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Sen. Mark Udall: I knew about the NSA spying, did everything but leak to stop it
- dkulchenko 13y agoThis really is the way to stop this. Support representatives like Mark Udall and Ron Wyden and vote everyone who's supporting PATRIOT and warrantless wiretapping out of office. Civil liberties should be as big of an issue (if not bigger) during elections as the economy.
- azov 13y ago>Civil liberties should be as big of an issue (if not bigger) during elections as the economy. This. Fixing broken economy takes years. Fixing broken civil liberties takes decades, if not centuries.
- rhizome 13y agoIt doesn't have to be the kind of reform that takes decades: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968 I think you may be referring to changes that preserve current power and political structures, but that's not required.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI can't help observing that de Gaulle's party actually increased its parliamentary majority to record levels in the election that took place in June 1968; it signalled the beginning of the end of De Gaulle's political career but institutionally the protests were a total bust.
- drivebyacct2 13y ago"Civil liberties should be as big of an issue (if not bigger) during elections as the economy." I laughed, because I can't even bring myself to make statements like that anymore.
- lostlogin 13y agoWhat is civil liberty? Whats wrong with the economy? Meh. What's my tax break? Welcome to New Zealand.
- bilbo0s 13y agoEasy to say... Hard to do... The original PATRIOT Act passed the Senate by a vote of 99 to 1 I think. The Senator from Wisconsin was the only one to vote against it. Feingold I believe. He was replaced by a more "law and order" type Senator. I still think to this day it was because he threw wrenches into all of these programs whenever he had a chance. (And sometimes even if he didn't have a chance, he would sabotage the machinery.) The thing is ... the people of Wisconsin voted him out. Now you can argue that they didn't understand what they were doing... but you can't argue the vote. And this illustrates the problem. In a nutshell... There is little political profit in fighting these programs. THAT, is what we need to find some way to change. EDIT: BTW, just a point of fact I think may be relevant here... Wyden voted YEA for the PATRIOT Act. Just Sayin'.
- suredo 13y agohttp://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...
- mr_spothawk 13y agohttp://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote....
- prollyignored 13y ago* Stop the wars * Stop the spying * Save the children Blah blah ... The terrorists will persist. Globe trotting capitalist crisis will persist. Radical ideologies don't die, easily.The problem is Action <-> Reaction. You spit on me, I plot revenge. What will happen after another deeply painful attack ? Everyone usually just hand-waves and says "Do something !" This is when american hypocrisy is updated to 11.0. "I want to be comfortable ! They are the idiots, kill them ! I don't care who ! Don't tell me how, Just do it ! Don't bother me, I need to workout ! I want to bang this person you see ... " So, faux laws are created, damage is done, lives are saved, movies are made, everyone feels icky about the new laws and then we get new presidents and new laws like new muffins. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
- neaanopri 13y agoI think that if this Senator had publicly and openly leaked the documents, he'd be very difficult to prosecute(no jury would convict him), and arresting a US senator would be so much of an overreach by the NSA that it couldn't survive. It's just a pity nobody on the intelligence committee has the backbone ti stand up for their constituents.
- scrabble 13y agoThey should be, but often people vote on party lines regardless of vote history. Sure, some people may look into vote history, but not the majority.
- rollo_tommasi 13y agoIf he had access to documents showing the extent of this program he should have read them into the Congressional Record, like Mike Gravel did with the Pentagon Papers.
- notaddicted 13y agoThe only reason Mike Gravel had a copy of the Pentagon Papers is because Ellsberg sought him out, so Gravel wasn't himself the "leak", and Gravel knew that the NYT and others already had a copy (they were publishing parts).
- rollo_tommasi 13y agoRight, but the documents were still classified at the time so he could have prosecuted for publicly disclosing them had he not taken advantage of his position to read them into the record. The point is that there is a Constitutionally guaranteed mechanism for Congressmen to disclose alarming classified information they have access to.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nhebb 13y agoLeon Panetta leaked classified info to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty, and there were no repercussions (hell, he even got promoted to Secretary of Defense). I really doubt there would have been repercussions if Udall had leaked this information. While I'm glad that Udall is fighting for civil liberties, this doesn't exactly seem like material fit for an updated version of Profiles in Courage.
- questionmark 13y agoThe idea of the Panetta leaks were to promote a positive view of the US war on terror. Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty: I always wondered about the relation between its director Kathryn Bigelow and Robert Bigelow. Is there a connection?
- revelation 13y agoSo? The seemingly random enforcement of laws is a hallmark of dictatorships.
- cgag 13y agoEverything but actually bringing it to public attention.
- jaekwon 13y agoSen. Mark Udall cannot be held accountable. Look at how Bradley Manning is being treated for leaking classified documents.
- wavefunction 13y agoBradley Manning is a goddamn hero.
- lizzard 13y agoI am looking at it, admiring it, and I'd do the same in a heartbeat.
- jaekwon 13y agowoot. our numbers are swelling now.
- tomjen3 13y agoBut he isn't a senator.
- anigbrowl 13y agoUnlike Bradley Manning, Senator Udall enjoys the privilege of legal immunity for anything he says on the floor of the Senate. Manning was not invested with such responsibility, or freedom.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- suredo 13y ago"... was broadly securing tens of thousands of Americans’ phone records ..." make that millions?
- wavefunction 13y agoThen he did not do enough. Step up as an American, sir.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI have to say I find this oddly disingenuous. Senator Udall is surely aware that he could have offered up this knowledge in a speech on the Senate floor and enjoyed total legal immunity under the US Constitution, with Supreme Court precedent to back him up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause
- yxhuvud 13y agoHe may have legal immunity, but pulling stuff like that can easily make him into a pariah making certain he never again accomplishes anything in senate.
- anigbrowl 13y agoI'm not sure what good immunity is if you don't exercise it in difficult cases. I honestly think 99.99% of the people at the NSA and in the Executive branch are vacuuming up that data out of a sincere desire to keep America safe, too. But only members of Congress enjoy the legal immunities of the 'speech or debate' clause; they're invested with the rare power to exercise their conscience in how they fulfill their oaths of office, unlike most of the executive branch.
- DoubleCluster 13y ago... all Cases, except Treason ...
- anigbrowl 13y agoThis interpretation may be incorrect, but my reading is that treason is one of the very few cases that allows the Executive Branch to take a Congressman into custody in the course of carrying out his duties, but the speech or debate clause is a separate provision. IOW if I am a Congressperson and and (say) sell secrets to Iran, and the attorney-general obtains sufficient evidence to bring charges (testimony of two people etc.), I can be arrested while traveling to/from, or even while working in, the Capitol. But if I stand up during a debate and reveal information that would be useful to Iran without having had any actual traffic with the Iranian government or a representative, that's quite different.
- josephlord 13y agoIf you are on the Inteligence Committee and you leak stuff it is a very risky strategy as: 1) you will get thrown off the committee and someone more trusted by the agencies will replace you. 2) even after throwing you off the committee they may keep more secret information from the committee and justify it by the risk of the members leaking it as in this example. You need to try to ensure leak is big enough to break the current system and INCREASE the oversight rather than further reduce it OR to have reached a point where you aren't actually doing any good on the committee in the first place.
- fatjokes 13y agoRead: did everything but risk himself to stop it.