What’s the practical implication of this for someone who does not understand procedural talk? How would you express it?

I’m thinking in terms of a synopsis a little more complete than the title.

To be honest, I’m still trying to think that through, PAch.

I think they reference the EO because the surveillance they’re talking about is technically outside of FISA.

If so (and the lawyers appear to still be asleep), then it would mean that by defining surveillance the way they have (that is, by putting these large data mining projects outside the scope of FISA), they would create a loophole where the only requirement to use minimization procedures is the EO that we have reason to believe has been turned to pixie dust. Which would effectively mean there are no required minimization procedures, not if President pixie dust decides he doesn’t want them. And then the response here–that they don’t want minimization legislated–would be an admission they didn’t want their pixie dust protections to be solidified.

But like I said, I’m still thinking this through. FISA’s like a giant double negative, and the coffee hasn’t entirely kicked in.

Prior to August 2007, there was a law (FISA) requiring intelligence agencies to destroy (minimize) accidental surveillance of US citizens, and requiring oversight of this minimization. There was also an Executive Order (12333) that iterated respect for FISA minimization and oversight, and contained guidelines for intelligence agencies to follow in this light.

Marcy notes that NSA did not want to make EO12333 law, allegedly because it would bind their hand technologically.

Bush Administration had already decided FISA invalid, because they believed they were exempt from law under Article II and AUMF. So the residual guidelines for surveillance behavior that was issued by the executive branch for the executive branch, EO12333, is the only thing burdening them with minimization and oversight.

But Sheldon Whitehouse shows us that Bush decided executive orders do not have to be followed (pixie dust).

In summary, Bush Administration believes that there is no existing legal reason for minimization or oversight of surveillance of US Citizens abroad. Hence, all your data belongs to George. They can capture and store and search and explore all of the data they want on any US citizen abroad.

This includes US military, contractors, people working for NGOs, and of course, members of the Press. If you are abroad, they can acquire and keep your data, and they do not have to tell anyone they did it.

It’s a circular reference — that’s why it doesn’t compute, and why it’s difficult to explain.

Although more coffee would be good.

for what it’s worth — and with
the caveat that i am by no means
a spook-lawyer — but i am well-
versed in the fourth amendment juris-
prudence, i’d employ sir william of
occam’s parsimony to say that what is
going on here is best understood by
the simplest explanation:

cheney (and bush) crafted a byzanntine
executive order/statutory interface, then
convinced junior lawyers to sign off on
the idea that the executive — bush — could
effectively ignore his own proclaimations,
in secret, whenever he wanted.

thus, the effort to keep FISA from setting
the minimization procedures in stone (erh,
actual laws — not “calvin-ball” pixie dust).

if that’s a simplified summary of what the EFF
f.o.i.a. lawsuit has turned up, then. . .

richard bruce cheney sez:

“all your basedata are belong to us. . .”

“. . .In summary, Bush Administration believes that there is no existing legal reason for minimization or oversight of surveillance of US Citizens abroad. Hence, all your data belongs to George. They can capture and store and search and explore all of the data they want on any US citizen abroad. . .”

much more precisely-put — than mine @ 5.

and you even completed the pop-culture cross-reference.

s w e e t.

Here’s the deal. The technical details of the system they have set up make it impossible for them to follow the minimization requirements. Don’t forget the USA Today story (the one about the call detail records). They are actively using CDRs to feed the system. Minimization will break the whole thing.

i might disagree — in only a very small
way, to yours — IF one believed that
any actual legislation, from congress,
on this precise topic would trump all
inconsistent executive orders, in this
area (as i do) — then, a FISA amendment
which required minimization would trump
any inconsistent provision in the executive
order(s).

that is what “richard the bruce“,
and “dubbya the dim” were after here:
stopping any conflicting legislation.

just my $0.02.

Am I getting the gist of this correctly?

Basically, we should all just stop thinking. Just go about our lives. Without any thoughts of what the govt is doing or not doing. Because the govt will do all that thinking for us!

so…. become sheep… right?

