Though perhaps President Obama will have a chance to implement some long term strategy when he cleans up all the other messes the Ruling Class and Bushco have made over the last years, the answer, for now, has to be….yes.
The CIA have taken Panneta’s initial statement of no prosecutions and run with it. They now feel free to pursue their agenda of controlling foreign policy. Just as when Nancy took Impeachment off of the table, all leverage that could have been used to rein them in has been lost.
The NSA have apparently convinced Obama that the TIA model of information gathering is not only too valuable to shut down over such minor counter arguments as the Constitution. He has been ….apparently…been convinced not just to continue it, but to defend it in court as well.
I cannot blame Obama for this.
The network of 16 acknowledged Intelligence Agencies, which Bush combined (to some extent) after 9/11 into one vast Intelligence Entity, with the power to spy on everyone in the world now, and massive amounts of information at their disposal, and 50 years of studying and practicing information and disinformation manipulation, has…..considering all that….unsurprisingly convinced the President of the United States that they are too valuable to fuck with.
Or too powerful to fuck with.
Iow, more powerful, in at least some ways, than the President.
After all, what CAN Obama do to fight against them? Especially since they obviously suckered him into making promises during the chaos of the transition. promises which have now muddied and lessened his ability to control them.
So let me stray far into what would have been tin foil territory before all of these new developments that have taken place in semi-plain view are assembled in to some kind of tapestry of what is happening to all of Obama’s campaign promises and principles in this area.
The CIA and NSA are now running America. Or have a VERY unhealthy level of power in influencing how….and for who…it is run.
At least the foreign policy. But given the new reach and powers of law enforcement and intel agencies under the Patriot act, Telcomm immunity, and the indemnification of the CIA and NSA, they also have vast powers domestically.
A new institution is emerging in American life: Fusion Centers. These state, local and regional institutions were originally created to improve the sharing of anti-terrorism intelligence among different state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. Though they developed independently and remain quite different from one another, for many the scope of their mission has quickly expanded – with the support and encouragement of the federal government – to cover “all crimes and all hazards.” The types of information they seek for analysis has also broadened over time to include not just criminal intelligence, but public and private sector data, and participation in these centers has grown to include not just law enforcement, but other government entities, the military and even select members of the private sector.These new fusion centers, over 40 of which have been established around the country, raise very serious privacy issues at a time when new technology, government powers and zeal in the “war on terrorism” are combining to threaten Americans’ privacy at an unprecedented level.
Due to the increase of power and reach of these agencies and their melding with domestic ‘Law Enforcement’ agencies, and the steady stripping of our Rights…We are now at the mercy of a giant entity that apparently even the President of the United States has no, or very little at best, control over.
The decisions of what, where and how to use the vast power of information and enforcement they now possess are now made by faceless bureaucrats with no real accountability (since indemnification) to the Constitution or the American People. And you can no longer sue for redress for being spied on. How long before THAT indemnification spreads to other areas as well?
Who will, as has become obvious, do anything to protect their power.
Game over?
Or is their some way to curtail this power?
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Because obviously, conspiracy theories are nuts! Even while we are living in the midst of the reality they have created, lol. And are seeing their machinations and influence with our own eyes.
If you’re a young black man who gets pulled over, busted for a joint or a little blow, assembly-lined to prison and finally released to less than no prospects — anytime in the last 30 years — then I’d guess this might be a pretty silly conundrum, because things like privacy and the rule of law shone through as what they are in practice some time ago. Fusion centers and associated forms of ever more efficient policing are just tuning the filter, making sure that those who don’t work out in society can be more quickly separated from it and monetized.
I was really struck by how a lot of Eastern European dissidents — I’m thinking Charter 77 in particular — emphasized the rule of law as a central principle, knowing full well that the law as constituted was entirely in the service of the state apparatus. The argument — and I’d guess that’s what you’re following out here, in a sense — is essentially that by focusing on law, you’re aiming for the formal moral backbone of the society. And even if you lose all the people whom the law has marginalized or destroyed, your potential audience remains those with some investment in the social structure.
I’m sure it works and makes sense, just not so much for this reader.
As to what we can do about it — heh — well, obviously, not much. But perhaps, just perhaps, the loss of all privacy means that we will eventually have laws protecting privacy and difference as convention, instead of assuming the inefficiency of our government will protect us from its excesses…
Anybody hanging from the phone pole across the street from you with binoculars, and wires in their ears?
Dressed all in black? Wearing balaclavas? 😉
gods great gift to humanity…….
I mean isn’t it……?!?
You should see what they`ve grown at redstate for a teabag T-shirt.
Scroll down to the hairy balls pic. It is Green though.
http://www.redstate.com/absent…
The people who are content to trade the Constitution for health care must be (sick).
I think I remember how they were giving selected people, including business people, special incentives to be part of these “fusion” groups.
IIRC, one of the perks was a shiny badge & first ones in the bus to the bio-sealed shelters, after any uprising or chemical attack.
Everybody else goes to the FEMA “camps”.
I wonder if you`d heard of that. Maybe five years ago.
But who runs the CIA and the NSA?
Seems to me it’s been wall street running America lately…
On redstate for a possible TEABAG T-shirt.
It`s ironic that it might be “soundly mocked”.