The news that billions of phone records are stored in a faceless, lifeless, dumb brute of a computer data base has set off a tantrum on the left the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the Civil War. Whipped into a frenzy of outrage not by any actual “spying” or “eavesdropping” by the NSA’s data mining of call records but rather by the idea that the government now has the exact same information available to it that your phone company has had all along, Members of Congress as well as the left side of the blogosphere have given in to hysteria and have allowed their imaginations to take flight about the program, positing all sorts of sinister scenarios where we are a hair’s breadth away from some kind of third world dictatorship.
Their reasoning (or unreasoning) goes something like this; if the NSA wanted to, it COULD abuse the program. Or, THERE IS THE POTENTIAL for mischief by the government if the program’s parameters were violated. The point, of course, is not to demonstrate anything untoward that has actually happened but rather to flaunt a self-image of themselves as saviors, crucified for their beliefs, manning the battlements, waving the bloody shirt, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY while the rest of us peasants look upon them with doe-eyed admiration and worship.
I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the exaggerations about the “danger” that the country is becoming a dictatorship, a word they throw around with the practiced ease of someone who has no idea what an actual dictatorship looks like. I’m sick of the ginned up outrage against anything and everything the Administration has done in the past 5 years to protect us. I’m sick to death of these immature, emotionally unstable, intellectually dishonest philistines whose foot stomping tirades have begun to resemble the wailings of teenage girls who put on melodramatic, angst ridden histrionics over the tiniest of slights.
CNN’s Jack Cafferty is the star of this high school production of Little Women. In what must be considered some of the most unbalanced, off the wall remarks ever uttered on a major television network, Cafferty gravely informed us (in all seriousness) that “all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country” is…is…(wait for it) ARLEN SPECTER!
Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don’t you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country’s borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?
In another age, another time when such drivel would have led to the newscaster’s immediate dismissal (or earned him a trip to the sanatorium so that he could dry out properly) Cafferty would suffer the consequences of his on-air breakdown. Instead, he is lionized, feted, elevated to sainthood all because his outburst reflects exactly what they have been saying on conspiracy laden websites for years; that George Bush is hell bent on turning this country into a dictatorship, that 9/11 was part of the plot to make him king, and that there are top secret government concentration camps that are already built and just waiting to be filled up with all the courageous liberals who “speak truth to power.”
Nice company you’re keeping there, Jack.
Not to be outdone in the Getting Hysterical Department, the mainstream media has predictably gotten on the conspiracy bandwagon and millions of words have been written about what the program is about, what Bush said about the NSA, and, of course, the inevitable quotes from civil liberties absolutists who get their panties in a twist if the government so much as raises a finger to try and find out what al Qaeda and their sympathizers are doing in the United States.
This is all predictable – as is their raising the strawman of potential abuse while offering absolutely no evidence that any shenanigans have taken place:
The phone records include numbers called, time, date and direction of calls and other details but not the words spoken, telecommunications experts said. Customers’ names and addresses are not included in the companies’ call records, though they could be cross-referenced to obtain personal data.
And from the NY Times editors desk:
The government has stressed that it is not listening in on phone calls, only analyzing the data to look for calling patterns. But if all the details of the program are confirmed, the invasion of privacy is substantial. By cross-referencing phone numbers with databases that link numbers to names and addresses, the government could compile dossiers of what people and organizations each American is in contact with.
According to USA Today, the telephone companies are removing the names and addresses of their customers from the records they give the NSA. But the government has many means of identifying account owners, including access to commercial databases from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis.
Although customers’ names and addresses are not being handed over, “the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information,†it said.
On Thursday, USA Today reported that after 9/11, the NSA asked telecommunications companies to turn over the “call-detail” records of millions of customers. The records — essentially a list of phone numbers — reportedly have been used by the agency to identify patterns that would help identify terrorists. The newspaper said that the data turned over by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth did not include customers’ names or personal information. But it would not be hard for the agency to connect those dots.
One needs to ask if it is the government’s plan to get the names and addresses attached to these phone records why in God’s name didn’t they just ask for them at the same time that they asked for and received the other information? What stayed their hand? Fear of Jack Cafferty’s outrage? Maybe it was something a little more basic; they had no intention of getting the names and addresses of American citizens attached to those records unless they represented a threat to the people of the United States!
A regular reader of this site knows that I am not a huge fan of this President, or Republicans, and am even getting a little disgusted with my conservative brethren over some issues. But the behavior of the left, of the media, and of Members of Congress these past 24 hours has gone beyond mere political posturing and has become pure scaremongering. There may be reasons to rationally examine this latest revelation about what the NSA is doing to safeguard the United States. The fact that 12 Members of Congress knew about this program and never opened their yaps in opposition to it should tell you all you need to know about the program being a nail in the coffin of democracy- it isn’t even close.
