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2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

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Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

unofan said:
Of course, what the AP story actually says is they set up secondary official e-mail accounts so that e-mails don't get lost in the thousands of e-mails sent in by members of the general public. The e-mail accounts themselves are not violations of FOIA, the AP is just doubting that the government disclosed things sent through those secondary accounts.

The latter is always going to be an issue under any administration ("How do we know you disclosed everything?"). The former is simply people trying to yell wolf yet again.
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There was an account that the administration is having a hard time uncovering these "secret" accounts. The IT guys that I knew had to physically set up each and every email account through Outlook and knew who had what. It was impossible to hide email accounts or for me to set up my own government account.

You got me. But the admin said it was going to be the most transparent administration in history. Maybe "nothing to see here" has a different connotation.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

FreshFish said:
I heard on the news that AP is reporting that high-ranking members of the Obama administration are in violation of the Freedom of Information Act because they are using dummy personal email accounts to conduct official business, such that these emails would not be subject to FOIA release when they should be. Supposedly, Lisa Jackson, who just left the EPA, took an ethics course online during work hours under an assumed name.

Regular non-political people I know are starting to notice a common thread here, and even liberals I know are getting quite concerned. It's one thing to say "I don't trust people and so I want government to do stuff I think is important" but it's another thing entirely to have a totalitarian government at the expense of open honest information and a respect for minority rights.

Kathleen Sebelius asking companies who are subject to regulation by her to donate money.
IRS stifling people who are concerned that the IRS has too much power.
Using the 1917 Espionage Act and seeking out a third judge after the first two say "no" to gain access to a reporter's email and phone records.

This isn't just "big" government, this is government that is verging into totalitarian territory. I suppose the usual suspects will respond that totalitarian government is a great thing because they like the policies it is (currently) promoting. Maybe so, but that's not what we all agreed upon, and I don't like it when one side unilaterally changes its mind, in secret. :mad:
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Any religion, cult or too-powerful government needs blind support in order to proceed. The organization identifies an 'enemy' and rallies the team against that enemy. Any questions about questionable internal tactics are explained as necessary to fight the evils of the enemy. The absence of an enemy would provide no distraction from the questionable tactics.

How does the cult leader, reverend or king know it is working? When his strongest defenders are people who really don't know what happens behind closed doors but are willing to fight tooth and nail to defend their organization with nothing more than faith as their compass.
 
pirate said:
Any religion, cult or too-powerful government needs blind support in order to proceed. The organization identifies an 'enemy' and rallies the team against that enemy. Any questions about questionable internal tactics are explained as necessary to fight the evils of the enemy. The absence of an enemy would provide no distraction from the questionable tactics.

How does the cult leader, reverend or king know it is working? When his strongest defenders are people who really don't know what happens behind closed doors but are willing to fight tooth and nail to defend their organization with nothing more than faith as their compass.
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So...should we trust The Smoking Man or not? And which aliens are we going to align ourselves with?
 
Rover said:
So...should we trust The Smoking Man or not? And which aliens are we going to align ourselves with?
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Both parties lie, both are unethical, both spend money they shouldn't, both have let us slide into debt and into mediocrity.

That you think one side should be blindly defended and the other blindly opposed just makes me shake my head.

And spare me the "I once admitted the blues did something wrong" line, you are so partisan if Obama started sacrificing young children you'd offer to herd them up for him...as long as they were from red states.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

The other shoe is starting to drop. Link isn't handy right now. A few people in the IRS Cincinnati office are mightily pizzed off at being offered up as sacrificial lambs* and are starting to speak out about how they received guidance and direction from the Washington DC office.

Setting aside all politics for a moment, let's pretend this is a work of political fiction and we are literary critics: you have disgruntled citizens spontaneously organizing into groups to protest an overbearing and intrusive government, and career employees in said government respond by singling them out for extra scrutiny. Will the plucky citizens be able to preserve their free speech rights in the face of widespread hostility? or will the overbearing government dig in its heels and ride it out and wind up even more entrenched and secure than before?

Then comes the sequel: suppose the latter happens? then that minority of citizens will be silenced, while others who disliked their message sat on the sidelines and cheered. That annoying vocal minority is now gone. Will the overbearing and intrusive government then be sated? or will it ravenously find another group as fodder for its insatiable appetite for more power, more control?




I have this incongruous image of Rover being led away in shackles for being too outspoken to the wrong person in a prominent government position, saying "wait, you can't to this to me. I'm on your side."

to which his jailors drily replay, "so what? we've been taking you for granted all along. whatever made you think that we were on your side?"





