60 Minutes NSA Puff Piece is Another Black Eye for CBS

While it would be rational to believe that CBS and especially the vaunted 60 Minutes franchise would use a bit of discretion after the now infamous fraudulent Benghazi story affixed an indeliable blight upon the network less than two months ago the network is now having to do damage control on another self-inflicted wound. On Sunday night in a two-segment puff piece that basically amounted to an infomercial for the rogue NSA, an agency that only yesterday was found by a federal judge to be conducting programs that are likely unconstitutional CBS set a new standard for state propaganda. The segment provided General Keith Alexander with a national forum to dissemble, obfuscate and engage in fear-mongering without having any sort of adversarial stance or input allowed from civil liberties or privacy groups. Worse yet the 60 Minutes story conducted by interviewer John Miller who is a man who formerly worked in the office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) which is the same agency that pathological liar James Clapper heads up. CBS boasted that Miller was the "ultimate insider" which is ironically true but the network that is now hemorrhaging credibility didn't bother to consider that Miller has a serious conflict of interest problem and that his "ultimate insider" status actually calls into question his sympathies for the unconstitutional programs as well as his objectivity.

For all intents and purposes John Miller might as well have been Dylan Davies/Sergeant Morgan Jones because when it all comes down to a so-called journalist providing a national forum for yet another liar with an agenda. Granted that Lara Logan's self-immolation over a mercenary who just happened to have a (likely ghost written) book being peddled by a CBS publishing subsidiary never should have aired given the poor vetting and lack of accountability but didn't the network learn anything? After all, there was outside of the notorious crank Senator Lindsey Graham was widely derided and the network had to not only issue a public apology but recall the book in question. 60 Minutes, really the skeletal remains of what used to be one hell of a good news show before the corporate arm of the company began meddling in the news division should have been far more careful after the Embassy House fiasco. The NSA infomercial now threatens to become an even bigger blot on 60 Minutes and while the competition is pretty close Miller's "ultimate insider" piece may turn out to be a corrupt state-corporate media outlet's magnum opus of bullshit.

The criticism was practically pouring in before the final credits rolled and this morning the piling on has begun. Today there are stories from diverse websites/media outlets such as The Guardian: "NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report", liberal weekly The Nation: "The Sad Decline of ‘60 Minutes’ Continues With This Week’s NSA Whitewash", tech journal PC Magazine: "NSA's Snowden Snow Job on 60 Minutes Reveals Nothing New", website Mediate: "Journalists Rip Apart 60 Minutes for ‘Embarrassing’ and Uncritical NSA Report",  at the liberal blog Firedog Lake "NSA-Approved Propaganda: ’60 Minutes’ & the Revolving Door Journalism of John Miller", firebrand Alex Jones' Infowars "NSA Director Alexander Has to Ask Permission to Answer a Question" and the ultra-conservative website Newsmax: "Greenwald, Others Denounce CBS "60 Minutes' Story on NSA". I have yet to see much if any such sentiment in the 'mainstream' media but it is still early.

Monday's court ruling by Judge Richard Leon on the unconstitutionality of the NSA telephone surveillance program -which will be fought hammer and tong by the Eric Holder Justice Department and the rest of the criminal government and it's tentacles - brings up a very serious question. With the massive violations of the constitution that have been piling up on NSA activities and the yet undisclosed stuff that is going to make what we already know look like petty crime is it not proper to begin to bestow upon General Alexander, James Clapper, Senator Feinstein, Congressman Mike Rogers and the rest of the defenders of unconstitutional, unlawful activities by the moniker that they really deserve which would be criminals? It should also be pointed out that the media which has fully enabled the criminality would also be guilty just as it should be for the war crimes associated with the unprovoked and illegal attack on Iraq and the subsequent torture and murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher stood alongside the rest of the war criminals at Nuremberg where he was found guilty of crimes against humanity for it was his contribution to the national mindset that led to carnage and destruction, should there not be similar standards applied to those in the corporate-state media if the day ever comes where there is a restoration of the law in The Homeland?

Federal Judge: NSA Spying is Orwellian and Unconstitutional

In a stunning smackdown of the NSA surveillance machine a federal judge ruled today that the mass collecting of the phone records of millions of Americans was likely unconstitutional. Judge Richard Leon of the D.C. District Court and an appointee of George W. Bush not only denounced the activities of the American Stasi as “almost Orwellian in scope” and opined that founding father James Madison would be “aghast” at the magnitude of the government surveillance program but also skepticism of NSA claims that such spying has prevented terrorist attacks.  In a 68 page opinion Judge Leon challenged the bread and butter argument that massive data mining programs keep Americans safe daring to challenge the claims of NSA Commandant Keith Alexander at a time when the public relations campaign to get citizens to accept funding their own enslavement is kicking into high gear. “The government does not cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack” wrote Leon and taken to the next step would such collections of metadata if truly used as advertised why did they not prevent the Boston Marathon bombing last April?

This is somewhat uncharted territory and legions of government lawyers ensconced in the rotten to the core Justice Department will be working around the clock to find some arcane legal argument that will allow the NSA to continue to ignore what remains of the Constitution.  It is a nice bit of hope today but don’t forget that the same ‘legal’ apparatus found a way to justify former Bush-Cheney figure John Yoo’s statement that the chief executive could order the crushing of a child’s testicles on a whim and also failed to effectively halt the torture state that rose out of the smoking ashes of the World Trade Center. While the ruling came out in favor of conservative activist Larry Klayman, the founder of watchdog group Judicial Watch there should be no victory laps taken just yet. While the DOJ will be working overtime for the holidays (unlike the traitors and leeches in congress) so will the spooks at the NSA as they pore through their data center collection on Judge Leon trying to find some sort of past statement or affiliation which they will then feed into their state media smear machine to discredit him.

The ruling was a bit of a stunning blow to the new surge of positive media puff pieces fed into the propaganda mills seeking to burnish the image of the NSA.  CBS 60 Minutes aired a segment on Sunday night to a national television audience that was so inherently dishonest and rife with conflicts of interest that it is now obvious that the network along with it’s flagship ‘news’ show have now been completely captured by the corrupt government. Not that this should come as a surprise considering the recent revelations that the now infamous Benghazi “Embassy House” segment aired in October and featuring ace bimbo Lara Logan was total bullshit and that her husband was a professional operative who worked on psy ops in Iraq. The reverberations against the NSA piece are already starting to percolate and I will be writing on this in detail tomorrow.  Now that a federal court has actually come out and challenged the constitutionality of Commandant Keith Alexander’s Stasi activities it is the proverbial turd in the holiday party punchbowl.

The online version of Judge Leon’s ruling can be found here.