And for the purveyors of Bush hatred and partisan scare tactics, perhaps they should ask who is a greater threat to America? The people who are doing their best to protect us from a terrorist strike? Or those who seek political advantage by making their jobs harder?
UPDATE
Howard Kurtz, Washington Post media columnist, linked to my post yesterday where I stated flatly that this latest leak about an NSA program was designed to derail the nomination of General Hayden for CIA chief.
Kurtz dismisses my speculation saying “Well, maybe. But how does he know the motivation of sources whose identity we don’t know?”
Although arithmetic is not my best subject (having given my poor parents near heart failure in high school, worrying about whether or not I would pass Algebra), let’s try a little basic math out and see what we can come up with, ‘kay?
1 + 1 = 2
As in: Hayden ran NSA when the data mining program began. There are those who wish to hurt the President by denying Hayden the post of CIA chief. Ergo, being an inveterate (degenerate?) gambler, I would bet a substantial amount of money that the reason the details of the program were leaked at this time was to hurt said General in his quest to serve as CIA chief.
If Mr. Kurtz were to peruse the pages of his own paper, he would find similar dot connecting even when the dots are half as visible as they are in this case.
Dana Priest, anyone?
UPDATE II
Michelle Malkin rounds up the react today (which may turn into a plus for the President if the overnight ABC poll can be believed) and links to her column in today’s New York Post:
Nevertheless, the civil liberties Chicken Little are screaming “Bushitler!” on cue. What they should be screaming for are the heads of the blabbermouths endangering all of us by running to the fifth-column press when they don’t get their way in Washington. But you can never find the leak-decriers when you need them, can you?Prediction: To the dismay of the USA Today prize-seekers and fear-stokers, most Americans won’t react to their precious scoop by hysterically throwing their cellphones into the nearest lake and calling for President Bush’s impeachment.
Speaking of the Post, they are the only major media outlet I’ve read so far that comes out four square for the NSA data mining program. This Week’s Treason:
Far from disqualifying Gen. Michael Hayden from the job of CIA director, the political and news media uproar over a report that the National Security Agency is mining data from domestic phone calls only reinforces why Hayden should be confirmed.
For all the hyperventilating on the TV news and on Capitol Hill – by Republicans as well as Democrats, sad to say – there is little new in yesterday’s “disclosure” by USA Today. And even less to cause Americans concern.As a matter of fact, prominent stories in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported the details of the program months ago. And a lawsuit filed against the NSA in January spelled out specific details.
Plus, the program has clear antecedents in a widely rumored surveillance program called Echelon, which was hotly debated across the Internet back in 1999 – nearly two years before President Bush took office.
UPDATE III
This is pretty much a “topper.” Glenn Greenwald is telling the American people that they’re too stupid to understand the “nuances” of the NSA telephone program and therefore, they should wait until Greenwald and his intellectual bully boys spin the story until they are told exactly what they should think about it:
The whole point of having political leaders and pundits is to articulate a point of view and provide support for that view in order to persuade Americans of its rightness. That process changes public opinion on every issue, all of the time, often dramatically. None of that has occurred here. Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive—to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors. And let’s have a debate about whether the law prohibits this program. And then let’s see where public opinion is.
Is he kidding? What arrogance! Leave aside the hyperbole about the program itself (“Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive—to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors.”) – as if the NSA is curious about your call last week to Aunt Martha – and see how the left actually thinks of themselves. The whole point of having political leaders is to represent us. And to compare a pundit with a Congressman is scary as hell.
The people are perfectly able to make up their own minds about issues without Glenn Greenwald telling them what all the cool kids are thinking. Greenwald – not they – need to be instructed.
7:23 am
[...] I read, with amusement all the screaming news articles about the latest “They’re Spying On Us!!” bulloney yesterday. Blog friend Rick Moran taught me, long ago, to hold judgement for a day or so on these reports. Let it sink in; see where it goes; take a deep breath…Today he expresses my thoughts in words so much better than I could type. One needs to ask if it is the government’s plan to get the names and addresses attached to these phone records why in God’s name didn’t they just ask for them at the same time that they asked for and received the other information? What stayed their hand? Fear of Jack Cafferty’s outrage? Maybe it was something a little more basic; they had no intention of getting the names and addresses of American citizens attached to those records unless they represented a threat to the people of the United States! [...]
