[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Severiano wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
Gotta love the Patriot Act. We re-elected the guy who brought it about it and then re-elected his successor who extended it. We’re getting exactly what we signed up for! [/quote]
Yeah well, so did Germany and Italy. [/quote]
“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say ‘Heil’ to him, nor will they call him ‘FÃ???Ã???Ã???Ã??Ã?¼hrer’ or ‘Duce.’ But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of ‘O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!’” (Dorothy Thompson, 1935)[/quote]
But, this isn’t just one individual writing policy trying to take power. This is a line of individuals called presidents who have been doing this. Remember Obama campaigned to do this and that, to include closing gitmo and reforming the way we treat, “detainees.”
As soon as he took office, it all changed. I’m not trying to bash him, I’m saying that what makes sense to me is that people who take office recognize the real threats out there, (be it Bush or Obama) and recognize the importance of secrecy.
Of course, the problem is we have been campaigning that these people hate our freedom… I don’t know if that part is true, but they sure have done a good job at getting us to forgo our privacy.
Secrecy saves lives… There are guys out there in the field who’s lives are compromised when there are intelligence leaks, I love these men and women, so I find myself in a situation where there is no objectivity or right and wrong. But there are people out there dying, it’s a sad and disturbing time.[/quote]
Well, i agree with you Bout this being a long road. And substantially agree with you about new presidents seeing the real gravity and scope of threats and hence modifying or reversing their pre-election stances on secrecy–one of my only accolades to Obama is this particular one.
Howevee, we aren’t talking about secrecy. We are talking about our right to privacy and liberties being taken away. Much different than understanding secrecy to protect our covert operations people (which i agree with). Different thing entirely, and absolutely unacceptable in all forms.[/quote]
Information gathering is information gathering. It can be leaked by anybody in the chain of command to those out in the field, to those in government office (as you have just seen). To me, it’s all the same because it’s related to war during a time of war in a government that has willingly become so bureaucratic, I doubt fewer than 1000 people know about any given government secret at any time. They may not know the specifics, but tons of people with the right clearances have access to info at any given time in part because of the sheer size of government, in another part because there are way too many moving parts.
On the other hand when there are injustices that come about via secrecy, this is the only dude that came out to talk about it. I think we all knew about this given that Bush started it and dems were bitching about it years ago, today it’s the same thing with repubs and Obama…
We are all a bunch of douche bag sheeple if we can’t get past the party lines and see things for what they really are. On one hand we want secrecy, on the other hand we want oversight, cant really have both but that seems to be what both dems and repubs demand…
Fear the bureaucracy and the benefits to lawyers and people in power embedded into it. Professors cant even research without making things emotionally attractive, forget why things are pragmatically worthwhile…