Should be doing a long stint in Club Fed:
Lerner, it is prudent to assume, is one among thousands like her who infest the regulatory state. She is not just a bureaucratic bully and a slithering partisan; she also is a national security problem, because she is contributing to a comprehensive distrust of government.
The case for the National Security Agency’s gathering of metadata is: America is threatened not by a nation but by a network, dispersed and largely invisible until made visible by connecting dots. The network cannot help but leave, as we all do daily, a digital trail of cellphone, credit card and Internet uses. The dots are in such data; algorithms connect them. The technological gathering of 300 billion bits of data is less menacing than the gathering of 300 by bureaucrats. Mass gatherings by the executive branch twice receive judicial scrutiny, once concerning phone and Internet usages, another concerning the content of messages.
The case against the NSA is: Lois Lerner and others of her ilk.
This is the danger of a too-powerful government.
And who is going to prosecute her, AG Holder? That’s the problem with having someone politically corrupt as the AG. He allows all the other corrupt government officials to go unpunished.
My wife lived under the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines where corruption was rampant at all levels and honest people lived in fear. We aren’t quite there yet but we’re getting there.
I was reading a Wired story on the NSA that focused on General Keith Alexander.
Somehow I don’t find that reassuring.
I’d consider him more of a threat, if he remains in that office indefinitely. Currently, he’s been in office since 2005 and according to Wikipedia claims to plan to retire in 2014. That would be a ten year stretch which seems typical for bureaucrats at that level.
Hoover stayed in office as head of the FBI (or its predecessor organization) for 48 years. William Mulholland was in his position (head of the Los Angeles water department) for about 26 years. A recent example is James Hansen who stayed in office (as head of the Goddard Institute for Space Science) for 32 years. When you have a bureaucrat who stays at the same fairly powerful position for decades, then I think that’s a warning sign that something is probably wrong with the organization in question.
Unlike the Marcos dictatorship, we’ve always lived thinking “it’s a free country” which means our government can not be generally overt. But it is often specifically overt and we let them get away with that day after day in many places at once. When the public finally awakens to that, they will have no reason to keep it in check.
Just because they haven’t displayed that yet doesn’t mean we should leave them in power. If the midterms don’t show some positive results we are in even more trouble than we imagine.
I won’t be holding my breath about the midterm elections being honest, any more than last November.
Taranto posted a letter from a reader yesterday that was excellent:
The administration tells us that Prism and the collection of data on every call made by Americans were classified secrets because government did not want to give information about our operations to our enemies. This justification is flimsy because of the pervasive nature of the programs. These programs have remained secret in order to prevent public outrage, not to thwart terrorists. Here is why.
If the mayor puts an undercover cop on 2% of the street corners every day, it is important to keep the daily assignments secret. In addition, it may be important to hide the fact that only 2% of the street corners have a cop, since a potential criminal may realize that his odds are good. But if the mayor has an undercover cop on every street corner, the need for secrecy is virtually nonexistent.
If the government monitored all emails, but not phone systems, the terrorists would use phone systems, and vice versa. Similarly, if government monitored all calls made from Yemen, terrorists in Yemen could relay messages through their comrades in France. But the pervasive measures that are in place prevent terrorists from designing their communication systems to exploit holes. In fact, any holes in our systems could be more easily hidden than the entire systems could be hidden. Hence, the reason for keeping these programs secret from the public is to make us compliant, not to make us safer.
You can have the most comprehensive database in the world and it’ll be useless if you’re using the wrong query (search) criteria. “Garbage in, garbage out” applies to the queries as much as to the data. Did they fail to spot the Boston bombers because they used the wrong search criteria? Instead of looking for people with ties to Muslim extremists, did they search for Tea Party members, military veterans, pro-life and states rights groups (the DHS threat criteria)?
As of last year, the FBI no longer investigates the goings on in radical mosques.
This story about Benghazi testimony might deserve some note.
Why spend all that money training special operations people if all they’re supposed to do is hand out Hawaiian leis to passengers arriving at Gate 3?
