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FBI - 60% of Mass Shooting Stopped by Good Guy with a Gun.

newtboy says...

Already listed as lies and debunked….bob is learning!

Note bob, this guy’s videos have a disclaimer that he is entertainment, not news or information, “This is an entertainment show for entertainment purposes ONLY.”

His source is one guy, Paul Bedard, an opinion columnist for the Washington Examiner…the extreme right rarely factual rag. He wonders why the media hasn’t reported it…because there’s zero evidence behind the claim.
The fbi site
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2022-042623.pdf
shows 50 “active shooter incidents” in 2022, only 2 stopped by civilians with guns. That’s 4% bob, not 60%.

You are so gullible Bobby. Never even considering looking into something you hear as long as you like how it sounds.

More ridiculous lies by our favorite ridiculous liar.

bobknight33 (Member Profile)

JiggaJonson says...

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/january-6-stewart-rhodes-sedition-oath-keepers-20220215.html

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21203387-rhodes-memo-for-detention-reconsideration

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh they would NEVER overthrow the government...unless trump told them to via the insurrection act. WELL

WELL WELL WELL that's very comforting, i guess you were right after all, nothing to worry about here. Just a buncha guys sittin around with thousands of rounds of ammo, assault rifles, spare parts, and body armor ready to overthrow the gov if ordered. Sittin around havin some breadsticks.

I saw ur comment about you care about everyone blah blah, just not in a public-policy-enforcable kind of way right? Well this concerns all of us. These people were ready to create a dictatorship.

White supremacist Kenosha County Sheriff david beth

Mordhaus says...

I didn't buy anything. There are multiple videos that aren't being shown on most news sites.

Youtube is banning them as fast as they get posted.

Here is one: https://youtu.be/NSU9ZvnudFE

This is from Newsweek(https://www.newsweek.com/kyle-rittenhouse-sef-defense-murder-protests-1528301) who had access to the videos:

How the Kenosha shootings unfolded
In the wake of the shootings, several videos appeared on social media showing the moments before, during and after the first shooting took place.

In one video, Rittenhouse is seen being chased into a parking lot by several people while still armed with his gun.

One man then fires a gun into the air from several feet away from the 17-year-old before several others shots are fired.

In another clip from a different angle, one man seen chasing Rittenhouse appears to lunge at the 17-year-old before the suspect fires at least four times.

A body, later identified as Rosenbaum, is then seen on the ground and is assisted by another male. Rittenhouse appears to make a call on a cellphone before fleeing.

It is unclear why the 17-year-old was being chased in the first place. The parking lot is reportedly around several blocks away from the area he previously claimed to be protecting with the other armed men.

Later on, Rittenhouse is filmed being chased by more people down a residential street. He is seen stumbling and falling to the ground.

One person appears to stomp on him on the ground, before the 17-year-old fires twice, hitting Huber in the stomach and another man, Gaige Grosskreutz, who was carrying a handgun, in the arm.

According to the criminal complaint, an eyewitness video shows Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse and throwing what was ultimately determined to be a plastic bag at the suspect, not an incendiary device.

"Rosenbaum appears to be unarmed for the duration of this video," the document adds.

In response to Parkinson's tweet, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bosuie noted: "I have been seeing this everywhere on here. It is an explicit argument that if someone is trying to stop you after you killed someone, you can continue shooting and killing in 'self-defense.'

Parkinson added: "Why leave out during the 2nd shooting, after Rittenhouse trips, he was jumped by several men, including another armed protester, attacked by a skateboard—prior to firing more shots?"

The man holding the skateboard was Rittenberg's alleged second victim Huber, who died after being shot in the chest.

***You'll notice that even some of their videos were removed/banned***

I'm not saying the kid was in the right 100%. He definitely committed the crime of being under aged with a firearm. He shouldn't have listened to right wing calls to go defend property in a different state.

What we have is a kid who heard people shooting, got scared, a 'protester' threw what he thought was an incendiary device at him and he shot that person. He then tried to flee to the police line and you can read what else happened.

Here is the tweet that shows the survivor wishes he had just mag dumped his glock into the teen: https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1299086141329563648

Gaige Grosskreutz, 26. Hes a member of the People’s Revolution Movement. He has numerous encounters with the police but I couldn't find a felony. This was his biggest charge: Go Armed with Firearm While Intoxicated, a class A misdemeanor, Wisconsin Statutes 941.20(1)(b).

