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Ear to the Ground

Spy Chief Wants to Read Your E-Mail

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Posted on Jan 14, 2008
McConnell
npr.org

America’s intelligence czar, Mike McConnell, drops a few eyebrow-raisers in a new interview in The New Yorker. He admits he wants the ability to access all U.S. Internet traffic, and says of waterboarding: “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.”

Wall Street Journal:

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

[...] Asked specifically about waterboarding, McConnell appears to suggest waterboarding would be torture, but he then backtracks.

“If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can’t imagine how painful!” McConnell says. “Whether it’s torture by anybody else’s definition, for me it would be torture.” Asked later about that comment, McConnell says he did not mean to suggest he personally condemned it. “You can do waterboarding lots of different ways,” he says. “I assume you can get to the point that a person is actually drowning.” Yet McConnell declined to be more specific, because “if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it.”

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By rowdy, January 15 at 12:17 pm #
(300 comments total)

Well, Commander, I guess that

Well, Commander, I guess that takes care of the war. Obviously, the Organians aren’t going to let us fight.”
“A pity, Captain. It would have been glorious!”

- Kirk and Kor, discussing the Organian intervention

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By purplewolf, January 15 at 11:33 am #
(567 comments total)

IGNORANCE THROUGH OSMOSIS

Louise:

Re: HIGHLIGHTING STUPIDITY…

I too wanted to make comment on what a fuddy-duddy , prissy looking, old lady like face this “genius?” has? But I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those old ladies out there that resemble him. The obvious dye job on his hair is concealing his true color(age). My great grandmother until her death had her hair colored this same phony shade of what I called apricot. In other words he is a fruit. And the comb- over, hasn’t he ever heard of Grecian Formula for Men? And hair restoration? A bag over his head would work wonders.

And we all know that water torture was deemed torture long ago worldwide. So he would consider this torture is used on him, but he thinks it isn’t torture when used on others. Is his pain threshold lower than the average person? Pinching him would be torture in his book, as would hitting him with a wet noodle or chalk screeching on a blackboard. It wouldn’t take much for him to squeal and spill all information anyone could want. He is no better that The Shrub and Muckman(Muckasey) with his answer for torture. If it equals torture to him, it equals torture to others also. I don’t understand how these idiots can make a statement like this but yet claim to not know the answer.

Give me a break. I know they have dumbed down the American public, it must have spread to the Bush appointees through osmosis as they appear equally as stupid.

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By zeitgeist, January 17 at 11:25 am #
(186 comments total)

Re: IGNORANCE THROUGH OSMOSIS

America’s INTELLIGENCE CZAR, Mike McConnell, another useful, malleable, idiot in the hands of the corporate control freaks!

Here is the model:

Multi-National Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/

They slit their own throats for a simple lofty title.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By Louise, January 15 at 8:21 am #
(761 comments total)

Highlighting Stupidity ... Define Republican

purplewolf:

“I agree with you Rae and Cyrena, we all know they have been reading our mail all along. So for everyone there, why not work a little harder at sending all those cute little emails that everyone sends to everyone else and really bog them down so they won’t know what hit them. In fact why not open up several different accounts under several different servers and then add all that comes in from one email site to all your other sites and give them an Internet avalanche.”

***

And we could complicate it even more by deliberately miss-spelling every other word, throwing in a few French and Spanish words ... perhaps a little Chinese ... and feel the satisfaction of knowing they’re all scrambling for their dictionaries. Assuming any of them know how to use a dictionary. Actually, we would be doing the nation a favor. Forcing the illiterate to get literate! Goodness knows, we have a real shortage of that talent right now.

The upside ... put a few million people to work. Might save the economy. [On our dime?] No actually might be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Or, we could just cut out the middle man and all go to work reading each others mail and websites ... all day ... every day. What a boring job!

This whole thing highlights once again how truly STUPID dictators, despots and republicans are!

I mean look at the picture of the man who thinks this is a workable idea! He may be “intelligent” enough to understand when something might hurt HIM, but he’s obviously NOT “intelligent” enough to understand Constitutional law, or that we can clearly see he’s bald!

***

cyrena:

“… all of this law breaking is THEIR fantasy; ours is legit. The crime is that they’ve been allowed to perpetrate THEIR fantasy, to the destruction of us all.”

***

Add to that the very real scary fact that none of the presidential wannabee front-runners comprehend any of this!

Being able to think, like being able to read should be a requirement to run for any office.

Problem is ... where on earth would we find a competent group of testers to determine what thinking is? smile

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By purplewolf, January 15 at 12:41 am #
(567 comments total)

LITERACY ANYONE ?

RE:RE: THE GAME IS ALREADY LOST, SO WHY DON’T WE SEND IT INTO OVERTIME?

I agree with you Rae and Cyrena, we all know they have been reading our mail all along. So for everyone there, why not work a little harder at sending all those cute little emails that everyone sends to everyone else and really bog them down so they won’t know what hit them. In fact why not open up several different accounts under several different servers and then add all that comes in from one email site to all your other sites and give them an Internet avalanche.

The cool thing about this is they will now have to start to hire more people to read all this extra emails. That is going to be grand, as there are so many illiterates out there just out of high school in this country, and dont’ forget the college students who have to take remedial reading just to be allowed to attend college classes as they are/were illiterate when they entered college. Let’s not forget all the foreign and illegal workers to fill these openings since we have heard so often from this administration that Americans won’t take. Then sit back and let the fun begin.

I do wish they would find all those annoying personal enjoyment enhancer spamers out there and send them to Bob Dole, he needs it more than I do.

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By purplewolf, January 15 at 12:22 am #
(567 comments total)

FREEDOM ? YOU MEAN WE STILL HAVE SOME RIGHTS LEFT ?