* no word on whether they once were children in red states. ;)
 
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Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

FreshFish said:
The other shoe is starting to drop. Link isn't handy right now. A few people in the IRS Cincinnati office are mightily pizzed off at being offered up as sacrificial lambs* and are starting to speak out about how they received guidance and direction from the Washington DC office.

Setting aside all politics for a moment, let's pretend this is a work of political fiction and we are literary critics: you have disgruntled citizens spontaneously organizing into groups to protest an overbearing and intrusive government, and career employees in said government respond by singling them out for extra scrutiny. Will the plucky citizens be able to preserve their free speech rights in the face of widespread hostility? or will the overbearing government dig in its heels and ride it out and wind up even more entrenched and secure than before?

Then comes the sequel: suppose the latter happens? then that minority of citizens will be silenced, while others who disliked their message sat on the sidelines and cheered. That annoying vocal minority is now gone. Will the overbearing and intrusive government then be sated? or will it ravenously find another group as fodder for its insatiable appetite for more power, more control?




I have this incongruous image of Rover being led away in shackles for being too outspoken to the wrong person in a prominent government position, saying "wait, you can't to this to me. I'm on your side."

to which his jailors drily replay, "so what? we've been taking you for granted all along. whatever made you think that we were on your side?"





* no word on whether they once were children in red states. ;)
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Martin Niemoller
 
joecct said:
This is disturbing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-for-records-of-all-calls-in-the-u-s/?hpid=z1
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Let me say first that I don agree with the practice...but, if your goal was to reduce crime, terrorism or otherwise, this is one way to do it. Now, we would likely assume they don't just do it with Verizon.

This practice highlights a key problem, in my opinion, if you do the TSA approach and randomly search grannies and 8 year olds then the odds of catching someone go down.

So, it is just a small step to not be random, under the guise of "it's good for you" and they are reviewing every call in to/from America. You are already there, either randomly scanning or targeting known numbers...it is probably easier and less legally concerning for Verizon to just dump them all instead of hunting and pecking.

Then, some sharp techies can sort, model and pattern everything to their heart's content which in the end would make you far more effective at reducing crime committed by people using cell phones to coordinate things.

Cue Minority Report...the techies would 'know' you were likely to commit a crime based on pattern, not real evidence of your intention.

Where do you draw the line if you lead the nanny state that wants nothing to ever go wrong? At what point do people submit, because it is for their own good, or for the good of the children?
 
pirate said:
Both parties lie, both are unethical, both spend money they shouldn't, both have let us slide into debt and into mediocrity.

That you think one side should be blindly defended and the other blindly opposed just makes me shake my head.

And spare me the "I once admitted the blues did something wrong" line, you are so partisan if Obama started sacrificing young children you'd offer to herd them up for him...as long as they were from red states.
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pirate you can dislike Obama and Dems all you want, and hold both parties to blame equally despite all evidence to the contrary. The problem for you and your ilk is the ridiculous conspiracy theories that you embrace at the drop of a hat in the desperate hopes to legitimize your dying ideology. No, Obama is not "worse than Nixon". Benghazi is a tragedy, not a scandal or coverup and the fact that House Republicans have now resorted to private instead of public testimony ought to tell you all you need to know. The IRS inquiry into right wing groups was not made at the request of a modern day Halderman and Erlichman in the WH, the Prez wasn't born in Kenya, and he has no plans to enslave the white race. While you may not subscribe to all those theories, I'm sure you subscribe to a few. That's what makes conservatives laughingstocks. The funny part is by doing so they obscure legitimate criticisms of Obama that might actually resonate with the electorate.
 
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Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

It's my understanding that the surveillance has been going on for years. First, you still need to get a judge to sign a warrant. Second, it sounds like they are passively recording the information, and are not scanning it in real time. It's use is supposedly limited to after-the-fact searches once probable cause has been established to search through and open up the records.

In other words, no one is listening in on our calls; but if a criminal or terrorist act occurs, they then can go back and open up and listen to calls that had been recorded previously.

No opinion yet on whether it's good or bad, just want to get clear understanding of what's going on first. If it is merely passive recording and no one can listen in until after something happens, that's not so bad.

This is different from the ability to actively listen to calls originating oversees while they are underway, if I understand correctly.
 
