President Barack Obama was widely ridiculed last week for his latest effort to quiet public unrest over his massive warrantless surveillance programs. As we discussed, Obama made statements on the program and Snowden that were disengenuous at best and viewed by civil libertarians as facially dishonest. His main “reform” was the rather laughable suggestion that his Administration, once again, would review itself and he would create yet another hand-picked committee to monitor his unchecked authority. While some of us said that Obama’s comments showed almost open contempt for the intelligence of the public and the independence of the press, nothing prepared us this week for his announcement on who would head the review: National Intelligence Chief John Clapper. That’s right. Clapper, the man who admitted to lying before Congress on these programs and has been protected by Congress and Attorney General Eric Holder from a perjury charge. The White House announced Clapper’s selection on Monday and Clapper issued a statement announcing his intention to find a way to preserve national security while “maintaing the public trust.” On Tuesday, the outcry over Clapper’s selection led the White House to try to backpedal and explain this insulting appointment. The White House now says that Clapper will not “lead” the panel and that it will remain “independent” even with his looming presence.
It was the latest outrage from America’s new Animal Farm system. His selection shows the low level of respect for voters in this city and the virtual absence of any fear of confrontation by either Congress or the press in this Administration. It is, to put it simply, a disgrace. Rather than being charged with a virtual admission of perjury, Clapper will review the very programs that he lied about. He is also the person who has been overseeing and using these programs.
What is most unnerving is that Obama is not even trying to make a serious effort at evasion. He simply wants to create some review that can be cited by congressional allies as an excuse for not taking any action in the face of the erosion of privacy.
Clapper said that he will head the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies which will “assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.” The wording is telling. Notice how national security is the primary of focus and privacy is not even directly mentioned. Rather, it is part of a secondary category of risks and concerns over the public trust. Indeed, it seems that “maintaing the public trust” is the more pressing concern as it was with Obama’s comments. Obama insisted that if he had simply created this meaningless committee before the recent scandals, the public would not have been upset by the Snowden affair. The panel will restore public trust by being a panel committed to restoring the public trust.
Once again, the White House seemed entirely surprised that anyone in the media or public would object to a plan of the President. The White House on Tuesday back pedaled and insisted that Clapper would not run the entire show and would have limited powers as part of this overall review. Instead, the Administration insisted that “the panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the intelligence community.” Now that’s a closed circle. The panel will be selected by the White House accused abusive surveillance in consultation with the community accused of carrying out the abusive surveillance. I can see why the White House seems so surprised by the response. Why on Earth wouldn’t the public trust be maintained?
You all know, don’t you, about that other edict BO made last year around Spring? That’s the one where he copies Robert Mugabe & makes it a crime to demonstrate against him in his presence! No kidding! One of you guys will have the name of that legislation. Notice how they got the Elephants & Donkeys bickering so badly that most people are now less worried about Congress & the Senate getting illegally bypassed! Forget the Constitution; we are losing the Magna Carta!
raff,
I’ve used Thunderbird a long time. It’s a good client.
Thanks OS! I especially like the no math part!!
Some of you will never learn! The Illuminati is right in front of you! Yes, BO is their main spokesperson, just like Herbert Walker. Why knock Alex Jones? He’s the good guy. Snowden too, of course. Even Bo Gritz, though he should have known that Herbert Walker wasn’t on his side. Lets say it once & for all: Anyone taking an oath of allegiance to the president of the United States from now on is a damn traitor! Mean you can’t join the forces any more? Damn right! Not in the present state of affairs where dictator Putin is less of a dictator than dictator Obama!
“Aren’t we all, this proverbial hen?!!!” — Diogenes
Not this unrepentant, rebel soul:
What Satan said….
raff,
You can download Thunderbird from Mozilla. It is by the Firefox people, but is a completely different stand-alone program. They acquired the rights to Eudora from Qualcomm, so Thunderbird has the look and feel of an updated Eudora. Thunderbird can be set up to download your email from servers such as Gmail. I am using mine for messages that come to me over our own ISP; however, it will handle multiple email accounts, and I am going to add my two Gmail accounts to it.
The settings can be set so that once Thunderbird downloads the email and attachments (if any), they are stored on your computer and not on Google’s servers. However much storage space you need, you can buy it and it’s yours. No need to rent space from the new oligarchs and overlords to keep your stuff, and if it is sitting in a black brick-looking box on your desk, nosybodies can’t rummage around in it.
