Would You Buy a Car From This Man?

As an American would you put your full faith and trust in not only an agent of the US Government but one of President Barack Obama's hand-picked best and brightest, a man who will never simply be thrown under the bus in an election year like the freshly jettisoned Eric Shinseki? This is no ordinary man but one of mighty power who presides over the national intelligence apparatus, the Big Kahuna who is able to lie to Congress with impunity and as Director of National Intelligence presides over the red, white and blue Orwellian security state that is beyond reproach and despite the damage done by the leaks of patriotic whistleblower Edward Snowden the hyrda is already re-configuring with the sneering, bald head of James Clapper erupting from it's scaled, winged body in all of his hissing, forked-tongue resplendence.

The Obama administration and the United States Government itself is asking all Americans to place their blind faith in the behemoth of the surveillance state as though it were almighty God himself and swallow the tale hook, line and sinker that Snowden lied about ever escalating his concerns through the appropriate channels before performing his act of great service and exposing that the bastards are engaged in mass surveillance, data-mining and Christ only knows what else. Put your faith in James Clapper and others just like him because that is exactly what is being requested by Leviathan.

The inevitable counter-attack against Snowden after his Wednesday night blockbuster interview with the big state ass-kisser and establishment media mouthpiece Brian Williams is on and the NSA is wailing "LIAR" as it has released a lone email from Snowden that it claims is the only one that it can find that provides proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the erstwhile contractor did not adhere to the proper protocol in following the chain of command. While making hay out of Snowden's "I was trained as a spy" statement - which by any reasonable definition of what exactly a "spy" does is true the tactics have shifted. I excerpt the following from ABC News but similar cookie-cutter attacks can be found pretty much everywhere today.

Edward Snowden said in a recent interview he tried to go through internal channels to raise his concerns about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs before he slipped out of the country with a trove of secret documents. The NSA disagrees and says it has the email exchange to prove it.

“I actually did go through channels, and that is documented. The NSA has records, they have copies of emails right now to their Office of General Counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks from me raising concerns about the NSA’s interpretations of it – legal authorities,” Snowden told NBC News in a wide-ranging interview. “I reported that there were real problems with the way the NSA was interpreting its legal authorities. And I went even further in this, to say that they could be unconstitutional, that they were sort of abrogating our model of government in a way that empowered presidents to override our statutory laws. And this was made very clear. And the response was, more or less, in bureaucratic language, was, ‘You should stop asking questions.’”

In the interview, Snowden called on Congress to verify that the communications exist.

Today the NSA posted online the email exchange to which the government agency says it believes Snowden is referring. The exchange released by the NSA took place in early April, months after Snowden reportedly contacted journalists in preparation to expose the secret programs.

According to the documents posted online, Snowden wrote to the NSA’s Office of General Counsel on Friday, April 5, 2013 asking for legal clarification about whether Presidential executive orders can supersede federal statute, and whether Department of Defense (DOD) or Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) regulations get “greater precedence.”

The response from the General Counsel’s office, dated Monday, April 8, says that while executive orders have the “force and effect of law,” they cannot override a statute. The response also said that DOD and ODNI regulations are afforded “similar precedence” and one may have more depending on subject matter or date. The respondent invites Snowden to “give [him or her] a call if [he] would like to discuss further.”

The NSA said in statement that Snowden’s email “did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed.”

“There was no additional follow-up noted,” the NSA said. “There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations. We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.”

For what it's worth which isn't much in the treacherous US state media Snowden offered a rebuttal to the NSA's Sgt. Schultz "I know nothing" treatment of his attempt to bring the actions of the run amok American Stasi to light but really, the man has already been judged in NBC's kangaroo court by the set for life power suckler Brian Williams. I just did a quick Google search and every fake media and opinion outlet from "conservative" to "liberal" is running with the Snowden lied narrative. 

Who are you going to believe?

First off anyone who has ever worked for a large corporation knows that reporting any type of malfeasance through the "appropriate channels" is bullshit and that human resources departments exist solely to protect the interests of upper management, functioning as a de facto sort of Gestapo in ensuring that valid complaints are quashed and that those making them are punished and usually escorted out of the building. To believe that this would NOT be the practice in the climes of big government and especially American taxpayer dollar devouring leeches like national security contractors is asinine. One wonders just how fucking dumb that the American sheeple are to constantly gobble down the bullshit biscuits fed to them by their corrupt government and it's media propaganda machine - I mean do any of them actually bother to use logic by applying the same rules that their employers use writ large? Not that I would expect any sort of an  answer to that one after the last thirteen and a half years of living as a peasant in  The Homeland under constant surveillance. Americans just line up to salute whatever horseshit that is run up the flagpole by their benevolent leaders. 

