President Obama’s Dragnet

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?pagewanted=all

by forgotAgain • 13 years ago

458 139 13 years ago

nytimes.com

mtgx• 13 years ago

It should be mentioned that it was written by the Editorial Board of NYT.

ISL• 13 years ago

I'd 's/mentioned/emphasized/' . The first 1.7 paragraphs read like they're straight out of the WSJ.

sillysaurus• 13 years ago

What's the significance of this?

emin_gun_sirer• 13 years ago

This article would have been stronger if it had contained a bit of introspection. Why did it require a UK paper to uncover this operation?

kai-zer• 13 years ago

UK reporter can't be subpoenaed?

edit: nevermind, guess the reporter is an American...

Amygaz2• 13 years ago

Because he knows where to get good fish and chips?

Umalu• 13 years ago

The "UK reporter" is Glenn Greenwald, an American: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Greenwald

smackfu• 13 years ago

Think he lives in Brazil though.

longone• 13 years ago

I agree. Investigative reporting in the US has been on a downturn for the last 15 years or so. Many newspapers have had to cut back on resources because of declining readership and its hard to expect decent investigative news from any of the network news stations because they are just pandering to their own audiences for ratings and whatnot. It also doesn't help the president Obama and his administration have been incredibly hard on journalists and those who leak information as we have learned over the last month. Even though it was the Guardian that was the paper that reported it, Glenn Greenwald, an American, is the author of the original article. Either way, I'm just happy this has come to the public eye and has confirmed many suspensions. I hope that this rallies enough support so either amendments to the Patriot Act can be made it can be repealed entirely.

Shivetya2• 13 years ago

which of the major issues that the Obama Administration has the major US media broken recently? None. We have had nearly five years of a silent, complacent, if not compliant, major news media in the US. Sadly we have to resort to foreign news sources to get to the story.

Don't be surprised if Al-Jazeera breaks a story before one of ours does.

mullingitover2• 13 years ago

Well, given how the administration has treated publishers[1], who can blame them?

[1] http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-13/world/39226618...

jbm• 13 years ago

Your comment implies that Al-Jazeera is a poor source of news. Is there a reason you feel that way, other than their lack of reporting on Qatar?

I find that they have excellent coverage of Africa, Asia, and most of the Middle East.

(Sorry if that wasn't your intention)

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

It's always been like this. I left the US a decade ago and couldn't believe how different the news was once I was outside.

sneak8• 13 years ago

Keep paying US taxes and voting. That should work.

(But seriously. It's time. Pack your belongings and leave. Vote with your tax dollars, please.)

dkulchenko2• 13 years ago

Leave where? Everyone always says that, but where would be better (mainly in terms of civil liberties)?

jlgreco6• 13 years ago

Yeah, leaving doesn't work. The solution is sadly not that simple.

But neither does voting. How could voting work when the public is not even suppose to be aware of this sort of thing? This sort of secrecy is incompatible with democracy. Without being able to make an informed decision the best you can do is vote for the candidate that assures you that they will have a transparent administration.... oh wait.

tokenizer• 13 years ago

Canada? I say this as a Canadian who's aware of our own issues...

joering2• 13 years ago

Leave to the smaller country. Like Saint Lucie, for example. Any smaller in size and as result less economically/technologically developed country where technology is in bare use, not to mention in broad use by country's government. Ultimately, there won't be a rock or an inch of earth left without some satellite taking high-res 60 stills per second and some sort of sonic device taking 3-d snapshots of a sound-field. But before then, hopefully our generation will be dead.

Earth is truly become Orwellian's nightmare. Now I understand why Musk said we need to go to Mars; otherwise we extinct.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

A lot of places are better in terms of civil liberties. Most of western Europe (though stear clear of the UK).

hippich• 13 years ago

Any suggestions, where to go?

josephagoss• 13 years ago

Come over to Australia!

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Do a search on first world countries. Most of them will be fine.

abduhl• 13 years ago

I enjoy these type of comments. They mostly come from Americans who have never looked into the requirements to "leave" legally. It turns out the rest of the world has immigration laws that are just as strict or more strict than America's so unless you're young and you're filthy rich, in a very specialized field that country needs, or ridiculously good looking you're probably not welcome in country X.

kibwen• 13 years ago

Exactly this. If you think it's so simple to emigrate from the US, go ahead and try. I'm sure it wouldn't be too onerous for the types that frequent HN, but for the 99.9% of the population that's less affluent and less technically skilled, you're stuck here.

tjmc• 13 years ago

Harper's magazine gave a detailed and amusing guide on "Electing to Leave" the US after Bush's reelection. It covers everything from emigrating to Canada to founding your own micronation.

