The Best, The Brightest, And The Watched
This sort of banana republic crap makes me wonder what has been happening during the past eight years that we'll find out about a few decades from now.
Apparently this wasn't some J. Edgar Hoover pet project that got reformed away in the 1970's. The report says the monitoring happened "from at least the mid-1960s until at least the late '80s." William Webster ran the FBI from 1978 to 1987. William Sessions ran it from 1987 to 1993. Especially considering the Bureau refuses to release dozens of pages from Halberstam's file, how about bringing in Webster and Sessions and getting some answers?
Apparently this wasn't some J. Edgar Hoover pet project that got reformed away in the 1970's. The report says the monitoring happened "from at least the mid-1960s until at least the late '80s." William Webster ran the FBI from 1978 to 1987. William Sessions ran it from 1987 to 1993. Especially considering the Bureau refuses to release dozens of pages from Halberstam's file, how about bringing in Webster and Sessions and getting some answers?
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, November 10, 2008
9 Comments:
It would be nice to have great transparency across the board. While I can see the paranoid Hoover hounding Halberstam and his Polish wife in a cold-war-era over reach, it seems surprising and absurd this carried on past the Nixon years.
They SHOULD have to answer for this, particular in light of what has been going on over the past 8 years where it seems our government intrusion has devolved to the level of those bad old days.
ALOHA !!
Nevermind the last eight years, what about the last 8 weeks? When we have to sue the US FED to find out what toxic "assets" they are buying using US TAXPAYER funds it goes beyond "BANANA" ... Now we are in a "NONI REPUBLIC"! If you have ever smelled the fruit of a Noni tree then you would know what the hell I am talking about! It is a most ghastly smell that makes one immediately think of puking!
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKr.oY2YKc2g
Seems all it would take is ONE Presidential Executive Order to have the US FED disclose such info ... OBAMA? You did say "CHANGE", didn't you? I believe any Ivy League trained politician could figure out that WE THE PEOPLE should be entitled to know what it is the US FED is buying on "OUR BEHALF" since we are the ones paying for it. Or do we need to define ... "OUR" and could you define the word "BEHALF"? I believe you know the definition of "PAYING FOR IT"!
Its never ending ...
QUESTION AUTHORITY ... DON'T VOTE FOR IT!
Maybe most offensive is the waste of time and taxpayer money.
No, the most offensive is the intrusion into the private life of a responsible citizen by the government.
"..this wasn't some J. Edgar Hoover pet project that got reformed away in the 1970's."
(a) nothing is so permanent as a temporary arrangement, and
(b) inertia is the greatest force in the Universe besides entropy.
It probably _was_ a Hoover vacuum job, like the similar Lennon and much of the Cointelpro stuff. Enemies of the State and all that. But there's no obvious reason why Hoover's pet projects would have been shut down automatically when he wasn't there to push them - bureaucratic inertia and tradition count for a lot, even if you leave out the "spy sees everyone as a spy" argument. As for getting answers from the present-day guys, anyone with a basic knowledge of history should understand that most government secrets are held more because they would cause embarrassment than becuase of any national risk. Secrecy is reflexive and protective, if not an effort to hold a potential weeapon.
Just think of all the books that will be written of this time. There will be scores of topics and not enough ink to bring all the corrution, cronism, fraud, embezzelment, spying, lying, and stealing.
When our grandchildren read about this time they will know we lost our fucking minds to allow this to happen.
This is news? Don't you just assume that anyone who writes an article, let alone several books, critical of the US government is going to have an FBI file? I've taken this for granted all my life.
As long as the innocent aren't arrested (and I assume they sometimes are), it seems prudent in a way; you never know where the next Timothy McVeigh (sp?) or Weatherman is going to come from...
Security vs. liberty is a tough line to walk, and I don't envy those charged with finding the proper balance.
hahaha...and we have certainly found that balance haven't we? hahaha...gitmo, rendition, non lawful combatants, phone taps, email snooping, no banking privacy, Official ID, asset forfeiture, no knock raids, explosion of swat teams even in rural areas...the most insane military budget in human history...pentagon, military, homeland security...hahaha. All we need are a bunch of brownshirts setting up roadblocks and standing on street corners..."Papers please"
what the hell is thinking this people? what is hidden in that reports? this could be one of that famous conspiracy theory.
Post a Comment
<< Home