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If you have any reservations about Congress granting immunity to telecommunications companies like AT&T for illegally spying on Americans, this segment from last night’s Countdown should leave little room for doubt — they have, and continue to betray us and should be held accountable for their crimes.
Likening himself to a character from Orwell’s 1984, retired AT&T technician and whistle blower, Mark Klein, tells Keith Olbermann about his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during which he pleaded with them not to grant immunity to the telcom companies. Klein contends that his former employer is lying to the American people and that they were not only spying on overseas communications, but virtually ALL domestic internet and phone traffic — and they have been doing it for years.
Olbermann: “In talking to Congress today what did you hear? Did you get the sense that anybody is ready to go after not just the telecom execs, but the government officials who ordered this?”
Klein: “I couldn’t tell, I’m not a politician and they play their cards close to the vest. All I can do is emphasize again, that they’re copying everything, this is a violation of the Constitution, it’s domestic traffic, it’s phone calls as well as e-mail and something should be done to stop it and Congress should not kill the judicial process.”
Update: In yesterday’s New York Times, Senator Russ Feingold points out the obvious: “Telecom companies that cooperate with a government wiretap request are already immune from lawsuits, as long as they get a court order or a certification from the attorney general that the wiretap follows all applicable statutes.”
Filed Under: Civil Liberties, Countdown/Keith Olbermann, Ethics, George W. Bush, Government Policy, Intelligence Gathering, MSNBC
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it’s okay if you don’t do anything wrong?
Klein’s revelations warrant review in re impeachment. However, the Speaker appears to be in the way. One remedy, to ensure review of these allegations against the NSA is to remove the Speaker. Here is a State proclamation calling for removal of Pelosi, clearing the way so these allegations against the NSA can be raised during an impeachment.
Freakaloin @ 1:
But who gets to decide what’s wrong?
In a free society, the government must be free to listen your phone calls. Why does this man hate freedom?
“it’s okay if you don’t do anything wrong?”
so then it is not ok because the administration IS doing something wrong.
and i wonder how many tax payer dollars are being spent to copy and watch everything. not just suspect information, but everything.
Smoke signals, baby! Old tech is new again!
Congress hasn’t been listening to people like Mark Klein. Or US, the American People who elected their asses.
There needs to be about 520 pink slips that should be given out in 2008 - as in vote the bastards out. On both sides of the aisle.
Feingold, Frank, Conyers, Waters, Lee, Woolsey, Kucinich, Boxer, Bobby Scott, Webb, Moran, and other progressives you can name, which should add up to the remaining sixteen who need to be re-elected.
This program was also part of AT&T’s SPECIAL PLAN: REACH OUT AND BUST SOMEONE
Remember: Quest did not break the law the way AT&T and Verizon willingly and knowingly did, and the Quest CEO went to jail for it.
Also, of the wireless/cellular carriers, T-Mobile did not divulge call records, unlike AT&T and Verizon…probably because T-Mobile German owned, and the Germans know full well what evil a government is capable of doing.
I urge people to do what they can to boycott the offenders. And make no mistake, these companies have the best attorneys in the world, and they knew they were breaking the law.
OT, but does anyone think Chimp is throwing his poop around today and crying?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITI.....index.html
Man, I hope so…
So is it OK for me to be privy to White House communications? Dick Cheney’s voice on one end and the nibbling of Fig Newtons on the other?
The Democrats will cave like they always do……
Here’s some classic Carlin set to a powerful video montage.
“…americans continue to elect these rich cocksuckers that don’t give a Fuck about them…”
Good luck on the mo better front……
This is just a modest, decent person with a conscience, and yet there are so few of them. He’s part of what is probably a very small minority in our country anymore.
See if this sounds familiar …
1. Klein can’t comment on the program because he’s not briefed into the program.
2. If we revealed the details about our surveillance program, it would give things away to the enemy.
Can you imagine coming into the Oval Office in 09 and finding out that there are no capital reserves left, the nation is $14 trillion in debt, all of the capital marketplaces are shaky as hell, and the nation is bleeding red ink at the rate of one billion dollars a day?
If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you shouldn’t worry about all of your business calls being recorded and stored in the often hacked ChoicePoint server room..
Thanks to Bush and Cheney, the terrorists have won. America isn’t American anymore.
I sure hope they don’t try and take away this guy’s pension.
Freakaloin @ 1:
This issue is well beyond if anyones has done anything wrong, there’re many more underlying illegal and totalitarian schemes going on and you can count on it.
As this man says, this has been going on for years, so for years these criminals have been using, and will continue to, use information from this illegal wiretapping against their political enemies and a whole lot more. We have only begun to find out what these tyrants have been up to, it will be years until we know most of their crimes, we may never know, these scumbags are secretive, treasonous bastards and can’t find the brake pedal.
Talcott @ 12:
That was an awesome video clip! George Carlin will always be the man. I’d like to know when that monologue was recorded; it’s sounds recent.
liberalista @ 17:
Since they exert such influence in the American media, they can spin it and make a blowjob sound more injurious to the American people than multiple billion dollar republican fraud schemes.
L.A. Confidential @ 15:
And the Chinese are getting ready to foreclose on this country.
