Sipsey Street Irregulars: I find myself agreeing with the head of the ACLU.

Friday, July 19, 2013

I find myself agreeing with the head of the ACLU.

Edward Snowden's leaks: Public service or 'anarchy'?

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union vigorously endorsed the leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden as a "service" to the nation Thursday, as former officials decried the fugitive tech specialist as someone who endangered national security by violating his secrecy pledges.

"I want to go out on a limb....I think he did this country a service. I have not said that publicly until this point," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said during a heated exchange at an Aspen Security Forum panel discussion here. "I think he did this country a service by starting a debate that was anemic, that was left to government officials who did not understand fully what was happening."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: Mike V agreeing with the ACLU: that's one in a row.

B Woodman
III-PER; July 19, 2013 at 6:51 AM
Robin said...: Public service. Being ex-MI, I've seen the distortions of morality and people misusing their authority. Casual lying was the norm, even way back then.; July 19, 2013 at 9:04 AM
JAQUEBAUER said...: Dont fall for an ACLU trick. They are Communists, something you are familiar with. Its beyond belief that the US clandestine agencies would trust a high school dropout and civilian contractor access to such a treasure trove of information, especially after that little queer kid was caught and now on trial. I bet Snowden is a patsy, used to leak information that will harm our enemies, and not compromise our national security. Unless of course that things have fallen apart so bad with Obama's mismanagement that the inmates are running the asylum-which might be the case. But my money is on the first bet, that snowden is a patsy, a stooge.; July 19, 2013 at 9:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Not only the ACLU, but former two-term GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, who emailed Snowden with his kudo's.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/16/gordon-humphrey-email-edward-snowden
And then, you have former President Carter, who in response to Snowden's revelations, has declared to Spiegel magazine... “America has no functioning democracy.”
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/18/carter-the-united-states-has-no-functioning-democracy/

Meanwhile, all the MSM/DOD/NSA and Congressional pundits who drool at the thought of TOTALITARIANISM-R-US, continue to provide living proof of Twain's axiom... "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt".

I mean..c'maaan ..even the article documents it..
quote:""The courts are where these debates belong," Johnson insisted,
dismissing Snowden's approach. "That's anarchy," the former Dod lawyer
said."unquote
Courts. Debate. right.
Says a dimwit of biblical proportions. The living proof is in the previous paragraph...

quote"... noting that a series of ACLU lawsuits were DISMISSED for lack of PROOF. Most recently, in February the Supreme Court rejected such a case on
standing grounds after the Justice Department dismissed as speculation
the idea that the plaintiffs in the case had been surveilled." unquote

Rolling on the floor in gut splitting laughter notwithstanding..the whole point of Snowden's revelations is...ta da!..wait for it....

yesireeebob....PROOF. whudda thunk? Of course, these DOD/Congress/NSA schmucks think it's fun to pretend their skull cavities are filled with grey matter instead of excrement..but sheeezus...suspending reality..INDEFINITELY? That's quite a trick...even for human beings.; July 19, 2013 at 9:51 AM
Anonymous said...: I think Snowden still has an ace up his sleeve. We ain't seen the best cards yet. Personally, I think he did right by leaking info. I think one hundred heads should be called on his (safe) behalf.
DixieDennis; July 19, 2013 at 6:37 PM
Paul_Kersey said...: Call me cynical, but there isn't a true Patriot in the Federal Government.
It's been perverted into a trough full of money to be eaten by the pigs; R's and D's put on a show to make us believe we have a voice.
Think about this...If the Intelligence operators can intercept every communication on the planet, do you believe that the elections tallied on ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES connected to the www are not being manipulated by those in power?
It's all a sham by those working to turn the Republic into a Third World Shithole.
My advice...stock up on toilet paper.
III/0317; July 19, 2013 at 9:50 PM
Anonymous said...: quote"... noting that a series of ACLU lawsuits were DISMISSED for lack of PROOF. Most recently, in February the Supreme Court rejected such a case on
standing grounds after the Justice Department dismissed as speculation
the idea that the plaintiffs in the case had been surveilled." unquote

Yep, just ask Doug Hagmann. No standing, nothing in FOIA, just Kafka-esque bureaucracy that can spy on you and always insist you have no proof they have done so and cannot legally access records that they've done it. Basically they're creating the incentive for more Snowdens to reveal spying on specific individuals. God help whoever leaks about the NSA's blackmail files they will probably be dead within hours of identification regardless of being in Russia or China or some other hard to reach place.; July 19, 2013 at 11:17 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Friday, July 19, 2013

I find myself agreeing with the head of the ACLU.

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