NSA Spying: A Republican party Operation

[RobertEarl]

FISA Judges were appointed by Republicans and are all members of the republican party. IDB.

This whole spying set up is republican wet dream. Don't ever forget that fact.

This whole problem with the NSA spying on everyone started with a republican administration.

Boehner, McConnel, et al, are all for giving the NSA the freedom to spy on everyone.

Sure, Obama is now head of the government, but this spying is really a republican baby.

Had the democrats even suggested it be aborted, Rove and Cheney would have thrown a party!

[RobertEarl]

1. Obama has been trapped by Rove and Cheney

Cheney and Rove still have some of their people in the NSA.

And in the private contractors.

How could Obama have worked to defeat the trap?

[elehhhhna]

30. CARLYLE owns booz allen. It's the BFEE, all the way.

[AgingAmerican]

2. Who cares if Rove and Cheney throw a party?

Seriously, who gives a rats ass? They throw a tantrum over everything.

[RobertEarl]

16. The Mass Media

They'd show that pic of Obama dressed in ME clothes again, 24/7. Doing the terrorist fist bump. With an ak-47 over his shoulder.

Or how 'bout Palin's "palling around with terrorists".

Is it that your idea of good political PR? It is Rove's. Obama has managed to keep the lid on all that, hasn't he? By accident, or design?

[AgingAmerican]

17. Screw the mass media

Presidents should do what's right, not what placates the GOP and the infotainment tabloid cable 'news'.

[AZ Progressive]

3. NSA spying is older than Obama or Bush

NSA surveillance goes as far back as 1979 or probably back to the 60's at least with Echelon under the UKUSA intelligence sharing agreement.

[leveymg]

5. Yes, but it wasn't nearly as all-encompassing or expensive as the present universal profiling.

Last edited Sun Jul 21, 2013, 10:52 AM - Edit history (2)

That's the difference -- the justification to profile and collect data from almost all of us is the key to unlimited profits on contracts for largely Republican contractors and workers in the national security sector. It's a Republican/conservative Democratic corporate welfare system of vast proportions and enormous expense.

It also gives them a huge database of our most private data with which they can do as they please - and that does please them. Look at what they did to Eliot Spitzer, for instance.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. An executive order could have stopped any of it at any time. Nt.

[leveymg]

12. All the rules for NSA collections/minimization/retention are set by Presidential Orders.

It's effectively Obama's system at this point.

[malaise]

4. Watch Colbert throw it in their faces at the Washington Correspondence Dinner

back in 2006
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023305187

[davidn3600]

6. It is...and the Democrats should be shutting it down.

[RobertEarl]

18. They are working at it

One huge hurdle is the m$m. Snowden has created an opening in the wall.

Will the masses pour in? Or will we merely smile for the cameras?

This situation requires the people move as one. Only the republicans will be opposed. Dems are leading on this massive, out of control spying.

[davidpdx]

7. I don't think most people know, nor care who the FISA judges are appointed by

The assumption is that they were appointed by Obama.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. This shit has been going on since the end of ww II.

Lets first stipulate that the national security state is wrong. I think we agree on that. But it is a decades long bipartisan cluster fuck. This and the corporate kleptocracy are the two areas where the two parties agree, that and of course locking out any actual threat to their joint hold on power.

[byeya]

9. Jimmy Carter made a step in the right direction by appointing Stansfield Turner and shutting down

or curtailing some of the CIA's worst abuses. Carter did something.

Obama can do something but he hasn't. Pull the plug Mr President.

[leveymg]

13. But, look at what the Bush CIA and allies did in return for the Carter/Turner reforms.

Active subversion from above within the intelligence and national security apparatus of foreign policy.

Obama learned one lesson from that, but seemingly only one - a President downsizes and reins-in the CIA at his own peril.

[forestpath]

10. Obama seems just fine with it.

[hughee99]

14. FISA judge Mary McLaughlin will be disappointed to learn she's a republican.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_A._McLaughlin

The repukes may have started this (although FISA itself is from the Carter years), but it's now a Democratic administration that's now defending it legal, in the public interest, and unchallengeable in court.

[RobertEarl]

20. Good catch

Nothing happens by accident in politics.

Congress is moving to place restrictions. Court cases are winding through the courts.

After years of growing out of control, in secret, and never on the news, the nsa is now being openly reviewed. Progress.

[Zorra]

15. Yes! Most spook/cop/military types are RW extremists.

[gulliver]

19. Tempest in a teapot.

Republicans are glad we are talking about this. Check your pockets.

[RobertEarl]

21. No. They are not

People are mad. They know this a republican baby. The republicans aren't going to take a stand for their spying. They are on the ropes.