With that and the SecDef claiming it takes two days to prep an F-16 for a mission, all I can say is that it was in the hands of top men. Top men.
We need to replace Air Force One with a clown car.
The team “would contribute more by going to the Tripoli airport to meet the casualties upon return,” rather than being sent into Benghazi, Dempsey added.
Didn’t that turn out to be correct, that by the time that team could have gotten to Benghazi the 4 Americans were already dead?
With that and the SecDef claiming it takes two days to prep an F-16 for a mission
Remember when the only fighters scrambled to intercept the 9/11 hijackers didn’t have any ammo, so they would have had to suicidally ram the airliners? Of course they were too late to even do that.
No one knows how long a firefight is going to last. It went on for hours.
Remember when the only fighters scrambled to intercept the 9/11 hijackers didn’t have any ammo, so they would have had to suicidally ram the airliners?
No, I don’t remember that. Neither do you. What you remember is a story about some fighters who were sent up without weapons. They weren’t all of the fighters available that day. Second, you are being dishonest by comparing the Benghazi firefight to a much faster evolving attack. The time between first collision with the World Trade Center towers and the third collision with the Pentagon was 51 minutes. If you read the story link above, you’ll see that the two planes of the story didn’t take off until after the Pentagon was hit and by the time they were in the air, the fourth plane had already gone down, another 26 minutes after the attack on the Pentagon.
That’s a very hasty response that took about half an hour. We’ve already discussed the Benghazi timeline a bit, but they had about ten times the time. And as we know now, an unofficial effort arrived in that time from Tripoli.
They weren’t all of the fighters available that day
Did any other fighters get into the air any sooner?
you are being dishonest by comparing the Benghazi firefight to a much faster evolving attack
Mentioning another situation where a military response was too late is dishonest?
another 26 minutes after the attack on the Pentagon
In the case of an attack should the Air Force or Air National Guard be able to get armed fighters over the nation’s capital in less than 77 minutes?
In the case of an attack should the Air Force or Air National Guard be able to get armed fighters over the nation’s capital in less than 77 minutes?
Its dishonest to say the National Guard or Air Force should have armed fighters over DC when the attack was in New York. Or is your argument that Obama should have launched fighters to protect the White House when Benghazi was under attack?
No one knows how long a firefight is going to last.
No, but with the benefit of hindsight we now know that the special operations team that was told to stay in Tripoli would have arrived in Benghazi too late to save any lives. It’s odd to second-guess a decision that we now know was the best decision possible.
Jim: It’s odd to second-guess a decision that we now know was the best decision possible.
“We” know no such thing.
Your meaningless personal opinion has been noted.
There was a host of problems with how Benghazi was handled before, during, and after the events that day. Was there criminal behavior? Perhaps. The jailing of the film maker was criminal. Was there unethical behavior? Lying to the public during a Presidential debate in the manner Obama did was very unethical. The entire Obama adminstration response before, during, and after was unethical.
Unethical behavior is not always punishable in the court of law but it should be called out in the court of public opinion and that is what should be taking place in regard to Benghazi. Benghazi is the culmination of Obama’s inept foreign policy and corrupt bureaucracy.
Obama and his supporters deserve all the mockery they get. Obama’s failures should follow him around the rest of his life never to be forgotten and the defenders of tyranny should be shamed for supporting him.
Don’t audit me bro…
“No, but with the benefit of hindsight we now know that the special operations team that was told to stay in Tripoli would have arrived in Benghazi too late to save any lives. It’s odd to second-guess a decision that we now know was the best decision possible.”
Codswallop.
Firstly had jet fighters been scrambled more time could have been bought.
Secondly the two Seals that died in the final attack were told to stand down..twice I believe. That wasted valuable time and might have made a difference at the consulate.
