From Feb. 28, 2010, that's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Barack Renews The Patriot Act." And, goodness, didn't he leave his mark on the Constitution.
The revelations from two weeks ago, when Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) broke the news about the NSA collecting metadata on all Americans phone calls and then he and the Washington Post broke the news that the NSA and FBI were using PRISM, a program collecting data from the internet -- video, photos, e-mails, you name it. Ed Snowden is the whistle-blower who exposed the programs.
On the PRISM program, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell released the following statement yesterday:
We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it.
To that end, we are disclosing the total number of
requests for user data that law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made to
us between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013. During that time period,
we received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests, inclusive of criminal,
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and other requests. The
most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings,
and other criminal investigations.
Like all companies, Yahoo! cannot lawfully break out
FISA request numbers at this time because those numbers are classified;
however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its
stance on this issue.
Democracy demands accountability. Recognizing the
important role that Yahoo! can play in ensuring accountability, we will
issue later this summer our first global law enforcement transparency
report, which will cover the first half of the year. We will refresh
this report with current statistics twice a year.
As always, we will continually evaluate whether further
actions can be taken to protect the privacy of our users and our ability
to defend it. We appreciate -- and do not take for granted -- the trust you
place in us.
They want to tell you about the secret seizures, they insist, but they're not able to -- by law.
Meanwhile the person who's shredding the Constitution went on PBS last night for more softballs from Charlie Rose and it's not cute watching them play footsie.
Let's be really clear that Charlie Rose is not qualified to talk about the spying. This is the man who all last week and again yesterday on CBS This Morning News has to correct himself because he keeps saying "NASA" instead of "NSA." When, weeks after the scandal, you still have to correct yourself on air about that, you're not paying attention. I despise Charlie Rose. I try to keep that out of here. If a CBS News friend asks me to note the show, I've done it and you haven't seen me picking on him. But let's be really clear, if you repeatedly say "the NASA spying -- NSA," you're not on the ball. Once? Okay. Over and over last week? Again Monday morning? On air?
So this is the 'brain,' the 'swift' 'reporter' that Barack picks for an easy, breezy chat?
No. It's not acceptable. He needs to go up against a hostile press corps in a televised press briefing. In addition to that, he needs to be questioned by a real reporter. There aren't a lot of people who fit that description, granted. One is Jake Tapper. Another is Ed Henry. No one connected with CBS' 60 Minutes qualifies, they are as embarrassing as 'the ladies' of The View. It needs to be someone with a reputation for asking tough questions, not for fawning.
And did Charlie do anything besides fawn?
Around the time Barack was comparing Ben Bernanke to Charlie, Charlie looked like he was about to drop his trousers and 'present' for mounting.
To be clear, Barbara Walters (on her own) does harder hitting interviews than Charlie Rose.
And that's before you get to Charlie's conflicts of interest. This is the liar, as Ava and I pointed out in 2008, who did a 'panel' of 'journalists' discussing the primaries but failed to note that not only was one of the panelists not a journalists but this idiot -- who kept attacking Connie Schultz -- was working for Barack's campaign. No one else on the panel was working for one of the Democratic Party campaigns:
It's not journalism, it's not ethical, it's not academic. And where there is trash, there is Charlie Rose smearing his face in it. Which is how Melissa-Harris Lacewell showed up on his show last Tuesday. It was primary night in Rhode Island, Ohio, Vermont and Texas. The results from Texas would not be known while the show was broadcasting (live for a change) and the topic was the primaries. "Joining me tonight in New York," Rose would offer in that ding-dong voice he's so proud of, "Mark Halperin, editor at large of Time magazine, Errol Louis, columnist of The New York Daily News. And Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. From Cleveland Connie Schultz, a columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and in Washington David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times." See the problem? Harris-Lacewell is not a journalist. Nor was it ever revealed on air that she was an Obama supporter and campaigner. There was no one present from the Clinton campaign and Rose never thought audiences had a right to know that Harris-Lacewell was working with the Obama campaign.
Not only did Charlie let Lie Face Melissa get away with that, he let her insult the late Congress woman Stephanie Tubbs Jones ("Stephanie Jones" was how Lie Face referenced her) he also let Lie Face plug her own attempts to attack Tavis Smiley:
African-Americans, Harris-Lacewell informed, have "even called on people like Tavis Smiley who generally who has great support among African-Americans a huge critique of his critique of Tavis Smiley's critique of Barack Obama." That is how she worded it (and we're taking that from the transcript faxed to us by a PBS friend who states it's also available for $9.95 at something called "VoxantShop.com"). Yes, she sounded like an idiot but she was lost for a reason, she was lost inside her own echo chamber. The windmills of her mind were creaking.
Harris-Lacewell not only didn't disclose that she was part of the Obama campaign, she also didn't disclose, while promoting this criticism of Tavis Smiley, that she was a part of that. On February 15th, Harris-Lacewell posted "Who Died and Made Tavis King?" at her own website and it was picked up by many other websites though we don't find anyone who ran it in full. A pity because near the end of slamming Smiley, she shares [in her blog post] she won't be watching his State of Black Union coverage, "I will be phoning Texas voters to remind them to head out to the polls on March 4." Poor Melissa, her campaign work is never done.
When Charlie Rose can apologize for that misconduct -- that was a violation of PBS rules and guidelines -- as well as a violation of journalism ethics -- then we might consider him a real journalist and not Regis Philbin with less chemistry and squinty eyes.