Anthony Huber. https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseSearchResults.html (for some reason it wont link, you can type his name in to see all, but here is one specific one https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2014CF000057&countyNo=39&index=0)
Online arrest records show Huber was arrested several times on battery, drugs and other charges. He also had a case from 2012 where he was convicted of domestic abuse strangulation and suffocation and false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon, both felonies. Other charges – for second-degree recklessly endangering safety, battery, and disorderly conduct – were dismissed but read in.

Joseph Rosenbaum. https://twitter.com/musicandwhiskey/status/1298861484752035840/photo/1
https://www.rt.com/usa/499205-kenosha-shooting-victim-id/
https://www.bailbondshq.com/arizona/azdoc-inmate-JOSEPH/172556
https://inmatedatasearch.azcorrections.gov/PrintInmate.aspx?ID=172556
Rosenbaum had an open criminal case on battery, disorderly conduct and domestic abuse charges, according to the Wisconsin Circuit Court website. (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-kenosha-victims-identified-as-anthony-huber-joseph-rosenbaum-20200827-zvrsv7fpqfftlmjyrtjrmg5wwa-story.html
)

As far as right wing people showing up and pretending to be Antifa, I suppose anything is possible. But most of all these looting and rioting things have been going on since all this shit broke loose months ago. I doubt very much that all of these 'peaceful protestors' are RW loonies. Clearly the 3 that were shot in Kenosha weren't and they were all part of the groups rioting...I mean 'protesting.

There are more videos if you want to find them. Shoot me, N Rosenbaum is seen attacking and throwing something at Kyle. You can see a gun fired as well by someone else. Videos show them chasing a fleeing person, who at that point is being attacked by them. Skater boi was beating him prone with a skateboard. 'Medic' Grosskreutz was carrying a fully fucking loaded Glock 17 and grabbing Kyle's rifle.

You know I don't make up shit like Bob does. But I do look in multiple places to find out what I can before I say something. Like I said, the kid fucked up, but I 100% believe in his mind he was defending himself and trying to reach the police for help.

newtboy said:

Sorry, you seem to have bought the right wing antifa lie. Where did you get this explanation?

Most people caught shooting or committing arson were dressed as antifa but were in fact right wingers, largely boogaloos boys, who's plan is to commit crimes and blame antifa and BLM in hopes of sparking a civil (and race) war. Nearly 100% of shootings and fully 100% of attempted bombings fit that model.

Because someone wears a black facemask is no indication they support antifa. If they're armed, it's a near guarantee they are anti antifa.

1) the kid came from out of state with armed friends intent on confronting unarmed protesters with guns, you don't do this to protect a random gas station, you do this in hopes of shooting someone.
2) he sure didn't look like he had been sprayed as he ran from the murder he just committed, hands were on his weapon or above his head, not covering his face like a sprayed person.
3) white pedophile? Explain please....how would you know...because he had a 17 year old girlfriend?
4) white guy in a crowd of black men shouting "nigger"?! Doesn't sound right, and I haven't heard it in any videos, but are you saying that excuses the militia boy shooting him and others?
5) gunshot from Antifa?!? Now I know you're duped by right wing media. Antifa is pretty hard to identify unless you're dishonest and just call any black mask wearing person antifa. Also, what evidence is there of this single gunshot from the BLM crowd?
6) he was NOT running to police lines, he was running past them. He didn't stop at them and say "btw, I just shot at least 3 people and maybe more when I just shot into the crowd.", he just walked on by, still carrying the smoking gun.
7) again, where are you getting this info?

8 ) in short, a cowardly murderer who crossed state lines heavily armed who shouldn't have been there but went looking for trouble, started a fight, murdered another man, ran away armed pointing his gun at many uninvolved bystanders, shot and killed those trying to stop an armed murderer (should have emptied that glok if it existed) so he shot one, murdered another and fled the scene, the city, and the state without ever reporting that he had shot at least three people and killed at least two.

I hope he gets sentenced to life in prison, his dad too if they went together, he went heavily armed to a protest hoping to shoot some liberals, he did, now he wants to use the fact that some citizens tried to disarm and citizens arrest him after he shot someone in the head as an excuse for both murders and the other shootings?! And you buy it?!?

