McConnell says FISA discussion will kill Americans
By Steve Benen Wednesday Aug 22, 2007 7:15amDirector of National Intelligence Michael McConnell has managed to develop a fairly good reputation in DC, which is why it’s all the more curious it made comments like these to the El Paso Times.
Q: Even if it’s perception, how do you deal with that? You have to do public relations, I assume.
A: Well, one of the things you do is you talk to reporters. And you give them the facts the best you can. Now part of this is a classified world. The fact we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die, because we do this mission unknown to the bad guys because they’re using a process that we can exploit and the more we talk about it, the more they will go with an alternative means....
Q. So you’re saying that the reporting and the debate in Congress means that some Americans are going to die?
A. That’s what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, it’s a democratic process and sunshine’s a good thing. We need to have the debate.
It’s hard to even know where to start with comments like these. To hear McConnell tell it, the very discussion of the administration’s surveillance powers will kill an untold number of Americans — but “sunshine’s a good thing.”
Update: Lambert also makes a powerful case that McConnell is lying about "surgical" surveillance. Take a look.
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NONE THE WISER FOR FISA, DEMS ALLOW BUSH TO INSTALL ‘NANNY-CAMS’ IN THEIR OFFICES
Paraphrased :Stop asking questions you unamerican piece of ****.
I wonder if the folks who ask the questions go home to discover a 'Flowers By Iris' van parked across the street and a strange clicking sound on their phone line?
McConnell - and all Republicans - will not back away from the theme that even talking about a program will get Americans killed, and should be considered to be treason.
That is - until the president is a Democrat. Then, quite suddenly, Republicans will somehow manage to see things exactly 180 degrees opposite.
Republicans support Republicans - not America!
I betcha those "terrorist" have heard about wiretaps before now. I don't believe any cats have been let out of the bag regarding this. Such a strange statement, saying Americans are going to die. Who is going to kill them?
i'm ready to die for my freedoms.
I'd like to tell you. But if I told you, I'd have to kill you. No, they would kill you. No, you would die of fright. Anyway...
Be afraid, but be glad I'm not telling you why. Trust us, you frightened little rabbits; it's for your own good.
How many will die? Have died? How did they die? How do you know this? If you don't know this, why do you think this? Give me a scenario in which Americans will die because of this debate. Then explain to me in 25 words or less how the fabric of the Republic is not frayed and tattered by the kinds of secrecy that would stifle deebate and permit the Executive Branch to run rough shod over the Constitutional protections that used to be guaranteed to each and every one of us.
McConnell is transparent in his condescension and evil in his intention. Period.
I cannot understand how formerly free citizens of the Republic could allow themselves to be so bamboozled by shills like McConell that they voted for him, and how they could so blindly vote for a malevolent adminstration that so clearly seeks to diminish their rights, take away their privacy, and render them powerless to do anything but agree and join with O'Reilly, Hannity, and Limbaugh in the modern American version of Orwell's "2-minute hates".
By the way, Don, thanks for the link. I think the headline pretty much describes how I feel about the wimpy, ineffectual "opposition" party. These are people who would have stood up to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and said "Well, OK, we understand that you can't stop the genocide right away. We really wish you could, but can you at least give us a date by which you will try to begin thinking about planning to start cutting back on the slaughter? And while you're at it, how about raising the minimum wage a few drachmas?" What heroes!
Some punkins, indeed!
How? It's a simply question. Just how is talking about these programs gonna get people killed? It would be nice for someone in the media would ask these clowns just how that's gonna happen.
Another Republican pulling things out of his ass--as Al F likes to say.
Outing covert CIA agents is much safer.
pissed off patricia @ 4:
Oh, I'm sure of it too:
PC World poll highlights privacy concerns (10.08.2001)
The proposed PATRIOT (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act would provide investigators with more flexibility and greater access to high-tech tools to pursue wiretaps of mobile phones, interception of e-mail messages, and monitoring of Web surfing and other PC-based communications.
This is from CNN.com's archives, dated 10/8/2001. I've posted it many times on several blogs, and I'll be damned if I can't get any rightwinger to report CNN and the article's author to the FBI for helping out the terrorists.
I'd like to know why there wasn't this kind of urgency way back when the intel wonks got serious indicators that ol' Osama was going to take a crack at us; they'd had enough information in that National Intel Estimate that Condi airily dismissed to clearly and unequivocally state that a terrorist act would be committed in the US. And they had gathered that information withoutthis 'enhanced' spying ability.