Actually nolo, we agree. They have no intention of following the law, no matter what Congress does. They want to get as much of their program enshrined in law as possible to lock in the tyranny for the next administration.

okay — i see. it is certainly true
that actual legislation parroting the
executive order(s) would do that.

but it would then leave them bereft
of calvin-ball rules/pixie-dust, to
further depart from their prior practice.

but as you imply, they don’t care.

richard the bruce will simply ignore
actual legislation — as he did with
the presidential records act, for five
years running, now.

sheesh.

Marcy, can you address the possibility that the Press may be what they are interested in surveilling abroad?

If I am NSA interested in identifying terrorists, I am surely going to want to monitor the communications of press in Iraq. Specifically, the Iraqi and other foreign journalists who are getting tips from people who are either insurgents or one step removed. If you are acquiring all the data from an Iraqi Journalist working for Reuters or the AP, then chances are you are also getting a lot of unrelated communications from US Citizen members of the press. So it seems likely there would be a lot of minimization needed. Any FISA update bill or statutory language that includes a time limit for minimization probably requires a live NSA analyst to evaluate data to identify and minimize collections on US Citizens.

Given the volume of data collected, this may be a part of the problem they have with FISA and minimization.

William Ockham is correct; they can’t really comply with valid minimization protocols and do the mass surveillance and data capture they are doing, and wouldn’t want to even if they could. They want no effective limits on their behavior; so in order to be able to flap their lips about using and complying with minimization protocols, they phrase it in terms of a semi-obscure executive order process they feel they can change or disregard in a seconds notice, and in one off bases, anytime they are so inclined. Simply put, they want unfettered discretion. But I am still mostly asleep.

In summary, Bush Administration believes that there is no existing legal reason for minimization or oversight of surveillance of US Citizens abroad. Hence, all your data belongs to George. They can capture and store and search and explore all of the data they want on any US citizen abroad.

I have a quibble with the “abroad” delineation. I think it is much worse than that.

Junya and crew have no effective way to discern “abroad” with respect to”

1. Email on US-based servers.
2. Email that traverses US communications pipes.
2. Web access to US-based servers (blogs, message boards, etc.).
3. Web access that traverses US communication pipes.

The DNI Mikey McConnell has explicitly acknowledged this technological limitation.

Additionally, the NSA finds it operationally and technologically less work to have a “vacuum-cleaner” approach to “drinking from the firehose” on the mucho large capacity communications pipes that traverse the US that carry voice and data sent and received from all over the world.

And one final gotcha. It seems that no warrant is required to acquire one’s email if it has been read by the recipient and is at least 6 months old. There is no delineation on this as to the geographic location of the recipient nor citzenship.

Since 6 month-old email is not of tactical use, I’m willing to bet that Junya and crew find that dating mostly irrelevant as they squeeze folks like Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail, Yahoo!’s Yahoo!Mail for every-feckin’-thing.

op-ed from mukasey today:

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s bill is not perfect, and it contains provisions that I hope will be improved. However, it would achieve two important objectives. First, it would keep the intelligence gaps closed by ensuring that individual court orders are not required to direct surveillance at foreign targets overseas.

Second, it would provide protections from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that have been sued simply because they are believed to have assisted our intelligence agencies after the 9/11 attacks. The bill does not, as some have suggested, provide blanket immunity for those companies. Instead, a lawsuit would be dismissed only in cases in which the attorney general certified to the court either that a company did not provide assistance to the government or that a company had received a written request indicating that the activity was authorized by the president and determined to be lawful.

It is unfair to force such companies to face the possibility of massive judgments and litigation costs, and allowing these lawsuits to proceed also risks disclosure of our country’s intelligence capabilities to our enemies. Moreover, in the future we will need the full-hearted help of private companies in our intelligence activities; we cannot expect such cooperation to be forthcoming if we do not support companies that have helped us in the past.

I agree with your assessment of abroad vs domestic.
I was just focusing on language of 12333 and PAA which makes it seem like they are concerned about minimizing US citizens abroad. What they leave unsaid is the almost certain acquisition and storage of domestic-domestic communications. another compelling reason for having no oversight.

I agree with your agreement. *g*

all your data can only belong to george if the telcos are made to recognize the pixie dust rule - which for them means that a “written request indicating that the activity was authorized by the president and determined to be lawful” = immunity.