I'm so extremely disappointed you would buy such obvious self serving slant where the out of state multiple murderer who travelled armed looking for conflict is the victim.
That's totally asinine. I have much higher expectations for you.

Again, references for these claims please.

Living in a converted gas station.

newtboy (Member Profile)

Syntaxed says...

I meant not to be particularly argumentative, only contradictory. However, I feel that I have been forced into the position to return fire with fire, as it seems you lack the capability and or willingness to discuss something without attacking me, spewing meaningless information, circumventing reason, and drawing up arse about face codswallap for your conclusions.(Look mommy, I can curse to!!!!!!!)

Firstly, I should like to address your attacks against me...

Fox bubble? My god, were I to force myself to absorb and process information from such a low level of news broadcasting, I would reel in shock from the incursion into my sanity. Luckily, however, I live in the UK, and had to research Fox on Google to even understand the reference.

Now, to business.

The investigation.... a Red Herring?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3299310/Benghazi-probe-Hillary-Clinton-facing-months-FBI-investigation-emails.html

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/10/27/How-FBI-Could-Derail-Hillary-Clinton-s-Presidential-Run

http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/22/fbi-director-im-following-very-closely-the-investigation-into-hillary-clintons-emails-video/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3275919/Investigation-Hillary-s-email-server-focuses-Espionage-Act-10-years-jail-FBI-agent-says-prosecuted-jus
t-failing-tell-Obama.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-probe-of-clinton-e-mail-expands-to-second-data-company/2015/10/06/3d94ba46-6c48-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_sto
ry.html

Research, see? Useful. For finding stuff like....INFORMATION.

Socialism:

http://fee.org/freeman/why-socialism-failed/

https://mises.org/library/greece-illustrates-150-years-socialist-failure-europe

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/01/greek-disaster-is-all-about-socialism.html

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/02/25/5-ways-socialism-destroys-societies-n1800086/page/full

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-socialism-collapsed-eastern-europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Bit of light reading, don't worry, I am getting to a point...


"Mischaracterization of Obama's record" ??????

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/06/25/six-problems-with-the-aca-that-arent-going-away/

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/07/problems-with-obamacare-that-could-prove-difficult.aspx

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/09/so-long-as-you-ignore-the-problems-obamacare-is-perfect/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obamacare-problems/

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-poll-disapprove-isis/2015/08/21/id/671190/

http://theweek.com/articles/589272/obamas-isis-failure

http://www.martinoauthor.com/list-obama-failures/

https://www.gop.com/obamas-biggest-failures/

Next, get a First Class Honours Masters Degree in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, and then spent five years of your life convincing rich people to give your bank their money(My job, by the way), carefully analyze anything Obama says about anything important, then come tell me my observations are "ridiculous" and "beyond contradicting".

As for Trump? Sure, all political candidates are devils in disguise. However, why don't you try to turn a mere million into a multi billion dollar empire and say you cant do anything for the economy?

You know how you get rid of 11 million people?

1. Dont let anymore in...

2. Ship the rest out with the Federal resources you already have...

3. Smile, because you just saved your bloody country:

http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/14/americas-heroin-epidemic-fueled-by-flood-of-illegal-immigrants/

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/04/isis-camp-a-few-miles-from-texas-mexican-authorities-confirm/

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/20678-report-with-cartel-help-isis-crossing-border-from-mexico

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/25/mexican-cartel-sicarios-crossed-texas-kidnapped-u-s-citizen/

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414969/mexican-drug-cartels-caused-border-crisis

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=379605&CategoryId=10718

How do you make Mexico build a wall?

1. Stop official trade with Mexico until they give up and build it.

Wow... That was easy...

As for making China ignore our debt... Basically impossible, but that's who's fault?

Obama got you blinkered people into $18 Trillion dollars of debt with his hysterically shoddy plans, I can't believe no-one is smart enough to realize that simple and plain a truth.

No way on Earth his plans would even be tried? He is the Republican frontrunner... By popular poll.

You tried Obama's plans, and his bloody approval rating is (http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx). Its about time you Americans experienced some success in the world, don't you think?

