One of my best friends in college was a student from Pakistan, who came from a very traditional Muslim family, but who was, herself, very secular in terms of her beliefs — and a committed progressive, especially on the issue of human rights. We’ve lost touch through the years, life being what it is and all, but I often think of her — and wonder if she was forced to go home and follow through with the arranged marriage that she feared or if she made it to law school in the US like she hoped to do, and was somehow able to stay here where she could make her own choices in a nation that she regarded as being a better opportunity for freedom and individual liberties than that of her homeland.
And then I wonder what she thinks of this nation today, if she did somehow manage to stay. And some days when I think about this, I feel like weeping…at what our nation has been brought to in terms of lack of respect for the values that we used to hold up to the rest of the world as a beacon of hope…and at what we have all, every one of us to varying degrees, allowed our nation to become since 9/11. A nation that I have loved my whole life for what it could be — for what we could all be.
Little by little, chip by chip by chip, away from what we ought to be.
William Arkin’s Early Warning Blog has a profoundly disturbing post today, regarding the seamless nature of electronic surveillance in today’s intelligence agencies, their capabilities — and the fact that the full price that we may pay for the implementation of these policies is not something that has either been thought through or debated. And that long-term cost is enormous. For all of us.
Despite urban legend that NSA surveillance is a news media crusade because the majority of Americans "approve" government surveillance to protect them from terrorists, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that almost two-thirds of Americans are concerned that the monitoring may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public.
This is the central question: Are all of these NSA ingestion and digestion programs merely more efficient efforts to apprehend criminals and terrorists in the digital age, or are they the building blocks of a new seamless surveillance culture?
The government’s position is that if you are "innocent," you have nothing to hide. It is a new version of ‘you are either with us or against us.’ Massive monitoring is of course meant to find terrorists; I completely believe that this is not some 1960’s enemies list politically motivated effort. But these post 9/11 programs signal a new and different problem.
People of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent and Muslims are potential terrorists, machine selected as "of interest."
Throw in there callers and travelers to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, recipients of wire transfers, purchasers of fertilizer, flight school attendees. These are the new guilty until proven innocent.
Innocent means of course mostly white, mostly Christian Americans who accept that the government knows best and that the national security state is only after the bad guys and would never apply its new found capacities in any illegitimate way.
The government and its new seamless surveillance culture are building a digital dividing line, even in our own society. The assumption is one of an enemy in our midst.
For someone as lilly white and Irish-American as I am, this poses no real threat. (Well, other than the fact that I likely piss off someone in the GOP at least once a day writing on this blog, that is…) But just because I’m not Muslim does not mean that this isn’t my problem. I am an American. They are Americans. There are difficult and provocative questions that need to be asked, answered, and re-asked and answered until we’ve run through the gamut of every side of these issues. And we need to know that this is being done in a thoughtful and profoundly humble way — because there are children, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, aunts, uncles…Americans…who are being swept into a net of suspician solely based on the color of the skin or the faith of their ancestors. And for no other reason.
And I can think of nothing which is so profoundly un-American.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that profiling does not have any place whatsoever in law enforcement. But there must be some probable cause to establish the connection — the nexus, if you will — above and beyond "he has dark skin" or "she could be Muslim" or "his name is Ishmael." Or at least, I think so.
After 9/11, the West Wing aired an episode ("Isaac and Ishmael") which was at times a bit heavy-handed and slightly hokey, but which had one particular story thread in it which was profoundly disturbing and so well written and acted that the ending scene of it still sticks with me.
In that story line, Leo discovers that a person who works in the West Wing of the White House has the same name as a person who is wanted for a particular terrorist plot which may be unfolding, and the resulting actions that are taken by Leo in doing what he thinks is best at the time to ensure safety in the White House is painful to watch — because it is out of character for Leo, and horribly jarring for the individual who is suspected and, ultimately, found to be innocent:
LEO: [stiffly] That’s the price you pay… for having the same physical features as criminals. That’s what I was gonna say.
ALI: [quietly] No kidding.
LEO: I’m sorry about that. Also about the crack I made about teaching Muslim women how to drive.
Ali looks down, taking this in. Leo, nervously, stiffly, his eyes wandering a bit, searches for the correct words.
LEO: I think if you talk to people who know me, they’d tell you that… that was unlike me, you know? We’re obviously all under, um… a greater than usual amount of… you know. And like you pointed out, with the shooting and everything…
A long silence falls between them. Ali looks up and searches Leo’s face.
LEO: Yeah. [nods slightly] All right. Well, that’s all.
Leo turns slowly and walks out into the hall. Ali turns back to his desk and continues working. Leo hesitates, then turns around.
LEO: Hey, kid…
Ali turns to look at Leo. The opening notes of "For What It’s Worth" by Buffalo Springfield begin.
LEO: [softly] Way to be back at your desk.
They stare at each other for a few moments. Leo turns and leaves. Ali turns slowly back to his desk.
There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear…but what we need to be asking ourselves is, at what price? Have we reached the point beyond which it is too dear to pay — not just for those of us who reached our limits long ago — but for those who were previously on board the "that’s the price you pay" train?
William Arkin points out that the American public’s support for incursions into their civil liberties by the Bush Administration with no oversight, seemingly no limitations and no forethought of long-term consequences is rapidly dissipating.
Political scientist Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University told USA Today that "the public’s tolerance for this sort of invasion of privacy may be topping out. It may be people are starting to say: ‘When is the other shoe going to drop? What else are they doing?’"
Right now, I don’t think that there is a "what else." But tomorrow, there could be an illegal immigrant tax and pay record monitoring tip-off system, a sexual predator and pornography attention algorithm, a drug dealing and buying behavior inconsistency profile.
Two-thirds of Americans polled by USA Today/Gallup say that are concerned that databases will identify innocent Americans as possible terrorism suspects.
With the new seamless surveillance culture, Americans are right to be concerned. In our zeal to identify an enemy in our midst, we have applied 1970’s laws and pre-digital age thinking to the problem of privacy and security. The end product is an assumption of two Americas — one innocent and one threatening. It is an assumption that itself enhances government power and facilitates greater abuse.