EXACTLY.

Worse, not only is there no tactical value to email over 6 months, there’s reason not to “minimize” what they’ve Hoovered up since retaining data over a longer period of time allows for better pattern detection.

Think of Amazon, for example; the longer you shop with them, the better their predictions are at products you’ll like.

They want it ALL, indefinitely.

If they’re capturing all this, wouldn’t they also be capturing their own stuff too?

Where does that go? What happens to it?

And since many US calls are routed through international connections, doesn’t this pretty much guarantee any of us might be considered “abroad?”

We have added the 5th estate to the government — telecommunication
companies…
Hot tip… sell their stock short?

It ultimately comes down to lengthy adjudication in a politicized justice system that will be resolved or abandoned long after we’re dead.

OT,

Before I forget…
Let’s nominate Reggie Walton as “Man of the Year” for his attempt
to bring justice to the new “Police State”

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU AND LISTENEING TO YOU;
What is wrong with Congress? How many have their antennas blocked? Can a survey of each of them be taken to see who wants to oppose data mining? Their collective feet need to be held to the fire. What has informatiion obtained from torture prevented? This is mass fear and terrorism. Can insurance be had for this risk?

excellent, selise!

the telecos (save qwest during
its nacchio-led era — separate
problems there!) already do — and
likely always will. . .

thus, you may be right about
a fifth estate — except that this
nascent fifth estate seems, for
the moment to entirely in the
thrall of the “fourth branch“. . .

a/k/a richard the bruce.

so that makes this putative fifth-
estate no more than a vestigial organ
of the OVP’s intelligence activities.

y i k e s.

EW “(that is, by putting these large data mining projects outside the scope of FISA)”

So it would seem that all the Data mining would not belong to George but to Amdocs and Comverse Infosys.

Thank you. That makes it diggable!

Was this what George Washington meant when he warned us of “entangling alliances”

The verbal sleight of hand in the NSA’s answers on that questionaire is really slick. To wit:

This collection effort is primarily focused on tragets located outside the United States. The bulk of NSA intelligence reporting does not include information about U.S. persons.

Emphasis in the original.

Notice “collection effort” vs. “reporting”. A more honest rendering of this policy would be:

We collect as much data as we can from both foreign and domestic sources in our effort to find foreign targets to surveil. We make sure that the stuff we share with other folks in the intelligence community is mostly about foreigners because we don’t want other agencies to think we’re in the domestic intel business because they would be jealous.

Wiretapping and datamining

Amdocs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAEjSQghj8

Phone security
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENwze5owq4w

Amdocs/datamining
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAEjSQghj8

I think the fairly accepted rumor that Christiane Amanpour was surveilled under “the Program” would support your point.

But I wouldn’t want to limit the discussion of US person abroad to just journalists. NGO affiliates would be in the same boat, as would a number of others.

Data “belong,” not “belongs,” BTW.

I know, eyes roll. Picky, picky, picky. I’ve pretty much lost that fight. Even Fowler’s has sorta thrown in the towel.

Yes. No eyerolls here.

Folks

Let me add a caution here, which is why I insist we’re still playing in the world of double negative.

PAA requires the govt to meet the terms of minimization as defined by the FISA minimization rules. So it DOES call for minimization by statute, which is more than 12333 does.

But I suspect there’s some shell game going on here where they the statutory requirement is so nested it ends up pointing back to the Pixie Dust EO.

Also, note MY discussion was solely about minimization. That is a different issue from “Americans abroad,” which is what Whitehouse explicitly mentioned. The point is that 12333 is the basis for several protections on wiretapping, of which travel abroad is just one, and what i’m trying to do is expose what I consider to be an even more troubling one, which is that there seem to be only tenuous limits on what they can do with your data.

We collect as much data as we can from both foreign and domestic sources in our effort to find foreign targets to surveil. We make sure that the stuff we share with other folks in the intelligence community is mostly about foreigners because we don’t want other agencies to think we’re in the domestic intel business because they would be jealous.