Sod it all, I am tired, I could say more, but I await your response. May I request that you refrain from using vulgar language in response to an amicable post? As you can see by the content of my article here, I can be a ripe-mouthed cur, but is it truly necessary?

newtboy said:

WTF?!? "Tangible plan"? What on earth could you possibly mean by that?
The "plan" to round up over 11 million people and deport them, but with zero details about it?
The "plan" to make Mexico pay to build a 2500 mile wall, with zero details about how?
The "plan" to illegally deny fugitives entry to states because, you know, Muslims are bad...MmmmK?
The "plan" to skew the tax system even more in favor of those in the top 5%, to the detriment of the middle and lower classes?
His "plan" to be a smarmy, dickish, douchebag to anyone that isn't in his camp...but also to completely control those people to make them do exactly what he wants...again with zero details how he plans to do so?
The "plan" to force China to...I don't know...ignore all our debt and treat us like the boss we are?

As for Clinton's being 'currently under Federal investigation by America's FBI department.'...the "email scandal" has, just like Benghazi, turned up absolutely zero illegal behavior and is nothing more than a red herring designed by the (absolutely not) "conservative" side of our political system, has gone absolutely no where, and only matters to people who would NEVER have voted for her in the first place...if you think differently, you really need to get out of the Fox bubble and look around at reality for a bit.

Little could be more disastrous for the country than having that vitriolic humanoid pumpkin as our 'leader', since the only successful leading he's ever done is leading people to hate each other, and leading far more people to hate HIM. He's a fairly terrible business man, successful only due to starting with a "tiny loan" (his words, really more of a gift from daddy) of a million dollars and being forced to allow others to take control of his investments. He's a bold faced liar, in fact the truth does not seem to be palatable to him in the least....and he's clearly admitted that in his books and sees it as a good thing to hyper exaggerate and minimize. He's a 'good Christian', who's been divorced how many times? There's no way on earth his plans would even be tried. He (and other republican candidates) don't even have a grasp of what the president does or how, claiming they'll 'repeal the ACA on day one', and they'll discard multiple government departments...somethings the president simply CAN'T just do...along with most of their other ridiculous, impossible 'plans'. They all know they wouldn't actually have that power, yet they all lie to you and tell you they will do the hateful things they've convinced you are the right thing to do by themselves. Fortunately our system is designed so that one nutjob, or even one party of nutjobs can't change laws precipitously.

I hate to tell you, but Bernie Sanders is not excluded for being honest and knowledgeable. ALL candidates are socialist, he's just honest enough to admit it. Tax breaks for the rich...socialism. Bailouts for the airlines and banks...socialism. Social security...socialism. Medicare...socialism. "jobs programs"...socialism. Public parks...socialism. Public roads...socialism. Need I go on?

Your mischaracterization of Obama's record is so patently ridiculous it's not worth contradicting.

Science vs Exxon - Global Warming Denial Industry Revealed!

newtboy says...

WHAT?!? She's a daily mail columnist/journalist. What she isn't is a reporter or investigator. She is exactly the kind of 'journalist' the right wing has put forth for decades now.

I must admit some confusion that you now seem to support the idea of AGW and seem to imply the scientists are right and industry is not.

I really wish someone would pipe pure CO2 into the board meeting of Exxon, because they call it life it should make them healthier, right?

EDIT: Oh, there's a surprise. Trancie downvoted my comment. Odd, that's NEVER happened before.

Trancecoach said:

If you paid attention, Winkler, you'd see that the woman who says that is not a journalist!

Everybody´s free to wear sunscreen

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prison (HBO)

Januari says...

When your country starts incarcerating its citizens at an enormous rate, unprecedented in the world, dwarfing that of a country like China, yeah i can't imagine where those comparisons would come from.

I want a number... You feel so strongly about this give me a god damn number... how many innocent people should be executed to sate your desire for rapid executions?... How many each yer?... 5? 10? 20?... Of course we'll never really know will we.

Maybe you should actually watch the video... or i don't know spend 10 minutes on google... If your concerned about prisoners getting free health care or *gasp* free food!!!! Well your in fucking luck!... because increasingly they aren't getting any of either... Shelter???? don't count on it...

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/jacquielynn-floyd/20140424-the-crime-of-un-airconditioned-texas-prisons.ece

WTF am i wasting my time discussing this with a guy advocating a police state and as far as i can tell medieval era punishments...

Do you actually work for Geo Group?... be honest you do don't ya.

