What The Chris Christie Scandal TELLS US About The NSA Spying Scandal

[Segami]

To any Democrat who has been dismissing as unimportant or otherwise excusing the NSA spying scandal, the Chris Christie implosion offers a very important lesson. I hope people will consider it.


Chris Christie's martyr act was laughable precisely because he has a long and deep reputation as a bully. That his closest aides and oldest friends would get caught so thuggishly attempting to punish a perceived political enemy was only surprising because the act itself was so stupid. The thuggishness was no surprise at all. And that's the lesson.


A week ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked the NSA if it spies on Congress, and the NSA's response that it treats members of Congress no differently than it treats anyone else was a tacit admission that it does. Which should be chilling, at face value. But now consider such an apparatus under a President Chris Christie. If Christie's thugs will shut down a bridge to punish a Democratic mayor for not supporting Christie's re-election, imagine what they would do with access to NSA spying data on Democratic members of Congress. That's the bigger lesson here.


The Chris Christie scandal is important on multiple levels. And one of those levels is what it tells us about the danger of the NSA's vacuum spying.



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/10/1268639/-What-the-Chris-Christie-scandal-tells-us-about-the-NSA-spying-scandal

[grasswire]

1. It tells us something about Republican politics, too.

The smash-mouth, gutterball, shameless politics that we have seen particularly clearly since Karl Rove entered the arena.

They will do ANYTHING to impose their ideology on all Americans, and they will say anything to avoid responsibility.

[Vincardog]

2. The fact that the NSA relies on "secret interpretations of the LAW" that they refuse to disclose

in order to illegally and unconstitutionally spy on US(All) is reason enough to demand it stop and destroy everything it has collected.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. turn it around...imagine what the NSA can tell us ABOUT the Christie scandal!

since they likely have all of the communications that went around as this thing was hatched and implemented...


hmmm...

[GP6971]

4. Excellent point

But would they ever produce the evidence? I doubt it

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. of course not. the pols and the NSA are in it together...and we are on the other side*

(*depending upon which party is in charge and who wants to play "gotcha" politics, of course)


....caveat - yes, I am cynical.

[zeemike]

9. Yes I am that cynical too.

And they can shape any politician the way they want with all that information...and many of them have skeletons in their closets, and if not them their loved ones.
And they can make them dance to any tune they want to play.
Hover did it for decades with paper files.

[Downwinder]

6. If NSA has all of the dirt on Christie, could he

ever say "NO" to them?

[Barack_America]

10. I kind if figured that's how we got the emails and texts in the first place.

[rhett o rick]

7. Who broke the story on Christie?

Another question. If the NSA is so good at spying, why didnt they catch onto Snowden?

[Segami]

8. They are vacuuming, not reviewing unless

you are a person of interest appearing on THEIR radar.

[Ed Suspicious]

11. And who determines person of interest status? The largely unregulated Nation Spying Agency.

[rhett o rick]

14. The question of "who" is important. The NSA IMO is just the tool. We need to look at

who directs them. Booz-Allen seems to be very involved but somehow dropped out of sight. I think they are owned by The Carlyle Group. Follow the money.

[merrily]

12. Or so we're told.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Wrong.

If a Republican becomes president, we just change the NSA's rules.

Simple.

Enough with the ODS, already.

[rhett o rick]

15. IMO the NSA doesnt answer to the president. nm

[MannyGoldstein]

17. I can't think of any proof that you're wrong...

Ugh.

[gulliver]

16. "asked the NSA if it spies on Congress"

Sanders' "question" is, of course, loaded. I'm generally distrustful of people who use rhetoric in that way. It's below the belt.