FreshFish said:
It's my understanding that the surveillance has been going on for years. First, you still need to get a judge to sign a warrant. Second, it sounds like they are passively recording the information, and are not scanning it in real time. It's use is supposedly limited to after-the-fact searches once probable cause has been established to search through and open up the records.

In other words, no one is listening in on our calls; but if a criminal or terrorist act occurs, they then can go back and open up and listen to calls that had been recorded previously.

No opinion yet on whether it's good or bad, just want to get clear understanding of what's going on first. If it is merely passive recording and no one can listen in until after something happens, that's not so bad.

This is different from the ability to actively listen to calls originating oversees while they are underway, if I understand correctly.
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Decent rundown here. Its been going on for 7 years with the full knowledge of Congress. Why else do you think the usual voices in the House have been amazingly silent on this issue?

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/nsa-phone-tracking-92344.html?ml=po_r
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Rover said:
pirate you can dislike Obama and Dems all you want, and hold both parties to blame equally despite all evidence to the contrary. The problem for you and your ilk is the ridiculous conspiracy theories that you embrace at the drop of a hat in the desperate hopes to legitimize your dying ideology. No, Obama is not "worse than Nixon". Benghazi is a tragedy, not a scandal or coverup and the fact that House Republicans have now resorted to private instead of public testimony ought to tell you all you need to know. The IRS inquiry into right wing groups was not made at the request of a modern day Halderman and Erlichman in the WH, the Prez wasn't born in Kenya, and he has no plans to enslave the white race. While you may not subscribe to all those theories, I'm sure you subscribe to a few. That's what makes conservatives laughingstocks. The funny part is by doing so they obscure legitimate criticisms of Obama that might actually resonate with the electorate.
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And Little Dick's lips didn't move once.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

joecct said:
The Grey Lady is not amused. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?_r=1&

And when it rains, it pours... http://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
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I'm inclined to apply the cost/benefit standard here and in similar cases. Also, are the activities of the government being abused? We waterboarded a handful of savage jihadists and killed another handful with Hellfire missiles fired from drones. I'm not particularly concerned. As an example, if any administration used the immense power of the federal government to single out political opponents for "special treatment," then we'd have a problem. As we in fact do, with the IRS.

In the case at hand, we don't know enough about the NSA's activities to draw reasonable conclusions about that cost/benefit ratio. The NSA is very secret. And they like it that way. Remember when the Soviets shot down KAL flight 007? They lied comprehensively about the incident, until UN mbassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick produced audio tapes of conversations between the pilot and his ground control establishing beyond any doubt that his actions were not accidental and that he knew he was blowing up a civilian plane. Case closed. And the capabilities of the NSA have increased by many orders of magnitude since then. And that's a good thing. The agency is trying to protect American lives and interests. The program as explained doesn't concern me much. They might learn I'm phoning "Dial a date," but as long as they don't have the actual conversation, I can live with it. We all understand that 'phone companies keep records of who we've called and when and for how long. There is no expectation of privacy for those data.
 
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Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Old Pio said:
The agency is trying to protect American lives and interests. The program as explained doesn't concern me much. The might learn I'm phoning "Dial a date," but as long as they have the actual conversation, I can live with it.
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All they'd hear is you biatching about libtards. :)
 
Rover said:
pirate you can dislike Obama and Dems all you want, and hold both parties to blame equally despite all evidence to the contrary. The problem for you and your ilk is the ridiculous conspiracy theories that you embrace at the drop of a hat in the desperate hopes to legitimize your dying ideology. No, Obama is not "worse than Nixon". Benghazi is a tragedy, not a scandal or coverup and the fact that House Republicans have now resorted to private instead of public testimony ought to tell you all you need to know. The IRS inquiry into right wing groups was not made at the request of a modern day Halderman and Erlichman in the WH, the Prez wasn't born in Kenya, and he has no plans to enslave the white race. While you may not subscribe to all those theories, I'm sure you subscribe to a few. That's what makes conservatives laughingstocks. The funny part is by doing so they obscure legitimate criticisms of Obama that might actually resonate with the electorate.
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Nope, nice try with another strawman, I've never subscribed, believed or entertained any of those positions.

To the man with only a hammer everything is a nail.

Your whole friend or foe preoccupation is something to marvel.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

pirate said:
Nope, nice try with another strawman, I've never subscribed, believed or entertained any of those positions.

To the man with only a hammer everything is a nail.

Your whole friend or foe preoccupation is something to marvel.
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In Rover World, anyone to the right of John Lindsay is a dangerous lunatic.
 
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