7:36 am
Well, we’ve just handed the terrorists some more useful info. Watch for disposable cell phone sales to rise and buy some stock in Qwest.
8:10 am
“Well, maybe. But how does he know the motivation of sources whose identity we don’t know?â€
Which also nearly blindingly begs the question of how we can know the veracity of sources whose identity we don’t know.
8:13 am
[...] RightWing NutHouse has an article entitled “The Hysterical Drama Queens of the Left“ The news that billions of phone records are stored in a faceless, lifeless, dumb brute of a computer data base has set off a tantrum on the left the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the Civil War. Whipped into a frenzy of outrage not by any actual “spying†or “eavesdropping†by the NSA’s data mining of call records but rather by the idea that the government now has the exact same information available to it that your phone company has had all along, Members of Congress as well as the left side of the blogosphere have given in to hysteria and have allowed their imaginations to take flight about the program, positing all sorts of sinister scenarios where we are a hair’s breadth away from some kind of third world dictatorship. (empasis mine) [...]
8:22 am
Rick,
I love the dynamics of democracy. Bush is at 90% approval when we were attacked and in a recession. He is at 30% with no attacks and a booming economy. This is the time when people expose themselves as poll watchers. When our troops come home and begin the reprisal of the MSM bias, watch the punishment leveled on the Moveon Kos insurgency. Any candidate that is distancing themselves from Bush is toast in 08.
8:37 am
Latest NSA scandal leaves Americans unfazed
Encouraging news coming out of the Boston Globe:
Mark Jellison, a Verizon customer in Quincy, isn’t fazed that his phone company may have turned over his calling records and those of millions of others to the National Security Agency as part of a…
8:45 am
Clarice puts it into perspective at American Thinker.
8:52 am
Too bad the Brits didn’t have a NSA calling screening system like ours—they cite in their report yesterday that one of their key failings was to detect that one of the bombers was repeatedly calling Pakistan in the days before the bombings.
Glad we aren’t that stupid.
9:02 am
Washington Post – ABC Poll Sends Trumped Up NSA Spy Story Packing
I suspect that the incessant rants from the left have put their own arguments under a microscope. Americans are waking up to the fact that the left has no leadership, no credibility and no plan.
...
9:05 am
[...] Right Wing Nuthouse – THE HYSTERICAL DRAMA QUEENS OF THE LEFT [...]
9:26 am
Rick,
I’m sure the NSA would want names and addresses attached to the info if they could get it. But it’s probably unlikely the teleco’s were willing to divulge that kind of information carte blanche. Furthermore, the mass collection of personal data on millions of American’s is a gross violation of intelligence oversight rules. The system they have in place now is not as quick or flexible, but it is almost as good. They can get names if they need to for the key numbers after they analyze the traffic.
As a member of the IC, I don’t worry too much about these kinds of programs as long as there is oversight. I don’t care how important or intrusive a program is – if there isn’t oversight then there will be abuses. Oversight keeps the government honest, and it looks to me like this program has proper oversight.
A larger issue here is the change to domestic intelligence since 9/11. We can now use tools that were exclusively used for foreign intelligence domestically. There are legitimate civil rights concerns that must be addressed. Again, the key factor is oversight by elected officials – namely, congress.
Finally, my other concern is that these tools and technologies may eventually make their way down to traditional domestic law enforcement. I predict there will be some interesting cases before the SCOTUS over the next couple of decades that will decide the legality of some of these intelligence programs in the domestic law enforcement arena. The possibilities for this kind of data mining in breaking up drug networks looks pretty impressive, but the legal issues are obviously difficult and unresolved.
9:40 am
Most Americans Support NSA Efforts
The Washington Post is reporting on a poll which claims that 66% of Americans support the efforts of the National Security Agency.
A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on te…
9:57 am
American Pragmatism?
The truly curious thing about this poll is that while most polled think that this program is good or acceptable, they also think that the media did the right thing by releasing details about the poll
9:58 am
A larger issue here is the change to domestic intelligence since 9/11.
Correct. Unfortunately, with our wide-open borders it is impossible to avert attention from domestic individuals to only monitor foreigners and still have any hope at all of preventing further attacks. The enemy can infiltrate out society with trivial ease, and thence use our own open society against us. How can we ignore that?
I agree that oversight is not only highly desireable, but absolutely necessary. The problem arises when the oversight committee can’t keep their yaps shut and the details of the program are leaked to USA Today (All the News Fit to Print on a T-Shirt) or any of the other media entities that value their own self-aggrandizement over our safety.