Today we discovered that the Bush Administration has been using its domestic spying capabilities to monitor who may be talking with the media — who might be criticizing the Administration or revealing secrets that they would rather keep hidden far back in the criminal and illegal crevices in which they were first hatched. Today, the media got a taste of what we have all worried about…who is next?
(And Hina, who attended Mt. Holyoke and was friends with Christy from Smith College, shoot me an e-mail. We can talk about all things Downeaster Alexa, and macaroni and cheese made on the hot plate, and model UN. Just in case someone who knows you reads the blog, I thought I’d take a shot. I hope you are happy and well.)
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Fitz!
2nd Fitz!
Fitz!!
Leopold?
the Preznit is adding hand jive to his repetoire…
angie – u were the vice-fitz, and i was the decider fitz
Hand jive, talk jive, lump in the back jive…
Fitz!
From Bill Maher – “AT&T, we’re making your calls crystal clear. We have to — we’re recording them.”
better watch them Irish-Americans : remember that terrorist Timothy McVeigh ? and don’t forget them Molly McGuires — a troublesome lot !
Double-digit Fitz!
heh– twolf1– in our powerful parallel universe at FDL, I am honored.
Christy– thank you so much for bringing this up. This is as bad as it gets and when I think about this, it truly makes my head hurt and my heart break. Malkin’s ilk applauds this kind of thing, I shudder at it. This is truly a very real risk for America, we have lost a lot of what made us great and beautiful. We have to take it back.
Ramesh Poopoopoo on Public TV – “Democrats won’t give Bush a hearing as usual, on this topic neither will conservatives. Dick Durbin up.
Lou Dobbs didn’t like the speech…
Whaddaya know. He didn’t sound like an idiot this time. Now, we’ll see if he can come up with some follow through.
Durbin, Americans don’t want a cobbled together plan with no exit strategy for Nat. Guard, too may details left out.
Durbin, Bush and Rep Congress have been funding less border guards than we knew we needed.
Durbin, Nat. guard overstretched, underequipped, how can they do this too?
Fuck this cuntry!
Dobbs. Duh.
Shorter Bush…
As the Border Patrol stands up, the National Guard will stand down.
Today on Randi Rhodes, she interviewed Greg Palast. It was terrifying to listen to, just as it was terrifying to read the article that I have linked (also by Greg Palast.) If indeed, the information being mined by the NSA is, indeed being saved by ChiocePoint, I fear we have already lost the 2008 election, and it doesn’a matter who runs. I think the interview will most likely be on Randi’s website:
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com
the article is at the site below:
http://gregpalast.com/detail.c…..&row=0
Durbin, Republicans want to criminalize undoc. immigrants and teachers, nurses etc who help them.
The trouble always is, with the nibble technique, that law-abiding always turns on what those laws are. And what most people in the country don’t understand in the argument is that if you buy the law-abiding argument, when the laws are fairly sensible, and then the congress or the king himself changes the laws to more Draconian laws, like making it against the law to be Jewish (it has happened before), then you’re in real trouble, because there are always people for hire who will kill without mercy if they are imune from prosecution (CIA) and there are always those who will put on a police uniform and engage in all manner of thuggry. We have a perfect model for that, an 1984 just came in 2006. However, it seems to me, that our founding documents say quite clearly that “power obtains from the people,” and as our so-called elected officials seem to forget that, it is time for the people to make that fact known to them. They have been planning for this with their laws which basically criminalize protest, since the beginning of the Bush administration. I was in Berkely during the protests over Vietnam, and quite often, the people who broke the windows that triggered mass arrests were men wearing police uniforms and wielding billy clubs. They’re badges, by the way, were stragiclly covered with adhesive tape. The founding fathers did not trust the government. There was a good reason. And we have to face the fact that we might have to wrest it away from the criminals who infest it, and that goes for both sides of the isle. IMHO, they are all in it together. As for the blogger who says “I’m a lilly white Irish American,” I would remind you that there was a time in this country, not so long ago, when there were signs in shop windows that said “Help Wanted. No Irish Need Apply.”
Durbin. Duh.
ChiocePoint=ChoicePoint
This just in to Faux News:
Mex-terrorists stopped at border!
President Bush’s new anti-immigration program using National Guards stationed at the US/Mexico border have successfully stopped an attempted border crossing by suspected Mex-terrorists!
A Hispanic man named A. Gonzales was briefly detained and then immediately forcibly frog-marched back into Mexico as he attempted to cross into Texas.
Gonzales claimed he was an American, but National Guard troops were not fooled and recognized the obviously Hispanic-looking man was a exact match to the profiles of Mex-terrorists that had been provided by the FBI.
Gonzales began screaming from the Mexican side of the border that he was the person who had the FBI construct that Mex-terrorist profile. Warning shots fired by the National Guard troops succeeded in driving the Mex-Terrorist away and he was last seen ranting something about “…tu madre” and trying to hitchhike south.
The next thing to break is that Cheney and Bush used the US intelligence community to watch the Kerry campaign.
May I remind everyone of a certain incident with a Korean, ah, Kerry donor whose identity as a Korean intel person was leaked to the Atlanta Journal Consititution.
Or the fact that Kerry was talking to certain European leaders?
Who leaked that? And why was the Bush Campain so ready–prepared–competent–in their response? Especially when their lack of competence in everything else has been constantly on display?
They were watching
Time to start disucssing secure campaigns
Meta, I thought Durbin’s approach was good.
Durbin didn’t get much time, a good thing.
Ramesh Poopoopoo, Dems don’t want anything to pass.
“At what price” indeed. The road to totalitarianism is paved in one of two ways: armed takeover, or creeping limitations of civil liberties due to an uncommon threat to society. It’s clear we are expected to hand our masters the keys to our liberties because of the clear and present danger…which we know to be lies and manipulation.
My question: if enough of us call them on their lies and create an environment where they are no longer able to use the threat argument to back the theft of civil liberties, do they resort to an armed takeover? Call me jumpy, but when I hear of the Guard posted for military purposes on the border, I get all sweaty. Or do they try to use the ballot machines and state voter repression in the midterms, and if that doesn’t work…
Mark Shields, Repub senators don’t see the same urgency as rep. house members. And now back to Antique Roadshow.
