General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The leak was an attempt to bolster the libertarian brand. [View all]Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)There is no oversight of the Intelligence Community. Period. That's the reality.
Let me stress one thing first. I do not like Rand Paul or Ron Paul. They're both assholes. I'd never vote for either one of them ever. As for their Libertarian ideology, it's more bankrupt than the old Soviet Communist ideology.
Now that those strawmen are disposed of, lets talk turkey.
The Military-Industrial-Internal Security apparatus is running rampant in this country, and nobody has the political will to try to stop it. Not Obama. Not the Republicans, and especially not the Democrats, save Wyden and Udall. And they're bound by secrecy laws with severe sanctions if they reveal anything other than "it's just the tip of the iceberg", or "it's worse than you think".
Snowden, like Daniel Ellsberg, saw what is happening, and made a decision to put the information in the public sphere and force a debate on it. I welcome that debate.
We are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on unneeded and unnecessary surveillance that turns all Americans into suspects. These programs aren't in place to protect you. They're there to suppress dissent from the corporate rule of law. You probably have a ten times greater chance of getting struck by lightning or winning the Powerball drawing, than being involved in a terrorist attack. And if we didn't have over 700 military bases all over the world, backing up an empire, the odds would go down considerably.
People who keep downplaying, and trying to cover up this shit, look more foolish by the day.