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sli sli you know this is sort of happening in the context this this
happened context of the bradley manning trial
on use of that
discuss notin has done
uh... where it
is is and what bramley mending did
is sort of turn the tables on what the government
uh... has been doing to us
and i was curious if you could elaborate on that as well
sure well there's no government clapped right there's a good a class of people
were security clearances
outlook and dipped into your privacy at will without a warrant under certain
circumstances
uh... it's not that they can necessarily listen to your phone calls with a lot
uh... but there are various forms of surveillance that they can put people
under uh... at will
and uh... and so uh... essentially there's a class of people because of
their government uh... connections and and many of these by the way our
contractors uh... say they have security clearances to there being provided to
the government by private firms
are so smart just government ploy so that com that bet you he would like all
the kilometer himself when he was an employee of yell right
yes that's right you know if you have time to became aware of present
and when he blew the whistle on it he wasn't a direct employee of the u_s_
government
but he had
he says that that he ki could uh... if they've rock obama was using into at
gmail account
uh... that that you could just go look at the email
uh... even if the president
uh... so um... into a case
so uh... this is sort of surveillance class success with security clearances
and access to the uh... these uh... monitoring
technologies
uh... and the rest of us are are second-class
so we don't have access to that we don't know what they're doing
so you know the president obama came out friday and said well now that this is
out would be delighted to have a debate uh... and um...
uh... it seemed to be one of the worst moments of his presidency only to the so
disingenuous that
he he had not allowed us to have to pay because all of these programs and
activities are secret
ang classified and indeed
ron wyden news is a represents a oregon in the senate
uh... do about it and then and could not reveal it to us if you could sort of
signal that we would like it if we knew was going on but uh... that was the the
limit of what he could say so we could have a debate
because everything is classified and uh... i even bring it up is no at being
uh... portrayed as a kind of uh... of trees and so
what uh... these whistle blowers are doing
is subjecting the surveillance class to the kind of monitoring and surveillance
uh... down by the public that they did to the public everyday
yeah that's the kind of almost informational
equivalent of this kind of ninety nine percent versus the one percent units and
interesting and disturbing
uh... parallel i used
two more questions i kind of
i wanted to get with you about uh... gets you on this on this uh... fyn
uh... a going back to president obama
i agree with you i think that there was an incredibly disingenuous unfortunate
uh... but i think it was uh...
there's a continuity there out that's the same attitude he's taken on drones
and covert uh... actions abroad which is
old information incredibly tightly
uh... try to keep uh... these programs is bazhan as under wraps as possible and
then a sort of the emerged any kind of adopts this i wanna kind of open society
big to be
opposition
you know what what do you make of that as a political habit he's making for
himself
uh... in terms of every times these things are
immediately adopting a position which seems directly contradictory of what he
has been
you know in fact practicing
yellow yoga i would like president obama quite a lot and then good support most
of his policies but
uh... he uh... i like bill clinton really has a blind spot on security
issues that make may come with being in the office i don't know up but um...
i think you know the excel a lot of time in chicago being a community organizer
and has been uh... as slammed for that background but what a community
organizer does is go to a community and try to help them figure out what they
want to know how to get it
uh... and so i think when really controversy oaa issue arises uh...
