Recurring haunting thought

Recurring haunting thought: A formal democracy is not at all inconsistent with a country trending toward dictatorship. Given our bizarre national priorities (I'm referring to the various planet-destroying and hyper-xenophobic policies where the aims of the two major parties INTERSECT), one could meaningfully advocate today for a revolution by which the control of the United States government should be handed to the People. I can imagine people scoffing at this idea: "Isn't that what we already HAVE?" Sure. On the books, that's what we have. How much things have changed in the U.S. that so many high-placed prominent government officials publicly construe common folks who want to be well-informed about government misconduct to be dangerous enemies. How far we've come, that a former President declares that "America has no functioning democracy at this moment." How far we've come that it's so difficult to get so many people to wrest themselves from their TV and sports obsessions in order that they can regain focus enough to see the danger of our policies divesting regular folks of any meaningful political power. If this seems like hyperbole, check out "Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America" by John Nichols and Robert McChesney.

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The continuing shame of Guantanamo

This is not my country. What we are doing to most of the prisoners at Guantanamo is disgusting and shameful. This article by John Grisham makes U.S. misconduct vivid:

[T]he US was throwing money at anyone who could deliver an out-of-town Arab found in the region. Nabil was sold to the US for a bounty of $5,000 and taken to an underground prison in Kabul. There he experienced torture for the first time. To house the prisoners of its war on terror, the US military put up a makeshift prison at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Bagram would quickly become notorious, and make Guantánamo look like a church camp. When Nabil arrived there in January 2002, as one of the first prisoners, there were no walls, only razor-wire cages. In the bitter cold, Nabil was forced to sleep on concrete floors without cover. Food and water were scarce. To and from his frequent interrogations, Nabil was beaten by US soldiers and dragged up and down concrete stairs. Other prisoners died. After a month in Bagram, Nabil was transferred to a prison at Kandahar, where the abuse continued.

Throughout his incarceration in Afghanistan, Nabil strenuously denied any connection to al-Qaida, the Taliban or anyone or any organisation remotely linked to the 9/11 attacks. And the Americans had no proof of his involvement, save for bogus claims implicating him from other prisoners extracted in a Kabul torture chamber. Several US interrogators told him his was a case of mistaken identity. Nonetheless, the US had adopted strict rules for Arabs in custody – all were to be sent to Guantánamo. On 15 February 2002, Nabil was flown to Cuba; shackled, bound and hooded.

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Foxes guarding the NSA henhouse

Stunning news by The Atlantic:

Last Friday, President Obama promised a review of current government surveillance practice by an independent group of outside experts. Turns out that the review group will be established by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who's come under fire from Congress for erroneously telling legislators that the U.S. doesn't "collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of million of Americans."

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I have nothing to hide . . .

You hear this so often: I have nothing to hide (so it's OK for the NSA to read my email). Really? What if they spy on you without any probable cause, find out that you possess drugs, then they turn this information over to the DEA, which pretends it didn't get this information from the NSA, then recreates the path necessary to put you in prison? Far fetched?

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
What else could happen to those of you who have never committed a crime? How about identity theft? How about some NSA contractor stealing your passwords to your financial institutions? This is an agency with no accountability, with hundreds of thousands of employees with the technical ability to read all of your most private information. How about screwing up your computer as they search through it with the viruses they manufacture? Far Fetched? Why should we be concerned? Check out this video. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/dea-surveillance-cover-up_n_3706207.html

Continue ReadingI have nothing to hide . . .