President Barack Obama assured the American people yesterday that the NSA warrantless surveillance programs are entirely “transparent.” He then promised to extradite and prosecute the man who told the public about it. None of that causes any pause for the White House or its supporters. It makes perfect sense. Indeed, it helps explain how Obama promised the “most transparent” Administration in history and proceeded to expand a secret security state. It turns out that “transparent” simply means something different with Obama, just as the noun “war” is left to his definition. It turns out that transparent means that the government can see it — and see us. Total transparency in our new fishbowl society.
Obama’s interview with Charlie Rose is indicative of how disengenuous this discussion has become. Democratic members have joined Obama in carefully parsing language to avoid the obvious rollback on privacy. They have focused on the question of whether the government is “reading” the content of emails and calls as opposed to gathering a wide array of information on who you are calling, how long, and from where. They ignore the obvious danger in such databanks in giving the government the ability to follow citizens in realtime. It is part of the effort, discussed earlier in columns, to redefine privacy in a new surveillance friendly image. After doublethinking privacy, Obama has moved on to doublethinking transparency. It is no easy task, particularly to convince a free people:
to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.
Despite the fact that civil libertarians have scoffed at the distinction, Obama continues to pretend that the only danger is actually reading such calls and emails.
To add to the obvious evasion, Obama continues to refer to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), or secret court, as if it were a real court or had some meaningful powers of review. Obama told Rose, “That’s why we set up the FISA court.” Of course, he did not set up the FISA court which has been around for decades and widely ridiculed as an absurd rubberstamp for the intelligence agency. Only a couple applications have been denied in the history of that “court.” When I had occasion to got into the court as a young intern with NSA, it set in place a lifelong opposition to it as an insult to the very concept of legal process. For Obama to cite this “court” as the guarantee of transparency is nothing short of insulting. This is the court that classifies (at the demand of Obama’s Administration) the very legal interpretations used to justify massive warrantless searches of citizens.
Obama then returned to the same evasive approach to the programs: “We’re going to have to find ways where the public has an assurance that there are checks and balances in place … that their phone calls aren’t being listened into; their text messages aren’t being monitored, their emails are not being read by some big brother somewhere.” First, Obama is saying that he will ask a rubber-stamp court to read any communications as if that is an assurance of any kind. Second, he is again falling to even acknowledge the wide array of information that they are collecting without such an order. Third, we do not have to fear of “some big brother somewhere.” We know where to find big brother. He is the one assuring us that he has a secret court to guarantee transparency.
In the meantime, Obama wants to put the man in jail for life so told the public about the secret program. That is not part of the new transparency or any part of the new privacy of the Obama era.
This type of logic was explained before as Orwell “doublethink”:
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
Here is the full interview and is guaranteed to make you stop worrying about the police state:
When the Berlin Wall came down some of the Stasi were recruited by the CIA and NSA to show us The Way. A former NSA guy says that if one employs certain words in an email or on a blog that it will trigger an “audit” by the NSA. So, if I were to say that bomb Iran is a good idea but that Ricin would be better and that Saudi Arabia has guys with box cutters who board American Airlines planes going to Afghanistan to terrorize al Qaeda guys who wont get in line– the that would trigger an audit. Ooops, I gotta go someone is banging on the door.
Ich ben ein Stassi Obama.
Blouise, As I’ve said previously, I would bet my 401k, even money, it is happening. People can be bought, and they can be bought cheaply. That was something that always astonished me. And your list of victims is, as I’m sure you know, a very brief one.
The National Surveillance Agency has some really nifty ideas for finding a needle in a haystack:
First, add tons of additional hay to the stack.
Then, spy on every farmer’s daughter in America milking cows.
Then, submit an exorbitant “secret” invoice to the U.S. government for allegedly discovering nefarious plots to plant poppies in Afghanistan.
Finally, viciously persecute any whistle-blowing patriot who dares to inform the American people that their government has not found any needles.
Blouise, Yep, I know.
SwM,
Yep … that’s what I’m hinting at when I write that 70% of the intelligence budget flows to private contractors.
If I were an inside trader, a wealthy spouse trying to hide assets before the divorce proceedings begin, or a politician making arrangements to buy off the ex girlfriend … I’d be more than a little concerned about all these private contractors roaming around with access to my phone and email.
There’s a huge new criminal enterprise within the intelligence field just waiting to happen … perhaps already happening.
“Thanks to the No Money Rule among the Washington press corps, though, there is mostly silence about the connection between the private industry and the public policy. Indeed, few in D.C. are willing to say that the policy debate may be, in part, driven by the private industry and almost nobody dares mention that politicians’ attacks on surveillance critics may actually have nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with going to bat for their campaign donors.” David Sirota, Salon
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/how_cash_secretly_rules_surveillance_policy/
Schizophrenic sanity. No thank you, President Body-Count. Such obtuse clairvoyance and insightful blindness may come easily to you and your cousin Dick Cheney, but I intend never to become “sane” if that would put me in the bloody company of such amoral cretins as the two of you.
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
~John F. Kennedy
That’s the ticket!
