| By Lis Riba I've been meaning to write about the latest NSA eavesdropping revelations since I heard about them Thursday morning, but the words just wouldn't come. I rather like security guru Bruce Schneier's comment: "The NSA would like to remind everyone to call their mothers this Sunday. They need to calibrate their system."
At any rate, kudos to Gary Farber, who gets major "I told you so" rights for predicting this about five months ago. Peter Daou's essay is also worth reading. And (as usual) Glenn Greenwald is on top of the legal aspects. Of course, this wasn't the only NSA abuse of power in the week's news. It may have gotten buried by the story of everybody's phone records, but did you hear about this? The government has abruptly ended its inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
According to NPR's Morning Edition, a 24-year veteran of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility calls this unprecedented -- both investigators and subjects are part of the executive branch, meaning this could only have been shut down by someone above. It all adds up. And I keep seeing more signs of trouble. Read the story of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson's little anecdote, and all kinds of troubling implications emerge. You heard about the OSHA director cracking jokes that workers do the darndest things, totally ignoring any responsibility of employers to provide proper safety equipment. And did you know FEMA is closing its New Orleans office, blaming delays that it caused? Things overseas look even worse. Put the pieces together: - Think Progress:
- Both the House and Senate have separately passed amendments ordering the Bush administration not to use any appropriated funds for the construction of permanent bases in Iraq. Congress's intentions have been crystal clear on this matter.
- Via Susie Madrak:
- [T]he 104-acre complex, known locally as 'George W's palace', is supposed to be secret, but it is impossible to disguise the cranes dominating the Baghdad skyline
- Left I:
- The U.S. government/military has been illegally squatting on Cuban soil for more than a century. ...
Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed. The interim government referred to was, as readers will remember, appointed by the United States, and while it was recognized by the United Nations as being the "sovereign government" of a "sovereign country," that can't really be taken seriously, any more than the Platt Amendment, signed at the point of a gun, by which the U.S. gained control of Guantanamo. Can we expect the U.S. to be occupying this fortress in the heart of Baghdad indefinitely in the future, even in the face of a future hostile Iraqi government? My money's on "yes," which is why they've already designed it for the security and self-sufficiency they had to build into Guantanamo years later.
And scariest of all, two US aircraft carriers are on their way to the coast off Iran, pre-positioning for a June attack. I've read articles that the executive branch theorizes they won't need any declaration of war from Congress if they just bomb from the air and don't actually send new troops. [via The Left Coaster] How do we stop this? How can we get our country back before more people die? [This is why I haven't been writing much about politics lately; it's all too depressing.]
Non sequitur to close the week, two other books I discovered today -- one in print, one forthcoming -- to add to my to read list: |
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