Comments on: “We the People”? How quaint. http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/10/03/we-the-people-how-quaint/ Human Animals at the Crossroads of Culture, Science, Religion and Media Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:05:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Erich Vieth http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/10/03/we-the-people-how-quaint/#comment-15878 Erich Vieth Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:22:13 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1643#comment-15878 The lead Editorial in The New York Times this morning is devoted to lambasting Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller for their active efforts to ensure passage of the Cheney/Rockefeller FISA bill. After failing to do so the first time around, the House in November passed a decent bill that contains no immunity and has numerous safeguards on eavesdropping powers, and — at least as of now — appears unlikely to capitulate. The only reason any of that happened is because enough citizens were sufficiently intense and active to catapult this issue to the fore and prevent the quiet and easy enactment of telecom immunity and new warrantless eavesdropping powers. In the absence of that, this would have all been over with, easily and without trouble, back in December. Glenn Greenwald, at Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/25/6635/ The lead Editorial in The New York Times this morning is devoted to lambasting Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller for their active efforts to ensure passage of the Cheney/Rockefeller FISA bill. After failing to do so the first time around, the House in November passed a decent bill that contains no immunity and has numerous safeguards on eavesdropping powers, and — at least as of now — appears unlikely to capitulate. The only reason any of that happened is because enough citizens were sufficiently intense and active to catapult this issue to the fore and prevent the quiet and easy enactment of telecom immunity and new warrantless eavesdropping powers. In the absence of that, this would have all been over with, easily and without trouble, back in December.

Glenn Greenwald, at Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/25/6635/

]]> By: Erich Vieth http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/10/03/we-the-people-how-quaint/#comment-14706 Erich Vieth Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:07:35 +0000 http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=1643#comment-14706 More from Glenn Greenwald on the incestuous relationship between the federal government and the telecoms: documents were released last week, and there are two critical points that become crystal clear from reviewing them: (1) The cooperation between the various military/intelligence branches of the Federal Government -- particularly the Pentagon and the NSA -- and the private telecommunications corporations is extraordinary and endless. They really are, in every respect, virtually indistinguishable. The Federal Government has its hands dug deeply into the entire ostensibly "private" telecommunications infrastructure and, in return, the nation's telecoms are recipients of enormous amounts of revenues by virtue of turning themselves into branches of the Federal Government. There simply is no separation between these corporations and the military and intelligence agencies of the Federal Government. They meet and plan and agree so frequently, and at such high levels, that they practically form a consortium. Just in Nacchio's limited and redacted disclosures, there are descriptions of numerous pre-9/11 meetings between the largest telecoms and multiple Bush national security officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/15/amnesty/ More from Glenn Greenwald on the incestuous relationship between the federal government and the telecoms:

documents were released last week, and there are two critical points that become crystal clear from reviewing them:

(1) The cooperation between the various military/intelligence branches of the Federal Government — particularly the Pentagon and the NSA — and the private telecommunications corporations is extraordinary and endless. They really are, in every respect, virtually indistinguishable. The Federal Government has its hands dug deeply into the entire ostensibly “private” telecommunications infrastructure and, in return, the nation’s telecoms are recipients of enormous amounts of revenues by virtue of turning themselves into branches of the Federal Government.

There simply is no separation between these corporations and the military and intelligence agencies of the Federal Government. They meet and plan and agree so frequently, and at such high levels, that they practically form a consortium. Just in Nacchio’s limited and redacted disclosures, there are descriptions of numerous pre-9/11 meetings between the largest telecoms and multiple Bush national security officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/15/amnesty/

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