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A New Beginning Without Washington’s Sanctimonious Mask

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by poncho, Jun 26, 2013.

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  1. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    It is hard to understand the fuss that Washington and its media whores are making over Edward Snowden. We have known for a long time that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying for years without warrants on the communications of Americans and people throughout the world. Photographs of the massive NSA building in Utah built for the purpose of storing the intercepted communications of the world have been published many times.

    It is not clear to an ordinary person what Snowden has revealed that William Binney and other whistleblowers have not already revealed. Perhaps the difference is that Snowden has provided documents that prove it, thereby negating Washington’s ability to deny the facts with its usual lies.

    Whatever the reason for Washington’s blather, it certainly is not doing the US government any good. Far more interesting than Snowden’s revelations is the decision by governments of other countries to protect a truth-teller from the Stasi in Washington.

    CONTINUE . . .
     
    #1 poncho, Jun 26, 2013
  2. saturneptune

    saturneptune New Member

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    I was very young, but can remember how furious Washington officials got at the Daniel Ellsburg papers.

    Here is a snip from his trial and having the charges thrown out from Wiki.

    On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,[6] Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
    I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.[6]
    He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.

    On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.[22][23]

    On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense.[24] During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.[23]

    Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had lost records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."[23]

    As a result of the revelation of the Fielding break-in during the trial, John Ehrlichman, H R Haldeman, Richard Kleindienst and John Dean were forced out of office on April 30, and all would later be convicted of crimes related to the Watergate scandal. Egil Krogh later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and White House counsel Charles Colson pleaded no contest for obstruction of justice in the burglary. "The court concluded that Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman had violated the Halperins' Fourth Amendment rights, but not the terms of Title III. The Halperins were awarded $1 in nominal damages in August 1977."[25][26]

    Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.[27][28] In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity...............

    The bottom line is, Poncho, here is an example of where the in place system of justice worked just fine.
     
    #2 saturneptune, Jun 26, 2013
  3. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    That's one example and compared to what the criminals in DC have been doing since 2001 is like comparing a garden hose to the Niagara river.

    We have a two tier system of justice. One for the elite and one for the rest of us. The elite can kill millions of people in unconstitutional, illegal, immoral wars and "global kinetic military actions" and steal our money and labor and lives to do it and not be held accountable. They may even gain hero status and get a medal for it. Or better yet a lucrative career with one of the many corporations that reap the rewards of undeclared endless warfare.

    You and I on the other hand. Well you know what happens if we break even the most mundane law. Now we're suspected of criminal activity even if we voice opposition to the elite and can be "droned out" without any kind of due process at all.

    Excuse me for saying so but that seems like something that belongs in Stalin's USSR or Mao's China not the US of A. Let me remind you that the "republicrats" all signed off on this as well before you go trying to pin it all on the Marxist Obama.
     
    #3 poncho, Jun 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 26, 2013
  4. thisnumbersdisconnected

    thisnumbersdisconnected New Member

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    FISA provides for the latter part, " ... and people throughout the world," but not on the American people. There is no evidence it has been done before the Great Pretender took office.
     
    #4 thisnumbersdisconnected, Jun 26, 2013
  5. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Actually there is evidence the government has been spying on American citizens before the great pretender took up residence in the WH. We've all heard the same "republican" talking point you just put forward to shield the Bushies. It might be a good argument if it were true but unfortunately it isn't.

    Google "cointelpro". Government spying on American citizens was happening long before G. W. moved into the WH.

    This is the problem with the whole left vs right debate. We become so focused on protecting one side and blaming the other we lose sight of everything else. It's like SN has said on several occasions, "the constitution is the standard". I agree with him on this 100% and it applies to both republicans and democrats. It makes no difference if one side violated the standard more than the other. A violation is a violation is a violation. Period.
     
    #5 poncho, Jun 28, 2013
  6. thisnumbersdisconnected

    thisnumbersdisconnected New Member

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    Sheer numbers prove the fallacy of that statement. Under Bush, over seven years, fewer than 100 requests were made, and never more than twenty-one in any given year, to the FISA courts seeking permission to discover who owned phones or emails within the US that were known to have received communication from suspected terrorists.

    Last year alone, this administration made over 210 such requests, and have made over a thousand since 2009.
     
    #6 thisnumbersdisconnected, Jun 28, 2013
  7. FollowTheWay

    FollowTheWay Well-Known Member
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    How do you really know how many such requests were made at anytime. These are considered "matters of national security" and aren't generally known. The Patriot Act, passed under Bush right after 9/11 made these legal. I say overturn the Patriot Act.
     
    #7 FollowTheWay, Jun 28, 2013
  8. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    The only thing the FISA court does is make it easier for the government to violate the fourth amendment. Granted they make it sound like it's all above board and legal but . . .

    The numbers shouldn't matter. Who the bigger violator is shouldn't matter. What should matter is that the constitution is being violated daily by a government that reassures us every day that it isn't violating the constitution daily.

    What should matter is we have a president that claims the authority to imprison and/or execute us with out due process.

    What should matter is the democrats and republicans like it that way.

    What should matter is the bankers and Wall Street are ripping us off to the tune of trillions of dollars in bailouts that are used to reward the bankers and Wall Streeters for screwing up the economy and turning it into a gambling casino where YOU and I get to eat the losses while THEY get big bonuses!

    What should matter is we have a government that is devaluing the money by printing more and more and more of it just to keep the bottom from falling out of the "global economy".

    What should matter is the democrats and republicans like it that way.

    What should matter is we have a government that will lie to us and hype threats and use every crisis it can to grab more money, power and control over us it possibly can.

    What should matter is we a have government that is putting out reports and training the police that we're the greatest threat to national security not Al Qaeda that the government is even at this very moment funding and arming.

    What should matter is we have a government that wants to take naked pictures of us and put it's hands down our pants to protect us from the guys it's funding and arming!

    Pause a minute and think about that.

    The government wants to stick it's hands down our pants to keep us safe from the guy's it's funding and arming.

    I repeat . . . the government wants to stick it's hands down our pants to protect us from the guy's it's funding and arming.

    What should matter is the democrats and republicans like it that way.

    What should matter is we have a government that is turning our communications networks into a high tech virtual Hi Def panopticon.

    What should matter is the democrats and republicans like it that way.

    What should matter is we have a government that is at war with journalists and whistleblowers that spills the beans on it and informs us of it's misdeeds like war crimes and warrantless wholesale spying.

    What should matter is what other evil is the government doing we don't know about?

    What should matter is we're seeing NAFTA and the NAU being implemented right before our eyes under the guise of "immigration reform" and "deeper international integration".

    What should matter is we have a government that is openly talking about merging EU and US political systems and economies.

    What should matter is the democrats and republicans like it that way.

    Did I mention that it should matter that we have a president that claims the authority to imprison and/or execute us with out due process and the democrats and republicans like it that way?

    What shouldn't matter at this late stage in the slide into a thoroughly corrupt authoritarian big brother Stasi police state hell hole is who the greater of two violators are. Imho of course.
     
    #8 poncho, Jun 28, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 28, 2013
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