I finally found a copy here: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1103-29.htm

sneak8• 13 years ago

I emigrated five years ago. It's tough, no fuckin' foolin'.

The alternative is to go to bed every night knowing that a double-digit percentage of your value and productivity that day went to fund building bombs and buying and installing fiber splitters.

I just couldn't do it any longer.

FWIW, I have none of those circumstances you describe, and it was relatively easy, practically speaking— and I moved to Germany, one of the best places on Earth to live. The hard part was leaving my job, family, friends, and girlfriend behind on a different hemisphere.

Taylorious• 13 years ago

I'm sure many weak and cowardly people from the American Revolution said the same thing. It may seem hopeless but people (not just Americans) need to stand up put their governments in check. We live in a very unique time and have unique challenges that people in the past did not have to face, but that doesn't mean things are hopeless. Governments go through phases of corruption and abuse of power, it is up to citizens to put them back in balance.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

People from the American Revolution took up arms, and many of them died. Are you ready to do that? I'm not. If not then leavings probably a more realistic option. Call me a coward if you like, but I've already escaped. How many people have joined your militia so far?

khuey4• 13 years ago

Can't vote with your tax dollars unless you renounce your citizenship. And that feels like abdicating responsibility to me.

cpeterso• 13 years ago

The Noble American Tradition of Tax Resistance:

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-04-11/article/...

cookingrobot• 13 years ago

That's not true in practice. You always need to file taxes to the US no matter where you live, but you only pay to the US if you paid less overseas (you pay the difference, you don't double pay). Almost any county you'd want to live in (except tax havens) will have higher taxes than the US.

sneak8• 13 years ago

False.

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Forei...

My line 14 has been zero for several years. I am a US-born American citizen.

bcoates• 13 years ago

That worked so well for Anwar al-Awlaki.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Well, you might want to avoid 3rd world shit holes, and joining terrorist groups.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Uh, you realize leaving doesn't change your tax situation, right? You still have to file every year and you still may be liable for taxes. Also, if you live in a "tax heaven" then you have to report any bank account you have signing authority over (including any pension, etc.). So don't plan on being a stock trader in your new country, that's not going to happen. Don't plan on having a bank account with any non-international bank because they won't take americans.

BTW, the US is the only country in the world to behave this way (well, perhaps NK but that's not exactly a favorable comparison, is it).

merraksh• 13 years ago

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal says it well:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2961#c...

but also:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2974#c...

vijayboyapati• 13 years ago

Question: At what point does the average statist admit that the libertarians (s)he has been belittling for so many years as tin-foil hat crackpots were far more savvy about the nature of the state than they were?

Answer: never

wonderzombie2• 13 years ago

Stopped clocks, once a day, etc. ;)

In all seriousness, though: civil liberties are one of the very few areas where libertarians and liberals (I presume "statist" was meant to be a jibe) can agree. Liberals were in fact among the groups pissed off about the PATRIOT Act, FISA, et al, during the Bush years.

By this point, nearly a decade later, I'd resigned myself to the fact that nobody cared. I can't decide if I'm pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised that this is finally getting more attention.

_delirium• 13 years ago

Yes, civil-liberties advocates have been on this particular horse since before the term "libertarian" even came into widespread usage. Various kinds of attempts at dragnet surveillance, at various scales, have been an active issue of controversy going back decades (e.g. in the McCarthyist era), and civil-liberties groups like the ACLU have been pretty consistent in opposition.

te_chris• 13 years ago

Yes, never, because a completely unaccountable corporatocracy is not a suitable replacement. Social democrats like myself believe in the power of a transparent, strong, supportive, accountable and fundamentally democratic state and are not going to give up fighting for it.

This isn't an argument to blow up the state in favour of an alternative which has proven itself often to be worse than the state in matters of privacy and libterty, it's a call to increase the public pressure for reform.

adventured3• 13 years ago

Good luck combining a strong government, with an accountable one. Political power tends to corrupt toward not wanting to be accountable.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Oh stfu about libertarian bullshit. Show me another first world nation anywhere on the planet that is libertarian. Show me any libertarian nation of any kind that isn't awful. You know the US concept of "libertarian" doesn't exist outside the US? That's because the rest of the world realizes it's useless.

mtoddh• 13 years ago

From the article:

"The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future."

That second sentence is the one that really caught my eye:

She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future.

