Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) was morally outraged when news broke that the CIA had been monitoring the work of Intelligence Committee staffers on an off-site computer system set up for the committee to do its work overseeing the intelligence agency.
She decried one branch of the government snooping on another branch. She warned of violations of the separation of powers. She said the actions of the CIA were unconstitutional.
But this is the same Dianne Feinstein who argued that Edward Snowden wasn't a whistle blower. In fact after the news broke of how the NSA spied on American citizens, collected meta data from telephone and e-mail communications and monitored web searches, she defended the agency's motives and actions.
Ms. Feinstein has drawn her line in the sand. It's okay for the government to make a continued mockery of the 4th Amendment by conducting unauthorized searches of our private data, but they sure as hell better keep their hands off Congress' computers and telephones.
Moral outrage indeed. How about hypocrisy?
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2014
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Going after the fourth estate
Glenn Greenwald is a very bad man.
At least that's the impression the Obama administration wants to give you. It was Mr. Greenwald who introduced us to Edward Snowden. It was Mr. Greenwald who informed the world as to how the US government was spying on its citizens and its own allies.
Of course in President Obama's world Mr.Snowden did a great disservice by exposing the NSA's dirty laundry. According to President Obama, he was looking at ways to reform the NSA long before Mr. Snowden met with Mr. Greenwald. Strange, though, that Mr. Obama's announcement of reforms to the agency weren't made until after Mr. Greenwald's articles were published in The Guardian. Funny how the announcement came after the House of Representatives narrowly defeated a bill that would have restricted NSA activity.
The US government went hard after Pfc. Bradley Manning who exposed human rights abuses committed by the US in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The US and Britain went hard after Julian Assange who published the documents provided by Mr. Manning. And now they're both going hard after Mr. Greenwald.
This past weekend British authorities detained Mr. Greenwald's partner David Miranda, a Brazilian citizen, who was stopping over in London on his way back to Rio de Janiero from Germany. Under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2000, Mr. Miranda was held at the airport for nine hours - the maximum a person can be held without being charged under the law - and questioned by six agents. His phone, laptop, video games and memory cards were all confiscated.
And why was Mr. Miranda detained? Could it possibly be because he assisted Mr. Greenwald in his work? Could it possibly be because he was in Germany with American-filmmaker Laura Poitras who has been a frequent target of US government coercion because of her work exposing government lies and hypocrisy? Could it be because it was the only way the US and British governments thought they could get to Mr. Greenwald?
The national security state will do whatever it takes to survive. The detention of Mr. Miranda is but the latest example.
At least that's the impression the Obama administration wants to give you. It was Mr. Greenwald who introduced us to Edward Snowden. It was Mr. Greenwald who informed the world as to how the US government was spying on its citizens and its own allies.
Of course in President Obama's world Mr.Snowden did a great disservice by exposing the NSA's dirty laundry. According to President Obama, he was looking at ways to reform the NSA long before Mr. Snowden met with Mr. Greenwald. Strange, though, that Mr. Obama's announcement of reforms to the agency weren't made until after Mr. Greenwald's articles were published in The Guardian. Funny how the announcement came after the House of Representatives narrowly defeated a bill that would have restricted NSA activity.
The US government went hard after Pfc. Bradley Manning who exposed human rights abuses committed by the US in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The US and Britain went hard after Julian Assange who published the documents provided by Mr. Manning. And now they're both going hard after Mr. Greenwald.
This past weekend British authorities detained Mr. Greenwald's partner David Miranda, a Brazilian citizen, who was stopping over in London on his way back to Rio de Janiero from Germany. Under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2000, Mr. Miranda was held at the airport for nine hours - the maximum a person can be held without being charged under the law - and questioned by six agents. His phone, laptop, video games and memory cards were all confiscated.
And why was Mr. Miranda detained? Could it possibly be because he assisted Mr. Greenwald in his work? Could it possibly be because he was in Germany with American-filmmaker Laura Poitras who has been a frequent target of US government coercion because of her work exposing government lies and hypocrisy? Could it be because it was the only way the US and British governments thought they could get to Mr. Greenwald?
