Sunday, September 11, 2011

James Bamford: Post-9/11, NSA 'enemies' include us

Yes, we remember. But have we honored them?

At today's Constitution Day parade the Tea Party Patriot contingent paraded holding the names & photos of New York City firefighters who died on 9/11; their theme was, "Remember" Never Forget.(*)

Yet James Bamford observes that Post-9/11, NSA 'enemies' include us:
".... Somewhere between Sept. 11 and today, the enemy morphed from a handful of terrorists to the American population at large, leaving us nowhere to run and no place to hide. ..."
"The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. ..." (link)

With the usual 20-20 hindsight, I'm wishing I'd thought to survey today's Constitution Day parade TPPs, asking whether curtailing civil liberties is the right response to terrorism.
(I'd like to be surprised; this from Glenn Greenwald in Salon suggests it's possible.)

See also Wired's infographic-laden The Dead, the Dollars, the Drones: 9/11 Era by the Numbers.

Bamford quotes Orwell:
“Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up... You have to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.”
It's no way for a free people to live.
at

3 comments:

  1. Curtis Walker9/12/2011 8:06 AM

    I would pull back a bit on terrorist definition: Not the population at large but the far right and the Republican Party as their enablers.

    PS: GREAT follow through on ALEC and the documentation that CONGRESSPERSON TOM MCCLINTOCK is indeed an alumni of this "star chamber" and his current and potential future constituents have a right to know he was AND any legislation that came out that impacts CALIFORNIA. Should be automatic grounds for resignation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anna Haynes9/12/2011 8:17 AM

    Sorry Curtis, I guess my post was muddled - the Bamford piece made clear that to the NSA, we're all [the NSA's] targets.

    Yes, we need to know what legislation McClintock sponsored, that was actually written by ALEC - which probably means its corporate members.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anna Haynes9/14/2011 10:56 AM

    FYI, the response from Igor Birman, to my request "could you ask Congressman McClintock whether, when he was a Calif. state politician, he sponsored any legislation that ALEC took a hand in composing? And if so, which bills?"
    was that he has no idea & McClintock doesn't remember.

    ReplyDelete

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