But if Obama makes one wrong move, their news ops will be all over him. He's playing this cool and hoping the people speak out.

[gulliver]

22. The politics of it is all backfire.

Practically no one is going to speak out. I myself see this as a non-issue compared to the other things we should be talking about.

[RobertEarl]

25. Non-issue?

What planet are you on? <grin>

Even the conservatives are becoming aware and speaking out about being spied on. Used to be it was just a few 'Libtards' (sic) whom, as some claimed, were "running around with our hair on fire" and now people from around the world are saying "Whoa".

This issue has gone global.

[gulliver]

28. It will mean nothing at best.

The global politicians have to perform some kabuki gyrations for now, but it is all for show. Behind the scenes they are aggressively doing nothing about it except perhaps increasing secrecy and security budgets.

Countries with terrible human and civil rights records will get some favorable publicity for a while. You wouldn't want to be a dissident in Russia right now with Snowden praising it and seeking asylum there. But that will pass too.

[RobertEarl]

29. You are a doomer, eh?

But you think Empires can survive the spread of awareness that the internet affords?

Hell, right here in this country, even on DU, it is getting harder to be dissident.

Global surveillance is a fairly new system and not many like it. It has reached its limit, if that's what the people desire and work for. Some are. You should join us.

[gulliver]

31. Left-wing anti-US government dissidents are like Kansas Republicans

The United States government represents democracy in action. I trust the people to know to what extent they do or don't want surveillance. I would rather focus on the Drug War, the environment, and maximizing the economy for the benefit of all. I don't see any examples of harm arising from the things the NSA, for example, is doing. Nor do I see a reason to expect such examples in what I have been told about. At least nothing that even approaches my top priorities.

[RobertEarl]

33. Left-wing anti-government?!?!?!

Just because we don't want government tracking our every move we are now anti-government? Guess you'd just like the ditch the Bill of Rights? You mean, that's it is anti-government to feel the government shouldn't spy on us?

[tritsofme]

23. Who do you think makes requests of the FISA Court?

Your posts on this thread make it seem like you imagine Republicans as cartoonish villains and Democrats as helpless knaves, it's all pretty silly.

[RobertEarl]

24. That is silly, trit

The republicans are not a cartoon. They have destroyed America over the last 30 years.

And the Democrats, infested with blue dog ticks, have been forced to lay low and bide their time. Our real problem is people who suck at the m$m tit believing everything bad the m$m says about the Democratic party.

It's reality. Try some.

[tritsofme]

26. Your #16 is a good illustration of the cartoon.

The president doesn't allow the NSA program to continue because he fears some silly photo or what a nobody like Sarah Palin says about him. It continues because he substantially agrees that it is positive for national security.

[RobertEarl]

27. Duh. It was a cartoon.

What is your point? Is me attacking the republicans making you twitchy?

Have you nothing bad to say about republicans?

As for Obama, I have this feeling: he hears the uproar, and he is managing to guide a change in the system. IOW, we have his feet to the fire.

[tritsofme]

32. No, but suggesting Democrats are powerless in the context

of the fifth year of control of the White House and seventh of the Senate sounds ridiculous. Boehner and McConnell, the people mentioned in your OP are irrelevant in national security discussions. President Obama has and will continue to legally act to defend national security, because it is the right thing to do, not for any other reason.

[RobertEarl]

34. Sequester, anyone?

The republicans are running things.

Are there any limits to the spying you would allow? Or are you just willing to give up all your privacy?

[flamingdem]

35. K&R

[totodeinhere]

36. No, it's bipartisan. Both parties have their fingerprints on it.

Plenty of Democrats as well as Republicans have come out in favor of the extensive NSA spying since the Snowden revelations happened. In fact it has gotten plenty of support right here on DU. Plus Obama in his statements has expressed general support for it.

[RobertEarl]

37. You're wrong

I have seen no one come out in favor of extensive nsa spying. No one with brains, anyway. Can you name any of those of which you speak?

Surely you are not in favor of losing your privacy?

[totodeinhere]

38. We are not supposed to call out other DU posters so I won't name them.

But among Democrats the chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee Diane Feinstein comes to mind. Of course her Republican counterpart Saxby Chambliss also supports it. White House spokesman Jay Carney has also expressed the Administration's support for NSA spying.

http://wtvr.com/2013/06/11/white-house-defends-surveillance-as-world-digests-leakers-motives/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/politics/nsa-congress-mueller

As far as my personal attitude goes, I support Snowden and oppose any and all spying on Americans and support the repeal of the Patriot Act. I never said otherwise. I am not supporting this erosion of our civil liberties but rather I am pointing out that some Democrats do and it is not exclusively the purview of Republicans.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

39. It is a Republican that has grown into a nasty teenager