Post here to admit you were wrong about Snowden and NSA

[stupidicus]

60. well, rightwingers don't have a monopoly on dishonest dumbasshood

as they don't a great deal else.

It's really boiled down to but certainly not limited to this from the beginning with me

But the government’s creative re-interpretation of one provision, known as Section 215, to justify collection of every American’s telephone records has turned Sensenbrenner into a critic of the national security establishment. Here he is earlier Wednesday at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, berating Deputy Attorney General James Cole on the government’s interpretation of Section 215:

Section 215 requires the government to certify that its information requests are relevant to an ongoing terrorist investigation. But Sensenbrenner notes that the government claims that records of every phone call in America is relevant to a terrorism investigation. He asked: “Doesn’t that make a mockery of the legal standard, because you’re trying to have it both ways?” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/17/whoa-watch-the-patriot-acts-author-warn-congress-might-cancel-the-spying-program/

Anybody that has tried to polish that particular turd has been either too ignorant/lacking in understanding to be in the debate, or in the only plausible alternative, approving of that interpretation.

BHO certainly has been, which is why I've noted several times since this broke, this is one of the reasons why he has more ownership of it than they're willing to give him. http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/06/07/obama-responds-to-spying-scandal-answers-charge-that-no-one-has-made/ That's what this is really all about for them -- denial/ego preservation, or hero worship. The latter I find highly amusing given the way they've tried to silence all the thanks Snowden deserves, and the "hero" status some have given him.

And having so much confidence in the idea that they wouldn't be abusing stuff, being who and what they are, is either mindnumbingly or painfully stupid imo. Why it's been so difficult to think or imagine that BHO would sign off on this stuff has a limited number of explanations in any case.

The most stupid are those still asking for "evidence".