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Not to short-change his effort, but actually trying to understand the thing on which you are working, doesn't make you a national treasure. He's a cromulent fe
by spathi_fwiffo 8y ago
Not to short-change his effort, but actually trying to understand the thing on which you are working, doesn't make you a national treasure.
He's a cromulent fellow, everyone else around him is just a national disgrace.
- mehrdadn 8y ago> Not to short-change his effort, but actually trying to understand the thing on which you are working, does You're aware he does more than just "trying to understand"?
- Bartweiss 8y agoWyden and Udall spend a lot of political capital pissing off some very large players over these topics, from telecoms companies to the NSA. And for their trouble, they mostly got squat until Snowden, which at least them them start yelling "See, we said it was awful and you'd be mad if you knew!" Maybe beating this drum is worth donations and support today, I seriously hope so, but they deserve serious praise for standing on conscience all that time.
- Bartweiss 8y ago> trying to understand It's better than that, though. He and Udall have spent years talking about mass surveillance and telecoms abuses as major problems, and made very few friends doing so. I agree that "in Congress but acting like a decent human" wouldn't be enough, and it frustrates me endlessly that positions like "was mostly against torture most of the time" are somehow laudable when they come out of Congress. But Wyden's access to confidential briefings means he's actually sounded a lot of alarm bells that other people couldn't, and that deserves some recognition.