They didn't use the power they had wisely back then; why give them more?
The court said what they were doing was illegal, so forget impeaching bush, arrest him for breaking the law.
Cross-posted at thinkprogress.org; thought I'd post it here as food for thought...
Re: McConnell said it takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a single telephone number.
Oh really?
From LP.org:
President Bush held a press conference on Monday morning to defend his policies in Iraq and his authorization of domestic eavesdropping. In this press conference, Bush stated one of the reasons he permitted NSA domestic wiretapping without a warrant and not go through FISA is “because it enables us to move faster and quicker.” He explained FISA is “for long-term monitoring.” President Bush said that the NSA domestic wiretapping is only for calls that originate from overseas, not those within the country. He claimed they would still go through the FISA courts for calls that are within the country. A reporter who caught this contradiction asked why the administration did not go through the FISA courts for all calls. President Bush responded by stating, “I said we use the FISA courts to monitor calls. It’s a very important tool, and we do use it. I just want to make sure we’ve got all tools at our disposal.”
So it takes 200 hours to assemble a warrant, but only for an domestic - international call? The administration STILL has not explained the discrepancy I listed above (in bold).
Good point, nemo. Hey, I'm glad you've been found. ;)
I know a lot of NSA employees here in Maryland, and they are pretty pissed about this situation. "Upholding the Constitution" is hammered into them during training. McConnell is going to make a lot of enemies with this one. Of course, none of these folks I know are way up the ladder.
Don Davis @ 1:
This site attracts blog whores of all descriptions. You are especially annoying because you post in caps and post only headlines which sound interesting but link to a satirical political blog. If I want to waste my time on satire I'll find it myself, thank you. This situation is so far beyond humor or satire that I don't even watch The Daily Show anymore.
Stop wasting my time.
I wish people in positions of power would be as scared of the healthcare situation that causes 6,000 unnecessary deaths per year as they are of boogeyman terrorists.
Right now, I'm a lot more scared of bridges than I am of AQ.
nemo @ 12:
Agreed.
Gen. Michael Hayden said:
"Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such."
B.S. As I recall, an FBI field agent had her eyes on two (was it three?) Middle Eastern men who were taking flight training, and were only interested in learning how to steer a plane, and not to take off or land. Can't recall her name, but she desperately tried to alert her superiors, who generally ignored her.
I wish someone would just stand up and say POPPYCOCK! But hey, if so many OVER THERE are paying more attention to what goes on in Congress than those OVER HERE... how do we get those over here to tune in more and throw away the Kool-Aid?
Part and parcel of their "Anything short of unquestioning obedience to Beloved Leader = treason" meme.
Hey, here's a question that never gets brought up. These guys love to huff and puff and boast about how manly and tough they are, right? So why is their entire worldview founded on a cornerstone of fear? Why do we never hear anyone point out that they're a bunch of spineless pussies who wet themselves whenever Cheney shouts, "Look! Brown people whose ways are not our ways!"? and who have the gall to actually criticize others for not being chickenshit cowards like they are? I'm just sayin...
Two expessions that need to be bandied about a lot more these days: "Give me liberty, or give me death" and "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees".
"Americans are going to die"
That's such a typical reich-wing fear mongering tactic. Sadly, 22%-ers buy it up freely.
Two things jumped out at me from the interview:
1. McConnell claims that the program is "surgical." But the claim focuses only on voice and not on data (ie, mail, web site traffic, blogs, public records and, of course, the social networking and datamining software that ties it all together). This deliberate conflation between voice and data always happens when the administration wants to minimize the scope of the program, and the trad press always falls for it. This interview is no exception. We, however, shouldn't be taken in by it. Taken as a whole, the program is anything but surgical. I've collected a mountain of evidence here:
http://www.correntewire.com/interview_nsas_mcconnell_claims_warrantless_...
2. McConnell's "kill Americans" line is the first time a major political figure has introduced der dolchstosslegende ("stab in the back" theory) into the discourse. We knew it was coming, and now it's here.
http://www.correntewire.com/right_wing_memes_illustrated_der_dolchstoss
Things are about to get very, very ugly.
votingvet @ 7:
He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.
Seriously, I can't figure out if this administration thinks we're stupid or thinks the terrorists are stupid. Either one is bad.
The only thing killing Americans is the Bush Administration.
If he wasn't an extreme supporter of Bush and his policies, he would not be where he is. He will do what he is told to do. I am willing to bet the daily talking points are distributed on hiis RNC Blackberry.