Thirdly, you don’t need special forces for a job like this. a platoon of Marines or soldiers would have been extremely useful in a situation like this. They are all over the place and could have gotten there quickly. Neither you nor Pannetta nor Obama could POSSIBLY know if they could have gotten there in time. The Team says they could have. It’s a couple of hundred miles and we’re talking a C-130.
Fourthly, the administration didn’t know if the fight would last for 9 seconds, 9 minutes, 9 hours or 9 days. That excuse was manufactured AFTER the events unfolded not before. All thinking people know there are several ways the administration could have responded which could have had a major effect on the outcome.
To have tried and failed is sad but honorable.
To NOT have tried is dishonorable depraved, and sadistic.
For you to sit there and say the above is callous, sadistic and just plain evil.
So next time your house catches fire, if the firemen don’t think they will get there in time they should not go?
Or if you are mugged and getting beaten and gang raped the police officer should continue to sit and munch on his donut at the shop around the corner because…well he doesn’t know when they will be through with you?
Of if a 10 year old child of yours is buried alive in a pine box with a limited air supply, 5 minutes ago, and the authorities know where it is located, they should NOT rush to the scene and try to save the kid?
Yours is depraved thinking. I just hope to high heaven that you are never in the situation where you life depends upon men of good heart willing to try and save you….and the only men around think as you do. For THEN you will finally see the error of your horrid point of view.
At the time, no one knew how long the firefight was going to last. There were fatalaties but also those 30 Americans still alive. When the alarm rings, you roll on it and hope to get there in time to do some good. You don’t just sit back and refuse to try.
but with the benefit of hindsight
They didn’t have the benefit of hindsight since no one can see the future. That destroys your argument. Obama and his administration got lucky that there were no further attacks and no one else died.
Jim, by the time they could have gotten to Benghazi, 2 of the four would have been dead, not all four. Secondly, as Larry J said, they could not know how long the firefight would last.
And no, I don’t remember the 9/11 fighters being unarmed, because they mostly weren’t. Only the two F-16’s of the 117th on a training run were unarmed. There were a lot of screw-ups that day, but that wasn’t one of ’em; the Vipers were already airborne on their training mission when the balloon went up. The Eagles out of Otis, for example, were armed.
And Jim, thank you for bringing up 9-11. Why? Because it’s a great example of looking at an incident, figuring out what happened, and learning from it. Now, let’s suppose Bush had just circled the wagons and said no inquiry, no second guessing, etc. Can you imagine the outcry from both sides of the aisle? I can, and they’d have been right, because that kind of malfeasance and obstructionism would have been both reprehensible and counter-productive.
Imagine if Bush had refused to say what he was doing for ten hours after the planes hit? He was (quite rightfully IMHO) slammed for continuing to read to kids after the first plane hit, for what.. five minutes? But, within days, we knew his full timeline, and that of other key officials, responses, etc.
Now, Jim, lets get to the point; would you have been OK with Bush behaving regarding 9-11-01 as Obama has been about 9-11-12? And if you’re still okay with Obama’s behavior on this so far, please tell me why you think it’s okay for Obama to be so much less transparent than Bush (who was hardly known for it) was?
Actually, we don’t know that the two would’ve died. If the special operations forces rolled out of Tripoli, someone allied with the attackers probably would’ve noticed the depature and made a phone call to the Benghazi group, saying that American forces were inbound. That would likely cause the attack’s leadership to change their plans, perhaps dispersing or changing focus from attacking the consulate to setting up ambush or defensive positions.
What the Obama administration did was to take pains not to interfere with the enemy’s plans.
I am glad that we are not monitoring those mosques. Instead I am happy that those racist rethuglican teabaggers are being monitered instead. But I think that’s not enough. I think that telescreens must be installed in every teabaggers home, for the sake of the children. Praise be to Lois Lerner and other august bureaucrats that protect us from those rubes.
Note to Jim, you should start respecting that public distrust of the Federal Government. I heard that the ammo shelves for military ammunition (.308 and 5.56 in particular) are often empty. How long do you think you can hold onto the wolf’s ears while being Trillions $’s in debt?