Posted on 07/24/2013 3:35:05 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The director of the National Intelligence says an effort in the House to rein in the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance program would dismantle a critical tool in the fight against terrorism.
James Clapper issued the statement just hours ahead of a House vote on an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act for the NSA to collect hundreds of millions of phone records. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Exactly. They won’t even consider some vital tools in the war on terror, like focusing on the communities that produce 99% of terrorists. Yet, they expect us to give up our freedoms so they can use much more costly, less effective tools?
Sorry, no sale. Once I stop seeing TSA employees wearing headscarves and start seeing airline passengers in headscarves getting singled out rather than granny... once I see FBI infiltrators inside every mosque in the country, instead of inside every militia and patriot group... once I see the INS crack down on violators as quickly and harshly as the IRS cracks down on violators... then we can talk about why you need to read my emails and listen to my phone calls.
Wise words indeed my friend..
The "an essay" monitors a suspect, everyone he talks to on the phone, everyone who talks to anyone he's talked to on the phone, everyone who talks to anyone they've talked to on the phone, and everyone who talks to anyone they've talked to on the phone.
They call these "hops".
Citizen-suspect call out for pizza. Anyone else who calls the same pizza parlor is now a suspect, as are ALL of their friends, if one of them calls out for Chinese, anyone else who calls "The Peking Moon" becomes a suspect, along with all of their contacts!
That's only four "hops"...
Regarding your point about politically connected contractors and consultants being given access to abuse the system, I think it’s good to remember who some of those contractors are. Back during the ‘08 election cycle, there was a security breach in the confidential State Department passport databases, when the employees of an “outside contractor” illegally accessed the records of McCain, Obama, and Clinton. Officially, those employees were just fooling around, independently, and they were terminated when their employer found out. Whether or not you believe the official story is the whole story is a matter for everyone to decide for themselves.
The interesting thing, to me, is that their employer was a consulting group owned by John Brennan, obviously a highly politically connected Democrat operative, who just happens to have been appointed director of the CIA. So not only are political operatives getting contracts to handle sensitive things for all sorts of agencies, but those same operatives can end up running the agencies themselves.
In the end, all these agencies answer to the President, the biggest political operative of them all. If he decides to push an agenda, he can fill the internal posts with all of his loyal soldiers, so cutting out the contractors is just a stopgap. We really need, I think, some better oversight over all these agencies that deal with classified information. I’m not sure what kind of oversight will work, but the systems we have in place don’t seem to be working.
Damn... I am just going to have to self censor myself again.
LLS
Don’t forget Veterans.
LLS
my friend i believe you have outlined a good approach and defined many of the current problems...thanks for your input
“That’s only four “hops”...”
Man, Kevin Bacon’s NSA file must be HUGE!
During the lengthy Joseph Stalin reign of terror in the Soviet Union, shops sold address books, but nobody puchased them. Reason being that if you were arrested, everyone in your contact book was arrested too. So everyone just kept details regarding their personal contacts and aquaintances in their heads.
LOL!
You are welcome. We are getting way too knee-jeck in some of our comments (I have been as guilty as the next guy) and we need to increase the critical analysis and comment that used to be more frequent on the site.
I’m am going to do my best to not lambast anyone making a thoughtful analytic comment.
And if anyone calls their Congressman, the entire Government is terrorists and must be monitored.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Who needs a constitution anyway.
All the congresscritters have already been castrated by the files the “an essay” has painstakingly accumulated on every single one of them.
Why else would ALL of them be so quiet, compliant and complicit?
Well stated and right on the money!
Yes and he should be made to account and pay for such.
That accounting should not be sledge hammer gutting of his department without carefully targeting vast cuts to impact the problem areas.
We have spent huge treasure on our defense and intelligence which should not be squandered just because we can’t make the bad political operatives accountable. We should examine how and where they channel their abuses and cut those arms off but leave the legs intact. We may need them.
[snip] an amendment by Republican Rep. Justin Amash that would end the statutory authority under the USA PATRIOT Act [/snip]
Why do we need the NSA?
WE have the FBI and the CIA, already.
As demonstrated on TV shows, (where else would somebody get such an original idea, these days?), we have all those different military CSI groups.
Isn’t that enough agencies?
You got that right. I remember when the republicans were going to give Clinton the trash can he deserved, till Clinton got a hold of their FBI files. Then it was Crickets.
Clearly criminals have usurped our government.
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