Peej at 19 — I happen to love this country. I’m just quite displeased with the people running it at the moment. But if we could get back to the whole “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing without it solely meaning that of the Bush cronies, I’d be pleased as punch. And please, don’t call it a “cuntry” — unless that was a typo, that’s just offensive in my book.
the Klan power dominating in Indiana in the 1920s wasn’t primarily anti-Black — it was anti-radical ( unions, socialists, etc ) and also anti-Catholic ( Irish, Italians, etc ). Red hair definitely would have been cause for racial profiling!
Remember that your cel phone can be instantly located to a 10 ft dia circle. How about that. Tiny little thingy inside all these new cel phones, that look so nice at the stores, and that can do all those fantastic things like music, photos even locate you…Privacy nevermore…
The administration really doesn’t want to build a border wall. And when Bush gets done debasing the dollar to finance his unbroken sequence of clusterfucks, they might have to build a wall to keep us hungry wetbacks out of Mexico.
I’d bet big bucks they were spying on Hunter Thompson as well as Kerry.
itwasntme at 15 — MSNBC was reporting today that he’s been practicing the damn speech since Friday. *g*
First of all, it’s not about terrorists or organised crime. A moments reflection will tell you they are so NOT going to “put there bidness on da line”.
It’s about quashing popular resistance to a totalitarian regime. The target is the American public because the American public is the enemy or potential enemy. Pretty straight forward stuff.
Secondly, in the wake of corruption comes incompetence and the more corrupt the more incompetent. So this scam is amassing massive power and is going to put daily directly into the hands of incompetent people.
You then have the equivalent of a monkey with a machine gun. Who wants to step into an elevator with a monkey with a machinegun and no way out?
Speaking of no way out, it might be worth thinking about border fences in a different way particularly as a draft will be seen as necessary for “The Log War” and the only way to make it happen is with martial law.
Happy days!
Christy ReddHedd – thank you for a beautiful post.
Of course this surveillance state is intended to be permanently Republican.
Any threatening Democratic candidates could be handled by a partisan surveillance machine.
I think they have failed, but we shall see.
Oh, and hi, “Uncle Joe” Bush.
I’ve been wondering what to call you for a long time. Seems like you’ve named yourself now.
Duh! That should be LONG war not LOG war.
I’m just saying, no plan, as usual. No long term solution, as usual. No coordinated implementation, as usual. No brains, as usual. I’m just so frustrated.
meta @42~
I saw a bumper sticker on my way home that said:
BUSH – alot of ideas – no bright ones.
Of course, the background was light bulbs.
Fitz … in his own good time, on HIS schedule …
When I took my 10 year old to the National Archives last year to see the Constitution and Decl. of Indep. on display, I felt like throwing myself on the floor in the middle of that room and wailing hysterically until they had to call the security guards to remove me.
I didn’t do it. But I wanted to. (My son would have had a good story to tell for the rest of his life — the day mom made the evening news in D.C.)
Any idea why CNN did not have Sen Durbin’s Democrat response?
Matthews just told Oblberman that immigration isn’t as exiting as the war in Iraq and that he supports the President on the NSA spy issue.
I think Rove is off his game. Perhaps distracted? :)
does that qualify as a domestic policy speech ?
Leslie, aha! I love bumper sticker moments.
I went by a local shop to buy a “Worst. President. Ever.” button and the guy said he keeps selling out so quickly, they can’t make them fast enough.
Christy~ thank you for this post.
Yesterday whilst celebrating Mother’s Day with my family, my brother said that a woman at his office started saying that she supported the datamining effort until my brother asked her if she would mind being stopped and searched every day after she left her home. Of course, she said no, and then said she understood and was changing her mind about this issue.
At least some people are willing to think about things. Not, however, everyone. Mores the shame.
Meta@42, Yup: no plan, no solution, no coordination and no brains. This administration is the perfect CEO presidency: concerned with this quarter’s numbers and screw the long-term result of what we do today. Anyone who’s served a term or two in corporate America knows this idiocy for what it is: a death spiral. It’s been funny lately to go from national news to the Enron trial. Well, maybe not funny.
On a good note, Greenwald’s book should get released today!
Missed the middle of his speechifying…
Did he talk about National ID cards?
—–
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there’s a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
William O. Douglas
Right now it seems as though they are as busy as a cat trying to bury shit on a hot tin roof to find any way to bolster their shot to hell JAR.
Over and over I see the metaphore,Look ,Shiny Stuff. All a distraction from the current bag of shit they have brung upon themselves.How many different failed policies/corruption scandals have we seen in the last six months alone?They are desperate. Period. They have no coherent plans for anything except holding on to the power they have already stolen.Squashing dissent is the only play in their book.
What’s up with Tweety’s right eye? He’s got the Bush blink syndrome. What a sellout shill.
P.S.
I love the picture… a lot. Thank you.
speaking of bumper stickers, I saw a good one the other day:
“Frodo Failed. Bush has the Ring.”
You have nothing to worry about if you’re innocent? Have these people never heard of the Bill of Rights? Do they think its an optional part of the Constitution? My God, I feel like I’ve walked through the looking glass.
If one needs to find an historical model for this sort of government behavior, I suspect it begins post-WWII, with the oft-repeated McCarthyite claims that the enemy is in our midst, and, by extension, that the enemy is us.
This same thinking extended from administration to administration about protesters of the Vietnam war, and then, in 1974, to the beginning of the so-called war on drugs.
In the 1980s, the enemy was the poor, hiding on the fringes of society, who were draining the country of resources through welfare fraud. Then, in the `90s, the enemy became anyone who wasn’t a Republican. The Bush administration has simply taken this fear of “otherness” to an entirely new level and played the theme politically like it was a Mozart concerto, combining as many disparate fears as possible into a coherent whole.
Until we start asking ourselves why the people of the most economically and militarily powerful nation in the world are so afraid, of practically everything, we’ll never get to the point of asking ourselves, with candor and honesty, why it is that we allow the government to usurp our rights in the name of protecting us.