uh... bob are loaded and they did this with health care and with the gun
control and so forth the instead of instead of being presidential and serve
leading in making decisions and taking out i'm intrested
he calls into this community organizer mode and he says well okay so we we we
got a nation that's divided in their different views what
what do you really want and how could we help you to get at uh... and uh... i i
think it's uh... it's just his background that leads him to think that
way
cd gets is backgrounds is sort of adopt this kind of multi stakeholder
error and synthesis approach which is ok yak yak yak its yet but yeah i know i
actually think it's a flaw in him with regard to being president because
you know uh... the smaller president who wanted to help carrier states would have
had a bill written and taken it to nancy pelosi and read and said aspects
rob but he did and keep you know i called the republicans and instead all
culprit we make you happy
right right now that that's precisely
you know what he did absolutely i mean i i guess that's the one
way that i might push back on that a bit those i do think with health care
the process was flawed but he was pushing it in a certain direction where
is it does seem that some of the security policies almost reading him in
retrospect even when he was critical when he campaigned
was he critical not of any of the substance of these programs but the kind
of lawless inkatha leader way
uh... that the bush administration did them
has been pretty comfortable
uh... about kind of
implementing and carrying out these relatively
you know kind of aggressive approach is to surveillance
uh... and covert actions
so that i kind of wonder about
you know what you think very devoted to that end chrissy campaigned against
bushido that he was using drugs enough to do it
he has a hard line side income which people sometimes don't realize
uh... and i i can you know if you were
eerie elected a democratic president a long time of republican rule and other
bureaucracies full of bush appointees and you're afraid of of quote of the
birth information being used against you uh... invidious way is
uh... this cult of secrecy that he and the holder have in this uh...
intolerance of whistle blowing and atmosphere really of information being
used to manufacture scandals
i think comes out of uh... this long period in the wilderness that the
democrats had in the awareness
uh... that uh... that the republicans are perfectly willing to play this game
that i think
not so you know there have been public visuals who who have been uh... who have
been damaged by these kinds of techniques
right makes perfect sense
and another important question is going to get to hopefully sort of wrap the
section up though and i i think it's important to reflects on his it seems to
need that
and maybe i'm being a bit like president obama company sells here but i hear
these two kind of dominant threats we talk about terrorism
uh... and whether or not these programs are justified and i kind of one extreme
you know there's the kind of september eleventh repeater
brigade
and you know i'll kite is at your doorstep terrorism is the most kind of
vital national security threat we've ever faced
and then on the other extreme maybe there's some people who would tend to in
the process of rightly criticizing some of these policies
uh... i think personally to a degree
overlook the fact that
no there actually are the jitender
real security challenges that the united states faces from
groups like al qaeda on president obama does legitimately need to make some hard
decisions about
and i'm just wondering
what you're sort of
overall take is now on
what is the quality of that threat to united states right now
i think the real issue is whether these techniques
uh... actually are productive
uh... because
i am of the school with regard to counter terrorism and i've done
consulting and counter terrorism i'm very committed to a head
are not uh... bleeding-heart liberal in that regard i don't think you know if if
we've got evidence of somebody's trying to kill our children we have a
responsibility to act perched
but i think the police work uh... of it uh... detective work is his how you're
all those things up
and the idea that you're going to break up all cried out
popeye data mining all horizons records for a uh... for for three months right
such as is just strikes me as daft i mean i i i i i uh... it's it's typical
of
about the kind of
blind faith in quantitative methods that dominates
some of our social science now to as well as counter-terrorism
and while i don't have a security clearance so i don't know i mean i i
couldn't tell you if any brittany very serious threat has ever been rolled up
because they keep kissing secret in this way i'd be very surprised and and the
ones that we know about you don't do that we'd we'd we didn't is the we
didn't get them to don't live in that way
well we haven't gotten a man is a letter it that way right that the big threats
that we know about that have been broken op um...
haven't been because of this kind of surveillance uneven
i think that mistakes are made because that's another thing that uh... that
this kind of surveillance kit he can go wrong easily
uh... and uh... for instance those uh... yemeni boys of the black one in new york
uh... they were under the email surveillance and other some of them went
to a wedding in that range that is going to be a really big feast and you know we
we work with the new york times revealed that the intelligence analysts were
were wondering you know is feast uh... uh... a code word for a bombing
but no no no they were going to a wedding so uh... the eazy-e_ candidates
through your fax in just casting a wide net
rain and i think for that matter did successes have not been reflected as far
as we know in these programs in the failures have such as what happens in
boston
we're not anticipated by these programs either so
your point is very well take it