It is a mystery that they can do this with no consequences
I called my congressman to remove Nancy Pelosi, and I think even if she was removed for impeding the impeachment process, it would be a good thing to remove her for future involvement of stifling and conceding with corporates interest instead of giving us a new direction. It was disturbing to see her support a bill without regard to the discrimination in employment for gays, and yet her home states have the largest gay community in the nation. If she fail to represent her home state, what chance in hell will she support the nation?
Time to wipe out the big club that you and I don’t belong to.
L.A. Confidential @ 15:
Sounds like what they tried with Clinton, only this time they went all out.
This guy was on NPR. He explained how AT&T tapped the internet communications of ALL its customers.
In the same report, they quote John Kyl defending immunity for the telcoms because …. A) they were just doing their “patriotic duty” and B) we need to be able to conduct “intelligence collection abroad.”
If nothing else, can we at least get the wingnuts to admit that the scope of the surveillance is far greater than the Bush admin has told us — that in fact there are no limits at all?
L.A. Confidential @ 15:
Bush answer was to go shopping! Christmas is around the corner, and I am pondering in making all my gifts instead of shopping. I haven’t bought much of anything and been in the habit to not buy anything other than essential. I predict this Christmas season will be much different. If you think about corporate control of our country, and all the gift you buy that support them, and the conscience makes you reconsider your buying decision.
Symes @ 25:
I thought Clinton had a surplus when he ended his office?
Wonder if Alberto Gonzalez recalls any of this?
L.A. Confidential @ 15:
Not only that, our ports, shipping routes, and infrastructure are horribly underprotected, that there’s a pile of reports from the CIA clearly identifying a significant threat from al-Qaeda in Pakistan/Afghanistan and failing to confirm any active or significant weapons program in Iran.
Oh, and we have kids dying in droves because of a lack of health coverage.
paranoia @ 28:
Don’t be obtuse.
He had record deficits when and a trashed economy when he came in to office, Reaganomics at it’s best.
liberalista @ 17:
Cheney & Bush et al ARE The Terrorists!!!
paranoia @ 27:
liberalista @ 33:
paranoia @ 27:
Me too. I’ve also been thinking of eBay as well, you know, recirculate the money to the people who need it.
I won’t be giving my cash to the corporations though, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before my child gets another Chinese manufactured toy.
I’m beginning to think that the enemy is the American people.
I’m just about ready to drop my phone service and see if I can get by with making my calls using two dixie cups and a string.
EnricoFermi @ 36:
Well, the enemy absolutely is the American people from a population control point of view. The Bilderberg Group’s prediction of $200 per barrel of oil by the end 0f 2009 is an attempt to obliterate the middle class (their $100 prediction by the end of 2007 is coincidentally enough coming true - take a look at who’s on the board of directors). Population control. Lack of immigration law enforcement = helping to drive down middle class wages and obliterate the middle class this way. Controlling guns so that criminals have access to them but not the law and Constitution abiding citizen who might think about defending his or her family in a high crime area. Population control.
Welcome to the police state boys and girls. It’s no full blown, but we’re at the beginning of a closet dictatorship and fascism might be here to stay if we can’t rally behind a third party candidate and put a stop to this ridiculous closed two party system.
See the movie “The Lives of Others” and prepare for your future.
Ive Seen It In Action.
i was having problems with my att sbc yahoo ameritech dsl… Chicago. Check this out!
When I would visit webpages I would get a message that I was ‘overloading the server’
I uploaded some photos to yahoo photo- and there were two of every photo in yahoo photos.
So I called sbc and told them I was having trouble with my line…
They put me on to a tech whom i told about getting overload errors everywhere.
He phisically went and pulled my line. He asked me to powercycle my modem,
so It would come up looking for a signal but find none.
It found one anyway. I got to google. He said “thats impossible, im looking at your line right now and it isnt on”
I said “oh, its on… ask me to google something”
“This is very odd” said he.
I realized exactly what had happened.
the ’second line’ was also going through instead of stopping at the storage.
have a nice day.
I didnt ask him If i could talk to the people we weren’t allowed to mention so as to fix the problem.
This happened over a year and a half ago.
fuck at&t for playing Bush’s stasi games
Just read that Arlen Specter is offering a “compromise,” whereby telecoms will not be prosecuted for criminal acts committed at the behest of the Bush administration, because telecoms will not be listed as the defendants, the “government” will be.
Gee, and the “government” would never, ever claim “executive privilege” or “states secrets” in an attempt to withhold evidence, to try to shut down the trial, would they?
Obviously, the perversion and subversion of our democracy by the Fascist Republicans continues unabated.
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 3:
Pffft….the “decider” that’s who!
1. Unconstitutional:
It is unconstitutional for Congress to write laws affecting ongoing litigation. This is an illegal assertion of Judicial power by the Legislature.
What you can do: Contact NJ, ME, MO, VT Attorney Generals to encourage them to continue litigation against telecoms (for violating state privacy statutes) despite any Congressional immunity legislation.
2. Untimely: Foreseeably-Needed Legal Tools Not Created 2001
There were lawful methods to insulate the telecoms: Indemnification could have been used. It was not. Patriot Act was secretly drafted, but failed to include this option. (No merit to Rockefeller’s assertions.)
Anyone surprised by your president? George-Serial-Liar-Bush.
http://www.toppun.com/ProductI.....o_Bush.gif