The national security state will do whatever it takes to survive. The detention of Mr. Miranda is but the latest example.
Friday, July 26, 2013
House gives NSA data mining operation a thumbs up
Think the Fourth Amendment still means anything? Think you should be free from government intrusion into your private affairs absent probable cause or a warrant?
Think again.
This week Congress had an opportunity to take a stand in defense of the citizenry's right to be left alone by the government. This week Congress had the opportunity to channel the anger and frustration of their constituents brought about by Edward Snowden's revelations.
And the House of Representatives chose to give the American people a big middle finger instead.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich) brought forward an amendment to a defense authorization bill that would put a stop to the NSA's secret collection of phone records. Mr. Amash said he put the amendment forward in order to protect the privacy of the American people.
The House shot down Mr. Amash's proposal narrowly. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) both voted against the amendment. Opponents of Mr. Amash's amendment used the death and destruction of the 9/11 attacks as a reason for sacrificing the constitutional rights of their constituents. The argument follows the trope that all of this increased security and spying has kept us safe for the last twelve years.
This entire debate should serve as a reminder why opponents of the Constitution insisted on the Bill of Rights. Fearful of what a more centralized, stronger federal government could do, proponents of the Bill of Rights wanted a document that laid out a list of rights that were sacrosanct.
They foresaw a day when the government would move to limit those rights and they wanted them to be enshrined in a document that could prevent the government limiting them in the heat of passion. Unfortunately our courts have been only to eager to limit those rights in the face of allowing a guilty person to walk free because the police crossed a line.
This debate has nothing to do with preventing terrorism or keeping this country safe. It has everything to do with restricting our reasonable expectations of privacy. For once the government makes it known that our telephone records and e-mail metadata are subject to collection without so much as a showing of reasonable suspicion that anyone has done anything illegal, our right to be secure in our person, papers and effects is lessened.
And this is yet another reason that our old metaphors must change. While Justice Scalia's notion that the common law tort of trespass should be our lodestar when determining whether the state has violated the Fourth Amendment isn't adequate to cover government data mining operations, neither is this quaint notion of reasonable expectation of privacy.
Think again.
This week Congress had an opportunity to take a stand in defense of the citizenry's right to be left alone by the government. This week Congress had the opportunity to channel the anger and frustration of their constituents brought about by Edward Snowden's revelations.
And the House of Representatives chose to give the American people a big middle finger instead.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich) brought forward an amendment to a defense authorization bill that would put a stop to the NSA's secret collection of phone records. Mr. Amash said he put the amendment forward in order to protect the privacy of the American people.
The House shot down Mr. Amash's proposal narrowly. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) both voted against the amendment. Opponents of Mr. Amash's amendment used the death and destruction of the 9/11 attacks as a reason for sacrificing the constitutional rights of their constituents. The argument follows the trope that all of this increased security and spying has kept us safe for the last twelve years.
This entire debate should serve as a reminder why opponents of the Constitution insisted on the Bill of Rights. Fearful of what a more centralized, stronger federal government could do, proponents of the Bill of Rights wanted a document that laid out a list of rights that were sacrosanct.
They foresaw a day when the government would move to limit those rights and they wanted them to be enshrined in a document that could prevent the government limiting them in the heat of passion. Unfortunately our courts have been only to eager to limit those rights in the face of allowing a guilty person to walk free because the police crossed a line.
This debate has nothing to do with preventing terrorism or keeping this country safe. It has everything to do with restricting our reasonable expectations of privacy. For once the government makes it known that our telephone records and e-mail metadata are subject to collection without so much as a showing of reasonable suspicion that anyone has done anything illegal, our right to be secure in our person, papers and effects is lessened.
And this is yet another reason that our old metaphors must change. While Justice Scalia's notion that the common law tort of trespass should be our lodestar when determining whether the state has violated the Fourth Amendment isn't adequate to cover government data mining operations, neither is this quaint notion of reasonable expectation of privacy.
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