People Suck

[digitaldiscipline]

First, because not only are they unfounded optimists in the face of some depressing econimic truths, but because Americans are being arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights peacefully. [mainstream coverage of same is here.]

While listening to NPR after the SOU last night, the distinction to Republican and Democratic politicians was thrown into sharp relief. The GOP guy (Sr. Senator from KY) opened up with "I don't know what planet your other commentators are from," and proceeded to be combative, truculent, ignored the questions, but sounded sure of himself. The Dem (Sen. Rockefeller from WV) sounded much less certain, and actually appeared to give thought to his answers when questions were asked.

Neither of them, however, gave reassuring answers to the question, "Hypothetically, as a journalist, I need to speak with someone in the Hamas party in Palestine. Would my phone then be tapped, because they are considered to be a terrorist organization?"

Comments

[witchchild]

What pisses me off most is that I am hearing from random people (this morning on NPR, ha ha) that they don't care about the phone tapping, and if the government wants to, so be it.

Idiots.

[deansavatar.livejournal.com]

that's 'merica. . .

[kendra-manycats.livejournal.com]

That's Amerika with a K.

[kendra-manycats.livejournal.com]

A quote from Keith's sister (she was talking w/ his mom, not us) regarding the torture of prisoners...

"Well, if he thinks it's a good way to protect us from terrorism it must be OK."

Republicans like to hold up the spectre of 9/11 and wave it about at every opportunity. It scares people and the stop thinking. Bush says it every chance he gets. Keith calls it "click-whir". Say the words and they evoke an immediate response as opposed to thought.

URGHHHHH!

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

What would be a reassuring answer? "Yes"? "No"? "Maybe"?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

well, the hedging they were doing gave me pause, because if journalists can't conduct research, that fucks the process, for one thing. and i see the wiretaps as being like herpes, "once you've been tapped, they'll never both un-tapping you," which is why i think that congressional oversight of this process, while not foolproof, is a whole hell of a lot better than that all-hat, no-cattle cowboy motherfucker in the white house being given carte blanche.

[ex-requiella957.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's depressing alright. On the subject of surveillance, there was an excellent program (http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/01/31.php) on yesterday. Did you catch it? I consider myself fairly in the know about this general issue, but I learned even more.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

no, i missed that, but i do get bruce schneier's email newsletter, where he discusses (and goes off about) security topics with some regularity.

it occasionally reaches the "things are so fucked, why bother bitching?" threshhold for me.

[whomajigi.livejournal.com]

That second link is scary as all hell.