= Just trust us.

so (and the lawyers appear to still be asleep), then it would mean that by defining surveillance the way they have (that is, by putting these large data mining projects outside the scope of FISA), they would create a loophole where the only requirement to use minimization procedures is the EO that we have reason to believe has been turned to pixie dust. Which would effectively mean there are no required minimization procedures

Only if we believe that the defintition they have created is correct. Because FISA has an exclusivity clause. ALL Foriegn Intelligence Survaillance conducted in the US, is governed by FISA.

If they are doing it in the US and they are not complying with FISA, it cannot be legal, until a court says it is.

The Bush administration has spent the last six years “Minimizing” procedures and “enhancing” techniques with their “pixie dust”. I just want this band of pirates and Peter Pan Bush to be taken out with a Justice “hook” before they kill any more innocent people.

“…there seem to be only tenuous limits on what they can do with your data.”

Panoptic 24/7 surveillance capability is ever closer to being a worldwide operational reality. David Brin (“The Transparent Society”) says that “if our salvation resides in blinding the powerful, then we are lost.”

What can be done with our data by whom is the salent question.

I with you. The battle is lost… but the data are.

then, a FISA amendment
which required minimization would trump
any inconsistent provision in the executive
order(s).

that is what “richard the bruce“,
and “dubbya the dim” were after here:
stopping any conflicting legislation

Yep. Executive Orders are like agency rules, except they apply to all agencies to the extent relevant to that agency.

Eo’s DO NOT TRUMP STATUTES, nor tdo signing statements which carry no more weight than legislative histories and are not binding on any court.

Bush is just making shit up

excatly that. yes.

how i long for the AT&T
lawyers of the 70s — they
told the govt. to “shove it,
unless you have a warrant“
when asked to allow unfetterd
access to their data and switches.

and then, the scotus agreed with AT&T.

ah, those were the good ole days. . .

[hitches up his pants, cinching his belt
just under his armpits, and wanders off. . .]

Language evolves through usage. There’s no real reason we have to retain Latin’s second declension neuter plural in ours.

LHP

There’s not an exclusivity provision in PAA. It’s one thing even the moderates (DiFi) have danced around changing, but as I understand the SSCI bill, it still doesn’t have an exclusivity provision.

And as I understand it (again, with the nested eggs), the first thing they do for this data mining stuff is exclude it from the definition of electronic surveillance, which gets them out of the exclusivity provision.

There still is the matter of pointing to the FISA minimization requirements, which would SEEM to make the minimization statutory regardless of what Bush has done with his pixie dust. But I suspect they’ve invented some loophole there and I just don’t see it yet.

. . .Bush[/cheney] is just making shit up. . .

that much is certain!

BobbyG

I fixed it. If it’s any consolation, I almost always get “whom” correct. Data, though–it just seems like it can be both. And to be honest, I had “fora are” corrected once in an official document, it got changed to forums.

There still is the matter of pointing to the FISA minimization requirements, which would SEEM to make the minimization statutory regardless of what Bush has done with his pixie dust. But I suspect they’ve invented some loophole there and I just don’t see it yet.

You don’t see it because it isn’t actually there. This is all false. It’s smoke and mirrors. They have no legal basis for most of what they are doing. So they are trying to get Congress to retroactively make it legal.

Do NOT BUY INTO IT!!

folks — the plural/singular error
IN THIS CASE — is INTENTIONAL. it
is a reference to an atari-era video
game, translated from japanese to
english — and badly: the character
proclaims “all your base ARe belong
to us!” when he wins the game. . .

accordingly, in this setting, everyone
(EW included)is substituting “data” for “base“,
and leaving the mangled english — intentionally.

it is a cultural cross-reference.

this is the end of my pop-cultural exposition.

p e a c e

All I’m saying is that, in hard science (an area I published in), using “data” as a singular marks you as a rube not to be taken seriously, And, brendanx, I don’t but the “relativism uber alles” beg-off. Which makes me “picky,” I know.

D I N G!

this is exactly right.

moreover, executive orders
must always only supplement
existing law — not contradict
the existing law — so, to EW’s
point, even if there is no exclusivity
assertion in the legistlation, the
EO cannot lawfully purport to con-
tradict the express terms of the legislation.
. . .at least, not in the america governed
by our constitution prior to nine-eleven.

honestly — i do suspect even this scotus
would still hold the above, to be true.

p e a c e

God, I have not having “edit” any more for my frigging shoot-from-the-lip typos.