Jerykk said:

What's really terrifying is how often people make silly Nazi analogies on the internet.

Our prison system is broken but not because of how it treats prisoners. It's broken because it's not acting as an effective deterrent. The whole point of prison (or any other punishment) is to deter people from committing crimes. Our current prison system isn't accomplishing that.

If we replaced prison with immediate execution (no more sitting on death row for years), crime rates would probably go down. If we increased surveillance and enforcement, crime rates would probably go down. If we made prison nicer and tried to rehabilitate instead of punish criminals, would crime rates go down? Good question. If I knew that prison would be a safe and comfortable experience, I'd definitely be more inclined to break the law. If my current living conditions were bad enough, I might even be inclined to break the law just to gain the benefits of such a prison. Free food, free shelter, free healthcare. Not a bad deal if you don't have to worry about being beaten, raped or killed. I'd love to see what would happen if all the prisons in the U.S. were as posh as the Halden Prison in Norway.

Democracy Now! - "A Massive Surveillance State" Exposed

MrFisk says...

"Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin with news that the National Security Agency has obtained access to the central servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook. The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the top secret program on Thursday, codenamed PRISM, after they obtained several slides from a 41-page training presentation for senior intelligence analysts. It explains how PRISM allows them to access emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, documents and connection logs that allow them to track a person or trace their connections to others. One slide lists the companies by name and the date when each provider began participating over the past six years. But an Apple spokesperson said it had "never heard" of PRISM and added, quote, "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order," they said. Other companies had similar responses.

Well, for more, we’re joined by Glenn Greenwald, columnist, attorney, and blogger for The Guardian, where he broke his story in—that was headlined "NSA Taps in to Internet Giants’ Systems to Mine User Data, Secret Files Reveal." This comes after he revealed Wednesday in another exclusive story that the "NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers." According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, the scope of the NSA phone monitoring includes customers of all three major phone networks—Verizon, AT&T and Sprint—as well as records from Internet service providers and purchase information from credit card providers. Glenn Greenwald is also author of With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. He’s joining us now via Democracy—video stream.

Glenn, welcome back to Democracy Now! Lay out this latest exclusive that you have just reported in The Guardian.

GLENN GREENWALD: There are top-secret NSA documents that very excitingly describe—excitedly describe, boast about even, how they have created this new program called the PRISM program that actually has been in existence since 2007, that enables them direct access into the servers of all of the major Internet companies which people around the world, hundreds of millions, use to communicate with one another. You mentioned all of those—all those names. And what makes it so extraordinary is that in 2008 the Congress enacted a new law that essentially said that except for conversations involving American citizens talking to one another on U.S. soil, the NSA no longer needs a warrant to grab, eavesdrop on, intercept whatever communications they want. And at the time, when those of us who said that the NSA would be able to obtain whatever they want and abuse that power, the argument was made, "Oh, no, don’t worry. There’s a great check on this. They have to go to the phone companies and go to the Internet companies and ask for whatever it is they want. And that will be a check." And what this program allows is for them, either because the companies have given over access to their servers, as the NSA claims, or apparently the NSA has simply seized it, as the companies now claim—the NSA is able to go in—anyone at a monitor in an NSA facility can go in at any time and either read messages that are stored in Facebook or in real time surveil conversations and chats that take place on Skype and Gmail and all other forms of communication. It’s an incredibly invasive system of surveillance worldwide that has zero checks of any kind.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, there is a chart prepared by the NSA in the top-secret document you obtained that shows the breadth of the data it’s able to obtain—email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, Skype chats, file transfers, social networking details. Talk about what this chart reveals.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think the crucial thing to realize is that hundreds of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions—in fact, billions of people around the world essentially rely on the Internet exclusively to communicate with one another. Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chats and social media messages and emails, what you’re really talking about is the full extent of human communication. And what the objective of the National Security Agency is, as the stories that we’ve revealed thus far demonstrate and as the stories we’re about to reveal into the future will continue to demonstrate—the objective of the NSA and the U.S. government is nothing less than destroying all remnants of privacy. They want to make sure that every single time human beings interact with one another, things that we say to one another, things we do with one another, places we go, the behavior in which we engage, that they know about it, that they can watch it, and they can store it, and they can access it at any time. And that’s what this program is about. And they’re very explicit about the fact that since most communications are now coming through these Internet companies, it is vital, in their eyes, for them to have full and unfettered access to it. And they do.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, as you reported, the PRISM program—not to be confused with prison, the PRISM program—is run with the assistance of the companies that participate, including Facebook and Apple, but all of those who responded to a Guardian request for comment denied knowledge of any of the program. This is what Google said, quote: "We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege [that] we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."