But without transparency, who oversees the overseers? These are the extremely difficult questions those responsible for defending us have to deal with on a day-by-day basis, all the while suffering the slings and arrows of those whose desire for personal gain overcomes any sense of responsibility they may once had.
10:27 am
Re-Hash Of An Old Story
Well excuse me for not being over-excited about a re-hash of an old story, the timing of which stinks to high heaven. AhemNo sooner had the man who ran the National Security Agency for years been nominated to head the CIA than USA Today rushed out deta…
10:45 am
Be still my heart! Is it possible that the public has finally learned that our president and NSA, plus other agencys are doing their very best to try to keep us safe?
If this is so can realizing that the dems are a$$h0le$ and not really looking out for them at this time. And can they trust them, that when they become the power in Wash. that they can think any clearer then klinton? yea, yea, I know he was too incumbered abusing and molesting the help.
Drama Queers having PMS episodes is more like it. They would have to take to their beds if we were hit again.
12:18 pm
[...] Right Wing Nut House [...]
12:24 pm
[...] For more, please read LC & IB Rick Moran’s post. Posted by Emperor Darth Misha I @ 10:32 am | [...]
12:36 pm
Just had a thought that maybe the leakers have done all the damage that they can do so the press gladly recycled an old NSA story on their behalf. If they begin to believe that their leaking or the press recycling is hurting the criminal demoCraps then they will have to knock it off. But will they. If there isn’t anything left to tell they will start lies, failing that they will return to that V.P.,Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld. etc, must go. The leader in Iraq new government must go too. Can forged documents be too far behind?
But the last load of bull before this one was, US giving Mexico the location of Border People! Now there’s a story to make us not go vote. Of course it was bull$hit as usual.
Speaking of bullShit that brings me to Chris Simcox,leader of the Border Protrol. His willingness, or the author of, this story regarding the adm. working against their efforts because “we embrassed them” is so phony but there are too many out there that still believe it. He wishes us to believe what he read on a MEXICAN WEB SITE. What a hoot. Appears that Simcox split off from the original border protectors. That was Jim Gilcrest(sp?) who started the BORDER PROJECT long before Simcox sought to butt in and claim the glory, which should tell you something about the charater of Simcox. Now both groups are begging for funding from the public on their webs sites. I smell a ThirdParty effort coming on. Jim equates himself and group as akin to our original Minutemen.
12:53 pm
The “New” NSA Kerfuffle, Day 2
Even as a Washington Post/ABC News poll—in itself a bit deceiving (on which, more later)—reveals that 66% of Americans “said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made,” many of the usual suspects…
1:13 pm
The government already has the information to link all landline numbers to names and addresses, it’s called the 911 system. When you place a call to 911 from an landline telephone, they know exactly what address the call is coming from. Even if the number is unlisted and you have caller-id blocked. I don’t see Specter getting is panties twisted about that. In other words, our government at various levels has access to a huge amount of information concerning phone numbers that can be obtained instantly and without warrant.
Come on people, it’s just phone numbers. The government can do a whowhere.com search on my phone number and find my address, they don’t even need their own database for that. Also, 10 million numbers is a small subset of the total numbers out there. Our family has 4 phone numbers associated with it including mobile numbers. If the government wants our names and numbers and address, I will glady give it to them. But they could find it in the White Pages of our local phone book if they wanted to.
All of this uproar over what is practically public information anyway. Jeez.
2:19 pm
Rightwing Reality
In a short paragraph, Rick Moran pretty much sums up the political climate- and in doing so, sheds what may be a bit of light into the hidden future. The American people will not stand for the kind of politics that have become ‘business as usual.’
2:30 pm
HOW WOULD YOU REACT TO LEARNING THAT CLINTON HAD DONE THIS?
2:38 pm
You and all the other right-wingers are criticizing the leak about the NSA actions, linking it to an attempt to keep Hayden from heading the CIA. Why is it that when the identity of a CIA operative was leaked by a member of the administration, there was no such reaction? Is it wrong only when one side of the spectrum does it?
2:51 pm
Will the author and all those who support these policies please publish their phone numbers and the phone numbers of all the people they have ever talked to?
Trust! It’s for the sake of security. We need it to track down terrorists.
3:12 pm
You want to wait for evidence that abuse has taken place as a result of the NSA domestic spying program? The policy IS the abuse.
Condi’s question about WMD in the leadup to the war is pertinent here. Do you want to wait for the mushroom cloud?
3:43 pm
As a former Leftist practicing in San Francisco in the 70’s and 80’s I have learned that what really scares the Left is that their frequent phone calls to drug dealers and illicit lovers will be found out and they will be exposed for what they really are—druggies and fornicators.
