistan, is now branded a super villain worthy of a comic opera.
The art of war is that all warfare is based on deception and that rulers must cultivate the appearance of moral rightness in order to rally the people and persuade them to fight. It works!
In the blink of an eye the people have stopped blaming the government for the worsening economy and shifted the blame to the “terrorists.”
The government of the United States has reasserted its power over the American people. It is now stronger, much stronger, because of the “terrorist” attack. Any student of history would know ahead of time that government power is strengthened by horrendous attacks such as we have seen on our own people.
Who really benefited from the attacks? The answer is the U.S. government is now ready to wage a simulated war on the Arabs and real war on the American people.
History is full of governments which perpetrated monumental frauds upon their own people to trigger a war. Governments have to create the illusion that they were attacked first. Sacrificing the World Trade Towers, a billion dollars, and seven to eight thousand lives is nothing to the great chess game of power politics and oil under Arab lands.
The U.S. intelligence apparatus has been mining data and compiling a list of “subversives” since at least the 1980s. The list is kept in a database called Main Core.
Christpher Ketchum of Radar Magazinereported in 2008 about the existence of the Main Core data mining operation while covering a rift in the George W. Bush White House that led to the resignation of James Comey, John Ashcroft’s second in command at the Department of Justice in 2005. Comey resigned after Bush overruled him and re-certified a program that involved massive computer data mining of Americans and their compilation into a list of possible subversives. Ketcham writes that former government employees and intelligence sources with independent knowledge of domestic surveillance operations, “say the program that caused the flap between Comey and the White House was related to a database of Americans who might be considered potential threats in the event of a national emergency. Sources familiar with the program say that the government’s data gathering has been overzealous and probably conducted in violation of federal law and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
“According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, ‘There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.’ He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”
If the Main Core database contained 8 million American “enemies of the state” in 2005, how many more are now listed considering the greater technological abilities and increased budget and emphasis on mining data? The NSA now collects 2.1 million gigabytes of data per hour and is currently building a $2 billion facility in Utah to store it all.
So who is an enemy of the state and likely to find himself in the Main Core database? The criminal political class has made it quite clear it is not al-Qaida, which it has funded and armed in Egypt, Libya and Syria. It is not Islamic extremists, who have been given blanket immunity from government spying.
It is not the criminal elected class and government functionaries. It is not the parasitic “taker” class too distracted by bread and circus, Hollywood antics, amoral lifestyles, reality TV, and sporting events and too easily swayed by slick oratory, fancy suits and promises of government largess to recognize totalitarianism in the regime of the undocumented usurper and his Congressional enablers.
And since this information is neither new, nor surprising to anyone paying attention, one has to ask what is the purpose of its newfound celebrity and the vilification of Snowden and attacks on the 1st Amendment and Greenwald, who works for a mainstream publication and whose “findings” would not have been revealed were it not in the interests of those who control the message?
It is no doubt part of a new campaign — as was the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups — designed to suppress and intimidate anyone who dares oppose the growing tyranny. It is aimed especially at any journalist or blogger or potential whistle-blower as a reminder that the Constitution is not a protection against the psychopathic criminal class in Washington or their globalist masters.
Editor’s note: The following is a column written by the Associated Press’s national politics editor, Liz Sidoti. We’ve published it in full.
–
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate, Barack Obama vowed to bring a different, better kind of leadership to the dysfunctional capital. He’d make government more efficient, accountable and transparent. He’d rise above the “small-ball” nature of doing business. And he’d work with Republicans to break Washington paralysis.
You can trust me, Obama said back in 2008. And – for a while, at least – a good piece of the country did.
But with big promises often come big failures – and the potential for big hits to the one thing that can make or break a presidency: credibility.
A series of mounting controversies is exposing both the risks of political promise-making and the limits of national-level governing while undercutting the core assurance Obama made from the outset: that he and his administration would behave differently.
The latest: the government’s acknowledgement that, in a holdover from the Bush administration and with a bipartisan Congress’ approval and a secret court’s authorization, it was siphoning the phone records of millions of American citizens in a massive data-collection effort officials say was meant to protect the nation from terrorism. This came after the disclosure that the government was snooping on journalists.
Also, the IRS’ improper targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status has spiraled into a wholesale examination of the agency, including the finding that it spent $49 million in taxpayer money on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.
At the same time, Obama’s immigration reform agenda is hardly a sure thing on Capitol Hill, and debate starting this week on the Senate floor is certain to show deep divisions over it. Gun control legislation is all but dead. And he’s barely speaking to Republicans who control the House, much less working with them on a top priority: tax reform.
Even Democrats are warning that more angst may be ahead as the government steps up its efforts to implement Obama’s extraordinarily expensive, deeply unpopular health care law.
Collectively, the issues call into question not only whether the nation’s government can be trusted but also whether the leadership itself can. All of this has Obama on the verge of losing the already waning faith of the American people. And without their confidence, it’s really difficult for presidents to get anything done – particularly those in the second term of a presidency and inching toward lame-duck status.