I think I’m not being clear.

Here’s what I understand.

1) There is no exclusivity provision in PAA, and there’s not yet one in SSCI’s FISA amendment AFAIK. That leaves one loophole, which is that they can always do electronic surveillance by some other means that is not FISA.

2) The datamining program that the amendment is designed to legalize does not qualify as electronic surveillance, at least in PAA. That gives them another loophole to exploit.

3) Nevertheless, both PAA and the SSCI’s FISA amendment require the minimization procedures to meet the terms of FISA’s minimization definition. That SHOULD mean we get real minimization. But it’s so clear to me they have no intention of conducting minimization such that it would stand up to real scrutiny (and honest, their rationales for opposing it change more often than I change underwear), that I’m looking for the loophole. I’m not sure I’ve found it, but the pixie dust with the EOs makes me think I’m close.

I’m not trying to say they’re conducting business legally. I’m trying to point to where the bill that will likely be passed has gaping back doors for George to drive his unconstitutional truck through.

even in psychology…. which is not a hard science. Yes…. they make you toe the line!

But now… really, I do understand that common usage is taking over in everything except technical writing for “science.”

I think we should not sweat the small stuff… unless it’s taking away our rights!

executive orders
must always only supplement
existing law — not contradict
the existing law

Makes total sense to me!

But how, from now on, would one know that for sure? If things are not written down or are hidden?

That’s what worries me!

doesn’t it matter, at all, to you
guys that the error is intentional?

it makes fun of a bad
english translation. see mine @ 48.
can we let it go, now?

p e a c e

I worked for a while as the Technical Editor in a high-tech industrial engineering diagnostics company in Tennessee. I would routinely change their “data is” to “data are” and the engineers (and my boss) kept changing it back. My boss kept saying “but, it just looks wrong that way.”

LOL!

. . .Bush[/cheney] is just making shit up. . .

I love everyone’s eloquence and love for the law.

LHP, this is the bottom line for me in plain talk, right next to “rust never sleeps.”

They’ve been so careful and creative and thorough in their power gathering and subversion of the law, to the obvious exclusion of doing anything else for seven years.

They keep flinging monkey crap against the walls and everyone still “just watches.” The energy that’s expended refuting! OY. One BS paragraph on their part generates millions of words in the b-sphere. It’s an amazing long-con diversion!

bu$hler’s eating out our substance.

Intentional error! Fine with me.

don’t sweat the small stuff!

either way… we know what it means!

Bush is just making shit up

That’s Wayne Brady’s job. (In fact, that’s the name of his show here in Vegas, “Making #%it Up.” LOL.

Bush is just making shit up

That’s the story of his life!!! As far back as we know. And mom and dad simply allowed or endorsed that… “isn’t he cute?” and picked up the pieces when he made a mess!

And his explanation when things go bad: “nobody ever told me that!”

Geez, you mean “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

See Doublethink, see George Orwell, see George Bush

Of course it can be both, as you can say “the public are” or “the public is”; it’s reasonable to think of “data” as a collective “it”.

Not in science.

Actually, I think Barb probably said, “George, you’ll never amount to anything”, and only then picked up the pieces.

Who am I to dispute its usage in science?

Well, you have no agendum, LOL!

I don’t think that plurals and collectives are quite the same thing. “Data” is (heh) a plural, full stop. “The public” is a collective, so whether you treat it as singular or plural may depend on context. Sorry: ‘nuther picky editor here.

Good point!

If we can just get this rationalized, it should solve everything!

Do you think this relates to Alberto’s parsing of “the program that the president has acknowledge”? That there is another program that is being used to collect this data that hasn’t been openly acknowledged?

That would be my guess. “Definition-of-IS” ness thingy.

Don’t you think that no matter what the bill actually contains, George will use the ultimate pixie dust, “state secrets”, to prevent us from looking in?

We cannot ever know how they do the minimization or not do it, because that would expose a “state secret”.

