Senator Saxby Chambliss Insists That NSA Reform Would Help ISIS… Despite Having Nothing To Do With ISIS Surveillance
from the pure-unadulterated-fud dept
The latest version of the USA Freedom Act is still on the boards, representing a big improvement in somewhat limiting NSA bulk surveillance on Americans. It’s not great, but it’s a step in the right direction, which would be more than has happened in decades. That said, never underestimate the ability of people spewing FUD. Senator Saxby Chambliss, one of the biggest kneejerk defenders of the surveillance state, has apparently decided that this minor curtailing of bulk surveillance efforts will help ISIS and therefore we shouldn’t do it.
?If you want to take away the ability to monitor ISIS, then you eliminate the tools that are eliminated in the Leahy bill,? Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a weekend Hill report. ?I can?t imagine anybody wanting to do that.?
This is the logic of fear, because it has no basis in reality. Most of the USA Freedom Act is about whether or not the NSA can do bulk collection of records in the US on US persons. It has no impact on Executive Order 12333 where most ISIS surveillance is almost certainly taking place. In short, there’s nothing in the USA Freedom Act that has any real impact on ISIS surveillance.
Basically, you just have surveillance state defenders using the most convenient bogeyman, in this case ISIS, to seek more power for the surveillance state, logic and reality be damned. The whole thing is just a cynical ploy to defend the surveillance state at all costs. But, under that idiotic logic, we might as well do away with the 4th Amendment altogether. Hell, why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do — all automatically shipped off to NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade for analysis? That might help stop ISIS. Just like collecting all phone records might. But in all reality it won’t. At all. So it’s a cowardly, shameful FUD suggestion from a cynical Chambliss. He’s not looking out for the American people or their rights. He’s looking out for the surveillance state.
Thankfully, Senator Patrick Leahy (the sponsor of the USA Freedom Act) quickly hit back, though not quite as strongly as he could have:
Leahy himself dismissed such claims.
?We?re always going to face threats,? Leahy said in the report. ?The biggest one we can face is the threat to our own liberties and our own privacy.?
That’s a message that doesn’t seem particularly popular among surveillance state defenders.
Filed Under: eo 12333, executive order 12333, isis, nsa, patrick leahy, saxby chambliss, surveillance, usa freedom act
Comments on “Senator Saxby Chambliss Insists That NSA Reform Would Help ISIS… Despite Having Nothing To Do With ISIS Surveillance”
“Hell, why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do — all automatically shipped off to NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade for analysis?”
Once it becomes technologically easy to do that, it will suddenly become necessary.
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Like school children being required to wear RFID chips so that they can be kept track of at all times. This way when a student decides to skip school they can be tracked down and arrested.
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/kids-tagged-rfid-chips-creepy-new-technology-schools-use-track-everything-kids-do
‘“The biggest one we can face is the threat to our own liberties and our own privacy” BY OUR OWN GOVERNMENT!!
Why do these idiots continue to lie bold faced when , so many people can debunk it in seconds,
I’m talking to you Saxby Sham-bliss.
ISIS is an incredibly convenient distraction from NSA overreach and all the other problems we have at home.
Suddenly most of the people screeching about ‘fiscal responsibility’ loose their shit and decide to fund these ‘rebels,’ curremt and future costs be damned. That goes double for the “antiwar” caucus.
Does Congress not realize how tone deaf this is?! Our infrastructure is crumbling as we speak while we send money to burn overseas!
well obviously if we tried to reform the people helping terrorists by funding and spying on their enemies that would make it easier for them to spend that extra money and manpower on funding terrorism since they would not be using it to spy on americans.
The only state approved terrorism is that which the state does.
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I note that what we have not done in response to ISIS is to actually take on Islam as a philosophy – in the way that we took on communism.
In fact our efforts against ISIS take the form of supporting one faction within Islam against another in a military way when we should be opposing the whole thing ideologically.
Our best weapon against the extremists is to speak the truth about the whole religion whilst avoiding any form of violence. This is the exact opposite of what we are actually doing.
In reality the more Islam there is the more extremists there will be – this is an inevitable consequence of the core nature of the religion – however good individual muslims may be.
Read Islam 101 if you don’t believe me.
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“Read Islam 101 if you don’t believe me.”
I read it. I still don’t believe you.
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What exactly do you not believe?
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I don’t believe that Islam is inherently any more or less evil or prone to violence than the other Abrahamic religions (Christianity or Judaism). Every argument made that Islam is some kind of special evil can be applied with equal force to those other two.
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Every argument made that Islam is some kind of special evil can be applied with equal force to those other two.
That is simply not true.
Look at the lives of the founders.
How many people did Jesus kill or authorise the killing of?
