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NSA Cheerleaders Discover Value of Privacy Only When Their Own Is Violated (theintercept.com)
Advocatus Diaboli sends this report from Glen Greenwald:
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the NSA under President Obama targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides for surveillance. In the process, the agency ended up eavesdropping on "the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups" about how to sabotage the Iran Deal. All sorts of people who spent many years cheering for and defending the NSA and its programs of mass surveillance are suddenly indignant now that they know the eavesdropping included them and their American and Israeli friends rather than just ordinary people. The long-time GOP chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and unyielding NSA defender Pete Hoekstra last night was truly indignant to learn of this surveillance.
In January 2014, I [Greenwald] debated Rep. Hoekstra about NSA spying and he could not have been more mocking and dismissive of the privacy concerns I was invoking. "Spying is a matter of fact," he scoffed. As Andrew Krietz, the journalist who covered that debate, reported, Hoekstra "laughs at foreign governments who are shocked they've been spied on because they, too, gather information" — referring to anger from German and Brazilian leaders. As TechDirt noted, "Hoekstra attacked a bill called the RESTORE Act, that would have granted a tiny bit more oversight over situations where (you guessed it) the NSA was collecting information on Americans." But all that, of course, was before Hoekstra knew that he and his Israeli friends were swept up in the spying of which he was so fond.
In January 2014, I [Greenwald] debated Rep. Hoekstra about NSA spying and he could not have been more mocking and dismissive of the privacy concerns I was invoking. "Spying is a matter of fact," he scoffed. As Andrew Krietz, the journalist who covered that debate, reported, Hoekstra "laughs at foreign governments who are shocked they've been spied on because they, too, gather information" — referring to anger from German and Brazilian leaders. As TechDirt noted, "Hoekstra attacked a bill called the RESTORE Act, that would have granted a tiny bit more oversight over situations where (you guessed it) the NSA was collecting information on Americans." But all that, of course, was before Hoekstra knew that he and his Israeli friends were swept up in the spying of which he was so fond.
What, they thought they were special? they thought they were part of the untouchable elite? Fucking rubes, anyone championing the NSA's actions deserve what's coming to them. Retards, the whole lot of them.
Dear Rep. Hoekstra,
Here's your Word of the Day:
Hypocrisy (noun) - The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform.
Sincerely,
The rest of us.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For some reason, I read that as "NBA Cheerleaders Discover..."
How many times has Israel been caught spying on the US? All countries spy on each other. Senators conspiring with foreign heads of state though could be considered unamerican, however. It sounds like we were spying on Israel and some congress critters got caught up in it. In other words, the NSA was doing what it's supposed to be doing, monitoring and spying on foreign activity.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Spying on active members of Congress is outside of the authority of the executive branch. Unless they had a warrant when they did this, they are doing exactly what Nixon was going to be impeached for.
These congresscritters only have themselves to blame since they laid the very foundation for this to happen with things like the Patriot Act. I'll shed crocodile tears for the lot of them.
Except that, technically, those congresscritters may have been violating the law themselves by engaging in direct diplomacy with foreign powers, which is a felony (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ).
Of course, members of both parties have violated it in the past, and it largely goes unenforced as no one has actually been prosecuted for it since 1803.
NSA is tasked with gathering signals intelligence from foreign sources. Communications originating and staying within the US is off limits (or used to be). Overseas phone calls to a foreign head of state to collude on how to sabotage a significant US bill in Congress are fair game. In fact, the FBI should be brought in to investigate those Congressional members for possible treason.
If the target of the surveillance is a foreign head of state (Netanyahu), it's not the NSA's fault that US legislators happened to be calling that foreign head of state to get their marching orders.
In fact, members of congress dealing directly with foreign heads of state directly violates the Logan Act, and it would absolutely be appropriate for the NSA to be looking into this. Maybe Pete Hoekstra (R-Tel Aviv) should be answering some questions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Am I the only one concerned that Israel and the Jewish community have such high reaching influence on our country?
Maybe, just maybe, the influence they have and the power they weild is being used to convince us to fight wars that they benefit from but that cost us ruinously.