The late, great Hunter S. Thompson had it right in his short diatribe "Hey Rube":

“Hey, Rube” is an old-timey phrase, coined in the merciless culture of the traveling carnival gangs that roamed from town to town in the early 20^th century.

Every stop on the circuit was just another chance to fleece another crowd of free-spending Rubes – Suckers, Hicks, Yokels, Johns, Fish, Marks, Bums, Losers, Day Traders in Portland, fools who buy diamonds from gypsies, and anyone over the age of nine in this country who still believes in his heart that all cops are honest and would never lie in a courtroom.

These people are everywhere. They are Legion, soon to be a majority, and 10,000 more are being born every day. It was P.T. Barnum, the Circus man, who explained the real secret of his vast commercial success by repeating his now-famous motto, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” in this country, ahd his job was to keep them amused, with a zeal that has never been equaled in the history of American show business.

Barnum knew what people wanted: Freaks, Clowns, and Wild Animals. The Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town only once a year, and those days were marked as sacred holidays on the John Deere calendars of every Rube in America…. Those dates were special; many schools closed when the Circus came to town, and not every student returned when the public frenzy was over. “Running away with the Circus” was the dream of every schoolboy and the nightmare of every mother with a bored and beautiful daughter. 

Whoever believes the official government fairy tales on Snowden, whether it be that he is a liar, a low level hacker, a narcissist (like Obama), a man living in a James Bond-Jason Bourne style fantasy world or a Chinese-Russian agent is a sucker and a chump and one who should wise up before it is too late. Unfortunately such types breed like rabbits here in the land of the sheep and the home of the slaves.

Clapper is only the figurehead, the barker outside of the geek tent at the local fair selling tickets to the feces eating context but he represents the US establishment itself - just go to Photoshop and cut and paste any of their heads onto his body, they are all the same beneath the surface. 

Hey Rube, wanna hear something......

Rand Paul Sues the Bastards

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul just manned up big time and stepped to the plate, filing a class action lawsuit against President Barack Obama for his lack of control over an NSA gone rogue. It is about damned time that a national political figure showed a set of stones and demanded accountability from a flagrantly out of control administration and the ongoing assault against the Constitution that it is conducting.  The rank cowardice from the political class has been evident since the revelations of former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and has been not only an embarrassment to this country but also a violation of their oaths to uphold the Constitution that borders on treason. If we still lived in a land where the rule of law was upheld the entire Congressional leadership and their little gangs of eight and sixteen that operate outside the legal parameters would be removed from office and placed on public trial after which they would be thrown into the prisons in which they belong for the remainder of their miserable lives. They are all jackals and thieves and their war on the American people must be stopped. Thanks to Senator Paul the proverbial shot across the bow has been delivered.

The Washington based establishment went into their usual mode when the sanctity of their incestuous little bubble gets pricked, they unleashed the smear brigade. From the tip of the spear that is the neocon dominated Washington Post the scorn for Paul (but really for the country itself) erupted shortly after the suit was filed in the D.C. federal district court. The veteran house lackey Dana Milbank immediately accused Paul of plagiarism and hijacking the lawsuit from the seasoned conservative activist Bruce Fein. Charles Kraüthammer and Jennifer Rubin are likely well into their standard poison pen propaganda and will inveigh against Paul, the demon of the month libertarians, privacy rights and the Constitution itself come Friday. The winter storm that has hit the pox along the Potomac and resultant bad weather event closures will have many a blood-sucking leach that is dependent on the bloated fascist surveillance industry flying into action to denounce the lawsuit in print and on message boards.

Pity that the good Senator from the Bluegrass State had the audacity to float a turd in the punchbowl of the WAPO Snowden bashing party. The paper launched an asinine story today that will spread throughout the state media like ticks jumping from rabid dog to rabid dog that Snowden gained his access to the purloined data by stealing the password of a co-worker.  That this sordid little character attack has nothing to do with the proverbial price of rice in China that the NSA was the violator of the law is as pearls before swine to the masses of asses. It plays directly into the Mike Rogers-James Clapper war on the First Amendment argument that journalist Glenn Greenwald is a "thief" and so is Snowden so they cannot be held as any thing other than enemies of the state. In the corrupt den of star-spangled iniquity that is the post 9/11 Homeland the best way to defend oneself from their own criminal acts is to play the victim and go on the attack against the very people who exposed their illegality. It is so effective that even that the operatives of that corrupt fat bastard Governor of New Jersey Krispy Kreme  Christie are doing it.