I have a Turkish friend, green card, husband naturalized citizen, children American citizens. She is working hard studying English to pass citizenship test, but that’s a real mountain for her to climb. She fears being deported because she is on disability. Whether her fear is realistic I have no idea, but I would put nothing past these people.
I don’t know why Matthews and his ilk think that immigration is awinning issue for the preznit. Every time I watch one of those shows as long as I can bear to, my brain keeps shouting, “it’s the war, stupid. and the gas prices, and the corruption scandals, and, and, and& . . .”
OT ChoicePoint
I don’t know the upshot of this old news (but I can guess)- big scandal re: ChoicePoint and credit card and SS#s:
http://www.csoonline.com/read/…..point.html
Bush’s current California JAR:
28% approve
71% disapprove
1% don’t know
Heh.
meta~ what a great button. I wish I knew where to get one. I have been wearing a bush-with-a- slash-through-it button since before the Republican convention. I went to NYC to protest the week of the convention, and got stopped by some tall, husky, “clean cut” thugs who harrassed me for about 10 minutes and challenged me to remove the button. Fat chance. I left after giving them a real tongue lashing about my civil liberties and my right to speak my beliefs as well as their intrusiveness and poor judgment.
Excellent writing, Christy.
I was struck by this line by William Arkin:
The government and its new seamless surveillance culture are building a digital dividing line, even in our own society. The assumption is one of an enemy in our midst.
This is scary. With the recent advances in miniturized electronics and with the coming nanotechnology we’ll soon be living in a Phillip K. Dick novel.
BK 56~
He did. and good on you for the EXCELLENT quote.
Valleygirl – OMG, I remember that story. I didn’t connect the dots until you brought it up here. All I can say is, HELP.
Now, I mean absolutely no offense to Christy, or anyone here, but I must register my minor disagreement. In England in the 1970’s, the IRA bombing campaign presumably fits the standard definition of terrorism, since they were blowing up innocent people in Pubs. And a lot of political and financial support for the IRA was provided by Irish Americans via groups such as NorAid. (Not very different at all from what we are told about the Muslim charities these days).
I don’t want to discuss the reasons or justifications for the behavior of the IRA or any of other the parties to that conflict. Certainly the British Government had blood on its hands too, not to mention jailing innocent parties. But it cannot be disputed that the IRA was a terrorist organization, and those who gave money were supporters of terrorism.
So, if the US wants to share phone records data with the UK (I would presume they already do), and if the record goes back that far (probably does not, but who knows – scanned paper records?) I am sure there would be quite a few lily-white Irish Americans who would have plenty to be concerned about in the event of a datamining operation.
O’Reilly makes Keith O’s worst person-again
Well, I don’t have a bumper sticker, but I have one of those flag stickers upside down on the back of my car. Got flipped off by a honker only yesterday.
What the fushizzuck was that stoopid speech, y’all? We were supposed to stop everything for that bowl of lukewarm spit?
Come on, Fitz! Bring these evil bastards down.
Christy,
When Tweety starts telling us that Durbin is being generous with 150k troop projection, maybe the tables are turning. Olbermann is on it hard along with the Cheney involvement Plame scandal.
The House of Cards (Roves, Libbys, Gosslings call it what you will) is starting to show dramatic wear and tear. Turdblossom has lost weight (stress induced??)and Bush has to practice a monosyllabic speech for 3 full days prior to giving that uninspired tome.
Ahhhhh….I say Fitzmas is coming and I say we heed the advice that Crashing the Gates provides. An American political party that is beholden to no special interest and has a template that includes the needs of those interests, but returns America to the great nation it was prior to this administration.
GORE/FEINGOLD 2008……
Leslie-It’s interesting how the government gets the mined data from Choicepoint Inc. by exploiting National Security.
VG 65~
Did you also read the article by Palast thatI linked to earlier (#22)? Palast talked about the connection to ChoicePoint and the FL 2000 election and cleansing the voter rolls. It is frightening.
Leslie;
Thanks.
Was using the quote as a sig for posting elsewhere.
Replaced it with the Max Headroom definition of ‘Blanks’
—-
2.3 – What are “Blanks”?
Blanks are people who have either fallen off the information nets, or taken themselves off deliberately. Usually known and addressed by their first names with “Blank” as a title – Blank Reg, Blank Bruno, and Blank Dom(inique) are three we get to know well.
http://www.maxheadroom.com/mh_faq.html#0203
OMG — the comedian on Olbermann’s show now is cracking me up! Mwahahahaha
Leslie- I haven’t read the article yet, but it was your comment that made me remember ChoicePoint. Will do. ChoicePoint is in GA, one of the redest of the red states. I’d very interested to know who controls the company. If I have the time, I will check into them more.
Some random opinions:
Since the passing of Peter Jennings, ABC has the least journalistic integrity of the big 3 networks. Elizabeth Vargas reads a script and Brian Ross is about the only one I trust. Watch the commericals…they protect the voraciousness of their sponsors.
Karl Rove believes that he will beat whatever charges come down in the indictment, he has no fear that his insidious plans for the mid-term elections will be hampered by some pesky prosecutor and the public relations debacle that’s sure to follow.
When we stop passing predatory trade agreements that crush the economies of Latin American countries (and Mexico), those people will stop risking their lives to cross the border. If we’re going to take advantage of desperate people that are simply trying to feed their families, we should have the decency not to treat them like dogs when they come here to work for minimum wage.
mui, imo, when Tweety (Matthews) is speaking of a “winner” for Bush, he is speaking only in terms of the bright red wingnut base of the GOP. Bush has to stop his JAR slide south in the polls. I assume wrt immigration, he’s simply trying to craft legislation that will help GOP retain both houses of Congress in November. That’s what Tweety means by “Bush winning.” The Dems can “win” with subpoena power in either chamber, (but both would be sweet).
Lou Dobbs hosted the CNN wrapup show about the Preznits speech. Oddly enough, all four of the talking heads at the table with him were white adult males…
Leo Polled the ad-Jason country, to no avail
This by way of Raw Story: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl…..ledge.html
This is what a conservative poster in another forum had to say to me after reading post after post about the NSA spying:
“End the NSA data mining, let the terrorists run free or keep it and keep us safe.