Thunderbird is highly customizable. Gmail just changed their format again and I hate it. Thunderbird can look and work any way you want by using add ons and other utilities, same as Firefox is highly customizable.
An added feature of Thunderbird as an email “client” is an add-on called Enigmail. It is a powerful open source (aka, free) encryption program based on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) platform, and is designed especially for Thunderbird. You can send a client file over the internet safely as an encrypted attachment. The person receiving it will be able to open it, but without the key, it will look like machine language hash. As for math, it is based on a complex math algorithm, but you will never see it or have to worry about it.
You can read about Enigmail here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/enigmail/?src=hp-dl-featured
This is the main Thunderbird site. I like the price. It’s open source and free. It’s also seamlessly compatible with every email service I know of.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
OS,
I saw that Raw Story article and I couldn’t believe it. Google thinks gmail users really don’t expect their email to be private between themselves and the person they are sending it to??! Unreal.. I have to learn more about this encryption stuff. I hope there is no math involved!! 🙂
Well said Mr Turley and please keep it up as I am sure you will.
The attitude of those in power is:
“….we are in charge and, while we are, we will do what we bloody well like thank you and if you do not like it then tough. We do not really care what you think but we will make some nice meaningless noises (political spin) to pretend we do because we think most of you are probably stupid enough to buy it.”
In distant lands the Al-Qaeda clans are no doubt laughing their heads off. “Guess what. Our little band of militants has caused the biggest US domestic spying operation in history – possibly eclipsing the historic activities of the KGB and their counterparts in old east Germany.”
Sad.
pete,
Can one watch too many episodes of “Pinky & the Brain”?
Narf?
But the point about lack of focus is valid. We as a society (and it’s not unique to us but we are one of the worst offenders in this regard) have the relative attention span of fruit flies now thanks in no small part to television and smart phones.
I had a discussion with a kid (and his mom) the other day at the doctor’s office. Nice kid. A little stumbling in his speech but fourteen is an awkward age. Well mannered, well spoken, plays football, wants to be a cop but he’s the first to tell you he wants to be a good cop and help people. He’d said he’d even like to be a detective some day. I suggested a couple of books. His response? “Are any of those movies? Books just take too long to read.”
Take too long to read.
I’ll have to say, that was something I’d never heard before. The conversation changed after that into one about the importance of education and reading in general especially if he wanted to make detective.
Focus is a skill. Just like critical thinking is a skill. True, both require ability and not everyone is born being able to do those things as well as others, but absent a learning disability, the rudiments are teachable to anyone. Why we don’t insist that focus be taught more formally as a skill in our educational systems is, I think, a valid question.
There must be a better way to edit a post….
The punch-line in the joke above has a typo, and should read:
‘Well, let *him* lie and cheat again’….”
Sorry.
An old Jewish joke:
The melamed (old time school teacher) teaches his students: “The Talmud teaches that whenever a rooster climbs on the hen, it promises her diamond and all sorts of gems, till she agrees and yields.”
The smart student in the class could not restrain himself, jumped up and shouted: “But, melamed, it may be so the first time, or even the 2nd. time; thereafter she must know that the rooster is a liar and a cheater!”
The melamed combs his beard, deep in thoughts. Finally he explains:
“Well, unavoidably we have to deduct that the hen says ‘Well, let his lie and cheat again’….”
Aren’t we all, this proverbial hen?!!!
I haven’t seen encheferization in a long time. Classic.
There is some truth to going just beyond encryption and having some kind of cypher or argot underneath before it gets encrypted. One trick is to make sure the spaces or word seperation character is taken into account for extra protection.
Someone coming up with their own mechanism can be advantageous because it might be “outside the box” that the crypto-analysts might not think of. The Voynich Manuscript might be one of them. Or it could be jibberish. Who knows?
Darren
i would agree in that the problem is one of focus. how many believe the biggest problem in america today is that kids don’t start their day in school with a prayer?
or the alex jones followers that believe every disaster is a false flag and the illuminati are just waiting to hustle everyone into fema camps so they can “RULE THE WORLD”. sometimes i think alex dropped acid and watched pinky and the brain one too many times.
with others it’s welfare and socialism. most of that just seems to be the same old george c wallace segration today, segration tomorrow, segration forever that we’ve been hearing since the end of the civil war. (excuse me, the war of northern aggression).
i spoke to one older fella with cancer that was worried that death taxes were going to take his doublewide and his wife would have no where to live. i tried to explain to him that he didn’t have to pay inheritance taxes, but i don’t think he believed me.
many kids are so used to all information being in cyberspace that they don’t see the difference in whether it’s the government using it or advertisers selling pop-up adds.
i had hope for the occupy movement but that may have just discouraged many into thinking that they couldn’t change anything.
i have no idea where it’s going but i expect either rising temps or shrinking petroleum reserves will force our hand in a direction nobody wants it to go.
