It's good to know that we have a few jounalists left that will try for accountability.
I'm sure before the trials start bu$h will be cowering in Paraguay.
Makes me wonder if journalists were targeted in Iraq for their coverage... the bu$h administration just did not want them there.
Posted by Seven of Six at January 22, 2009 08:32 AMWell, I thought Tice was largely incoherent, and he seemed more interested in self-publication that in real justice. He is peeved that no one in the Obama campaign "used him" appropriately, etc. His accusations are extremely vague and his affect is that of a congenital liar in the pursuit of self-aggrandizement.
I have a very hard time taking anything that he says seriously to any degree at all. No doubt there was illegal wiretapping and spying, but I want no part of this guy in trying to prove it.
So there's a connection between that brief stint on my high school newspaper and those 2 registered letters from the IRS? What a relief! I thought they were a direct result of my somewhat critical blogging of Bushco.
Posted by TIKI AL at January 22, 2009 08:51 AMI dunno, Bill, I saw a guy who was pretty rattled, who has been hounded since he first blew the whistle, who was incredulous that the new president wasn't outraged at the blatant illegality of the old president. Since when is it required that everyone who goes on tv be polished and confident? Thank goodness our national security and Obama's admin isn't in your hands, eh?
Posted by iamcoyote at January 22, 2009 09:17 AMBill H's video diagnosis of Tice reminds me of another video diagnosis by another Bill long, long ago:
"Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader and a heart surgeon, acknowledged yesterday that Terri Schiavo had suffered devastating brain damage and said his assertion three months ago that she was "not somebody in persistent vegetative state" did not amount to a medical diagnosis."
As I watched a PBS special "Make Me Laugh", I found the comments by Chris Rock interesting. He was basically saying that only in America can comedians make political statements (often off color) and be protected under the First Amendment.....yet, this is no longer true....although I now seldom travel to the US, I am leery of posting or stating contrary opinions on blogs or telephone conversations to my friends in America, for fear of wiretapping and ISP snoop robots....point is, under Shrub's administration, free speech was a major casualty.
One can only hope that this fear of eavesdropping can be eliminated with Obama as this is one of the fundamentals of US society that separates the US from totalitarian states.
The 'expectation bar' has been lowered however, as the 'terrists are under your bed' bu**shit has been inculcated into our daily lives.
Posted by Goyo at January 22, 2009 09:50 AMI didn't hear Tice ever actualy single out journalists.There were graphics at the bottom of the
screen during KO's show.But even that was in question form.What's up with that...anyone?
OLBERMANN: I mention that you say specific groups were targeted. What group or groups can you tell us about?Posted by iamcoyote at January 22, 2009 11:52 AMTICE: Well, there's sort of two avenues to look at this. What I just mentioned was sort of the low-tech dragnet look at this. The things that I specifically were involved with were more on the high-tech side. And try to envision, you know, the dragnets are out there, collecting all the fish and then ferreting out what they may. And my technical angle was to try to harpoon fish from an airplane kind of thing. So it's two separate worlds.
But in the world that I was in, as to not harpoon the wrong people in some -- in one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations just supposedly so that we would not target them. So that we knew where they were, so as not to have a problem with them.
Now, what I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7, and you know, 365 days a year, and it made no sense. And that's -- I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me, to fire me. But an organization that was collected on were U.S. news organizations and reporters and journalists.
OLBERMANN: To what purpose? I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every e-mail sent by all the reporters at the "New York Times?" Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York? Is it like that?
TICE: If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything. Yes. It would be everything.
Thank you Coyote..that is what I remember hearing....
Posted by headxray at January 22, 2009 12:22 PMYeah, headxray, me, too. And you know, reading around, it's going to be little things like Bill and zzz and bigger things like the discussion of 9-11 troofiness in threads like this that will allow this crime to be swept under the rug as conspiracy theories. Why? Because the journalists who may have been blackmailed by what was dug up on them won't pursue the story, and the people in government who ordered this or allowed it to happen don't want to be exposed, either. I guess I'm just not as hopeful as I was this morning.
Posted by iamcoyote at January 22, 2009 01:28 PMIs this on the cover of the New York Times? Washington Post? Lead the news on CNN or CBS? Nope, just checked. News about Google's profits and Bank of America are though. Oh, and "I hope Obama 'fails,' Limbaugh says" on CNN.
