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grahamhgreen

(15,741 posts)
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 04:16 PM Dec 2013

Salon: Intelligence committee chairs want you scared. You should be angry

You’ve been flippant, America. You forgot to be scared. Or, perhaps, you’ve been scared about your communications being swept into NSA spy dragnets. But you forgot to be scared of terrorists, silly America. You wanted Constitutional protections? Well, that’s because you’re not scared enough. But listen up, America, the chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence committees have something to say: be afraid, be very afraid.“I think terror is up worldwide, the statistics indicate that. The fatalities are way up. The numbers are way up. There are new bombs, very big bombs. Trucks being reinforced for those bombs. There are bombs that go through magnetometers. The bomb maker is still alive. There are more groups than ever. And there is huge malevolence out there.” You hear that, kids? Huge Malevolence! Bombs! Death! Oh My! And you wanted privacy? In the face of unnamed malevolence existentially threatening your nation, your home, your kids and your puppies and — don’t forget — your freedom. Malevolence hates your freedom.
..............
Feinstein and Rogers did not mention that anti-U.S. sentiment has been stoked in drone-struck Yemen and Pakistan. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) found that from June 2004 to September 2012 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan alone killed between 474 to 881 civilians, including 176 children. Last year, when Yemeni youth and human rights activist Baraa Shiban spoke to Congress about Yemenis responding to civilian deaths by U.S. drone fire, he said “What does the U.S. mean to these people now? A blasted car, and gruesome footage of dead families?” But in describing rage at the U.S. as “malevolence,” Feinstein tacitly rejects that the anger and radicalization may be grounded in responses to U.S. violence. It was Feinstein, after all, who erroneously claimed that civilian deaths by U.S. drone strikes each year were “typically been in the single digits.”
................
“We’re not safer today,” said Rogers. Whatever truth resides in his remark owes much to the U.S.-led War on Terror. But it will — or at least should — take more than empty fear-mongering and threats of general “huge malevolence” to defend shadowy and vast surveillance operations and the government’s preemptive treatment of millions of Americans as potential terror threats. Feinstein and Rogers want you scared, America. It seems more appropriate to be furious.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/02/intelligence_committee_chairs_want_you_scared_you_should_be_angry/
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Salon: Intelligence committee chairs want you scared. You should be angry (Original Post) grahamhgreen Dec 2013 OP
The greatest threat to our freedoms right now Ranchemp. Dec 2013 #1
+1 cantbeserious Dec 2013 #3
I saw the two of them working hard to scare people into continuing to support their failed WOT sabrina 1 Dec 2013 #2
FOLLOW THE MONEY. Money Hungry Di Fi and spouse Richard Blum will never truedelphi Dec 2013 #4
A huge budget diversion into the surveillance state is it exactly! Thanks! grahamhgreen Dec 2013 #10
the government is putting all their energies into "terrorism" KrazyinKS Dec 2013 #5
I am. Mad as hell. zentrum Dec 2013 #6
“We’re not safer today,” said Rogers bvar22 Dec 2013 #7
+a zillion truebluegreen Dec 2013 #9
you speak for me BelgianMadCow Dec 2013 #11
The concise version! Damn right! grahamhgreen Dec 2013 #12
k & freakin r! n/t wildbilln864 Dec 2013 #8
 

Ranchemp.

(1,991 posts)
1. The greatest threat to our freedoms right now
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 04:21 PM
Dec 2013

are people like Feinstein and Rogers, and the sheeple of America who are allowing this to happen.

The old saying still applies: Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
2. I saw the two of them working hard to scare people into continuing to support their failed WOT
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 04:26 PM
Dec 2013

well, successful financially for THEM. It was disgusting to watch and yes, it did make me very angry that they think they can do this forever and that we are stupid enough to buy it, AGAIN.

They are disturbed that the American people support Snowden's revelations, even though they did not mention it outright, that was clearly behind their 'message of fear'. They thought they did it so cleverly, waiting for the Media Stooge, Candy Crowley, to feed them the 'right' questions, such as 'but what our intelligence orgs, what challenges do they face' etc etc and then off they went about what a tough job it is to try to 'find' all these evil people who want to kill us.

What Crowley didn't ask them, and was simply begging to be asked, was 'the NSA and CIA have had free reign for the past 12 years (before the latest revelations), so, HOW MANY terrorists did they catch due to their spying on almost everyone in the whole world? They didn't eg, catch the Boston Bomber, despite him being on the radar of the Intel Community'?

And of course the other most obvious question 'Well, then what you are saying is that the WOT has not only FAILED after 12 years of wars and torture and spying and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lost lifes, it has MADE THINGS WORSE'.

But that is not Crowley's job to do. She is a collaborator. And they feel safe with the Corporate Media never asking inconvenient questions.

It was a sad spectacle to watch. I haven't seen anything like it since Condi tried to terrify the nation with here Mushroom Cloud talking points.

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
4. FOLLOW THE MONEY. Money Hungry Di Fi and spouse Richard Blum will never
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 06:18 PM
Dec 2013

Last edited Wed Dec 4, 2013, 08:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Have enough of the green stuff.

A few years back, Sen Diane Feinstein was actually removed from a committee she was on for all her insider deals.

Is this anyway to run a government? To have a Senator privy to when and where military movements will occur and then let her husband bid on "Iraqi reconstruction efforts" so that he gets awarded millions and doesn't ever have to do a thing, as the areas where the "reconstruction" is to occur ended up being obliterated by our assaults with heavy duty bombing etc?

Now she wants a huge budget diversion, from what should be a massive Peace Dividend, to a total Surveillance Society instead. So what if the rooads and bridges are crumbling around us? So what if she needs our Social Security Fund surplus to pay for it!

And with the way that the NDAA and the Toal Surveillance Society is being set up, even discussing budgetary matters related to the military and Surveillance will be labelled "Top Secret." You want to know what our military is spending? Why you too must be a terrorist!

Already, reporter Peter Byrne, who is best known for his totally fact-based article on Di Fi's mis-use of power, ahs found that normal business deals are "black listed." He couldn't even get the paperwork related to her husband's bid for Real Estate agency over all US Post Office Buildings and property, due to how those papers were termed "National Security" !!

KrazyinKS

(291 posts)
5. the government is putting all their energies into "terrorism"
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 06:43 PM
Dec 2013

I watched a show last night on the Mafia. They were interviewing a guy they called "the yuppie don" He said that they used to have 1200 agents watching 700 mobsters, now it is like 200 because the government has put all their energies into watching terrorism which has given organized crime a sort of reprieve. Interesting viewpoint I thought.

zentrum

(9,865 posts)
6. I am. Mad as hell.
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 06:56 PM
Dec 2013

Feinstein is a blight on the Democratic party. But there seems no way to get her out of office.

bvar22

(39,909 posts)
7. “We’re not safer today,” said Rogers
Mon Dec 2, 2013, 10:02 PM
Dec 2013

So
ALL of your Committees,

ALL of your WARS,

ALL of your Drone Killings,

All of your Patriot Acts,

All of your Government Spying,

ALL of your Guantanamo Prison Camps,

ALL of your LYING,

ALL of the TRILLIONS of Dollars thrown away,

....ALL of EVERYTHING you have done in the name of "Keeping Us Safe",

HAS BEEN A MISERABLE FAILURE.

Time for us to try something different,
and time for YOU to Spend more time with your family.

Thanks for NOTHING.
---bvar22

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