Wow. Just wow.

khuey4• 13 years ago

Feinstein is one of the worst people in the Senate on civil liberties issues, and one of the foremost advocates of the national security state.

ericd• 13 years ago

Ugh, I think I voted for her. :-( When is she up for reelection?

grappler• 13 years ago

Feinstein's constituency is Silicon Valley. And while we know all about the Google/Facebook/Apple/Y-Combinator silicon valley, there's also that other Silicon Valley.

http://vimeo.com/15992737

f1nch3r• 13 years ago

Precrime. Minority Report becomes more real every day.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

It's not even Precrime, more like Maybecrime.

drawkbox2• 13 years ago

If terrorists hate our freedom, then maybe this data collection shows Dianne Feinstein to be a terrorist. We need to access her information. I am sure she has nothing to hide.

plusbryan• 13 years ago

Also convenient when we change our definition of "terrorist" and can reexamine the evidence with new eyes...

grn• 13 years ago

A little generalisation of her reasoning may lead to a conclusion that we should collect data on everyone since birth in case he becomes a criminal. It's scary.

Shivetya2• 13 years ago

worry not about that, but whatever in the future they decide are crimes warranting the use of this information. When they decide that is serves the purpose of the government to track tax issues this way, child support, or even political donations. The real future threat is that they don't seem to have limits of retention in place.

wslh• 13 years ago

I really think of Obama government as populism (disclaimer: I live in another country with a lot of populism). The IRS scandal is part of that. He plays nice cards in public but in secret he has another agenda. At one point you connect the dots when he plays the same tricks.

sp332• 13 years ago

From what I've seen, Obama is pretty peeved about the IRS thing. Mainly because it spent a lot of political capital he needed for other projects... like this one.

cglace• 13 years ago

Pretty peeved they were caught?

adventured3• 13 years ago

No, they're not peeved at all. If he was, he'd be burning the IRS alive. They've spent all their effort so far on deflection, lying, covering-up, etc.

pvnick• 13 years ago

Said Jim Sensenbrenner, who introduced the Patriot Act:

“As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Everlag• 13 years ago

When the fellow who introduced the Patriot act goes against something in the name of American privacy you know you've crossed the line that is political suicide.

And they don't have a 9/11 as an excuse this time.

wonderzombie2• 13 years ago

Well, you know what they say: failure is an orphan. Warrantless wiretapping has been going on for however many years, and now he's got a problem with it? OK, bro, whatever you say.

caseysoftware• 13 years ago

Yes, absolute political suicide. That Obama guy will never be elected to any office ever again!

Oh, wait..

anigbrowl6• 13 years ago

You're assuming a degree of intellectual and ethical consistency which I am extremely reluctant to ascribe to a sitting legislator.

scrabble• 13 years ago

Political suicide? Maybe in the past.

crusso• 13 years ago

As much as I am glad that the guy is at least admitting that the phone record seizure is troubling, I can't help but be PISSED that many of us knew this was the inevitable result of the Patriot Act and this trend to let Government take care of us and protect us at the expense of our Liberties.

If only democracies or republics had a more immediately exercisable "I told you so" button.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

What a dickwad. "I'm going to introduce this thing but I'm worried about the abuses". Then don't introduce it! Of course it will eventually get abused, what law hasn't?

drawkbox2• 13 years ago

The 'Patriot' Act was written 8 days after 9/11. It is time for it to go and be rewritten in saner times.

The founders and framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights knew the tyranny that can happen, but they have never seen what abuse of technology can be in terms of privacy.

The people that say 'they have nothing to hide' don't realize that personal, business, ideas, private, market information can really be used in many other ways beyond helping fight terrorism.

Strong anonymization and approvals to access the individuals responsible for the info need to be rethought and it should be a public discussion if all our data will be accessible.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Or how about scrap it and don't rewrite anything. Terrorism is no threat to the US, just stop making a big deal about it. The boston bombers killed 3 people. That's like 1 car crash.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

Aren't you suddenly getting terrified about what the dossier created by data mining every phone call, every email, every article on every website you read, every comment you've ever left, every book you ever bought, every library book that you ever took out, the magazines that you subscribe to, every cent you've ever spent by card and where it was spent, every place you've ever lived, every place where you worked, every place you ever made a phone call from, every classmate you've ever had, how much electricity you use, and the same things about all of your probable friends - w/different data sources starting 7-15 years ago?

Are you even more terrified of the executive summary? Is it just me?

angersock4• 13 years ago

But remember, we have to disarm, because guns are evil you see. And because we can trust big brother, you see. The government knows what's best for us--after all, it knows everything about us.