YOU get to choose, for you and the life of your children.”
I told him I choose liberty. We’ve never before chose tyranny for a bit of temporary security and I don’t see a reason to ever start. These people think that if we make the sacrifice of our personal liberty, the gods will smile on us and keep us safe. Magical thinking.
Larry King has a better line-up: some of his talking heads are brown-skinned.
I really really hate seeing friends and family, old people and babies, being treated like “third world citizens” at the airport. (There should be no such concept as a third world citizen. we are all part of the same family). Authorities can be completely inhumane and will ask personal questions to the completely innocent like you are a criminal. And I am sure that is the least of it.
Hey Christy – great to have Dinner with ReddHedd !
most days I think this is the only thing keeping some of us from going all “V” on their asses
“William Arkin points out that the American public’s support for incursions into their civil liberties by the Bush Administration with no oversight, seemingly no limitations and no forethought of long-term consequences is rapidly dissipating”
although some days are tougher than others, my pollyanna ass holds out hope in our fellow Americans
OT Your gas prices 5/15/06
12 states (plus DC) $3.00+
12 states $2.90+
16 states $2.80+
11 states $2.70+
http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/sbsavg.asp
This is the first time since I started looking that no states have prices in the $2.60+ range. The number of states with $3.00+ gas are up. Lowest is Oklahoma. Highest remains Hawaii.
Christy, thanks for keeping our eyes on the right goals for our country.
My little 6 year old grandniece heard me talking about those crooks in Washington, and she asked what a crook was, and I told her, “people who lie, cheat, steal and break laws.” She immediately cried, “They’re Pirates!” The wisdom of children.
op99, IANAL, I suspect she has reason to be concerned about her disability.
There is a cottage industry all over the nation of attorneys that do nothing but Disability work. Normally, they take “clients” with no up front fee, and only get paid from the “settlement” check that Social Security sends out to people who it considers disabled. I suspect she could get an opinion from one or several of these attorneys over the phone.
Still John Caspar (82), this is an immigrant country. I think it is a losing issue for some strange reason. It’s like saying we’re going to block the Chinese from crossing the border during the cultural revolutoin–which the British didn’t prevent to give them enormous credit. Can you imagine how diehard anti-Fidel types like, Andy Garcia must feel?
Muzzy – wherever you are – Thanks for the Baby pics – quel adorable !
mui- this has been going on for a long time, but more under the radar. A colleague of mine went to a professional meeting in San Diego (back in the 80s) and with a group of friends crossed the border to go to Tiajuana. No passports needed for that, only driver’s license. Coming back to US, he was held at the border. He was questioned agressively, but kept insisting that he was a US citizen. He was allowed to cross back, finally. When the guard started asking him about where was he born- ah- then you must know the baseball history there- like who was that shortstop, etc. Oh yeah, Wrigley Field. etc. etc. Surname Kuwada.
oops. 93 was regarding HK during the famine and cultural revolution. If you have a country of immigrants, you cannot prevent kin from crossing the border, sometimes for dire reasons. Although Mexico cannot be as bad as Ch***.
But we owe vitality to new immigrants, as do other places, like HK did.
1. He’ll be back to being a Supermoron tomorrow.
2. The “Well, if you have nothign to hide….” bullshit obviously rankles. It is such bullshit. So, in addition to asking the purveyors of such bullshit whether the constitutional rights of any of the many, many repugs being on trial should have their rights taken away, or whether, if they are arrested, they’ll quite happily make do without any constitutional safeguards, or why Chimpco hides behind “executive privilege” in refusing to answer questions from that “other” branch of government, ask them the really, really, really below the belt question: “Are you telling me you favor a French system of jurisprudence (you may stump them on jurisprudence, so feel free to substitute “laws”).
Thank’s Christy for a great post.
It makes me wonder how many lists and data points my home might land on. While I am of Western European decent with a pinch of Native American, I frequent progressive blogs, actively participate in every progressive movement I can fit in my schedule and sign online petitions which would easily put in the profile of active progressive.
I also live with a college student son(same ethnicicy) who studies multiple languages including Farsi and Arabic so our mutual internet connection has links to various texts in those languages.
Just wondering if they might have a reason to come knocking on my door (other than trying to recruit my son to do their dirty work)?
Valley Girl –
This Kuwada person probably could rattled of the last few World Cup winners (soccer/futbol) and left the border guy scratching his head.
Gw Clusterfuck gave his immigration speech. He’s got the problem solved in typical GW Clusterfuck fashion.
National Guardsmen going to the border for two weeks instead of training. Guess he knows from his own experience that national guard training isn’t necessary.
Cards- this is the goodie. Ya gotta have a card ta get a job- unless of course you have a false social security number and claim that you’re a citizen- in which case you get hired exactly like you do now.
Never has such a pile of shit been sold as a plan. Total political bullshit from beginning to end.
See ya only have to have a card if yer dumb enough to say that you aren’t a citizen.
How many average Americans are now mad at Bush for preempting prime time tv?
BobbyG from Florida, just updated my blog
http://santafeandthefatcityhorns.blogspot.com/
What a day. Then I went back to my Mom’s apartment to watch Bush’s speech, and crashed about 5 minutes into it.
Finished Tim Flannery’s book “The Weather Makers” during supper. We are in major deep environmental shit. A scary read.
Pat Buchanan on MSNBC – “THIS IS AN INVASION!”
Poor Pat – all those brown-skinned people “occupying” your beloved white/beige ‘Murka.’ And just think, it wasn’t all that many years ago that your country was overrun by black-skinned people – how much more are you gonna have to take, Pat?
The next words out of his mouth will undoubtedly be “America is AT WAR!”
rwcole (100). Another puzzling thing. Chimpco, we all know, wants to be as employer friendly as possible. So he’s just gotta fake it good or bad maybe?
> 2. The “Well, if you have nothign to hide….†bullshit obviously rankles
Just ask them if they would like President Hilary Clinton reading all their emails and bank statements.