We know as LHP says that none of this crap is legal, but the final method for keeping us from making that final determination is maintenance of Schrodinger’s paradox; they will not allow us to see the dead cat’s carcass no matter how bad it smells on the outside.

Absolutely. There can be No Oversight, period. Might reveal Sources and Methods.

Basically that the “social compact” is broken. And how do we, for sure, ever get it back again? How know that we can “trust” that the written laws or written “orders” are indeed the ones they operate by?

“. . .But how, from now on, would one know that for sure? If things are not written down or are hidden?

That’s what worries me!. . .”

this is why the EFF’s FOIA lawsuit,
among many others, is so very important.
we need to decide — once again — as a nation,
that we will countenance no “secret laws“.

this idea is as old, and as sound,
as the magna carta, itself. . .

that the people are entitled to know what
laws govern their conduct, and the con-
duct of. . . dare i say it — in magna carta
terms — their king.

trying to follow along…

it cannot be legal, until a court says it is.

- lhp

I’m not trying to say they’re conducting business legally. I’m trying to point to where the bill that will likely be passed has gaping back doors for George to drive his unconstitutional truck through.

- ew

i think we have accumulated enough evidence to conclude that this administration does not care about acting within the law. the exercise of power is, i think, their goal.

but for surveillance of the population they need two things - which they are trying to get by cover of the law (no matter how lame or false their argument):

1. they need to be able to instruct the nsa and other gov. agencies to do what cheney tells them to do - regardless of the law or the constitution. signing statements and pixie dust appears to partially cover this. the goal is now to create a new permanent fisa amendment that will not interfere with the function of the large amounts of pixie dust they intend to use.

2. they need to be able to instruct the telcos (and other related corporations) to do what cheney tells them to do - regardless of the law or the constitution. looks like national security hype and the threat of retribution (see quest) used to be enough… but no more. maybe the lawsuits have spooked the telcos. but now, the telcos want get out of jail free cards for both past and future acts. i wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the telcos gave some very serious push back for their participation earlier this year - that may have even been the reason we got the paa when and how we did (pure speculation of course)

so… i see three things bushco is insisting on: non-exclusivity, executive (not judicial) oversight of minimization and telco immunity (it’s legal if the potus says so).

am i missing (or misunderstanding) anything? i didn’t include basket warrants because it looks like they may not need that if they get non-exclusivity.

I am in complete agreement. But something is broken now. And… can we ever really believe we’ve got it back?

Color me skeptical.

Marcy….

Keep looking. My BS meter is pegged beyond ‘tinfoil hat’.

When it gets this deep I look to Addington. Where was he during the EO Pixie Dust power grab?

he was, back then. . .

wait for it. . .

yep — cheney’s top lawyer.

i actually think we will
know we’ve gotten it back,
just as we did after watergate.

there will be sunshine. . .

that is, the flip-side of all
of this will be copious sunshine
in our federal government, very
shortly after the 2008 elections,
if not before then. note that many
inside the CIA have already decided
to stop playing patty-cake with cheney
on squelched-intell, and torture-tapes. . .

i’ve enjoyed our to-and-fro. . .

p e a c e

n.b. — for you grammarians, i’ve
updated mine to include a picture,
and links to a wiki, on the whole
“all your base are belong to us” meme. . .

I picture a card game here that looks rather like the old children’s game of “War”:

My court order takes your illegal act;
Your EO takes my court order;
My legislation takes your EO;
Your signing statement takes my legislation;
My new and improved legislation takes your signing statement;
Your offshored/contractor-provided act voids my new and improved legislation;
My Congressional subpoena takes your offshore/contractor acts;
Your “executive privilege” takes my Congressional subpoena;
My inadmission of same as not applicable takes your “executive privilege”;
Your “state secrets” takes my second demand for compliance under subpoena…

What’s the next trump here? I don’t see it.

My Supreme Court ruling bitch-slaps your ass back down.

Like Nixon.

Probably not this time, though.

my new attorney general takes your refusal
to comply with the subpoena — yep, back to
the d.c. district court, for enforcement.

now, repeat ad infinitum, starting at/
from line one of raynes!

honestly, i dont think it’ll be this bad.