If the claim that Bush keeps putting forth were true, that we are fighting to free the Iraqs(one excuse anyway) and to keep the so called freedoms of the American people safe, valid and current, he has failed miserably. This means that the war he claimed was over in May 2003 has been totally unnecessary. We have lost most of the freedoms we had before the start of this fiasco. So, since we no longer have the freedoms we had in 2003, he can no longer claim this excuse to demand more money for this obsolete and useless waste of lives and money for HIS WAR. And that sorry assed excuse of: “they hate us because of our freedoms.” I ask you what freedoms are those? Are there still any left for other to hate us for? Yes, I realize we may still have more freedoms than some people in other countries, but at the break neck speed at which this administration has been deleting them, it will not be long until we will surpass those other countries at freedom stripping and leave them in our dust trail.

The latest information I have from last fall was that we have lost over 80 % of The Bill of Rights, The Constitution has been almost rendered useless and who knows about The Declaration of Independence? Don’t forget to add to that list of all the new laws and acts that Bushco had passed in the middle of the night with his underhanded administration, while Congress was out of office. They have taken even more of your rights away than you will ever know.

And all this so called privacy paperwork everyone had to fill out every time they go to a hospital or new doctor* is a total joke. Only family and friends are hindered by this when they have a valid need for this information, denied to them by the useless privacy laws. However, the government, insurance companies and any other agency that wants to seems to have no trouble gaining access to this.
* The last doctor’s office I had to fill out paperwork for asked on it if, I (person filling out the form) owned any guns. Now just what the hell was that about. I worked in law enforcement. If you answered yes, what would they do and why do they think it is any of their business. And the last time I ordered ink for my printer from Dell, because at that time only Dell carried the ink cartridge model needed for my printer, some person with a heavy Eastern Indian accent asked my what I was going to do with these ink cartridges. I was stunned and asked why HE wanted to know? I was told, well that he didn’t want to know, but it was a question that the US government required them to ask people who need ink for their printers. What do people usually do with them, drink the ink out of them for some kind of a buzz? Talk about no privacy left. Next they will monitor how many squares of TP you use in the bathroom each visit there.

It’s almost as bad as that old science fiction movie “The Monitors” about aliens who invaded earth and monitored every aspect of human activity and life, creating zombies out of the whole human race until a few started to rebel against them.

It is well past time to start spying on all those corrupt official agencies who spy on us and the people who come up with all these ideas.

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By cyrena, January 14 at 11:20 pm #
(4160 comments total)

Facsism - Totalitarianism now FULL BLOWN

• “…Yet McConnell declined to be more specific, because “if it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it….”

Well, that’s exactly the point you fascist pig. It IS torture, and it’s ALREADY been ‘determined’ to be torture, which is exactly why all of the torture loving gangsters in the current fascist regime should be subjected to the ultimate penalties. And THEY all know it as well, which is exactly why Mukasey wouldn’t admit that it was torture, and the moron Senate confirmed him anyway.

As for him reading all of our e-mail, they already do that as well. And, the moron Congress didn’t stop them on FISA, so why should we expect them not to ‘legalize’ this other violation, (retroactively) the same way they did with the other spying without warrants?

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By rowdy, January 14 at 8:35 pm #
(300 comments total)

this just shows how fucked

this just shows how fucked we really are. this piece of shit political hack has openly said the constitution is, as bush said, “just a goddamned piece of paper”. i don’t believe any one of the asshole democrats believes any differently. hillary will do everything possible to keep the authority of the president if she becomes the occupant of the white house. why would that cunt give up any of the powers she helped bush take?  space aliens help us if that jesus asshole sucker huckabee wins. why would any of them give up power? that’s the game they play, we’re just the fucking pawns. thermonuclear holocaust. wipe out all human life. it would be glorious.

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By RAE, January 14 at 8:02 pm #
(353 comments total)

The game is already lost.

“...the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse.”

We, the PEOPLE, who OWN THE GOVERNMENT, will decide IF and WHEN our mail, parcels, email or any other communications are intercepted or interfered with by the government. The government doesn’t tell US what we can or cannot do, WE tell it!

The foregoing, of course, is just a fantasy of mine… that I, as a citizen, actually have ANY say in how my country, my town, my life is governed by those who set themselves in authority over me.

The game is already lost. If any of these “authorities” decide they want or need to intercept ANY COMMUNICATION you or I have with anyone, they will do it, legally or illegally. If you object they will bury you in expensive legal stonewalls for the rest of your miserable life.

Anyone who thinks any of their rights to privacy still exist is living in a dreamland.

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By Defend Thyself, January 16 at 2:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Re: The game is already lost.

They have the bigger guns, so now we are S.O.L. They tell us what we will do and if you don’t like it they will kill you. We hope the military will lay their arms down when martial law is declared.

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By cyrena, January 14 at 11:30 pm #
(4160 comments total)

Re: The game is already lost.

I agree Rae, since they’re already intercepting ANY COMMUNICATIONS they want to intercept, and they’ve never concerned themselves about the ‘legality’ of it at all.

The only reason you hear this now, is the same reason they decided to cover their asses on FISA, by forcing Congress to legalize what they’d been illegally doing all along. And, ONLY because they know there could come a time, (like when they are no longer in power) when their asses might have to answer for it.

And, that’s the same reason for this, since we know that’s what they’ve been doing all along, including the torture.

MEANTIME though, please don’t give up your ‘fantasy’ since it’s not a ‘fantasy’ at all. It was the REALITY, (at least on paper, and in the contract) before The Great Heist of 2000, when the fascists told us that they could ‘create their own reality’.

So, all of this law breaking is THEIR fantasy; ours is legit. The crime is that they’ve been allowed to perpetrate THEIR fantasy, to the destruction of us all.

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