Yes. Throughout our history people died, Mr. McConnell, so that we can have a free an open debate. Not, as you claim, the other way around.
"Discussion" isn't getting Americans killed......."Bush Republican" enablers are!!! If "guns" don't kill people, how can "words" kill them? Mr. Bush's desparate immoral hypocrisy knows no rational limits. The Bush administration wants to return to the Vietnam era of "oil" expansion politics, which FAILED and where one out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. 58,169 were killed and 304,000 wounded. Evidentally, those are "acceptable" loses for Mr. Bush and his cowardly mercenary ilk. What are only 3,700 dead American soldiers in Iraq compared to 58,169 dead American soldiers that were sacrificed in Vietnam? Nothing! That is how these rat-bastard scumbags think! Impeachment has never been more necessary or justified!
the administration’s surveillance powers will kill an untold number of Americans
Is he volunteering? 'Cause he can go first.
McConnell says FISA discussion will kill Americans
So will rendition, illegal detention, and torture.
Two words to McConnell. FUCK YOU.
Our system has withstood the test of time. It works because of its openness AND its freedoms.
Giving up freedoms and compromising our way of life to protect it...(the old cut down the forest to save it argument), is not what democracy and America is about. If our system cannot survive by adhering to its principles, then better it should pass into history then to compromise our values and lose our souls.
these blackshirts want our mouths typed shut and keyboards taken away. They are all East Germany nostalgists
To hear McConnell tell it, the very discussion of the administration’s surveillance powers will kill an untold number of Americans — but “sunshine’s a good thing.”
I think the reporter mispunctuated McConnell's comments. I believe it would be clearer like this:
A. That’s what I mean. Because we have made it so public. We used to do these things very differently, but for whatever reason, you know, "it’s a democratic process"
and "sunshine’s a good thing". "We need to have the debate."
I don't know if he was making quote marks in the air with his fingers, but my suspicion is not that McConnell is schizophrenic and inconsistent from one sentence to the next, but that he was ridiculing the current -- and in his opinion, wrongheaded -- attitude of "some" in Congress. He was ridiculing the notion of a transparent process because it would supposedly get people killed.
Big Brother is Watching You Watch "Big Brother".
So "Republicans" holding 301,000,000+ Americans hostage to FISA?
...and terrorists do what?
I'm completely against this wiretapping nonsense, but I don't see how his statement is untrue. It's similar to saying "the fact that we aren't lowering the speed limit by 10 m.p.h across the board (and enforcing it) means some Americans are going to die." That's clearly a true statement. More freedom = less safety = more deaths, same old tradeoff. It's just a matter of deciding where on the old freedom/security continuum you want to be. Myself, I lean more towards the Patrick Henry side of things.
Joe @ 35:
Well said.
In one of those weird coincidences, I came across the name Edward Bernays [in a book on the 1918 flu pandemic, and in Al Gore's Assault on Reason]. Bernays, an American, is the real father of propaganda, not Goebbels.
We would all do well to study a little how propaganda [like this] works. I seem to have a good BS detector, as do most folks here, but no one is totally immune. Especially in crazy times.
How exactly can "sunshine be a good thing" if it is killing people? Is there just something about modern American society that encourages and rewards morons in public service?
Americans are already dying. About 100 per month in Iraq but I guess they don't count?
"Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell has managed to develop a fairly good reputation in DC, which is why it’s all the more curious it made comments like these to the El Paso Times."
Colin Powell had a "fairly good" reputation in DC also, and it came in pretty handy when spewing the administration's BS about WMD. Who better to catapult the propaganda than someone with a "fairly good reputation in DC"?
Fools on the Hill @ 39:
The Institute of Medicine study showed that 18,000 Americans die needless deaths each year because of lack of access to medical care due to no health insurance. Guess they don't count either!
hadenuf @ 37:
Indeed. Another worthwhile read is Chapter 5 of The Culture Industry by Adorno, called "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda". Provides a little insight into the primal mind of authoritarian followers and what drives them to participate in malignant social movements that are fully against their own interests.
Like Joe said, McConnell is talking about a complex situation, and if you can't see that it IS a complex situation, we've got problems. Even those of us who come down firmly on the side of civil liberties protection have to accept that there are consequences!
And, if you look at his statements, he's talking about MILITARY deaths, and he explains why. Read the whole transcript, it's much more clear what he's talking about. There's a tradeoff between the actions a vast majority of Americans support during military operations and protecting civil liberties at home; but they're not mutually exclusive. And that's why debate is necessary but it does result in battlefield changes.