How many people did Mohammed kill or authorise the killing of?
Christianity was spread only by peaceful persusasion for the first 300 years. Islam was spread by military force from (what they themselves call) year one.
Look at the situation today.
Go to any Islamic country and try making polite but public criticism of Islam.
See what happens to you.
Do the same in any major centre of Christianity (eg the Vatican ) See what happens to you there.
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Fulcher of Chartres’ account of Pope Urban II’s speech at Council of Clermont 1095:
So according to the Catholics, Jesus authorized the killing of hundreds of thousands during the First Crusade. Many more pagans were slaughtered in his name throughout Europe. The peaceful Christians you speak of in the first three centuries were the Gnostic Christians, all but completely wiped out by the “Roman” Catholic Church that first formed around the second century. By the fourth century, the Romans had banned Gnostic Christian books and Gnosticism carried a death penalty.
In Judaism, Moses himself killed an Egyptian slavemaster then authorized the killing of many more Egyptians with the Ten Plagues.
So yes, all three branches of the Abrahamic religions have comparable roots in violence when you look at them closely.
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Fulcher of Chartres’ account of Pope Urban II’s speech at Council of Clermont 1095:
You may not have noticed – but Pope Urban was not Christ.
His words are not in the new testament. For him to claim that “Christ commands it” does not mean that Christ actually did command it.
Christ in fact said “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,”
Nothing that Pope Urban said can change that.
Mohammed – on the other hand – himself said
” Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.”
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Actually even your attribution of those words to Pope Urban is questionable – here is the relevant Wikipedia excerpt.
“There exists no exact transcription of the speech that Urban delivered at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095. The five extant versions of the speech were written down quite a bit later, and they differ widely from one another. All versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres were probably influenced by the chronicle account of the First Crusade called the Gesta Francorum (dated c. 1102), which includes a version of it. Fulcher of Chartres was present at the Council, but his version of the speech was written c. 1100–1106; Robert the Monk may have been present, but his version dates from about 1106. The two remaining versions were written even later by authors who certainly did not witness the speech. The five versions of Urban’s speech reflect much more clearly what later authors thought Urban II should have said to launch the First Crusade than what Urban II himself actually did say.“
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“How many people did Jesus kill or authorise the killing of?
How many people did Mohammed kill or authorise the killing of?”
Both of those points don’t address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system — and all of the Abrahamic religions have an enormous amount of blood on their hands.
“Go to any Islamic country and try making polite but public criticism of Islam.
See what happens to you.
Do the same in any major centre of Christianity (eg the Vatican ) See what happens to you there.”
Your comparison here makes little sense. There actually are lots of Islamic countries where you can publicly criticize Islam without getting attacked. There certainly are countries where doing so will get you killed. This has more to do with the political scene than the tenets of the religion.
Also, there are absolutely places (even within the US) where publicly criticizing Christianity will get you attacked and killed.
Extremism and absolutism are the problem, and there are dangerous extremists in any belief system you can think of. It’s a severe mistake to judge a belief system by the extremists.
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Both of those points don’t address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system — and all of the Abrahamic religions have an enormous amount of blood on their hands.
As does Atheism in the person of Joseph Stalin.
Incidentally to call Islam an Abrahamic religion is incorrect.
In fact Mohammed imported some Jewish ornamentation in order to curry favour with a Jewish tribe whose support he needed but Islam has no real connection to either Judaism or Christianity.
Also, there are absolutely places (even within the US) where publicly criticizing Christianity will get you attacked and killed.
Where exactly?
Extremism and absolutism are the problem, and there are dangerous extremists in any belief system you can think of. It’s a severe mistake to judge a belief system by the extremists.
Wrong! It absolutely matters what you are extreme about.
Being exteme about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek is not a problem.
Being extreme about converting the world to your viewpoint at the point of a sword is a problem.
The point is that Mohammed qualifies as a dangerous extremist himself. Also Islam is by its nature absolutist. It knows no way of existing in a society that it does not dominate. There is no such thing as a non-extreme Muslim – apart perhaps from the Ahmadiyya (and mainstrem Muslims don’t regard them as Muslims).
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Both of those points don’t address the issue at all. What addresses the issue is the actions of the people who adhere to the belief system
I find that rather an odd view. When I want to judge a piece of mathematics, science, art, philosophy or literature I look primarily at the work itself, not at the fans.
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Because Islam is not a philosophy, it is a religion. Would you take on Christianity the same way you would take on capitalism – as a philosophy?
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Would you take on Christianity the same way you would take on capitalism – as a philosophy?
Well as a Christian I wouldn’t myself.
BUT – I would be perfectly happy for any atheist or agnostic or member of another religion wanted to take on Christianity (as a philosphy) by intellectual argument – as you are doing and I am responding.