GLENN GREENWALD: Right. Well, first of all, after our story was published, and The Washington Post published more or less simultaneously a similar story, several news outlets, including NBC News, confirmed with government officials that they in fact have exactly the access to the data that we describe. The director of national intelligence confirmed to The New York Times, by name, that the program we identify and the capabilities that we described actually exist. So, you have a situation where somebody seems to be lying. The NSA claims that these companies voluntarily allow them the access; the companies say that they never did.

This is exactly the kind of debate that we ought to have out in the open. What exactly is the government doing in how it spies on us and how it reads our emails and how it intercepts our chats? Let’s have that discussion out in the open. To the extent that these companies and the NSA have a conflict and can’t get their story straight, let them have that conflict resolved in front of us. And then we, as citizens, instead of having this massive surveillance apparatus built completely secretly and in the dark without us knowing anything that’s going on, we can then be informed about what kinds of surveillance the government is engaged in and have a reasoned debate about whether that’s the kind of world in which we want to live.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, on Thursday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein told reporters in the Senate gallery that the government’s top-secret court order to obtain phone records on millions of Americans is, quote, "lawful."

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out by the FISA court under the business record section of the PATRIOT Act, therefore it is lawful.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Senator Dianne Feinstein. Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, the fact that something is lawful doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous or tyrannical or wrong. You can enact laws that endorse tyrannical behavior. And there’s no question, if you look at what the government has done, from the PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, the Military Commissions Act and the FISA Amendments Act, that’s exactly what the war on terror has been about.

But I would just defer to two senators who are her colleagues, who are named Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. They have—are good Democrats. They have spent two years now running around trying to get people to listen to them as they’ve been saying, "Look, what the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so radical and so distorted and warped that Americans will be stunned to learn" — that’s their words — "what is being done in the name of these legal theories, these secret legal theories, in terms of the powers the Obama administration has claimed for itself in how it can spy on Americans."

When the PATRIOT Act was enacted—and you can go back and look at the debates, as I’ve done this week—nobody thought, even opponents of the PATRIOT Act, that it would ever be used to enable the government to gather up everybody’s telephone records and communication records without regard to whether they’ve done anything wrong. The idea of the PATRIOT Act was that when the government suspects somebody of being involved in terrorism or serious crimes, the standard of proof is lowered for them to be able to get these documents. But the idea that the PATRIOT Act enables bulk collection, mass collection of the records of hundreds of millions of Americans, so that the government can store that and know what it is that we’re doing at all times, even when there’s no reason to believe that we’ve done anything wrong, that is ludicrous, and Democratic senators are the ones saying that it has nothing to do with that law.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Glenn, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he stood by what he told Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in March, when he said that the National Security Agency does "not wittingly" collect data on millions of Americans. Let’s go to that exchange.

SEN. RON WYDEN: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

JAMES CLAPPER: No, sir.

SEN. RON WYDEN: It does not?

JAMES CLAPPER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the questioning of the head of the national intelligence, James Clapper, by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: OK. So, we know that to be a lie, not a misleading statement, not something that was sort of parsed in a way that really was a little bit deceitful, but an outright lie. They collect—they collect data and records about the communications activities and other behavioral activities of millions of Americans all the time. That’s what that program is that we exposed on Wednesday. They go to the FISA court every three months, and they get an order compelling telephone companies to turn over the records, that he just denied they collect, with regard to the conversations of every single American who uses these companies to communicate with one another. The same is true for what they’re doing on the Internet with the PRISM program. The same is true for what the NSA does in all sorts of ways.

We are going to do a story, coming up very shortly, about the scope of the NSA’s spying activities domestically, and I think it’s going to shock a lot of people, because the NSA likes to portray itself as interested only in foreign intelligence gathering and only in targeting people who they believe are guilty of terrorism, and yet the opposite is true. It is a massive surveillance state of exactly the kind that the Church Committee warned was being constructed 35 years ago. And we intend to make all those facts available so people can see just how vast it is and how false those kind of statements are.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein. Speaking on MSNBC, she said the leak should be investigated and that the U.S. has a, quote, "culture of leaks."