We're not done with Charlie Rose for the day. When you like a cheap whore on national television, when your work becomes the equivalent on gonorrhea, oh, we're not done with you, not by a long shot. This conversation will continue in the snapshot.
Barack declares of his spying, "It is transparent. That's why we set up the FISA court. Look, the whole point of my concern, before I was president -- because some people say, 'Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he's, you know, Dick Cheney.' Dick Cheney sometimes says, 'Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel'." No, if it was transparent, we wouldn't now be having this conversation.
If it were transparent, Yahoo could release basic numbers.
If it were transparent, idiots in Congress wouldn't be screaming their heads off about the need to arrest Ed Snowden.
If it were transparent, the disgusting Barbara Mikulski wouldn't have tried to stop people on the Senate Appropriations Committee last week for asking questions. Nor would she have been such a fishwife in the hearing, interrupting a witness speaking to go off on a tear at Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray for a Tweet. What a seriously tragic woman who fancies herself a 'patriot' despite the fact that she's betrayed, assaulted, molested the Constitution.
Betty noted last night that Barack is not part of the 'we' who created the FISA Court. It's always amazing when you think of the way the press worked overtime to draw lines between Barack and the couple he used (Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers) with one lie after another like, "He was only 10 years old!" But Barack lies about created the FISA Court -- as part of his high school's student council? -- and no one's supposed to notice.
In fairness to Barack, he may have been confused. As Nina Totenberg (NPR's Morning Edition) reported today, when the spying of the Bush administration came to light, changes took place:
After news reports blew the lid off the administration's dodge, President Bush submitted to Congress proposed changes to the law which were adopted in 2008. Those changes allowed the government to collect the so-called PRISM program, allowing it to monitor any and all conversations that take place between the US and someone in a foreign country.
FISA has no teeth and was already a rubber stamp before Bush proposed the changes. Those changes damaged the court and were from Bush but Barack has ruled as though he were the third and fourth term of Bully Boy Bush so maybe he's confused as to who he is yet again? Maybe someone forever posing and searching for an identity really doesn't have the core to be a leader?
As for Barack not being like Dick Cheney, he's right. Dick Cheney boasted about his spying. Dick Cheney still boasts about it today. Barack's the little simp who wants to spy but then wants to argue that he doesn't really, really want to be doing it. Cheney owned his actions.
By the way, including the Washington Post at the top is not meant to take away from Glenn Greenwald. But I am getting tired of the idiots of 'alternative' media insisting that the American media ignored these stories. The Guardian and the Post were both working on the stories, both using Ed Snowden as their source. We may start calling out the idiots who are getting the facts wrong.
The following community sites --- plus Antiwar.com and Black Agenda Report -- updated last night and this morning:
CODEPINK has an action this Saturday in NYC:
PRESS
RELEASE:
THE DRONE ZONE: CODE PINK SIMULATION OF LIFE UNDER 24-HOUR DRONE
SURVEILLANCE
when: Saturday,
June 22, 11 to 1:00 p.m.
where: the
Cube at Astor Place
contact: Jill Godmilow (212) 226-2462, jgodmilo@nd.edu, or Jonathan
Langer (716) 544-8237, jonathan.a.langer@gmail.com
(video
documentation available)
On Saturday, June
22, at Astor Place, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., a group of men and women will create
a Drone Zone similar to those where the U.S. is terrorizing small
villages in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.
"Crossing Guards",
15 or so (women and men), each with a white, crossing guard diagonal sash, will
be staged about 10 paces apart around a small area of Astor Place at Lafayette,
next to The Cube... to produce "the zone." They stand silent, as cautionary
figures... looking much like crossing guards might if so instructed. The guards
are holding upright and steady 8 foot PVC poles. On each pole is a sign that
reads: "DRONE ALERT! YOU HAVE ENTERED
A DRONE ZONE. PLEASE BE PREPARED TO TAKE SHELTER QUICKLY." On top of each pole is mounted a mini-speaker emitting a
low audio track of a drone continuously buzzing (as drones do flying over a
Pakistani village), sourced from iPods or smart phones in their
pockets.
If questioned by
citizens, each crossing guard will have pink 4 x 6 cards to hand out. On one
side is a brief description of life in Yemeni, Pakistani, Somali, Afghani
village that suffers the tremendous stress and trauma from 24-hour drone
surveillance, as well as potential strikes or crashes. On the other side of the
card is a brief description of the CODE PINK Drone Theatre Project itself. Also,
a list of on-line sites for more information about armed drone surveillance,
targeted killings, and drone proliferation.
This action will
be repeated again and again in New York
City and elsewhere throughout the summer
NB: There
will be video documentation of the project for use for television and online
sites and other press locations..
Joan Wile, leader
of Grandmothers Against the War, has stated "This project – silent street
theatre – asks passersby to reflect on the condition of drone tormented and
threatened populations. Perhaps it will also project the blowback of drones
ultimately aimed at us."
when: Saturday,
June 22, 11 to 1:00 p.m.
where: the Cube
at Astor Place
contact: Jill
Godmilow (212) 226-2462, jgodmilo@nd.edu, or Jonathan
Langer (716) 544-8237, jonathan.a.langer@gmail.com
admission: none
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq pbs charlie rose npr morning edition nina totenberg iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraqiraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraqiraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
