President Obama hid and lied about the fact that the NSA and FBI are spying on the emails and phone calls of ordinary Americans. But now he claims he wants to set up a national conversation about it. Given how Edward Snowden is being pursued as a criminal, and how Pfc. Bradley Manning was viciously tortured, one imagines that his idea of a national conversation begins with Snowden in a government secret prison trying to talk from underwater.
The reaction of the American mainstream media to the National Security Agency leak scandal — personalizing it by disparaging leaker Edward Snowden â has exposed cable news and other mainstream media outlets as government mouthpieces that allow for very few points of view to be aired. This was exceptionally ironic as one of the talking points against Snowden was that he went to countries with less than stellar records of press freedom, such as Russia, China and Ecuador. After all, it isn’t as though the United States offers diverse opinions on its airwaves or in its print outlets.
President Obama says the NSA’s surveillance programs against American citizens are “transparent.” Indeed, there is a legal veneer â memos that validate them, secret courts that supervise them, a few Congressmen who are briefed â but true legality cannot be the result of secrecy. Welcome to the Age of Legalish.
What if we devoted a proportional number of financial and other resources to threats other than terrorism?
NOTE: My apologies to people who commented on this cartoon post. Due to a glitch in WordPress, I was forced to delete this post and put it back up. Regrettably, in the process, your comments were lost. I always make every effort to avoid this sort of thing, and I am sorry.
The Taliban has opened a new office in Doha, Qatar, and the U.S. has agreed to meet for negotiations. 13 years into America’s longest war, against a nation with 14th century technology, it’s a humiliating comedown for the United States.
In quotes adapted from published reactions by Americans to the outrageous revelation that the government is spying on all Americans, let’s wonder what it would take to stir up anger or surprise.
The number of Americans who die in terrorist attacks is comparable to the number crushed to death by their televisions. So why are we building a vast surveillance state and conducting a violent drone war to prevent such a trivial threat?
Losing your health insurance isn’t all bad. For one thing, you can finally afford to see a doctor.
According to NSA documents leaked by CIA analyst Edward Snowden, 29, the NSA is reading and storing every text message, email, phone call, etc. in the United States. This Orwellian surveillance state can see literally everything — but there’s still one place they will never be able to look inside, the place where self-radicalization occurs.
According to classified records obtained by NBC News, the CIA doesn’t know the identities of drone attack targets one out of four times.