3:45 pm
[...] Rightwing Nuthouse has a terrific post, Hysterical Drama Queens Of The Left, that dovetails nicely with own post highlighting liberal hypocrisy. Rick quotes CNN’s Jack Cafferty’s unbalanced remarks: Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don’t you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country’s borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports? [...]
3:57 pm
This is just basic overkill. While the NSA may be correct in assuming that there would be a pattern to calling. The same pattern of calling would also be apparent in a closenit family. And before you arrogant snots say that would be crossrefenced to show that those calling parties are related. Imagine parents with 6 daughters, all married. Tax dollars wasted to reveal that they are related after their homes were invaded by Feds for matching the calling patterns of a suspected terrorist cell.
What bothers be most is that the CIA will probably end up being run by the Agency Wonk that failed to protect us from a terrorist attack in the first place back on 9-11. Blame is so often attributed to the CIA once the terrorists arrived within the borders, but the NSA failed to prevent them getting here in the first place.
In the real world most of these dorks would have been out on their asses looking for a job. This administration is the only place you ever see someone testify before Congress that they failed miserably at their job which resulted in thousands dead and then go back to work with not ever a smack on the wrist.
I guess it comes with ‘who you know’ rather than ‘what you know’.
5:24 pm
The SF Chronicle has 3 stories from their staff on this – two reporting, one “analysis”. In the stories they have 31 cites of others, some named individuals and some unnamed groups (some democrats, many others in Congress). Four of the 31 cites directly note or imply that Republicans see the brouha as being ‘good politics’. There is no cite or suggestion that just maybe Dems might be playing politics by raising the brouha in the first place.
In the main story the first two mentions of Republicans are Specter – grill phone companies – and “some Republicans” who think the brouha was good politics. Half way through the story they reveal, per Pat Roberts “(a group of senators) are being breifed, we are conducting oversight, we support this tremendous program”.
Of the total 31 cites, 22 were negative, 4 were supportive and 5 were neutral or mixed (if a cite was exclusively ‘good politics for Republicans’ I called it a negative as it implied that this was the motivation, if a cite was in favor of the program specifics and noted good politics I called it mixed). Interestingly, though one story cited “independent pollster” Zogby, the guy that called the 2004 race for Kerry six months before the election, not a single poll was cited. I wonder why?
5:26 pm
Preach it, Rick!
5:47 pm
Your description of CNN’s Jack Cafferty as “the star of this high school production of Little Women” is highly offensive. To Louisa May Alcott. And the acting abilities of high schoolers.
6:21 pm
Right Wing Nut House goes nutty
I’m sick of being treated like a deranged dilettante for suggesting that the demonstrable pattern of deceit and disastrous results from this administration are a legitimate basis for concern over future abuses and circumventions of the law.
7:32 pm
To Impolitic: woooo dooggaueee but you have a way with words. Are you horribly over educated, have a super snob-ass dictionary, maybe a scrabble winner with your Friday night “couples with herpes”?
Using only a select few first letters of you post I have come up with an acronyms discribing your pompus post, ALL FART!
7:59 pm
Did it ever occur to these people that maybe American’s like to be safe?
7:13 am
Any time I hear this , oh gee look at the potential abuse stuff, it gives me a chance to have a good chuckle. Obvious the lack of any such abuse occuring that anyone can point to gives some creedence to just maybe these guys are really only concentrating on the bad guys, maybe they have very strict guidelines and know they will get slapped down real hard if the step over the line. Also maybe every time the do a probe of the results they have to have a specific threshold of support met. And gee maybe even you have multiple supervisors doing independent audits and thus have working internal controls to nip improper usage in the butt. Wow real adult supervision, what a concept.
7:24 am
I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired of the Democrats’ “crisis of the week” that I can’t help but think of teen drama queens.
For an interesting explanation of data mining, read this
9:52 am
[...] Rightwing Nuthouse has a terrific post, Hysterical Drama Queens Of The Left, that dovetails nicely with own post highlighting liberal hypocrisy. [...]
12:51 pm
BIAS NEWS - WITH NO CREDIBILITY
As an active political blogger and T.V. news junkie … I can tell you that CNN online and Jack Cafferty on cable, are two of the worst offenders of pro Obama media bias, on a regular basis. Cafferty is constantly slamming Obama opponents on air … and CNN online moderates blogs in favor of Obama … sends bloggers to the most far left blog sites, if they want to comment … closes blog comments as soon as the blogs appear online … moderate their blogs in favor of Obama … and slant stories to favor Obama.