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Zonie63 -> RE: Oh nice... NSA employees stalking "love" interests... (8/29/2013 5:51:06 AM)
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ORIGINAL: JeffBC
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
I don't see any problem with calling for congressional hearings in this case, since that's what our system of checks and balances are supposed to do.
I see no purpose in congressional hearings on this particular item is what I'm saying. This (and a whole wad more of it that we don't know about yet) was inevitable from the very beginning.
I have no illusions that congressional hearings would be of any use, but any amount of light on this subject could be a good thing. Since Congress is a large enough body, there might be a few who will go against the grain and perhaps do some good in the process.
What I find truly ironic here is that Congress and the national media have been mostly silent and not really doing their jobs to watch the Executive Branch of government. We had to find out about this from a whistleblower, not a congressional investigation or any hard-ball investigative reporting (which is virtually non-existent these days). Our Congress and media have been sleeping on the job.
Even politicians, who seemingly find reason to argue and sling mud over every little thing, somehow lose their nerve and clam up when it comes to addressing anything truly meaningful.
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I'd be VASTLY in favor of an actual, open, and honest review of domestic surveillance vs. privacy. I'm afraid I just can't quite manage enough naivete to see that happening.
It'll have to happen at the grass roots level, since the system of checks and balances is broken and the media are unable to turn their attention away from Miley Cyrus' crotch.
But we don't really have to wait for Congress or the media to start addressing this question.
I'd like to see the question addressed fairly and objectively. I may be naive, but I'm not so naive that I would completely dismiss the idea that we need some form of military and intelligence apparatus to survive in this world. I'm not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but I think that we need to examine this issue honestly and realistically, setting down clearly-defined parameters as to what is acceptable and what is not. We can't just give the government a blank check or put complete trust in them that they have our interests at heart. They have to prove to the public that whatever action they take is necessary and proper for America's security interests. We can't just take their word for it.
This might also involve calling out those among the hoi polloi who seem to come across as cheerleaders and zealous supporters of the government and political establishment. That's another part of the problem. There's a large part of the citizenry who demand that we give the government a blank check and put our complete trust in them, and they question others' patriotism and try to intimidate/ridicule anyone who doesn't go along with that. We're supposed to just blindly accept that "they fight for our freedom" and leave it at that. This would also have to be addressed in any discussion about government surveillance and other such tactics and tools used by our government.
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in this case the cover-up and the act are one and the same. You can't do secret domestic surveillance and spill the beans at the same time. As you indicate though, why must it be secret? That, in and of itself, is enough for me to damn the whole lot of them. HOnestly, you and I both know that the american public would never have tolerated, "we intend to tap the entire internet and use drone surveillance for physical coverage".
I'm not sure whether all of the American public would be of a like mind on this issue. I think that a large segment of the populace would tolerate it as a "necessary evil." I don't think they would constitute a majority of the voting public, but I don't think they're all that few in number either. It's hard to say.
I'll admit that excessive government secrecy does bother me, although whenever I've tried to broach this issue, I invariably get met with those who argue for the necessity of government secrecy and how it's naive to speak out against it. This is where the sore point of contention lies. We live in a democracy, and in order for the voters to make informed choices, they need information, so the common practice of withholding and/or selectively releasing information is counterproductive and could be considered a product of intrigue and corruption at the highest levels of government.
There are many who are inclined to assume the worst about our government precisely because of this, since we don't really know what they're doing, and the government isn't all that forthcoming with the truth. And other parts of society don't seem to care all that much either.
That's the problem down at the grass roots level, since everyone seems to fall into a particular pet cause or faction which doesn't always see eye to eye with other factions. Even if people might agree on this issue and oppose domestic surveillance and spying, there might be other issues of disagreement which might prevent them from forming any real coalition to be able to stop it. There's so much that divides people that even if there is an issue that they might agree upon, it still turns into a political jumble by the time it gets to the congressional level.
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