Slashdot Mirror
How Chris Christie Could Use the NSA Playbook
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Conor Friedersdorf has written a tongue-in-cheek article in The Atlantic advising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie how he can use the NSA playbook to successfully defend himself of the charges that a senior member of his staff was involved in shutting down George Washington Bridge traffic, a stunt meant to punish the mayor of an affected town for opposing his reelection. Christie's NSA-inspired explanation would include the following points: There are almost 9 million people in New Jersey, and only one was targeted for retribution, an impressively tiny error rate lower than .001 percent; The bridge closure was vital to national security because [redacted]; Since the George Washington Bridge is a potential terrorist target, everything that may or may not have happened near it is a state secret; Going after a political rival is wrong but it's important to put this event in context; Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the only target of non-compliant behavior. No other Fort Lee resident was ever targeted for retribution, and any delays that any Fort Lee resident experienced were totally inadvertent and incidental; Finally a panel will be formed to figure out how to restore the public's faith in Chris Christie. "To some readers, these talking points may seem absurd or deliberately misleading," concludes Friedersdorf, "but there isn't any denying that so far they're working okay for the NSA.""
it is really telling that the public official closed the bridge illegally and nobody is sitting in jail for this.
I'm struggling to understand how this qualifies as "News For Nerds" or "Stuff That Matters".
Too late for all that. Christie allready apologized at length and fired the staffer involved. I don't get it anyway. How was closing lanes to a bridge going to hurt the mayor of Fort Lee? It inconvenienced a lot of the people in the area but they overwhelmingly voted for Christie anyway. The whole thing sounds idiotic. Is he hiring 7th graders for his staff or something? I would have broken his legs or something if I was angry with him. A traffic jam? Really?
Often they arrive after being picked apart by the news media, but there are still moments of insight in this forum that I can't find anywhere else.
All that,AND they talk about computers here.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
how did those emails and texts get to the media?
i'm not saying the NSA did it. but how easy would it have been for it to do so?
i'm not even saying the NSA would be pursing this as policy. the NSA is not an iron machine, it's composed of people. there's greed and corruption everywhere. for every virtuous edward snowden, there's another guy like edward snowden who knows a political operative and would do what snowden did, but for the motivation of cash instead. sell this kind of info for six or seven figures
that's how dangerous the NSA is to democracy. infiltrate the NSA, abuse its powers as an employee, destroy the legitimacy of our government with the leaks and manipulations you are now capable of
we live in a world where the NSA can decide presidential elections, or any elections. right now. everyone has dirt on them. focus on the candidates you want to weed out, get dirt like this bridge fiasco on them, leak it to the media, and voila: you decide elections
this is why the NSA has to be curtailed. it is incompatible with democracy. the NSA will destroy this country, make everyone believe their government is fake
the NSA must be made transparent, congressional oversight bolted on, its scope of powers severely reduced, etc. secret courts? what the fuck? no! not acceptable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is he hiring 7th graders for his staff or something?
Take that back! I have a son in the 7th grade, and I assure you that most 7th graders are more mature than politicians.
I would have broken his legs or something
So you do understand NJ.
So by looking a Chris Christie's friends what can we determine from him? All of his friends seem to be petty, vindictive, bullies. Then when things go bad, it is every man for themselves which shows a lack of loyalty since everyone except Christie has had to resign. It won't be long until one of his friends turns on him, but then it will be an all out character assassination against that old friend.
This little stunt happened on the first day of school, messing with kids and communities on a stressful first day, the people of NY & NJ, interstate commerce, and possible security and emergency services.
Some of the friends are going to need a timeout, where big people go for timeout. A little jail time.
This should be posted on a political forum. Maybe slashdot could create a second site for stories like this.
I think you have misunderstood the target of the referenced article. It is not actually about New Jersey politics, it is about the weakness of the NSA's justifications for its recently-revealed actions. Those actions seem to have attracted a lot of interest on slashdot.
When Rupert Murdoch and couple of other billionaires started their own network in the 1980s and Fox News in the 1990s, they intentionally wanted the network to be on the right side of the political spectrum because they felt that part of the US market was being under served by other news outlets. After all, Regan was big then, the DEmocrats still had a strangle hold on Congress and the Conservatives had non outlet that catered to them.
Flash forward 25 years and the country as a whole has moved more to the right. So, hows does Fox News differentiate itself now?
By being so wacky right wing that they have become a parody of themselves. Colbert is making a real nice living by just accentuating some of the rhetoric - not adding too much to it, BTW.
That's how ridiculous they have become.
When I see commentators and anchors talk out of their ass; like blaming the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 on the financial meltdown; which it turns out it had nothing - zero - contribution to the financial meltdown.
Fox News narrative is now scaring old white people. My doctors office has it on (all those old white people live it) and the BS that comes out of those people's mouths makes me wonder how these people can keep a straight face - actually I can - they millions of dollars a year to read the BS the Fox writers come up with.
Also, notice how all the "anchors" are pretty MILFs with short skirts and hooker/stripper heels?
All of the women on Fox News look like strippers.
Infotainment, baby! with shitty half truths and lies.
And parroting what they see on that shitty lying network. I've actually talked to people who were convinced that we the US will become just like Greece and they put their life savings into Gold - when it was pushing $2,000 an ounce (it since has fallen 40%). Guess where they got that idea from?
The NSA's "defense" is not "working well." Except maybe with Democrats and Republicans who wish Snowden never existed. For a lot of the rest of the population NSA excuses are making things worse for them, not better.