John C @ 82 – I think you give tweety too much credit. If Tweety says he thinks its a winner, it’s b/c he thinks its a WINNER – across the board, not just the base. I think your analysis is correct – I just wouldn’t ascribe your reality based thinking person’s insight with that of a man nicknamed after a cartoon bird (birdbrained doesn’t come from birds being considered deep thinkers).
So GWClusterfuck is sayin that he’s gonna get control of the borders- but he’s not gonna send anyone back who gets in. Huh? What the fuck is he sayin?
The America that was a beacon for many in opressed countries from Egypt to Pakistan in a short 4 years is now reviled worldwide. With the exception of Israel there is no country in Europe or Asia where the majority of the public believes that the US is a force for good. Instead they believe that the US is as big a threat as jihadists.
What is happening is a distinct move towards to a “surveillance state” and then a police state where constitutional liberties are sacrificed at the altar of national security. All despotic regimes have used fear and the “either you are with us or for the enemy” line to silence dissent and legitimate political opposition. This 200 year experiment in constitutional democracy faces its sternest test and the concerns of many of our founders of the inexorable growth in government power is becoming reality.
Unless we the people fight back and roll back government intrusion in our personal lives it will continue to grow more oppressive.
Thanks John Casper. She has a disability lawyer who doesn’t seem to appreciate the immigration end of things. She is currently collecting, but fears they will bounce her to save the money.
Mui- He’s giving the employers a free pass.
The employers can’t be held accountable if someone says he’s a citizen and shows forged documents. Only if they claim that they’re illegal but don’t have a card. It’s total bullshit!
Not only was The Commander in Thief’s speech purely political, it was transparently so. He’s lost the country but the puppet masters are banking on the M$M spin to justify the inevitable, bogus bump in his JAR. Watch the conveniently framed polls creep back to the mid-30’s by the end of the week.
aReader – That is a good one too. Things like the Clinton SC case where they decided a sitting president can be sued civilly and many other “powers” are going to come around and bite them in the naughty bits, and they’ll have no one to blame but their own lust for power.
For the record ABC Nightly had not a word about NSA, let alone their own reporters being ‘tapped’…perhaps Nightline. Isn’t that where Ross usually hangs his hat?
Of course now the employers can go directly to mexico and import a bunch of guest workers who WILL have the cards- and when the time comes for em to go home- they’ll disappear into the population of other undocumented workers. It’s total bullshit. Conservatives will notice this.
HUgh @90~
Evanston, Il has a station just up the street from me at $3.19 for regular.
Anybody catch the line early in the speech where Bush said something to the effect that illegals put a strain on social services AND BRING CRIME? Those darn criminal Mexicans…
A bit OT I know, but anyway:
If the world had acted on what many knew would transpire (in the run-up to WW II) then perhaps the Nazi’s would not have been able to have perpetrated the monsterous things they did to the Jewish people. P.M. Neville Camberlain of England was warned repeatedly by many about what the Nazi’s planned to do in making the Jews the scapegoat for Germany’s problems prior to the war, and using them as an excuse for starting WW II.
Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon (before his health problems) withdrew from certain Palestinian lands. This was one solid ruse designed to win world sympathy and to keep lands in Israeli hands which he deemed geographically more important. Sharon should be tried for war crimes as a result of his diabolical treatment of Palestinians and Arabs in general. Indeed there are countries he can’t visit for fear of being arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. There was a time not so long ago when I viewed the Israeli’s as being capable of doing no wrong and supported them unequivocally. No more. The Israeli government stands along side the U.S. government as being way, way overly blessed with hypocrisy.
Huge concrete fences, gulags, starvation, privation, segregation, second class citizenship, ethnic cleansing, societal paranoia, super refined secret intelligence agencies, political torture, propaganda, spying on virtually every country in the world (including us) and a mega-nuclear arsenal. These are all attributes of Israeli society. All this reminds me of fascism.
I feel a sense of guilt and responsibility for Israel’s occupation of Arab lands and its unseemly racist policies. I realize full well that some of my taxes are sent to Israel. The billions of dollars provided by the United States in the form of grants and aid merely serve to perpetuate the killing and maiming of a long oppressed people.
It was right and humane that the Jewish people were enfranchised and gived their own homeland subsequent to their near destruction at the hands of the Teutonic monsters. Should not America, Israel and the rest of the world accord the same treatment and apply like principles to the much suffering Palestinians? We will never, never have peace in the Mideast until the U.S. ceases its blind and myopic support for Israel’s misguided mistreatment of the people of Palestine. This has absolutely nothing to do with being Muslim, Jewish or Christian. It has eveything to do with what’s right and what’s wrong. It has to do with the unbelievable capacity for men and women’s inhumanity to their fellow men and women.
I work in the former Soviet Union as a Christian trying to help our nations stop threatening each other with nuclear weapons.
In the first few years I felt our country was in fact a beacon of peace and hope. Now I wonder.
Oh, and as a pasty-faced Scottish girl, don’t think we are exempt from being profiled. Anyone who critizes the government is being watched. We often say hello to the NSA, in fact dissidents tend to be profiled by DoD. So hello to our DoD guys, we love you, we just hope you will think now and again about the Constitution.
VG (95). At least you could joke about it way back in the 90s. These nutwingers seem in earnest I think. Before they stopped E. Asians and the joke goes, Frenchmen, at LA and NY entries & ripped through luggage etc, leaving underwear on the floor and stealing french bonbons, and making derogatory remarks about herbal stuff.
Now? No jokes. It’s anywhere from no security to completely miserable.
Muzzy,
Cute pics! Here’s mine. Baby pic and an older one. His name is Coz ; ) LOL
http://i67.photobucket.com/alb…..1weekA.jpg
http://i67.photobucket.com/alb…..oz4-27.jpg
rwcole, time to tr*ll redstate? Mwahaha.
I’ve only read to #63 (a VERY good year I might add) and I thought of a slogan:
Vote for a Democrat because we are all in this together!
That would be criticizes. In case anyone wants to criticize.
Attention: N.H.
