ch.annel2-i.s-n.ow-a.ngry

And the Church Committee itself, if people remember, actually went back to the days of Franklin Roosevelt. So it was started during ’70s under Nixon because of reports in the New York Times and other media by Seymour Hersh and reporters like him, who exposed the CIA’s domestic spying on Americans. And then the Church Committee got started in the Senate, chaired by Senator Frank Church. There was an accompanying House committee, as well. And they looked at all aspects of US intelligence, and in particular, they looked at this whole use of watch lists by various agencies like the FBI and the CIA, and they exposed, during the Church hearings—that’s how the whole NSA spying came out, because they got the whole story about how the NSA had been listening in on the phone calls of many prominent antiwar activists, African American organizations, civil rights leaders, and so on. And they exposed the various programs of the NSA.

And that’s how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act emerged, was the Congress did not want to have the rights of Americans, the civil liberties, abused by their intelligence services anymore, and so they passed FISA as a way to require warrants, when there is any kind of monitoring of Americans in the United States by the NSA. And that was the guiding law until it was recently changed by Congress.

Interesting article. I wonder if the truth will ever come to light - during one congressional hearing on Ollie North, this database was brought up, and the head of the hearing cut off the senator and wouldn’t let any questions about this database be heard.

Human-rights activists are quick to point out that while the tools are the same, the political contexts are radically different. China has a government that uses its high-tech web to imprison and torture peaceful protesters, Tibetan monks and independent-minded journalists. Yet even here, the lines are getting awfully blurry. The U.S. currently has more people behind bars than China, despite a population less than a quarter of its size. And Sharon Hom, executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China, says that when she talks about China’s horrific human-rights record at international gatherings, “There are two words that I hear in response again and again: Guantánamo Bay.”

Good article on the surveillance state of China - very BB sounding, fueled by American actuals (not the ideals we profess) and probably far more intricate than Orwell could have even imagined 60 years ago - Orwell just imagined they’d be editing the history books, he didn’t think they’d be real time photochopping the news.

During the Lhasa riots, police on the scene augmented the footage from the CCTVs with their own video cameras, choosing to film — rather than stop — the violence, which left 19 dead. The police then quickly cut together the surveillance shots that made the Tibetans look most vicious — beating Chinese bystanders, torching shops, ripping metal sheeting off banks — and created a kind of copumentary: Tibetans Gone Wild. These weren’t the celestial beings in flowing robes the Beastie Boys and Richard Gere had told us about. They were angry young men, wielding sticks and long knives. They looked ugly, brutal, tribal. On Chinese state TV, this footage played around the clock.

I heard about that, I’m sure many did, I didn’t hear at the time that China was cutting the news, though I’m not surprised, it’s called ’spin,’ right?

The Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure made it into the U.S. Constitution precisely because its drafters understood that the power to snoop is addictive. Even if we happen to trust in the good intentions of the snoopers, the nature of any government can change rapidly — which is why the Constitution places limits on the tools available to any regime. But the drafters could never have imagined the commercial pressures at play today. The global homeland-security business is now worth an estimated $200 billion — more than Hollywood and the music industry combined. Any sector of that size inevitably takes on its own momentum. New markets must be found — which, in the Big Brother business, means an endless procession of new enemies and new emergencies: crime, immigration, terrorism.

 China-bashing never fails to soothe the Western conscience — here is a large and powerful country that, when it comes to human rights and democracy, is so much worse than Bush’s America. But during my time in Shenzhen, China’s youngest and most modern city, I often have the feeling that I am witnessing not some rogue police state but a global middle ground, the place where more and more countries are converging. China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours), and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chinese scale).

We’ve always been at peace with Eastasia (China), we’ve always been at war with Eurasia (Iran). Why? They said your daddy’s momma was fat, and that she could suck on their nuclear weapons.

Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.

In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.

The report pointed out that it is not just governments in the Middle East and East Asia that have taken steps against those publishing their opinions online. In the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested.

The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US.

Freedom of the press needs to be expanded to include freedom of the internet, freedom of the digital.

The United States arrested an 84-year-old American on Tuesday suspected of giving Israel secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles in the 1980s, in a case linked to the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations.

Oh ho ho.

The arrest of Ben-Ami Kadish indicates that Israeli spying revealed by the Pollard case, still an irritant to the U.S. alliance with Israel, may have spread wider than previously acknowledged.

But we’ll threaten to kick the asses of anyone who threatens them, especially if that other country isn’t spying on us.

Kadish acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews and said he acted to help Israel, according to court documents.

He was accused of reporting to an Israeli government handler who was also a main contact for Pollard, an American citizen serving a life term on a 1985 charge of spying for Israel.

And we weren’t keeping tabs on a known spy-handler because…?

Pollard pleaded guilty in 1986. Israel gave him citizenship in 1996 and acknowledged in 1998 the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst was one of its spies. Israel has unsuccessfully sought Pollard’s release. [emphasis mine]

I thought people that handled sensitive data like that had thorough background checks. I guess we don’t have to worry too much anymore because it’s all farmed out to private contractors now.

 Kadish is a Connecticut-born U.S. citizen who worked as a mechanical engineer at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal. His spying lasted roughly from 1979 to 1985, and his contact with the unidentified Israeli handler continued until March of this year.

Awesome.

The complaint cited Kadish as saying that, unlike Pollard, he received no money from the Israelis.

Dummy, everyone knows the world economy is controlled by an elite Judaic banking cartel. Shoulda gone for the duckets.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the Justice Department on Thursday to open a grand jury investigation into whether President Bush’s chief of staff and former counsel should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Fratto said House Democrats “have been trying to redefine the notion of contempt and they succeeded.”

Both Fratto and House GOP leader John Boehner said the House should focus on passing legislation allowing the government to more easily eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists.

I honestly can’t tell if Fratto is calling the Democrats contemptible, or if he is saying that refusing to appear for a subpoena isn’t currently contemptible and their asking to have this matter investigated is redefining contempt to mean refusing to appear for a subpoena. Anyway, it’s a petty argument. You must obey the law. The king enforced the law but didn’t follow it. That’s why we kicked England’s ass and wrote the constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States does it say the President is allowed to not follow the law.

Anyway, instead of caring about us obeying the law, you should allow us to spy on people in the US. Just like it ought to be.

US says sends warship off coast of Lebanon

New Sanctions Aimed at Syrians

USDA Shuts Down Congressional Audit

Bush: US Is Not Headed Into Recession

1 in 100 US Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says

Bush Disputes Obama on Diplomacy

Bush urges wiretap immunity law

Are you fucking kidding me? The greatest country in the world you say?

Hey, Rome was the greatest empire in the world. Hm. Look at them now, in a museum.

After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead.

Cowards. Bush was warned that Bin Laden was planning attacks without any of these eviscerations of our civil liberties, and he did nothing about it. He wouldn’t do anything about another attack either, he’d just use it as an excuse to make himself emperor for life or engage martial law or something. It’d be a megalomaniac’s wet dream.

but some Democrats and many liberal advocacy groups saw the outcome as another example of the Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism.

At least some people are paying attention.

Mrs. Clinton, campaigning in Texas, issued a statement saying she would have voted to oppose the final measure.

But didn’t, thanks.

The Senate plan also adds one provision considered critical by the White House: shielding phone companies from any legal liability for their roles in the eavesdropping program approved by Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks. The program allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on the international communications of Americans suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda.

They got away with it. Surprised? I’m not.

But immunity supporters said the phone carriers acted out of patriotism

But not legality. And they knew.