This, on surveillance, is not far wrong.
From the good folks at ReasonTV.
Not Far Wrong
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Category Archives: morality
Racism of the Federal Government
Here’s another example of the WilsonianObaman government’s racism.
The EEOC is haling Dollar General and a US unit of BMW into court, charging them with racism for the heinous practice—seriously—of using background checks to screen those convicted of
Murder, Assault & Battery, Rape, Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse (Domestic Violence), Manufacturing of Drugs, Distribution of Drugs, [and] Weapons Violations
from job applications.
Just to add racism to the EEOC’s racism, in the BMW case, there’s this: 70 black and 18 non-black contractors had criminal convictions, and the company declined to hire any of them. The EEOC is only suing over the blacks’ non-hiring. The non-blacks can go hang.
Indeed, the President Barack Obama’s EEOC has proudly codified its racism. It said just last April that
an employer’s evidence of a racially balanced workforce will not be enough to disprove disparate impact.
Don’t worry about the inherently racist nature of disparate impact. Such a worry would be racist.
Laughingstock
That’s putting it mildly. “Futile” also applies. I’ve written earlier how President Barack Obama reduced himself to a laughingstock and is reducing the United States as a whole to a laughingstock.
Now those in Syria who’ve been begging us for help speak derisively about us as a result of Obama’s…behavior. On the heels of Obama’s belated acknowledgment that his bright red bunting strewn upon the beach sands had been stepped on and over; followed by his decision to send small arms to Syrian rebels (which all of Arabia already is providing them) with which to fight al Assad’s helicopter, artillery, and tank assaults (supported by Hezbollah fighters and Iranian soldiers); coupled with Obama’s continued refusal to send the rebels the weapons with which to defeat those helicopters and, artillery tubes, and tanks; and his continued refusal to suppress al Assad’s air force in any way, the rebel beneficiaries of the Obama Munificence had this to say:
It’s all talk. Until we see weapons in our hands here in Syria, they are just words floating in the air.
Obama’s team is cited at the WSJ link just above in this way:
While US officials acknowledge that Hezbollah and regime forces are closing in on Aleppo, they believe there is time to train rebels and improve their defenses—with or without a no-fly zone, officials say—underscoring their belief the conflict is nowhere near a conclusion.
Umm, maybe not. This isn’t the mid-19th century, when a two week holdout at the Alamo was enough for Sam Houston to train his forces to effectively resist Santa Ana. More importantly, whose fault is it that the conflict “is nowhere near a conclusion?” It’s not the rebels’.
And those…officials…had this:
US officials question whether US and European arms alone will make a decisive difference in a country already awash in weapons.
What a breathtaking, willful ignorance. Of what use to these persons think small arms—rifles and pistols, and the occasional light machine gun—are against helicopters, artillery, and tanks?
And where is Obama anyway on this seeming change of position concerning chemical attacks and arming the rebels? Why is he sending out low-level functionaries to tell us, in vague terms, about this?
Of what is Obama so terrified that he can’t talk to us—in detail—personally?
A Whistleblower
I offered this first as a comment to a Spiegel Online article. Here it is with slight modifications to support its stand-alone status here.
Edward Snowden, of Verizon metadata and PRISM outing fame, thinks of himself as a whistleblower, and so do many who agree with him that the US’ PRISM program and its program for collecting metadata from cellphone providers are terribly wrong programs.
I agree that the programs are anathema to individual liberty. However, the programs are legal under US law. The only question here is whether the programs’ limits and checks are being honored–and that’s a matter of trust, since the programs and its procedures are secret. That secrecy and the need for that blind trust in Government (not just the Obama administration, but any Government) form a large part of my dismay over the programs.
However, the programs’ legality mean Snowden cannot be a whistleblower; he’s simply a man who has illegally revealed classified data to the public.
What about civil disobedience, then? Is he practicing this honorable means of protest of a government behavior to which he objects?
There are many legal avenues of calling legitimate attention to these flawed programs, including, for instance, any of the several formal whistleblower and Inspector General facilities to which he could have taken his case. Given the damage already done by these programs (stipulating arguendo that damage to individual liberty has been done) any additional damage done through the delays of going through these legitimate programs would have been quite trivial. Yet Snowden eschewed these programs and went directly public. From within a foreign country.
Were this an act of civil disobedience, it would have had to satisfy two criteria: he would have had first to exhaust his legal remedies. As I noted, he chose not to do so.
Secondly, he would have to have been willing to face the consequences of his actions. It is, after all, those consequences and their absurdity in the face of the disobedience and the thing over which the disobedience is occurring that give force and credibility to the disobedience. Snowden’s reason for being in Hong Kong, as stated by him, is to avoid facing those consequences.
If Snowden truly believes that what he has done is just, he must return to the US and face the outcomes of his actions in open court. Let him make his case in front of the American people (where he’ll find no small measure of support) and convince our representatives in that court case–the jury of his peers–that his act was justified.
Of course he risks not being supported by our representatives, that jury, as there also are a large number of Americans who disagree with what he has done.
Snowden’s flight and so far refusal to return indicates he’s unwilling to take that risk, that he does not have the courage of his convictions. In that case, Snowden did not commit an act of civil disobedience; he is simply a small man who is placing his ego above justice.
Leak Hypocrisy
Recall the zeal with which President Barack Obama’s DoJ is attacking leakers, to the point of a broad-band raid on AP reporters’ and editors’ (with its collateral raid on Congressmen) telephone records and an accusation of a specific reporter having criminal culpability in order to get a search warrant to obtain his personal emails (with its collateral raid on the reporter’s parents’ email).
A (draft) Defense Inspector General report on ex-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s leaks had some interesting things to say.
The first instance [of a leak] was a July 15, 2011, interview of the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Michael Vickers, by the [Osama bin Laden raid] film’s director, Kathryn Bigelow, and screenwriter Mark Boal. In that session Vickers gave them the name of a special operations planner whose identity was supposed to be protected from public release.
And
The second instance was a June 24, 2011, awards ceremony at CIA headquarters in which Panetta identified the ground commander of the SEALs raid, with Boal in attendance. The report did not say whether Panetta knew Boal was present.
Of course Panetta knew, though. Such gatherings at such a level in the government hierarchy are highly prestigious, if nothing else; additionally, the permissions/invites to attend are tightly controlled. And what was a Hollywood screenwriter doing in a classified gathering, as this one had to be, with classified information like SEAL team identities being bandied about?
The IG report said the ground commander’s name was supposed to be protected from public release, under federal law.
Panetta then gave up the Pakistani doctor’s identity in a January ’12 60 Minutes interview:
[Afridi] was an individual, in fact that helped provide intelligence, that was very helpful in regards to this operation….
As a result of this report, Pakistan’s version of the 9/11 Commission concluded that the doctor was acting as an American agent.
Many of the SEAL team members have since been killed, and the Pakistani doctor is now in a Pakistani jail.
Where’s the administration’s hue and cry over these leaks? Or is it that when the SecDef does it, it’s not illegal?