The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Where to Start to Walk Back the NSA Actions?

    By oldenGoldenDecoy on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 3:23pm |

    Well... Howdy Daggers . . .

     

    This has become quite a slippery slope to climb...

     

    .

    Allow me to preface this with my background. I came into this crazy world on September 4, 1946. 
     
    A little over one year after my birth, on September 18, 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 established both the the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.
     
    From Wiki, because I'm lazy...
     
    In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act (Public law 81-110) authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempting it from most of the usual limitations on the use of Federal funds. It also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed."
     
    Taking a large jump to the current decade 9/11... 9/11... 9/11...
     
    Since then there has been a massive amount of laws, amendments and changes added to the ability to gather data relating to national security and to keep this information secret.
     
     
    Now... Through all the debate and discussion over this latest brouhaha with the Snowden incident, there are many hurdles to overcome, but lets look at the current three giant hurdles to remove or amend so as to curtail the type of actions that the NSA currently employs using telecom meta-data, internet traffic data. and email communications.
     
    • The entire Patriot Act.
     
    • The Authorization to Use Military Force.
     
    • The Telecoms Immunity to Litigation.
     
    Those are pretty tough hurdles to remove or amend.
     
    So... where to start?
     
    ~OGD~

     

    Comments

    I think the move is on to divert attention.ABC News is reporting concerns that Snowden may defect to China. This may be a tactic to keep the focus off of the NSA,If Snowden, did defect, the push would be to tighten down the NSA net grabs rather than reform them.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 3:53pm

    Thanks for taking the time to reply . . .

     

    No doubt they don't wish to deal with changes or amending any of this power they currently have.

    Making it even more of  a daunting task to get any of this "walked-back."

     

    ~OGD~


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 4:31pm

    I think a lot of people simply assume that they are being tracked. When you set up a new computer, after the operating system finishes loading, you install your preferred antivirus software, firewall, spam filter, etc. You assume that you are being tracked.

    China, Iran, North Korea, and probably Israel attack our systems every nanosecond of the day.i think most people want the NSA to do what it's doing. They don't feel a great threat.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 4:55pm

    Yes...

     
    I am quite aware of what a lot people assume. I am also aware that there are most likely a lot more people who have no clue.
     
    And then there are those who are out there still trying to figure out whether this Snowden was being simply altruistic in his outting of the NSA, or working for Assange, or or in cahoots with Glen Greenwald after already writing a book with help from the Guardian before any of this broke, and they are just stirring the pot for a big pre-order number. Or maybe he's a shallow plant mole for the CIA/NSA/FBI?
     
    Mysteries are still bubbling...
     
    ~OGD~

    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 6:50pm

    From Democracy Now:

    CHRISTOPHER PYLE: Well, when I was blowing the whistle and they couldn’t get any dirt on me—I had led a very uninteresting life—they made up dirt and tried to peddle it on Capitol Hill in order to discredit me and prevent me from testifying before Senator Ervin’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. Every bureaucracy hates dissenters. They must expel dissenters and discredit dissenters, because dissenters force them to reconsider what it is they’re doing, and no bureaucracy wants anybody to interrupt what they’re doing. And so, this is the natural, organic response of any bureaucracy or any establishment.

    Now, I think it is inappropriate and quite irrelevant to analyze Ed Snowden’s motivations. It doesn’t matter much—except in court, to prove that he either did or did not intend to aid a foreign power or hurt the United States. But separate from that motivation, whether he’s a narcissist, like many people on television are, no, I don’t think that’s relevant at all. He’s neither a traitor nor a hero, and he says this himself. He’s just an ordinary American. He’s trying to start a debate in this nation over something that is critically important. He should be respected for that, taken at face value, and then we should move on to the big issues, including the corruption of our system that is done by massive secrecy and by massive amounts of money in politics.


    by Donal on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 6:56pm

    Ya'?

     
    I know who Pyle is. His work with the Church Committee back in the mid 70s helped lead to the founding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. His points are well taken.  
     
    Mysteries are still bubbling though...
     
    ~OGD~

    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 2:38am

    Evan Osnos thinks it highly unlikely mainland China bosses would accept him, even though "the people" have a case of Snowden mania, or because they have. And also suggests that they probably already got from him the data of interest that he could offer.(For those unfamiliar, Osnos is American expat in China since 2005, writes "Letter from China" for The New Yorker on cultural issues.)


    by artappraiser on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 4:42pm

    Thanks for the link.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 4:56pm

    The story becomes more interesting because Greenwald told Chris Hayes that communication with Snowden was via an incryption device that Snowden provided.One wonders if this was an NSA device, something Snowden rigged up, or a third party's device.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 5:01pm

    The NSA is like a kid with the latest gaming computer. The data site in Utah. You can't take their toys away from them, but you might be able to cut the staff and budget. Snooping - inevitable, more wars - no way.

    Meanwhile use postcards for privacy. Nobody at NSA is looking for the next terrorist plan arriving on a picture postcard.

    You can non-digitally send your most intimate private communications with a feeling of total security from government snooping. Anyway the USPS needs the money.


    by NCD on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 9:04pm

     Good comment . . .

     
    With that data center the constituents of Orin Hatch have really made out... Eh?
     
    Hell... The Mormons have more data in their http://www.ancestry.com/  system than the NSA.
     
     
     
    ~OGD~

     

     


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 2:37am

    We outsourced military operations to private companies and had abuses occur. We have now outsourced secrets with the person who leaked the data now in China. One of the best ways to downsize the NSA is to stop hiring private companies. If employees of the private companies are making more than government workers doing the same job, how is that a money saving enterprise in the time of fiscal responsibility?


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 8:07am

    Not too many GS pay scale fed employees have the money, or the idea, to leak loads of classified documents and then fly off to an exclusive hotel in Hong Kong.

    Now that Snowden is apparently offering up data on NSA snooping into Chinese computers  I wonder if the Ronulans will continue their embrace of their latest 'keep the government from watching us in our hot tubs hero'.

    If the mainland Chinese government starts pumping him for all he knows, he will very soon discover the real meaning of freedom.


    by NCD on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 11:10am

    There should be a lot more caution evaluating this guy than has been done. Holder actually reported abuses when he came on scene.Where are the documented cases of NSA abuse? If Snowden says we were spying on every citizen, lets see proof. Right now, I want to get Facebook out of my face.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 12:27pm

    It seems that Eric Holder notified the court of eavesdropping violations early in the Obama administration. It does not seem that they were bent on breaking the law.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/14/2013 - 9:32am