Comments on: COINTELPRO 2.0: Mukasey Loosens Guidelines on Domestic Spying

By: cg

cg — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:46:13 +0000

Fear of surveillance/spying?
This is from more than 2,000 years ago..

Cicero, Roman statesman and writer, taken from ‘Oratio pro Flacco’: “Softly, softly! I want none but the judges to hear me. The (____) have already gotten me into a fine mess, as they have many another gentleman. I have no desire to furnish further grist for their mills.”

By: michael

michael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:38:22 +0000

Thing is folks, Americans don’t CARE enough about anything but themselves and their families and “things”. We have been conditioned by the tube to “acquire then expire”. BUT, when something happens to them personally or a loved one, they have fits. Otherwise they have no time to walk in another’s moccasins. It’s funny, when we look ahead to 3 generations from now the poor kids will never know what they have lost. Kids nowadays don’t even know that TV was once free with a simple antenna. In a decade or two they won’t even know that radio was once free. When one steps back and has a look at it all it really is an ingenious and ongoing plan. Orwell’s book was a recipe not a warning. I was a peace protestor of sorts during the ‘Nam era and I can tell you when a cop is screaming in your face and his spittle is sticking to your eyelids you do tend to pee a little and tell him everything he wants to know. As far as surveillance legal or illegal it has gone on since WAY before Hoover and always will. Neo Cons especially are afraid of everything and will always “strike first” to allay their fears. They need a powerful flashlight in the darkness when the rest of just need a candle. Just remember (and by stating it I’m sure this will end up in a database) this kind of constant surveillance can be used as a conduit for mis information as well and that is a hell of a lot of fun! M

By: Lee Hall

Lee Hall — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:00:34 +0000

Quite so, Tom. USA-PATRIOT began with, reinforces, and further entrenches multiple provisions of Clinton’s AEDPA. And the ground for that was tilled during the Carter administration’s responses to the hostage crisis.

By: Tom Burghardt

Tom Burghardt — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:37:42 +0000

HR,

Unfortunately, you hit the nail on the head. The ground was tilled by the Clintonistas in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing with the 1996 passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Rather than asking the question, “Are we safe?”, most Americans all-too-readily embrace the iconic question posed by Laurence Olivier to Dustin Hoffman in “The Marathon Man:” “Is it safe?”

By: C.S. Mills

C.S. Mills — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:40:13 +0000

The various changes could result in the following:

The Bush Administration would not be troubled by investigations after President Bush leaves office. Many investigative journalists could become too intimidated by being harrassed and possibly arrested to investigate the actions of the Bush Administration. Many others who would investigate the actions of the Bush Administration could be too intimidated to publish what they found.

Sufficient intimidation of enough members of the media could result in isolation of the more courageous members of Congress. Once the more courageous members of Congress could not get their points heard in the media – on the web, on television, in newspapers, in magazines – there would be no public outcry, hence no pressure brought upon other members of Congress. That happened prior to the current war on Iraq, and it can happen again. That would keep the Bush policies in place during the following presidential administration.

The changes in the surveillance program could increase the size and number of state and federal surveillance contracts, at ever-growing expense to U.S. taxpayers. The changes “would” increase the profits of the Carlyle Group, and of others who invest in intelligence contractors. The Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment group, just took over Booz Allen Hamilton, an enormous government intelligence contractor. The executives of Booz Allen Hamilton will shortly have less concern for deterring terrorism, and more concern for investor profits. The American people will be under greater threat from “real” terrorists.

Under the changes, intelligence contractors, and federal and state agencies could become too glutted with information on common U.S. citizens to have the resources required to watch carefully for terrorists.

By: HR

HR — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:05:56 +0000

The stage for fascist tyranny was set up in earnest by the ongoing “war on drugs”, more properly called a war on freedom, which began in the 1970s. Knock and notice became tap and whisper, cops were militarized and standards for use of deadly force were set lower and lower. By the time the current monsters were put into power by nearly a majority of U.S. voters, people here were ready, salivating as they were for surveillance cameras, for private security protection, gated communities, shivering in fear as they ran from apparitions portrayed as real by bellowing, lying politicians, along with the corporate media and its sensationalist reports on the crime rate, which in fact has remained about constant throughout recorded history. The “patriot” act was written long before the current set of traitors took power in 2000. And, people were thoroughly conditioned for its implementation, and for the subsequent legal atrocities committed against the Bill of Rights, you know, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

How many people do you actually hear squawking seriously about it, or surveillance cameras, or airport checks, or watch lists? Most respond with the mantra of, “If I’ve done nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear. My leaders, with my beloved military which can do no wrong, will protect me.” USans are a sick, conditioned bunch who prefer living in self-imposed ignorance and in escape from freedom to actually living in freely. We get EXACTLY the government we deserve, and, we’re getting it, in spades.