Or as the Chef would put it:
“Guugle-a cleeems Gmeeel users hefe-a nu ‘reesuneble-a ixpecteshun’ zeeur imeeels ere-a preefete”
Zeere-a reelly is nu vey tu keep yuoor preefete-a messeges preefete-a oozeer thun strung incrypshun. HIPEA reqooures it, und feeeloore-a tu cumply cun becume-a fery ixpenseefe-a fery fest.
Bork Bork Bork!
Oooor medeecel center veell nut elloo impluyees tu lug tu zeeur intrunet system frum a cumpooter veet Chrume-a instelled oon it. Unyune-a sooppuse-a zeeur IT depertment knoo sumetheeng a lung teeme-a egu?
I dun’t troost uny prupreeetery incrypshun system yuoo booy in a sture-a oor pey tu doonlued. Iff zee seller hes suld oooot (poon intended) yuoo ere-a SOL. I hefe-a nu intenshun ooff leening uny ooff zeeur puckets egeeen unless zeere-a is nu oopee suoorce-a elterneteefe-a. Zeere-a hes beee telk ooff zee NSA und oozeer elphebet suoop egenceees vunteeng zee beck duur key tu prupreeetery incrypshun prugrems.
Zeere-a ere-a ixcellent oopee suoorce-a incrypshun prugrems under cunstunt defelupment. Here-a ere-a refeeoos ooff feefe-a ooff zee better oones, boot luuks es iff TrooeCrypt hes ell zee futes. Zeere-a ere-a a hooge-a noomber ooff YuooToobe-a feedeus ixpleeening hoo it vurks. Incrypt iferytheeng, ispeceeelly purteble-a medeea.
Bork Bork Bork!
Oone-a gooy cummented tu me-a oon unuzeer blug, regerdeeng imeeels, “I oofftee incheffereeze-a zeem beffure-a I incrypt zeem, becoose-a thet sheet is foonny tu me-a.”
Headline on Raw Story:
“Google claims Gmail users have no ‘reasonable expectation’ their emails are private”
There really is no way to keep your private messages private other than strong encryption. HIPAA requires it, and failure to comply can become very expensive very fast.
Our medical center will not allow employees to log to their intranet system from a computer with Chrome installed on it. Anyone suppose their IT department knew something a long time ago?
I don’t trust any proprietary encryption system you buy in a store or pay to download. If the seller has sold out (pun intended) you are SOL. I have no intention of lining any of their pockets again unless there is no open source alternative. There has been talk of the NSA and other alphabet soup agencies wanting the back door key to proprietary encryption programs.
There are excellent open source encryption programs under constant development. Here are reviews of five of the better ones, but looks as if TrueCrypt has all the votes. There are a huge number of YouTube videos explaining how it works. Encrypt everything, especially portable media.
http://lifehacker.com/5677725/five-best-file-encryption-tools
One guy commented to me on another blog, regarding emails, “I often encheferize them before I encrypt them, because that shit is funny to me.”
How come the good guys who defend our Fourth Amendment privacy rights have to shut down while the bad corporate-government guys who invade it get to stay in business? Something ass backwards about that.
U.S. Government officials have screwed the pooch at high noon in Central Park before a lunchtime crowd — again — but think that they can prevent the taxpaying American voter from learning all about their maniacal misdeeds if they impose blanket secrecy on everything, everywhere, at all times. They think this will make make us believe in them and not our lying eyes. Not likely to work.
Send an e-mail or make a telephone call anywhere on earth and become — as designated by the “eyes only” U.S. Panopticon — a certified “secret agent man” (or femme fatale):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo3Wqf86N4w
In the United States, of course, we have our very own object lesson in the ways of official espionage against the citizenry of Planet Earth:
Public Errant Man
He fell asleep on watch and then reacted
To those who had his lame career impacted
By passing insane laws
To cover his own flaws
The odds are we won’t live to see [redacted]
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller”
Jill,
Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
By Matt Taibbi
AUGUST 29, 2012
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829