Addington and Fielding have created the most blatant wall of obstruction of justice this country has ever seen for this Administration.

Bushco has committed many violations of the law during their terms in office, starting with stealing the 2000 election. They planned everything prior to taking office. Everything. Then when the shock and awe of the people began to wear off, they really clamped down with the secrecy by abusing every tool possible.

They created the terror climate in order to control the people and the rest of the government. Years have now passed, and tons of people have dug up their dirty deeds, despite being labeled as conspiracy theorists, etc. Every fact presented was knocked down by those still in shock….now, they are trying to create a ton of smoke and confusion everywhere in order to exit unscathed.

I believe that at one point, and possibly still, they seriously considered remaining in power after January, ‘09. Now, too many things have exposed their nekkedness and their lies. Now, they are afraid of being held accountable by war crimes tribunals…Goldsmith said they are afraid.

Those closest to them cannot see clearly, because they are still throwing sand in the umpire’s face; but if you step back and look at the magnitude of their actions, it becomes crystal clear just how bad they really are, and how that dog doesn’t hunt anymore…I put nothing past them at this point…unless they are allowed to leave office without prosecution. They are the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

Have you ever played “rock paper scissor” with “fire” available?

That’s where we’re at. No one wants to use their “fire” and we’ll never get out of the game.

They are the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

does that mean i have to stop wearing my favorite t-shirt?

Perfect, I’d be waterboarded in TX if I wore one!! LOL

You people are doing a super job!

I hope Nolo is right. I fear EW and Rayne are on target. An endless game of rock, paper, scissors (I had the same image).

I sometimes wonder, these days, if our country is just too large to be a democratic type (yes, I know it’s a republic) nation. I honestly wonder.

Of course I’m not throwing in the towel… but I was “round the block” with Vietnam and Nixon… and this is worse. And how can we really be sure next time that there aren’t smoke and mirrors going on?

Like I said, to me, something feels almost irretrievably broken.

It’s like when I used to do psych testing reports. And I had to say someone was a paranoid schizophrenic. I always hoped I was wrong!

I would be so happy to be proved wrong here!!! Please, prove me wrong!

It has always puzzled me — where are the Suits in all of this? Totally unfettered spying on everyone with no independent oversight means various operatives on the inside could untraceably steal and quietly profit from proprietary commercial / financial information ongoing. It’s way more than just the Bu’ushies tracking your personal web surfing, phone calls, or VISA transactions.

Not in Austin - you’d probably be elected Mayor!

Don’t you think we’re already there, though? Mukasey is highly unlikely to enforce a Congressional “contempt of Congress”? He’d leave to Congress to enforce, and Congress can’t claw their way out of a f*cking wet paper bag.

BobbyG — I think the SCOTUS isn’t on our side, though, can’t be used to execute the Nixon bitch-slap; SCOTUS is really more of a wild card.

EW — and that’s the problem with “fire”, it’s the wild card SCOTUS or the inscrutable USAG that we can’t read; the point at which one uses fire is so late in the game that it’s nuclear winter on both sides.

I can think of only a couple more moves beyond this, like a military stand-down or all white-hat CIA’s going public, or a foreign agent/state making full disclosure, or a bunch of completely unscripted Calvinball-like moves.

I’m 30 miles south…

I was listening to Chatter as I walked my dog today, and it goes over the handbook for GCHQ in the UK (where the US and UK do their SigInt together), and it starts with an admonition about all the information that walks out the front door in the memory of the analysts.

ANd I had precisely your thought, particularly as I was thinking of this post. If we let them access the information, it’s going to get out, for and to someone.

Also note, this whole minimization discussion started with a discussion of what happens when NSA decides to spy on a foreign business; do all the communications from Americans doing business with that company get vacuumed? Yup.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that other nations are likely signing secret pacts against us. Not sure how that would play out. But… it’s hard to believe they aren’t aligning together (against us) for their own protection.

Unless the economic situation gets so bad… that it basically brings the nation to its knees.

I’ve decided that the only explanation for all of this, is that W and Dick modeled their Administration on the exploits of….ta da…Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid….with Paraguay, instead of Bolivia….