Sen. Feinstein: Still Mongering the Fear

Because playing the "zOMG!! Because Terrorism!!" card never gets old for her.

The terrorism threat against the United States is increasing and Americans are not as safe as they were a year or two ago, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees said on Sunday.

Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers appeared together on CNN's State of the Union, on the day that al-Qaida's US spokesperson called for attacks on US interests around the world. Rogers said al-Qaida groups had changed their means of communication as a result of leaks about US surveillance programs, making it harder to detect potential plots in the early planning stages.

"We're fighting amongst ourselves here in this country about the role of our intelligence community that it is having an impact on our ability to stop what is a growing number of threats," he said. "And so we've got to shake ourselves out of this pretty soon and understand that our intelligence services are not the bad guys."

Bullshit.

Rogers and Feinstein are both putting out a very simplistic view: "They bad. Spooks good." And I'll bet that if you were to surf the major American news outlets, you'd find that they are just lapping that shit up, without a jot of critical thought.

I don't deny that there are people and groups around the world who wish to do us harm. But some perspective needs to be kept in mind, namely that terrorism is a tool of the weak. And it most often fails in its objective. When terrorists shot the shit out of a hotel in Mumbai a few years ago, what did they accomplish? Did they change Indian foreign policy to be more receptive of the terrorists' political goals?

No, we give the terrorists what they want when we over-react. We give the terrorists what they seek by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on bullshit security theater, but our government regarding all 300 million Americans as potential terrorists, all of whom must be watched. We give the terrorists what they want when broad surveillance and monitoring serves to drive a wedge deeper between the government and the governed.

We give the terrorists what they seek when we toss away our hard-won freedoms and liberties "because terrorism!"

So yes, those who seek to engage in acts of terror are bad guys. But so are those who have been stripping us of our Constitutional freedoms and protections in the name of keeping us safe.

Can we get rid of the "we need to wiretap everyone to prevent another 9-11" rationale? The reports after the fact made it pretty damned clear that the Feds had all the information that they needed to detect and prevent the attacks. They just didn't put the pieces of the puzzle together. Saying that "we need to do more surveillance to keep you safe" is bullshit. They couldn't even analyze what they had before 9-11 and they sure as shit can't do it now. In point of fact, this broad surveillance is making us less safe.

Oh, and can we also stop calling the "FISA Court" a "court"? Maybe call it a "star chamber" or something else? Courts are were things are decided by the means of an adversary process. Both sides get to put on their case and a judge or jury decides. The FISA Star Chamber is nothing of the sort, for only the spies get to argue before it and then the judges pretty much haul out their rubber stamp of approval.

It'd be as though somebody showed up to move into your house because they bought it at a sheriff's sale that was held in secret, based on a court proceeding of which you were given no notice or afforded an opportunity to appear and you had no right to even reopen the matter. Nobody (other than a bankster) would think that was fair. But that's just how the FISA Star Chamber has been operating for over three decades.