The ramifications stretch beyond the White House. If enough Americans lose faith in Obama, he will lack strong coattails come next fall’s congressional elections. Big losses in those races will make it harder for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, especially if it’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, to run as an extension of Obama’s presidency and convince the American public to give Democrats another four years.
Obama seemed to recognize this last week. He emphasized to anxious Americans that the other two branches of government were as responsible as the White House for signing off on the vast data-gathering program.
“We’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight,” Obama said. “And if people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”
The government is an enormous operation, and it’s unrealistic to think it will operate smoothly all of the time. But, as the head of it, Obama faces the reality of all of his successors: The buck stops with him.
If the controversies drag on, morale across America could end up taking a huge hit, just when the mood seems to be improving along with an economic uptick. Or, Americans could end up buying Obama’s arguments that safety sometimes trumps privacy, that his administration is taking action on the IRS, and that he’s doing the best he can to forge bipartisan compromise when Republicans are obstructing progress.
Every president faces the predicament of overpromising. Often the gap can be chalked up to the difference between campaigning and governing, between rhetoric and reality. As with past presidents, people desperate to turn the page on the previous administration voted for the Obama they wanted and now are grappling with the Obama they got.
From the start of his career, Obama tried to sculpt an almost nonpartisan persona as he spoke of bridging divides and rejecting politics as usual. He attracted scores of supporters from across the ideological spectrum with his promises to behave differently. And they largely believed what he said.
Back then, he held an advantage as one of the most trusted figures in American politics.
In January 2008, Obama had an 8-point edge over Clinton as the more honest and trustworthy candidate in the Democratic primary. That grew to a 23-point advantage by April of that year, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls. Later that year, the Post-ABC poll showed Obama up 8 points on Republican nominee John McCain as the more honest candidate.
Obama held such strong marks during his first term, with the public giving the new president the benefit of the doubt. Up for re-election, he went into the 2012 campaign home stretch topping Mitt Romney by 9 points on honesty in a mid-October ABC/Post poll.
But now, that carefully honed image of trustworthiness may be changing in Americans’ eyes.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted late last month found 49 percent of people consider Obama honest and trustworthy, a dip from the organization’s last read on the matter in September 2011 when 58 percent said the same. He also has taken a hit among independents, which used to be a source of strength for him, since his second-term controversies have emerged. Now just 40 percent say he is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 percent in September 2011.
Obama has waning opportunities to turn it around. He’s halfway through his fifth year, and with midterm elections next fall, there’s no time to waste.
If he can’t convince the American people that they can trust him, he could end up damaging the legacy he has worked so hard to control and shape – and be remembered, even by those who once supported him, as the very opposite of the different type of leader he promised to be.
—
EDITOR’S NOTE: Liz Sidoti is the national politics editor for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/lsidoti
A proposed agenda for Sarah Palin’s upcoming speech: Has America become a totalitarian state?
By Bernie Quigley - 06/10/13 10:22 AM ET
Recently, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz referred to the government of New York City as “totalitarian.” Obama apologist Paul Krugman said on ABC of the federal government this week: "We Are kind of an 'authoritarian surveillance state."
Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper The Guardian, said on CNN: “There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.” And France 24 reports on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: The U.S. justice system was suffering from a “calamitous collapse in the rule of law.”
The Christian News Wire reports that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will be speaking to the Faith &; Freedom Coalition at the "Road to Majority" Conference in Washington, D.C., this coming weekend. A proposed agenda for Palin: What is totalitarianism? Does our way of life and governance — a system of centralized power and planning since 1865 — creep inherently toward totalitarian? (Yes.) What is the antidote? (States' rights.)
Totalitarianism seeks to control not only the mind but the flesh. Commentary at hand this week should fuel the pump:
Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who has claimed credit for the leak, told The Guardian:“Any analyst at any time can target anyone ... Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. I sitting at my desk certainly had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you and your accountant to a federal judge or even the President ..."
And Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput wrote in recent op-ed called "Religious Freedom and the Need to Wake Up":
“Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employees and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations ... The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.”
Possibly discussion for historic perspective might include an essay by historian Frank Owsley, one of the Vanderbilt “Fugitives” titled "The Irrepressible Conflict" (1930):
“In the beginning of Washington’s administration two men defined the fundamental principles of the political philosophy of the two societies, Alexander Hamilton for the North and Jefferson for the South. The one was extreme centralization, the other was extreme decentralization; the one was nationalistic, the other was provincial; the first was called Federalism, the other States Rights, but in truth the first should have been called Unitarianism and the second Federalism.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
Do you feel safer knowing President Barack Obama’s Secret Police — whoops, I mean his National Security Agency (NSA) — are monitoring your communications and everything you read on the Internet, including these very words? Certainly, you are supposed to feel safer. Just ask almost anyone in the mainstream media, as well as most Democrats and even Republicans in Congress (the very members we trust to protect our liberties). They are busy acquiescing to Obama’s tyranny all in the name of national security.
It seems the Obama-media and members of Congress have not read a word of history. They seem to have never heard of a democratically elected leader who enslaved Europe and started a war that killed 60 million people while his government, police and justice system turned a blind eye to every excess. All they have to do is a Google search for “Adolf Hitler.” Maybe they don’t do that because it would be a record of subversive inquiries.
