re FISA:
Initially, I thought severe reform might be workable.
Particularly IF they installed a vetted committee of common folks to have supreme oversight, monitoring & review of every significant FISA action—chosen like juries are chosen.
1. They won’t do that. Idiots.
2. I no longer think that’s sufficient.
3. It WOULD be greatly better to make certain there was always an external-to-FISA group to oversea their doings.
4. However, the whole thing is UNConstitutional. And, alarmingly so. It is inherently a foundation for bureaucratic & oligarchy evil doings.
5. JFK was right. Secrecy is inherently antithetical to what the USA is about; to our form of government; to our cultural themes, priorities & foundations.
6. Yeah, I know—I have some understanding about the screams over foreign evildoers etc. needing great secrecy. I read plenty of highly classified stuff as a Navy Radioman. Most of the classified stuff was crap protecting someone’s rear.
7. Recent national events & their precursors back decades have indicated to me that 98.9% of the whole stinking pile of secrecy institutions & interest groups needs flushed. The damage the secrecy has done to our values, to our goals, to our culture . . . has to be far worse than the hazards of wholesale transparency.
8. I say flush it. Let’s try 10 years without 98.9% of it and see how it goes.
7. Recent national events & their precursors back decades have indicated to me that 98.9% of the whole stinking pile of secrecy institutions & interest groups needs flushed. The damage the secrecy has done to our values, to our goals, to our culture . . . has to be far worse than the hazards of wholesale transparency.
8. I say flush it. Let’s try 10 years without 98.9% of it and see how it goes.
I am with you. I held a top secret clearance in the 80's as a Recon Marine.
The secrecy (read un-accountability) of the intelligence community has done far more damage to this country than any enemy could. 9-11 was chicken shit compared to what Clapper, Corney, et al. tried to do to this country.
They were and still are headed toward totalitarianism that would make Stalin blush.
And there are idiots in congress that want to re-authorize this bullsquat. What has to happen before this is ended? I pray that there won't be another civil war in this country...but damn. They are trying their best to make it happen
The intelligence community and the federal reserve both need to be burned to the ground and have their ashes scattered.