There’s a Secret Patriot Act, Senator Says

[EvilMonsanto]

Source: Wired

You may think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) says it’s worse than you’ve heard.

But Wyden says that what Congress will renew is a mere fig leaf for a far broader legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that the government keeps to itself — entirely in secret. Worse, there are hints that the government uses this secret interpretation to gather what one Patriot-watcher calls a “dragnet” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden tells Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

Read more: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/secret-patriot-act/

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I don't know what to say anymore
I feel like crying now

This is becoming Nazi Germany, the only difference is that the mass doesn't know it's an information concentration camp

It's just too much now
What is happenning here?

How can we continue to criticize China and North Korea when we have this going on here?

[plumbob]

1. We lost our right to criticize anyone decades ago.

I hate that.

[2banon]

6. Since the 1947 National Security Act

We have President Truman to thank for creating the legal infrasture of the fascist state.

However, I just learned today on Guns and Butter that in sometime in the early 30's Dupont, Chevron Oil (and other Big Corporations) along with the MEDIA (NYT) and Prescott Bush conspired to execute a coup de'tat by overthrowing FDR and was to be led by General Smedley Butler (to which he later admits in Congressional hearings). Apparently they wanted the implementation of policies modeled after Germany's domestic/economic policies for the U.S. among other interests and agendas.

Counter intuitive I know, but General Butler admits to this in congressional hearings.

there's some accounting of these events under the heading of "Business Plot" in wikipedia.

[dmr]

7. I'm wondering if they haven't found another way to

make their coup. Considering the Chamber of Commerce, ALEC, RW Fox, Citizen's United, the current Supreme Court & whatever else is probably out there that we never hear about.

I'm so sorry for our children & their children's children; the above groups shouldn't have so much power.

:hi:

[azygous]

12. We've had a silent coup already

It should tell you something that just about every appointee in this administration has come directly from the banking industry. Similarly, if every appointee had worked in the unions, wouldn't everyone be hollering conspiracy?

[GReedDiamond]

14. And General Butler, a Medal of Honor recipient, wrote...

..."War Is a Racket" in 1935.

On a side note, I am amazed that the name "Smedley" has not been more popular amongst parents naming their newborn baby boys over these last 70 or 80 years or so...





...on second thought, maybe not.

On Edit: Fuck the Patriot Act, even the one we know about, much less the "secret" version.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

16. It's basically buying into PNAC's agenda, Democrats shouldn't be that stupid

one wonders if one is all marching to the same tune?

[lonestarnot]

20. How 'bout Smedley the cat? The dog? The rabbit? Too old for kids.

[GReedDiamond]

23. Thanks, great suggestion...

...if another cat ever owns me, I'm gonna call him Smedley!

It's too late to rename my 12 year old owner, Chibi.

[Art_from_Ark]

31. Well, there's Smedley the Elephant

[sulphurdunn]

28. Butler blew the whistle.

He was not one of the plotters. The conspirators thought Butler would be a useful tool in raising an army of Brown Shirts for them. They picked the wrong guy.

[Kaleko]

2. We've already got a thread going in GD

on the same topic. Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1173686

I just posted there and said pretty much the same thing you did, EM. :hi:

[unkachuck]

3. K&R....fascist, very fascist....n/t

....welcome to the new America....

[Plucketeer]

4. Just plain wrong.

There's NO justification for it - none. And of course, if protests forced a discussion, we'd be ASSured that the program had already saved us from some percieved armageddon - Intercontinental ballistic camels probably thwarted in the breeding program!

[bluesmail]

5. ...or New World Order. eom

[harun]

8. People need to wake up to the fact our gov't is completely corrupt and out of control.

[defendandprotect]

22. +1 -- and that our people's government was taken from us by 50 years of rw political violence --

[Better Believe It]

9. Thanks for the post.

[tekisui]

10. knr

[Muskypundit]

11. But.....

We are getting all dem terists.

[Enthusiast]

24. That's the whole point of terists.

Just look at 'em. We shoot! Bang! Got to fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em here. Good Mericans understand this.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Sure glad he made this public. Thanks for the post, EvilMonsanto.

Welcome to D.U. :hi:

[emilyg]

15. Thanks for posting.

[lovuian]

17. the Patriot Act was a Lie and Congress took part in the Lie

Our government is not ours ...its corrupt

[MrScorpio]

18. It's kind of like being on Double Secret Probation, isn't it?

The people in power have always done what they wanted. Why is this any different?

[truedelphi]

19. Sometimes even Triple Quadruple probation.

I find it scary to deal with so much of the "new world order."

I think NWO is hardest on artists and creative types.

[defendandprotect]

21. People are the same everywhere -- so are the Elites the same everywhere ...

that's how we come to have masses of people dominated in dictatorships --

it's always been so --

The question we've never solved is ... "How to control the few violent among us" --

When we refuse to deal with the violence of the few -- and I'd give you the coup on

JFK as an example -- then we will eventually face fascism.

A handful of Democrats at the time tried to deal with secret government and the very

powerful and they were targeted and pushed aside. Those who persisted were more

strongly moved out of the way. So -- here we are!

All of us!

And we have to decide what to do about it -- and what is doable at this time.

Obviously elites are united up, down and every other way -- citizens aren't!.

that is the obvious first step.

We are dominated by patriarchy, organized patriarchal religion which is its underpinning -

and capitalism which is its invention -- and these systems are all kept in place by

hierarchies of power. What do we do about it?

Americans are waking up -- but slowly.

Global Warming will eventually have a lot to do with that waking up --

but by then it may be too late.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

25. Soon as you allow strangers to feel your genitals and breasts in pubic

in order to travel... you have given a government permission to go 'all the way'.

And you dumb fucking cowards just wanted to 'feel safe'. I have such hatred for the people who are interviewed at airports and asked about children being molested and searched, and the cowards say, "It makes me feel safer". FUCK YOU! You deserve all the shit your government does to you.

I have such anger for the people who say they have done nothing wrong and so they have nothing to worry about. Dumb fucks.

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. Thanks for saying it for me so I didn't have to.

Could not agree more.

[saras]

33. +10000 for Boudica

There's only a few Cheneys and Rumsfelds in the world, not enough of them to harm any significant number of us - as long as large numbers of us don't accept them as leaders and work for their goals.

[Myrina]

27. duplicate thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1173686


:hi:

[DirkGently]

29. See? Nothing to worry about. The secret SECRET secrets are just secret. That's all.

[BetsysGhost]

30. ..

:redbox: :tv:

[obxhead]

32. It's amazing, Russia grows towards freedom while the US

enacts laws that would make mid 80's Russians cringe.