in fact, given the increased US involvement and the general unrest in the Middle East it probably pushed back their goals somewhat
Really? You've heard about this caliphate they are creating in what used to be Iraq before the US tore it to pieces?
If anything, I'd say 9/11 was a win/win for those involved.
Sad as it is, you're not far from the truth. Sharks hate and love each other in equal parts, and when they find out someone under them fooled them, they do understand he's too dangerous to be there. But firing him can be dangerous, too - if he can fool you, who knows what else he's capable of? Making him an ally (temporarily, of course, there's no such thing as friendship among predators) is the wisest course of action.
That, in a nutshell, is why the biggest assholes get promoted instead of fired - because the ones making those decisions are the exact same kind of human trash.
9/11 may not have been engineered by us, but the people in power certainly took advantage of it when it happened.
Thereby precipitating the most epic win imaginable against Western Democracy.
I honestly don't think they imagined the extent to which they would to undermine the society they were trying to shake. And if they did, that's truly scary.
That the 'authoritarians' (*cough* fascists *cough*) took advantage of that, we are not in disagreement about.
But either forcing them to, or giving them an excuse to, finally just fully take control
These guys almost have express written permission for these kinds of abuses. The exact same abuses people were warning would happen while they were being passed. The PATRIOT Act had stuff in it which people said would lead to this kind of crap while it was being passed, because it was a knee-jerk response.
I argue that Western society post 9/11 is overtly different than it was pre 9/11. Some of the rot may have been there already, but it's come into the full light of day since.
Yeah I was going to say the same thing. You NEVER make a change that you don't have a way to backout to the previous operational state.
And, really, if you have something which Absolutely Has To Be There
This is basic change management.
(And, yes, I am saying this without any context for this outage -- but, really, if you maintain a production environment for critical software, this is what you do)
You know all you'll get is a big stack of completely blacked-out paper, right?
Therefore, Congress will pass a law making itself exempt from CIA/NSA spying and the rest of the country be damned.
It's already illegal - you think the CIA is going to care about another law to ignore?
he'd have been fired on the spot for lying to his superiors for months and trying to cover up his own incompetence.
The boss can lie to his underlings all he wants. You seem to be going by book-learning on which is which here and ignoring the data.
Allowing the NSA, DHS and CIA (hell, even the IRS, for that matter) to continue to operate as they are allowed to will swallow up the last vestiges of America and its dream.
Don't forget the Fed, which funds all this.
The dystopia exists now but it's not too late to turn back.
It's actually the collapse of the Fed's product that will be the only thing that can scale it back. It could resolve nicely or turn into a nightmare - here's hoping for the best!
So why is lying to Congress not a punishable offense?
Congress used to keep those in contempt of Congress in jails in the old Guard rooms until they agreed to cooperate (or the session ended). The room that's now the House post office was last used in 1934 to hold a prisoner. Both the Legislature and the Judiciary have almost entirely abdicated their powers to the Executive Branch since then.
These days we have a sitting Attorney General who is convicted of Contempt of Congress (which carries a *minimum* one month jail sentence) and roams about freely and the Legislatures' intelligence committees are employed by the "intelligence community" directly (same as the Fed owns the banking committee). The Legislature really has no actual power to enforce its proceedings at this point.
See, this isn't a crime, it's just the employer checking up on his employees' work. I guess a couple of them thought they were due a raise and made a stink. A low-level employee was blamed and will probably be scapegoated/fired to make this all go away and then business will carry on as usual.
we are going down a road that violates the very tenets of our nation's forming.
Going??? It's well underway.
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the terrorists, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
This is the Stasi, the KGB, J Edgar Hoover, McCarthy, and cyberpunk all rolled up into one festering mass of shit.
or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort
Well, arguably these clowns have become the enemy of democracy, the Constitution, and the rights of pretty much every person on the planet.
No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
And, he's now confessed.
OK, fine, maybe it's not technically treason. But if the US isn't going to do some serious cleaning of house, it's only going to get FAR worse from here.
The rot at the upper levels of these agencies has created a mentality of "by any means necessary", and a complete indifference to the law.
If he just says "oops, sorry about that" and he and his subordinates aren't seriously punished, this shit will only get worse.
Fine, waterboard the son of a bitch, get the truth out of him that way.
He seems to think it's OK for other people.
This man can no longer be trusted, and if he isn't prosecuted and jailed for what he's readily admitted, democracy in the US is fucked, and the rest of the world won't be far behind.
You more or less have to assume the entire upper management of the CIA (and other TLAs) are all equally corrupted.
They've decided that the people overseeing them don't know what they're talking about, and taken matters into their own hands.
Treason indeed. And there's no way just one guy is responsible. The whole system has rotted into this.
Jail isn't going to do any good unless you put the whole agency in jail.
OK, fine.
If there is no oversight, and I don't mean a FISA court whose job it is to say everything is rosy, then you can't have an agency like this.
Having the CIA directly lying to congress about their activities, and actively spying on the people who are supposed to oversee them is something straight out of fiction -- only it's no longer fiction, they're doing anything they please, and no longer accountable to anybody.
Fuck, hit them up with a RICO suit. Do ANYTHING.
What next, he'll go into private industry as a security consultant for corporations? Oh, wait
This is bloody scary. Neither Americans nor the rest of the world signed up for a fucking security agency which is no longer under anyone's control except people who feel they can do anything they want.
It is. The next step would be for the Senate oversight committee to vote to refer the matter for prosecution. The question is whether they want to go down this road or not.
The way I see it, if they don't go for prosecution, they've more or less given these agencies carte blanche to violate the law, lie about it, and have no consequences.
Sorry, but I think this sounds like treason, or at the very least an indication that all of the assurances we've had that they're playing by the rules is a pile of shit.
So, the question of "do you spy on Americans?" "Are you in compliance with the law?" "Have you been using this information to make yourself rich?" -- every single thing they do pretty much must be distrusted.
Blatantly lying to Congress means they've reached a point where they don't give a shit.
This is madness.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss