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: There is nothing new in this program. The fact of the matter is that this was a routine three-month approval, under seal, that was leaked.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Should it be—should the leak be investigated?

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: I think so. I mean, I think we have become a culture of leaks now.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, Dianne Feinstein, being questioned by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Glenn Greenwald, your final response to this? And sum up your findings. They’re talking about you, Glenn.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think Dianne Feinstein may be the most Orwellian political official in Washington. It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States. Virtually everything that government does, of any significance, is conducted behind an extreme wall of secrecy. The very few leaks that we’ve had over the last decade are basically the only ways that we’ve had to learn what our government is doing.

But look, what she’s doing is simply channeling the way that Washington likes to threaten the people over whom they exercise power, which is, if you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear so that nobody will bring accountability to them.

It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, we want to thank you for being with us. Is this threat of you being investigated going to deter you in any way, as you continue to do these exclusives, these exposés?

GLENN GREENWALD: No, it’s actually going to embolden me to pursue these stories even more aggressively.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, I want to thank you for being with us, columnist and blogger for The Guardian newspaper. We’ll link to your exposés on our website, "NSA Taps in to Internet Giants’ Systems to Mine User Data, Secret Files Reveal", as well as "NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily"." - Democracy Now!

Medical Marijuana Dispensary Owner Faces 10+ Years in Prison

Amazing Facts to Blow Your Mind

brycewi19 says...

>> ^hpqp:

That "we renew our whole body" shtick has been around as long as it has been refuted: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2007-0
3-30-cell-lifetime_N.htm
Also, what the hell does "breathing manually" mean? With my hands?


I think what he meant is that we can control our breathing under our own cognition rather than involuntarily (which it normally does). That and blinking are involuntary functions that we can override "manually" through our own will and cognitive abilities.

Amazing Facts to Blow Your Mind

Lendl (Member Profile)

NY Times Tech Blogger Makes Fake Movie Trailer to Propose

Extras - " I Don't Believe In God, I Believe In Science!"

shinyblurry says...

What pontificating nonsense. Religion IS hostile to Science and, indeed, anything which brings its myths into question;
1) The inquisition was in direct opposition to Galileo. They banned any of his books which referred to the Copernican theory, sentenced him to life imprisonment - later changed to house arrest after he recanted. The church in 2008, once again, having done so previously, recanted and "forgave" Galileo.


You seem to be relying on a few myths yourself there, A10anis

http://townhall.com/columnists/dineshdsouza/2007/11/26/debunking_the_galileo_myth/page/full/


2) They prefer the tenets of a 2000yr old man made book to the applied logic of Science. One only has to look at religions ludicrous position on creationism, fossils, the big bang etc. Get into a discussion about these things (pointless) and all they can offer is; "the bible says so."


This is entirely a straw man argument. The bible is not in conflict with science, but there are certainly many out there with a poor understanding of both science and scripture who make it seem that way, both for or against. I wouldn't accept "the bible says so" as an argument if I didn't believe the bible was true, either. No one who has done the research would make that argument.

3) Finally, and importantly, If their god is omniscient one might of expected a better book than the bible, which even biblical scholars find ambiguous, contradictory, and obtuse. His report card would surely have said; "could do better."

The bible is a spiritual book, and atheists (such as biblical scholars) cannot understand it.

>> ^A10anis:

What pontificating nonsense. Religion IS hostile to Science and, indeed, anything which brings its myths into question;
1) The inquisition was in direct opposition to Galileo. They banned any of his books which referred to the Copernican theory, sentenced him to life imprisonment - later changed to house arrest after he recanted. The church in 2008, once again, having done so previously, recanted and "forgave" Galileo.
2) They prefer the tenets of a 2000yr old man made book to the applied logic of Science. One only has to look at religions ludicrous position on creationism, fossils, the big bang etc. Get into a discussion about these things (pointless) and all they can offer is; "the bible says so."
3) Finally, and importantly, If their god is omniscient one might of expected a better book than the bible, which even biblical scholars find ambiguous, contradictory, and obtuse. His report card would surely have said; "could do better."



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