Christians should be well usd to this – we’ve had nearly 2000 years of practice.
Nine Eleven/Patriot Act 2.0 You must give up your rights and freedoms…
… Because Terrorists!
Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
Emptywheel and others are indicating that they think that the latest revisions are a bad move. They say that it grants immunity to providers, extends portions of the Patriot act, exempts the FBI from reporting requirements and legalizes non-phone-record bulk collection.
I haven’t read through the bill myself, so I’m not sure. I understand it’s better than the house version of the bill. But is it a step forward or backward?
Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
In my opinion, it’s better than the house bill, but it still sucks. The danger I see in it is that if it passes, everyone will claim the problem is fixed and drop the issue, when it isn’t fixed at all. In many ways, as you point out, it’s worse.
Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
Rush Holt has a bill that would just flat out repeal these laws. Snowball’s chance in hell of it passing right now but it’s better than >90% of these “reform” bills.
Re: Is the current Leahy bill an improvement?
Emptywheel and others are indicating that they think that the latest revisions are a bad move. They say that it grants immunity to providers, extends portions of the Patriot act, exempts the FBI from reporting requirements and legalizes non-phone-record bulk collection.
Yeah. There’s some disagreement within privacy/civil liberties circles about the interpretations of the bill, with Marcy insisting it’s worse. While Marcy’s truly amazing in digging up possible questionable interpretations, having spoken about it with a number of other folks, I tend towards the side of agreeing that this bill is a step in the right direction, but a small one. It is, however, realistically about as much as can be obtained at this time.
I do think it can open the door to further reforms though.
when someone is desperate to back something that is happening, that just about everyone with an iota of sense is against, then all stops come out and the most ridiculous of reasoning is employed. if he were to be one of those who was under the NSA microscope, for no reason other than he was wanted to be watched, maybe he would change his mind! as it is, just do your best to ignore him until the ‘idiot in him’ has been removed and he shows a modicum of of brains!
New Legislation Won't Help
> “The latest version of the USA Freedom Act is still on the boards, representing a big improvement in somewhat limiting NSA bulk surveillance on Americans.”
Sadly, this won’t help at all.
We’ve already seen how far certain parts of the government are willing to twist the letter of the law to completely eliminate the spirit. This portion of the government has decided that these surveillance programs are necessary. The only way to stop this is through a complete change in leadership at the appropriate agencies, departments, and courts.
Re: New Legislation Won't Help
What they cannot twist they just plain ignore as they know, no one is going to call them out on it otherwise The criminal American government would have been arrested and thrown in jail years ago.
Somebody ask Saxby Chambliss why letting the NSA spy on him helps defeat middle eastern terrorists, or does he think that being a congress critter protects him from being spied on.
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He doesn’t care. He’s not running for re-election, so right now, he’s trying to say whatever he can to get the best job offers possible come January.
Funny how these assholes will point to any excuse to keep the spying machine running.
Sure the law and Constitution says we can’t spy on citizens, but it doesn’t say specifically that we can’t spy on John Jackson and Bill Bowler and Ann Anderson and Catherine Cooper and…
Open Letter
Mr. Saxby (His first name is so much fun to say, so I’ll use than instead of his last):
In April 2013, the NSA was conducting bulk metadata surveillance on all Americans, as well as intercepting who-knows-how-many other records from around the world.
On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon was bombed by two people who immigrated to the United States in 2002. Russia warned the United States about this family based on the two brothers’ mother, who was an activist back home. Similarly, the mother and one of the brothers was placed on a terrorist watch list 18 months before the bombing, which probably prompts more surveillance than “regular” bulk collections.
The NSA wasn’t able to stop this bombing, even though one of the actors was on a watch list and the US had been warned about the family on two occasions by Russia.
Tell me again: How is increasing/continuing NSA surveillance keeping us safer?
Sorry
As a Georgian, please accept my apology for Senator Chambliss. I promise that lots of us really did vote against him.
Saxby Chambliss
Whenever I hear Saxby Chambliss talk FUD, I think of that other Fudd, Elmer, saying, “Be vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits” in a southern accent.
“…why not just mandate that every human being in the US walk around with a camera and microphone recording everything they say and do…?”
… With automatic shutoff any time they are within 30 feet, hearing, or line-of-sight of any police officer or federal agent. Of course.
Again?
It seems like lawmakers use the terrorist group du jour when speaking out against reforms.
So, in the interest of helping our lawmakers do a better job, here’s a template that they can use:
“If you want to take away the ability to monitor [the IRA, the PLO, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, the Taliban, al-Queda, ISIS, ISIL, insert your group name here], then you eliminate the tools that are eliminated in the Leahy bill,” Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a weekend Hill report.