This is the sort of reason the wingnuts cry about guns and gubberment, and unfortunately, they're looking a bit less alarmist with each passing day.

anigbrowl6• 13 years ago

Be realistic, neither the political right or the NRA exhibited the least bit of opposition to the Patriot Act at the time of its adoption; 2nd amendment types were too busy printing and buying bumper stickers such as the one below for their cars.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/heyman1104/My%20Rivie...

yread• 13 years ago

Aha. So, now, since you haven't disarmed yet, your government is still afraid of you, right? And they wouldn't, say, break the constitution and unlawfully spy on all their citizens, now, would they? Oh wait, they do! So how did the guns prevent it?

king_jester• 13 years ago

Give me a break. Citizen gun ownership is not a deterrent to spying nor incarceration if the gov't chooses to act on its covertly gathered info.

anigbrowl6• 13 years ago

Nope. It was obvious from the get-go that the purpose of the Patriot Act was to normalize what had previously been the domain of covert investigations of individuals. I don't personally feel terrified about it because I am too boring to become a likely object of suspicion; realistically, the chance of my being swept up in a government intelligence operation is about as likely as my being blown up by terrorists. And frankly, the Patriot act has had considerably less impact on individual liberties and Democratic participation that I expected it to at the time it was passed.

On the other hand, I'm quite depressed that it's taken people so long to put it together that they're willing to buy into the idea that Obama a) invented it or b) had the freedom to single-handed dismantle it. The entire country badly needs a remedial course in civics, not least in Congress's ongoing game of hot potato.

This book predates the war on terror but seems extremely relevant: http://www.amazon.com/Power-Without-Responsibility-Congress-...

spinchange• 13 years ago

Obama switched his stance to be in support of the Patriot Act/FISA extension _right in the middle of the 2008 primaries_! Chris Dodd, who was also running, led a huge filibuster effort AGAINST it. He ultimately failed and was one of the first to drop out. Moreover, for the record, Joe Biden is largely considered one of the architects of what became the Patriot Act, from his 1995 Omnibus Terrorism Bill (after the Oklahoma City bombings.) It's like a source document for the current legislation.

So, yes, Congress passes these laws, but yes, Obama, Biden, and the majority of Democrats also do bear responsibility. Obama is the President. He signs off on, and executes this and is in favor of it and it was known before he was elected.

pessimizer2• 13 years ago

I'm not confident that opinions that I've expressed or activities that I've engaged in will not be targeted by future administrations. For example, I'm an atheist, and have associated with atheists. Who's to say that won't get me rounded up in 30 years?

When I was younger (I'm nearly 40 now) there were very few records of anything that I did, and to have a government file was unusual, not a few keystrokes away for LE to generate a file on anyone. We're all guilty of crimes, questionable opinions, and questionable associations that leave digital remnants. I'm starting to think that I don't need a cellphone anymore.

I'm quite depressed that it's taken people so long to put it together that they're willing to buy into the idea that Obama a) invented it or b) had the freedom to single-handed dismantle it.

This is what depresses you? I don't give a shit who the general population blames, and the idea that Obama had no ability to dismantle it would be a controversial statement anywhere. We've had presidents who've carried on entire wars without Congressional approval.

flyinRyan18• 13 years ago

Well, you're not likely to get show in Brazil or South Africa either but it's best to just not live in such places because if it actually happens, it's too late to react. The PATRIOT act may not have had the worst possible consequences yet (as far as we know) but it's still in effect. It's like a standing reverse lottery of misery.

jurassic• 13 years ago

> The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.

Yes. Fuck you Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush, and everyone who ever voted for the PATRIOT Act. Failed promises on Gitmo, mideast conflicts, drone murders, and civil liberties/domestic spying. I hope they impeach him for failing to uphold the Constitution.

I'm cynical, so I suspected this was probably happening all along. But my anger over this is still white hot. Our whole government is broken when leaders of both major parties blatantly lie and conspire to undermine our Constitution.

angersock4• 13 years ago

Did you vote for Ron Paul or one of the minority parties, or were you complicit in this farce?

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Flip all the parties next go 'round. In a reliably red district and/or state? Vote Democrat, and vice-versa. Vote the bums out, especially the Yes on PATRIOT Act ones. The law of averages will keep the distribution we have now.

yk• 13 years ago

I did grow up in West Germany during the 80ies, and at that time I was told that we were on the right side of the wall, because our government does not kill people, does not torture people and does not spy on its own population. Sometimes I wonder who won the cold war.

Riesling• 13 years ago

I think with the fall of the rivaling system, the need for the western world to differentiate itself just went away.

President Obama’s Dragnet

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