And I'm sure Michael McConnell grooved to this too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj1GIj5fpWw
Perhaps if America asks nicely, our Native American Brothers can return. Go to Congress and teach them the language of the "Code Talkers" that the Japanese could not break. Then where are the terrorists going to find Native American speaking Muslims?
Like the terrorists are too stupid to even think they are being listened for?
It doesn't matter if terrorists know our Government can spy on them as well on us without warrants or spying on them and us with warrants. Does anyone really think Bin Laden sees any difference in the two? (Besides the fact that Bin Laden can rest assured that he caused Americans to lose some of their freedoms.
You know, the freedoms that GW and his ADM always propagates that terrorists hate our freedoms. So Bush removing our freedoms is doing Bin Laden's bidding.
Yeah yeah we keep on hearing that. 'Americans will die'
Look douchebag... Americans are going to die because of Bush's fucked up 'My way or the highway' foreign and domestic policy. If he hadn't fucking invaded Iraq in the first place we would have been better off and the Republican regime you are so desperately trying to protect might have a chance at ever being elected again.
And if we're going to ignore the Constitution then the terrorists have already won. You work for us. Do your fucking job within the law or be replaced by someone who will.
WC @ 14:
The right-wing rhetoric is that the dems are evil and they are out to destroy America. The Pat Robertsons/Falwells/Dobsons would like to create a religious eutopia by using the rod to discipline the secular world.
Just a reminder to these religious bigots; the founding fathers designed the separation of church and state in the constitution. These religious sect should never get involved in politics and preach to the congregation how to vote and whom to pick. They are to preach the gospel as it is. This was their commission.
Bush the opportunist is using their ideologies and the idologies of the one percent white collar citizens to destroy a democratic nation.
Soon, Bush is going to cave in to the desires of the Vatican; the middle ages barbarians who would like to control the Catholic congregation. Since Pat Robertson cannot shake the dust from the catholics; he may have to join forces with the religious mafia.
The muslims cry out "Jihad" and Christians cry out "Jihad," to end in destruction.
Brilliant! This is how they can get us to fold. Scare the shit out of people and blame THEM for what happens! Not only is this the most corrupt administration ever, they may be the most brilliant when it comes to media relations and spin. Truly amazing, and very very depressing.
If, as the lunatic fringe bush admin so hopes to fan the flames of hatred against the u.s. into a white heat EVOKING a terr strike fails, (damn, missing the chance of slamming down martial law on us), then the bush lunatic fringe will have to do it themselves.
I swear. It's as though something is attempting to reach into our brainpans and reposition everything backwards.
Color me paranoid.....but that sure sounded like a threat to me. These are the people that are are running this country. Whatever. I refuse to be intimidated. Like the guy said:
People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people.
Ali @ 49:
This is exactly what they did this summer with Chertoff's gut feeling about a terror strike which scared the Dem's into allowing Bushy's latest wiretaps. Because if something did happened they didn't want to be blamed.
Here's more scary shit about them declaring martial law:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/60085
I'd like to think this is ludicrous but after 6 years of these guys gathering powers, I can't put it past them.
anyone with an IQ above 50 knows this administration will not follow the law and
everyone is being surveilled not just the intended. shit-for-brains has not been
honest with the American people, who he deems below him, from the the day
he awoled from military service.
Only Americans are allowed to slaughter Americans. No news to report there.
Jerry @ 51:
Jerry, perusing the few local stations I can get (dumped cable) last night there was this idiotic terr-ist (stereotypical arab discussing wildeyed plans to destroy our "way of life")
so we too must learn to fear them and gnash our teeth.
It's easy to divide and conquer really stupid people.
On the other hand, maybe we do need to let the booshies make a move that will FORCE US TO ACT. eh?
We're waiting for them to make our day.
Between Bush & the entire Adm (including the Majority controlling congress and senaate ignoring the warning sirens of terror threats. The All the same folks completely Panicing and attaccking out of fear.
And you should know their fear because we all saw GW gawking with a dumb stare at the camera from the classroom as he mustered enough moxie to finish reading "My pet Goat. In the mean time, the brave 5 deferment Cheney got into a safe bunker leaving the President above ground. They all left us Americans to take what ever hits were coming.
And to think that the only aircraft flying was the Osama chartered flight of muslims out of the country. At the President's approval. So they put more Muslims in the air in America after Muslims crashed 3 planes already that day.
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