Paul will be smeared six ways from Sunday and then some from the big five TV networks operating in unison during the regular state propaganda Sabbath vomit fests by the usual array of scum trotted out on NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CNN's State of the Union, FOX News Sunday and CBS's Face the Nation and they will be looking to destroy him. That is the way that it works in this country anymore, it is far more sophisticated than just unleashing hordes of brownshirt thugs on those who question and even worse fight the criminal acts of the government that have so effectively served the interests of history's despots.

In an opinion piece written by Paul (along Matt Kibbe and Ken Cuccinelli) that is a CNN Exclusive the challenger to Leviathan states his case and I excerpt the following:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

This is the beginning of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and defines one of the most important rights we have against a potentially tyrannical government.

Throughout history, governments have used the confiscation of private property, as well as bullying and surveillance techniques, to keep populations under control and maintain a continuous threat against those who would dare criticize them.

AND

In recent years, however, this right, like so many others, has come under attack by the overzealous powers that be in Washington, eager to sacrifice liberty in the name of security, and using fear as a weapon to make us forget the importance of being free.

In 2013, the revelation that the National Security Agency was collecting and storing the metadata from the phone calls and e-mails of millions of American citizens -- without any suspicion of criminal activity -- served as a striking wake-up call for the country.

Americans do not like to think of their government as some Orwellian leviathan, engaging in surveillance tactics that we only expect to see in oppressive autocracies. That such surveillance could be going on in what is ostensibly the freest nation in the world is a chilling thought indeed.

Since 2006, the NSA has been spying on us, treating American citizens as no more than common criminals, casting suspicion on honest people with not even a whisper of criminal activity about them. These are not the actions befitting a country that was once held up as a paragon of freedom and a model for the rest of the world.

AND

It's time to hold government officials accountable for their habitual trampling on the Constitution and on our rights as individuals. Our case will be an important step down the road of restoring our Constitution and reining in our own overreaching federal government.

Bravo to Senator Paul. I must admit that I have never been much of a supporter although I greatly admired his father Ron Paul for his courageous stand against the criminal Bush administration during the darkest years of the civil liberties destroying "War on Terror" when it wasn't easy to denounce the establishment and get away unscathed. Today in 2014 however, the same advances in communications and social networking technology that allow the NSA to conduct their unconstitutional mass surveillance and data-mining against us also has a flip side in that millions who lacked that capability in the early years of the New American Century can now organize and fight back. I support the efforts of Senator Paul to bring these criminal bastards to heel and so should any decent American.

Rand Paul is not the first person to sue Obama over the excesses of the permanent and fraudulent “War on Terror”. Journalist and author Chris Hedges, a former New York Times foreign correspondent and others filed suit against the latest imperial president over the NDAA Act. The Obama administration and his savage, unprincipled attack dog of an Attorney General Eric Holder brought all the state power to bear against Hedges and the same corrupt courts packed with politically appointed judges that fought him will only increase their efforts versus Senator Paul and the rest of us whose civil liberties have been shit upon by an entrenched fifth column.

As patriotic Americans it is of the utmost in importance and urgency to do what you can to get behind Senator Paul's lawsuit. To my liberal and progressive friends I ask that you please put aside any ideological differences to stand in unity against the greatest menace to freedom in the history of the planet - the NSA oppression machine and the corrupt elite that it serves and protects against the rabble. I have long been a proponent of a libertarian-progressive alliance based on these most important of matters and there is now way to fight this threat unless petty differences are set aside before we ALL end up in those internment camps that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia just waxed nostalgic over where we will be pitted against each other for the amusement of our captors.

There is nothing else that is going to matter in the long run if we can't stop fascism.

Patriot Act Sponsor: NSA Spying Bad for Business

The damage that the rogue government spying programs are doing to American business and by extension what remains of a capitalist system thoroughly polluted by influence peddling cannot be underestimated. Big tech companies are going to soon be placed at a permanent competitive disadvantage to whichever foreign counterparts are able to create the needed infrastructure and implement effective controls though laws to protect customer privacy. The 'next big thing' which was the U.S. cloud computing innovation is now hamstrung by a corrupt government and a cancerous NSA spying colossus of which the revelations of misconduct mount daily. The most recent transgression is the Guardian story of the NSA cutting a secret deal with the Brits to gather and store the communications date of millions of innocent citizens. This is definitely not good for business. The American tech industry transformed the way that we all live and led the cutting edge of innovation in the 1990's during the computer boom back when we actually had an economy that still functioned it was however only a matter of time until the new American capitalist model of cheating, offshoring and rigging the regulations trimphed and we have been reduced to a shadow of our former selves as a result. 