I always love that bit of Lovitz, mespo. Second only to “Master Thespian”. Which oddly enough also applies to this situation where government is acting like they aren’t taking a whiz on the Constitution (again). “Acting! Genius! Thank you!”
Now NSA says they stopped 50 attacks not the 4 as originally mentioned. Pretty soon it will be 100 or maybe a 1000 maybe an order of magnitude bigger. Yeah, a 1000, that’s the ticket.
sonofthunderboanerges: “… and you are not conversing/communicating with a known watch-list person, then what’s the big deal? ”
Where might I find the “list” of “known watch-list persons”? I would like to make certain that I do not mistakenly call one of them.
Sprite – That’s where I say that we the people are NOT part of the I.C. (Intelligence Community) (or Congress) and are not entitled “transparency” to the level that we can “look over the shoulders” of I.C.. We don’t get to see the “known” watch list as it’s known to only the “watchers”. We pay them to keep terrorists from hurting us. If you’re talking to a known terrorist or someone suspected of being one, first I need to ask why? Then I’d need to ask how you didn’t know he was? And if you’re using suspicious words with him then what planet are you on? As one person said here you are flagged for just saying the words. It’s more than that. You have to be in contact with suspicious people that they are watching.If you know Big Brother is watching why would you be in such a conversation???!!!
If you accidentally are talking to Habid Mohamed Hadji at the local 7/11 on your cell phone and you didn’t know he was a secret member of al-Kaka or some other t-group, then you can be forgiven. But that would have to be cleared up by the operational research analyst who is following up the flagged conversation. Why were you flagged? Because you were talking to Hadji and you were talking about how those tickets Hadji gave you to that concert was the “bomb” – well you deserved it (LOL).You’d never know about it and you won’t be getting any knocks on your door (unless you start talking about planting bombs with Hadji that is).
FYI – you people harping about the old East German Police – well comparing them to Mr. Obama is like comparing Apples to Oranges! Mr. Obama is not planting bugs in anyone houses without warrants. He’s not making your next door neighbors into government informants. He’s not hauling people in on slim to no evidence of wrong doing. He’s not stopping Americans from departing to another country; however you now need a passport for Canada or Mexico (even Tijuana)- but that was the last POTUS not him I think.
Mr. Obama could care less about you talking to mom or your sister in Columbus. It’s a Titan computer listening but it’s rejected and/or masked if it is not flag-able. There’s no expectation of privacy if your using the phone companies property. You only RENT the system you don’t own it. Same goes for Internet too. A human is not listening UNLESS you are talking to a suspected bad guy who is being watched. Why are you blaming the President from stopping 50 plots?
OK there where waaay more than 50. That’s just the ones that were vetted recently for public consumption.But most of them were probably NOT Muslims, Arabic, or any of the usual suspects. Like I’ve said before the really classified ones I’d guess are from our “so-called” friends plotting against us. No one in the IC is allowed to talk about them I think.
If you want to read about a CIA agent who lost his life trying to prevent just such a plot you need to Google: Roland Carnaby. No one knows the present status of the so-called plot (by “friends”) against USA that he was trying to unfold. There is YouTube videos of his assassination too.
I recall a story from my childhood about the Pied Piper. For some reason that story stuck with me all my life. When I here people speak and hear the crowd roar their approval, images of the Pied Piper leading children off never to be seen again comes to mind.
What does Mr. O have that people hear his words and are so reassured? Some on this site comment like they are one of his followers, perhaps they could explain how trusting Mr. O is something we should all do. But then what of trusting the next President? Do you have the same trust for Prez Christie? Prez Palin? Prez Pelosi? Prez Biden? Because by giving this power to the current Prez (who can do no wrong), you are giving to all future Presidents.
“Defending freedom by surrendering it sounds too Orwellian even for Orwell.”
Copy that, MM.
Transparent Opacity.
There you have your oxymoron fix for the day, .President Cognitive Dissonance.
No need to thank me. As we recovering doublethinkers like to say: “I used to be a schizophrenic but we’re alright now.”
What Michael Murry said.
sonofthunderboanerges,
You have antagonized no one here. Rather, you have embarrassed yourself. The age-old canard of the despot: “If you have nothing to hide then you can’t object to the government watching everything you do or say,” begs the obvious retort: “If the government has nothing to hide, then it can’t object to the people watching everything that it does or says.” So, you see, even to the extent that you try and make an argument for despotism with spurious dialectics, you undercut it at the same time with the same device.
On the other hand, to the extent that a free people know anything and everything about their government, that government will act less tyrannically because it cannot hide its misdeeds and fears for its own self-preservation. The people have a right to know everything about their government.
Will this mean that our “enemies” will see Americans practicing democracy and become enraged at our lack of despotic government? Perhaps. But what American should care if they do? If I have to lose my freedoms, I’d rather the Taliban or Al Qaeda wade ashore at Huntington Beach, California and try to take them from me in person. It escapes me why any American would wish for their own government to rob them of their freedoms just to save the Taliban or Al Qaeda the trouble. Defending freedom by surrendering it sounds too Orwellian even for Orwell.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
and one more for the USA today
Defeat is Victory
Seventy percent of America’s intelligence budget now flows to private contractors. Private contractors are the ones with access … that’s real transparency alright.