ha, ha… You made fun of creeping tyranny! That makes it OK, Right?
I don’t see much tyranny in this case, so no.
He got a pardon that got him out of trouble he put himself into.
And now he is in legal wrangling to compel testimony about a situation that the government has a true interest in. Wrangling he will probably win.
Not much “tyranny” here.
Pick another case to make your stand on. There are plenty more with MUCH more government overreach.
You mean like the White House helping prepare a letter to the DOJ so Garland can pretend he is reacting to a call for help from some school board organization that doesn’t want push back from parents?
You are right there.
But that doesn’t give this a pass. Equity demands this be treated like the Holder case and have the issues decided before you go around indicting people.
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Which govt overreach would you suggest?
Oh the tyranny!
This is partisan squabbling.
The government has locked up
Innocent people, taken lands. Killed citizens. Those are cases to make a stand. This is partisan eye-poking at worst.
Police property confiscation practices jumps to mind.
Eminent domain used for business expansion is another.
These are things that affect truly innocent persons and on a much larger scale than a political operative getting into a partisan pissing match with congress. A match he will likely win.
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Garland seems quite ready to “poke eyes” for partisan political purposes.
The only good feeling I get out of actions like this is when I think how close he came to being on the Supreme Court. Thank you Senator McConnell.
Yep. Quite a ■■■■ show we’ve set up. I predict more of the same from the next congress/AG too.
This is where we invest our attention… tribal clash.
Our culture has confused this with civic engagement.
And here I thought you’d pick something like the FBI unmasking Americans with lies to FISA. But, those are great issues calling for small govt and fewer laws.
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The others are more important to me. Protecting politicians is lower on my priorities than protecting rights of everybody else.
The unmasking may have violated privacy of some politicos and I’m not supporting it, but it’s low on my list of government overreach. The details are vague and impacts pretty minimal when compared to my other examples. And frankly I don’t have much sympathy for when politicians get burned by thier own games.
Yes, property rights are about the most important thing we have and politicians should be very restricted from being able to take it from the people. Of course you assume those unmasked were politicians. And since the press is corrupt we really don’t know the effect that had on their lives or even who was doing it or why.
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bannon is a private citizen
parents are not politicians
those “politicos” were private citizens at the time
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True. In the big picture I am horrified by the emergent surveillance society. While we wrung our hands about this FISA business we did nothing to curb the deployment of a vast surveillance network. Driven by technology and the embedment of tracking into consumer goods you and I are surveilled constantly. And law enforcement is deep into it. As are foreign governments.
Voice telephone calls and mail is about the only privacy we have that is legally protected. Everything else can be captured, bought, sold and used for whatever the buyer wants.
Near zero discussion in national politics … compared to the FISA thing. Also, FISA and related programs where renewed… and signed by Trump during the controversy!
Why? B/C the squabble was about politics and mending harm to Trump. Not about restoring privacy rights to you and me.
They’ve moved on to other squabbles. And the surveillance state grows.
Just FYI…
I was an ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) Operator in the Navy a number of years ago. If you think that voice phone calls (either by landline or cell phone) are “private” you might want to rethink that. Anything that is transmitted can be monitored.
WW
I meant by regular police or the phone company. Without a warrant. I understand the with a warrant or by national security agencies everything is on the table.
Was comparing to things like email, texts, phone location, web habits, purchase habits, driving habits, which your providers are able to utilize as they see fit.
I know.
I have come to the realization that nothing sent outside the home is “private”. It’s just a fact of life and living in a technological society. A LOT of that has to do with revenue for private industry and it’s something you(c) agree to as part of the terms of service for using a supplier (whether it be a cable company, internet provider, web browser, shopping site, etc.) In most cases they don’t provide your individual data to outside sources (which is different then internal use), they provide aggregate data by known demographics for ad targeting.
WW
Meh, vpn and private email server here, they aren’t getting much from me.
That’s better than nothing, but they still get A TON from you. The VPN takes you provider out of the $$$ (maybe), but the servers providing your content see you just fine.
Your mail is traversing many systems and has a copy at the sender/recipient account that you don’t control.
Your car, TV, purchases, utilities, telephone, license plate hits…. All accruing info 24/7.
And people who know you and know about you, who communicate about you and trade photos and stories with you in them. Totally outside your control, but also accruing data about you.
Mostly for ads to be sure. But a crazy amount of data about you personally in the hands of strangers without your control or consent.
Oh, and likely hacked by foreign operations for thier personal use too.
My car is from 2003, it has no idea where I go.
But it is tied to you and photographed regularly as you go about your business.
Plate capture/photograph database are big business. Your location(s) on a given day is available for sale.