I saw this short film on PBS’s Independent Lens this weekend, American Made, about an Indian family whose Jeep breaks down in the Arizona Desert. The father at one point the son says to the father as he trys to get a ride, “No one is going to stop for us, because you look like a terrorist.”
While there were somethings I couldn’t understand , why didn’t they leave the jeeps hood up!?!?, I was almost brought to tears several times.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/americanmade/
new thread – old hand
Christy, saw this post earlier but the ferry pulled me out of Wifi range before I could comment.
Thanks for expressing the thoughts on my mind as I walked to work this morning. I’ll have more to say about how much I appreciated this post later, but for now – thanks Christy.
Oops. rwcole (115), I meant to say I wonder what r*dstaaters have to say about all that. Because I think you must be right. But did they catch it. Hmm. . . Not brave enough to find out.
The ABC story mentioned briefly on KO and on Joe S.
I saw this short film on PBS’s Independent Lens this weekend, American Made, about an Indian family whose Jeep breaks down in the Arizona Desert. The son says to the father as he trys to get a ride, “No one is going to stop for us, because you look like a terrorist.â€
While there were somethings I couldn’t understand , why didn’t they leave the jeep’s hood up?, I was almost brought to tears several times.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/americanmade/
Margot – When they throw the terror I throw back a “Where’s Osama” and drop these:
BUSH MADE AMERICA MUCH LESS SAFE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00097.html
^^^ 9-11 Commission, the GOP gets failing marks. The GOP has actually killed funding proposed by Dems for port security and closing the borders.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/f…..239260.xml
^^^ FEMA is broken… Dysfunctional… Senate report says that despite Bush’s assurances, we are not ready for hurricane season even… Much less a terror attack. Bush’s response is faith based disaster preparation… Pray nothing happens.
http://www.chron.com/disp/stor…..45946.html
^^^ CIA is broken… Goss oversaw the imparement of intelligence gathering, despite increased hiring, budgets, and expansion… He ran off the experienced DoO’s and dept heads with “foot on the ground” experience in overseas intelligence gathering. Plame outting crippled the Iran picture.
Well, if your friend is anything like my partner – a very secular pacifist from Pakistan, with a traditional Muslim family – she would be very unhappy with the current conditions.
I’ve been with my partner since 2000, and have both seen first-hand and heard second-hand many stories of the difficulties he’s faced in the last 5 years. It’s terrible! He has spent most of his life in this country, speaks without a middle-eastern accent (in fact has a bit of an English accent), and dresses and wears his hair very Western. But he deals with direct and subtle instances of racism nearly daily.
After 9/11 was the worst. We lived in San Fran at the time, and he’s an amateur photographer. He was stopped, questioned, and searched by the cops 3 times in one night, just for taking photos of the Museum of Fine Arts (a local landmark). He and his sister – also a Westernized, secular woman living in Texas – both received death threats by phone and email, and glares whenever we’d go out in public. The Bay Area has a huge Indian population (tech industry), and normally wherever you go out in the city you’re surrounded by Southeast Asians – for the next several months, they all but disappeared. Everyone was too afraid to go out. And this was liberal, diverse San Francisco – I can’t imagine what it must have been like in Texas or Alabama!
In 2002 he had to renew his Green Card. We were told that the process had slowed some (due to the new laws and procedures), but that the card should be issued within 3-4 months. We submitted his paperwork 6 months prior to the expiration of his card, just to make sure. We then spent a year and a half in fear of cops pulling him over for something as simple as speeding, because the INS had not yet processed his green card. It finally came through, and they blamed it on a backlog of applicaitons. Bur meanwhile a Canadian friend who applied for a new Green Card at the same time in the same state received hers within 3 months. I was sure then, and am even more sure now, that they were scouring his records, bills, phone calls, whatever to find any excuse to deny it. I was even afraid to visit liberal websites then!
Things have calmed down since, but he still frequenly gets odd looks and glares when we’re out and about, and always gets searched at the airport. Last time he flew his name was flagged (he’s flown several times in the last few years, and this was new this year). And he hates Bush, is very frustrated with the political and social system here. We’ve talked often of moving elsewhere, but my career is one that makes it difficult to move to another country, and I want to work to change the system from within. But it’s very frustrating, for both of us. I hope your friend is well, wherever she is.
First, does anybody really believe millions of Americans have Qaeda connections? If not, why the large data base?
If you say, they need to examine the macro-patterns to establish profiles, let me commend ‘What The Numbers Say’ by mathematicians Niederman and Boyum. Their point is, if the sample is large enough, patterns will appear by sheer randomness. The classic example is, if you flip a coin often enough, you’ll get 50 straight heads (the urge to double entendre is killing me!). Now 50 straight heads is rare, but will happen in millions of tosses. What this means in terms of the NSA gig is innocent people WILL appear to fit the profile, by random happenstance. Does anybody trust this Administration to have the nuance and discretion to handle that? Not!
Moreover, there are ways subtle and gross to skew data. With such a large database, it will be easy to hide mischief inside the numbers. Enemies list, anyone? I’ll bet a lot of progressive activists are on it – the Administration just hasn’t gone from gathering data to acting on it. The Gestapo wasn’t built in a day.
Look at how Bush has operated – there has been zero bipartisanship. He has done everything he can to crush Democrats, and return us to the Robber Baron Era, when the establishment was unaccountable, and unconstrained to have dissidents beaten and murdered.
Think it can’t happen here? It HAS happened here, and in historical terms, recently. And it will happen again, if we don’t stop it.
EPU 97 -
Agree with you completely.
As there’s nothing to hide, I’m looking forward to Dead-Eye’s release of the Energy Task Force records…. :)
Leslie #116
Could well be. These are statewide averages. Chicago will be higher than down state but even so Illinois has been in the $2.90+ range for a while.
Hugo 135~
That was just the suburb. I drove to work today and there were stations in Chicago with $3.35 for regular.
Cheers!
If the intelligence agencies are monitoring the MSM reporters, could Democratic politicians be far behind?
For that matter, why not the entire judicial branch of goovernment. Lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement itself. How about the NSA intercepting local police union officials and compromising their union bargaining positions?
Where does it end?
It ends folks when you dismantle the corporate/military complex brick by brick and not a moment sooner.
My Dear Christie:
If you think being lily white and Irish-American is going to protect you from being perceived as a threat to this administration, you have not been reading your own blog.
Hogwash….
utter hogwash.
Bush interrupts prime time to give an important speech (only his second on a domestic issue) to announce his grand solution to the illegal immigration problem. He’s going to send 6,000 National Guard troops to secure the border (although they won’t actually be intercepting attempted immigrants, just providing support). Wow. 6,000 troops should go a long way toward securing the border. What? They will only be there on two-week rotations? Oh. That’s only the year-round equivilant of 231 troops. Guess it wasn’t such a big announcement, after all. Stop looking at Fitzgerald–stop looking at Rove–stop looking at the NSA illegal domestic spying–look over here! 6,000 troops!
We are indeed being overrun– by ignorant, racist thugs. Where’s the wall to keep THEM out?
Was I the only person who thought the “way to be at your desk” line from TWW was patronizing as hell?
I too have felt the isidious fear that our country is sinking into a quaqmire of greed and uglieness from which we will not be returning in any recognizable form. Heck of a job bushie.
Re #133 – Digenes, you are spot on. Al qaeda people are not the target – let’s face it, such people are more likely to fly in than make an overland crossing from the south or be long term residents.
This data mining is an NSA job and they are required to obtain judicial supervision which they did not. Not so the FBI under the Patriot Act. If the FBI is pulled in for leak investigations as MSM reporters suggest, the NSA databank is available across the board? What use is it for the Congress to restrict the use of non judicial NSLs to the FBI?
A databank this size can be employed to target anything and everything and lends itself to all manner of witchhunts.
Gentleman Jim (137)
I believe Old Teddy Kennedy was put on the no flight list for a while. What follows? Don’t know.
BTW. A campaign to prevent the appointment of Gen. Hayden would be a step in the right direction.
Stalin rounded up 1/3 of the citizens of Leningrad. Safe to say that approximately zero of those people were a threat to their country. And I doubt that being a Stalin supporter was much protection. The wingnuts have just as much to be afraid of here as any of us.
The profiling of Muslims bothers the heck out of me. How many Muslim-Americans came her to escape the theocratic injustices of their country?
“I completely believe that this is not some 1960’s enemies list politically motivated effort.” (William Arkin)
“Newsweek
June 6 issue – The bitter debate about John Bolton’s nomination to the United Nations may have called unwelcome attention to the spying practices of the National Security Agency. Bolton told Congress last month that he asked the NSA for the names of Americans in raw intel reports. NSA rules prohibit the agency from spying on Americans; if electronic eavesdroppers inadvertently pick up American names, the NSA is supposed to black them out before forwarding reports to other agencies. But analysts and policymakers can make written requests to the NSA for U.S. names, which the State Department says Bolton did 10 times since 2001.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked for more information about Bolton’s requests, but the administration refused, leading to last week’s vote to delay Bolton’s nomination. Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee’s chairman, Pat Roberts, and its top Democrat, Jay Rockefeller, got a closed-door briefing on Bolton’s NSA dealings from the deputy intel czar, Gen. Michael Hayden. The senators agreed Bolton’s initial NSA requests for U.S. names were legit. But the normally collegial Roberts and Rockefeller couldn’t agree on whether Bolton handled the names appropriately once he received them. In dueling letters made public, the senators aired their differences. Senator Roberts argued that Democrats called unnecessary attention to intel “sources and methods” by raising Bolton’s NSA dealings publicly. Rockefeller complained that Bolton sought out a State Department official whose name was supplied by the NSA “to congratulate him”—for unspecified reasons—which Rockefeller said was “not in keeping” with Bolton’s request for the uncensored NSA report. Roberts said this charge was ill founded.
—Mark Hosenball”
I wouldn’t put anything past the Bush Nixonians. I bet other Bush administration officials, in addition to Bolton, requested unredacted raw NSA intel reports, especially people in Dick Cheney’s office. Odds are many State Department officials under Colin Powell were monitored by the Bush Nixonians, primarily during the lead-up to the war in Iraq.
Obviously, Mr. Arkin hasn’t heard of the busy Bush loyalists purging federal departments of any “enemies” of the neo-conservative Bush doctrine.
Democrats. Moderate Republicans. All are on the Bush/Cheney “enemies list.” They are only using the “leaks” issue to facilitate their continuing purges of anyone suspected of caring more for our democracy than the Bush neo-con agenda.
Didn’t see the speech, someone on Rigorous Intuition EZBoard said that the main purpose was to introduce National ID cards. Did anyone notice that. Maybe will get around to reading junior’s speech…
Has anyone heard anything of just how many Blackwater mercenaries the bush regime has doing policing duties in the American Gulf (or in Iraq for that matter) and if a contract for even more Blackwater or other mercs has been ratified? Or is that another Security Secret?
Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you
- The Police
Christy
I know I am deep in the EPU zone, But this was a great post.
Well done.
Christy,
this post moved me to tears. There’s been no public discourse about any of the changes we’ve faced in the last 6 years. They just stole it from us. Thanks.
Tice is testifying before Congress this week. He claims to have further revelations about unknown NSA spying programs. I think the other shoe is about to drop (bad metaphor, I suppose — the NSA is a centipede, and there are lots more shoes to drop). I just hope we get to hear what it is.
Information is power and if you don’t think the Bushthugs are into power, you’re living on another planet. International or national it makes no difference. Makes wimps feel important. What they do with it is completely out of our control and that should terrify all of us.
´And we need to know that this is being done in a thoughtful and profoundly humble way..´
No you don´t. That standard is impossible to judicially assess, and that is why the 4th amendment is cut in favour of judicial review for warrants, on the basis of probable cause that a crime has been committed. period.
I also think that whether americans poll in favour of the 4th amendment or against is a big red herring, and you invest too much energy into accommodating these polls. Consent of the governed is irrelevent to the requirements of the 4th amendment. the Bill of Rights was not intended to protect the majority, but rather, the minority from the majority. Get it ??