There has been some degree of pushback against the rogue NSA of Barack Obama (formerly ruled by George W. Bush and in a few years Hillary Clinton) but the hydra is reconfiguring and going on the attack to protect itself. The leaks of former government contractor Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden have peeled back the red, white and blue facade of what more resembles a Stasi-Gestapo-NKVD system. There has been some attempt to take down this Goliath, first pushed by Michigan Congressman Justin Amash and most recently by man who introduced the  USA PATRIOT Act only to see it turned into a garrote around the necks of law-abiding Americans by a tyrannical police state. Sensenbrenner just had a column published in which he addresses the negative effect of NSA surveillance on commerce. I excerpt the following:

Technology companies revolutionized the global economy by creating an interconnected, high-speed international marketplace.

Internet and telecommunication companies empower businesses to conduct complex transactions and connect with customers, clients and governments across the globe, placing a premium on privacy, accountability and transparency.  These principles are the currency of their success, because as private citizens, we entrust these companies with very personal information.

The overreach by the National Security Agency (NSA) does more than infringe on American civil liberties. It poses a serious threat to our economic vitality. Reports from the business community are clear: indiscriminate collection of data by the NSA damages American companies' growth, credibility, competitive advantage and bottom line.

US companies seeking to expand to lucrative markets in Europe and Asia will find regulatory environments much less receptive to mergers and acquisitions because of NSA programs. German regulatory officials have made it clear, for instance, that AT&T, a massive American telecommunications company that provided customer telephone numbers to the NSA as ordered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), would undergo intense scrutiny to ensure it complies with German privacy laws before it can acquire a German telecommunications company. This mandate would certainly impede efforts to expand its presence in the region.

Of course, US tech companies do not exist in a vacuum, free from competition. Companies like Google, which exhibit clear dominance in the United States, compete intensely with foreign competitors around the world. American businesses will lose considerable market share if foreign competitors and regulators paint them as pawns of the US intelligence community. Cisco Systems warned that its revenues could fall by as much as 10% because of the level of uncertainty or concerns engendered by NSA operations. Cisco saw its new orders fall by 12% in the developing world, 25% in Brazil and 30% in Russia. This is in contrast to the 8% growth Cisco saw in the previous quarter.

The cloud computing industry will also suffer. Since many industries rely heavily on this technology, any disruption would ripple across all segments of the national economy. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the US cloud computing industry could lose between $22 and $35bn (pdf) over the next three years because of the NSA's overreach. And smaller cloud service providers that partner with U.S. companies have already cancelled contracts.

The true power of this most insipid and corrupt Congress is as usual fighting back against challenges to the dictatorial powers of the NSA surveillance colossus. House efforts are led by Republican Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a preening former FBI agent and one of the biggest fascists in congress is intent at playing J. Edgar Hoover with his beloved spying – one has to wonder whether sexual blackmail operations are another NSA function. A new bill to somewhat curtail the NSA's God mode, while still secret is being ramrodded though absent of any committee review in a move right out of the Tom DeLay era. While the maniacal Rogers works the House the Senate is working concurrently in protecting the American Stasi. California Senator Diane Feinstein aka DiFi, the impenetrable firewall of cellulite blocking any sort of reasonable restraint on NSA spying is front and center with her own bill that would  strengthen the unconstitutional surveillance. The Supreme Court is also joining the contemptible Congress in blocking oversight of oppressive NSA system and continue to use culture war rulings like this week’s Texas abortion decision as a smokescreen.  

Things are looking pretty bleak for privacy rights here in The Homeland and despite all of the lip service that is being paid to business the only businesses that truly matter to the elitist political class are Wall Street casinos subsidized by 85 billion dollars a month from the Federal Reserve, the arms industry that is always in search of new wars and big profits for pigs like Feinstein's husband and the surveillance industrial complex that will keep their critics in check, their history stored in that massive NSA facility in Utah waiting for the day to come when the crackdown begins. But the sheeple just go along about their daily business, Black Friday is coming and there will be a rush to get the Joe Boxer "jingle balls" hot item of the year. And in a textbook move the NSA is putting more lies into Christmas stockings . There is nothing like the holiday season to use in order to trot out more fear-mongering on behalf of the police state, take for example the Portland dupe who was set up by the feds to detonate a fake fertilizer bomb at the 2010 city tree-lighting ceremony. The rubes love the war on Christmas, when it’s not liberals taking the Christ out of Christmas it’s another evil Muslim who hates us for our freedom to buy garish Chinese made junk to honor baby Jesus. 

Is this a great country or what?