So, just to be clear: In addition to no right to privacy, no eavesdropping or search and seizure without a court order, there is no free press, either. The polite words I would use would be 'traitors to liberty.'
I'd also say "told you so' to some of the many incredulous "moderate' posters on the New York Times, LA Times and Huffington Post comments sections --when my comments were not deleted by moderators. But, why bother?
Not to put too fine a point on this, but I think someone (the Dems in Congress can't figure out how to do it) should ask, "What politicians were spied upon?" and make them deny that ANY were.
It would have been SO much easier to accept the last 8 years (particularly, the last 2) if Pelosi & Reid had blinked T-O-R-T-U-R-E like (future Senator) Jeremiah Denton.
I concur with those who think this will be largely ignored and I assign that to corporate media owners not wanting to look under the rocks. Yes, there may be journalists out there who are interested, but they are not going to get more than token support (if at all) from their outlet owners. Investigation will take the form of indies doing their indy thing and being ignored.
Posted by gtash at January 22, 2009 03:58 PM"I'm sure before the trials start bu$h will be cowering in Paraguay"
Seven of Six, that is if he can leave this Country and not be arrested.
"Makes me wonder if journalists were targeted in Iraq for their coverage... the bu$h administration just did not want them there."
Now, tell me again how many journalists were killed covering the conflict? There was more than one way to get rid of journalists.
Posted by Judith at January 22, 2009 04:04 PMThanks Iamcoyote.
Well, why are we surprised. We knew Bush was illegally gathering information and that some of that information would be about organizations and US citizens. I'm equally as sure that blogs like TLC were also being monitored as well as it's posters.
We often made comments about blackmail of politicians and news organizations. Of course it was going on. Think Anthrax and the silencing of Dan Rather.
It is up to us to demand that the story get front page news.
Posted by Judith at January 22, 2009 04:18 PMBy-the-way, remember Bush isn't in office anymore. It is a new day, and we need to start demanding accountability. It's now or never.
Posted by Judith at January 22, 2009 04:21 PMThanks iamcoyote for the quote from the transcript.I don't know how I missed hearing it
yesterday.I certainly have suspected the worst of the Bush folks and was very interested to possibly
obtain more proof of unconstitutional actions committed by them.Not hearing the part you emphasized bothered me and is what made me ask the
question.I am human and occasionally miss stuff.
I notice in his second interview,that Mr.Tice was
very cautious about naming groups that were separated out from the dragnet of information.He
seemed to fear that this might touch to close to
"sources and methods" and I sensed he was avoiding
a legal problem.I am guessing we are going to get
more clarity on this..hopefuly soon.
z z z z, Or he is afraid of a small plane crash.
Believe me, there is a dark underbelly to this Administration that we still don't know about.
Posted by Judith at January 23, 2009 12:44 AMThe next obvious question is what were they going to do with that information on US citizens?
Posted by Judith at January 23, 2009 01:09 AMAll those tin hats turned out to be velvet. I hate saying it, but we were right all along on the spying issue.
Posted by Judith at January 23, 2009 01:18 AMtin hats and tinfoil hats.
Posted by Judith at January 23, 2009 01:19 AMzzzz, I missed the second half, I'll have to watch it online - I can understand the legal worries. And I missed Maddow; did she say anything about it? Has anyone else? I wonder if everyone's always assumed they were doing such things, so the confirmation of it is too ho hum.
Posted by iamcoyote at January 23, 2009 05:08 AMWhatever info has been used against the media is still going to be something they don't want to get out. And who wants to tell the public that you allowed their sons and daughters to die in Iraq and New York because you failed to do your job and/or stand up to the Bushites?
If you want to hold dictatorial power you have to either terrorize your public physically or mentally, or propagandize/lie/hide the ever loving hell out of things. Since we don't generally terrorize ala Sadaam Hussein or Stalin (9/11 conspiracy aside), having a compliant and complicit media, along with a similarly inclined Congress (parts of) is the next best thing.
Until proven otherwise, the media remains an enemy to democracy, and it's up to US to change that, with unending shrillness. The Horse was oh so right, wasn't it.
Posted by Duckman GR at January 23, 2009 06:09 AMThe Horse was oh so right, wasn't it.
You said it, Ducky! I really miss MWO...
Posted by iamcoyote at January 23, 2009 07:03 AM