Yet hardly anybody seems to care, other than Libertarians like former Congressman Ron Paul, who said the NSA revelations are “a predictable result of a government that continues to erode our liberties while promising some glimmering hope of security.”
I was naïve enough to believe that others, like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), would be outraged by the Obama Administration’s attack on the 1st and 4th Amendments. Graham says he is not sure who is entitled to 1st Amendment rights. It could be that Personal Liberty Digest™ and the people who comment on the columns and stories don’t have guaranteed protection.
“Who is a journalist is a question we need to ask ourselves,” Graham said. “Is any blogger out there saying anything — do they deserve 1st Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times.”
The French Trusted Hitler
Graham said last week he is unconcerned that the Obama Administration has his Verizon phone records because he’s not “talking to terrorists.”
Graham told FOX News: “I am glad the NSA is trying to find out what terrorists are up to overseas and inside the country.”
The host said he was a Verizon subscriber and was, therefore, being tracked by the federal government. Graham weighed:
“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States,” he said.
“I don’t think you’re talking to terrorists, I know you’re not, I know I’m not, so we don’t have anything to worry about,” Graham said. “I’m glad the activity’s going on, but it is limited to tracking people who are suspected to be terrorists and who they may be talking to.”
Graham also admitted that it wasn’t until the news broke about the NSA the day before that he knew anything about what the top secret agency was doing. I am glad Graham is sure they aren’t doing anything bad. And I am really glad Graham has looked into his crystal ball and can predict that the Obama Administration will never abuse power.
It is amazing that our elected representatives will allow Obama to operate his spy network without objection or restraint. As for me, I wouldn’t have trusted Mother Teresa with that much authority. One thing is certain, Germans embraced Hitler in part because he was so damn charismatic. They also embraced him because they feared people like the French, who in the 1930s were the bugaboo for millions of Germans. It turned out that Germany had a lot more to fear from the likes of Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and the Gestapo than it did from the French.
The insiders really knew from the very start who Hitler was. A man good with words was German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who wrote:
In 1933, a French premier ought to have said (and if I had been the French premier, I would have said it): “The new Reich Chancellor is the man who wroteMein Kampf, which says this and that. This man cannot be tolerated in our vicinity. Either he disappears or we march!” But they didn’t do it.
Obama’s Power-Play Based On Fear
But idiots abound on the left. On “Real Time,” Bill Maher said he doesn’t mind that the NSA has these powers because he trusts Obama. He then added that he wouldn’t want to see such powers in the hands of a Republican President. Maher added we have to accept sweeping powers by Obama or a future President because terrorists want to use “nukes.” Yes, friends, the nuke argument! Maher seems to believe if we don’t allow Obama these dictatorial powers an American city is going to be incinerated next week.
Most in Congress, including all our trusted Republicans, are espousing what Maher is saying. It is simple: If we resist the government, all hell will break loose. Or as Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) declares in the movie “Ghostbusters”: “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”
There’s all this fear over Muslim fanatics whose most advanced weapon is an AK-47 and whose typical mode of transportation is a horse or camel.
The liberals are terrible oddsmakers. There is a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than of getting maimed or killed by a terrorist. And what are the chances that the Federal government will not abuse its secret spy apparatus? Perhaps the odds are 10-to-1. If you are an optimist, you might place them at 100-to-1. That is a pretty big gamble.
All Must Be OK, Because Obama Tell Us So
I am convinced that Obama is not interested in protecting America from terrorists. Glenn Greenwald, the reporter for The Guardian who broke the NSA story, thinks the same. He told Piers Morgan on CNN:
“There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.
“It’s well past time that we have a debate about whether that’s the kind of country and world in which we want to live. We haven’t had that debate because it’s all done in secrecy and the Obama Administration has been very aggressive about bullying and threatening anybody who thinks about exposing it or writing about it or even doing journalism about it. It’s well past time that that come to an end.”
Greenwald claims that terrorists who represent a threat to Americans have known for years that electronic traffic is being monitored. That is why they use couriers.
On Friday, Obama explained that there is no need to worry or fuss and that our freedoms are being protected because his heart is in the right place.
“[My] observation is, is that the people who are involved in America’s national security, they take this work very seriously,” Obama said. “They cherish our Constitution. The last thing they’d be doing is taking programs like this to listen to people’s phone calls.”
I don’t know about you, but somehow Obama’s rhetoric didn’t comfort me, especially when he added: “[I]n the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential, you know — you know, program run amok. But when you actually look at the details, I think we’ve struck the right balance.”
Isn’t the devil in the details? And didn’t Obama say he is a Christian and went to Columbia University? And in 2003, he declared that the Patriot Act was “shoddy and dangerous” and something he would help dispose of if he was elected to the U.S Senate.
We can always cross our fingers and really hope that this time Obama is telling the truth. Or we can face the grim reality that William Pitt, the British prime minster of the late 18th century, understood: ”Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”
Obama doesn’t have unlimited power yet, but he is working on it.
