Hillary Clinton: "We Need To Talk Sensibly About Spying" 461
dryriver writes "The Guardian reports: 'Hillary Clinton has called for a "sensible adult conversation", to be held in a transparent way, about the boundaries of state surveillance highlighted by the leaking of secret NSA files by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. In a boost to Nick Clegg, the British deputy prime minister, who is planning to start conversations within government about the oversight of Britain's intelligence agencies, the former US secretary of state said it would be wrong to shut down a debate. Clinton, who is seen as a frontrunner for the 2016 US presidential election, said at Chatham House in London: "This is a very important question. On the intelligence issue, we are democracies thank goodness, both the US and the UK. We need to have a sensible adult conversation about what is necessary to be done, and how to do it, in a way that is as transparent as it can be, with as much oversight and citizens' understanding as there can be."'"
Re:Such Hubris... (Score:5, Informative)
Dude,
The state department doesn't order the NSA around. It doesn't order the CIA around. It feeds the CIA intel, partly in the form of reports from State Department staff and partly in the form of reports from the governments they're working with; and uses Intel and tools from both, but it doesn't have any control over FISA.
Re:Hillary has no moral authority (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed, I find her interest in discourse on the subject frightening because she's the official that ordered spying, including theft of credit card info, on UN officials.
Citation for the curious: Spying on United Nations leaders by United States diplomats [wikipedia.org]
Re: "what is necessary to be done" (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Not treason. That has a very specific definition in the constitution. It's perjury. That is a serious enough offense and appropriate for that specific level of malfeasance.
Re:"what is necessary to be done" (Score:5, Informative)
8 years of Bush thinking he knew what was best for you is largely what got us into this mess.
And Obama is just as much of a thug for continuing these policies and, in certain cases, expanding them.
Re:it's too late for that (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. I've always seen myself as a progressive and have voted for Democratic candidates since the 1980s, but after the Obama experience I'm not so sure. There are a few exceptions, but otherwise it's clear to me that both of the two major parties are almost completely corrupt. For instance, do you think things would have been much different under Hillary than under Obama? I don't think so. They're both establishment figures who's real masters are the big corporations -- that's where they get most of the money for their campaigns. But that kind of cash always comes with strings attached.
If we ever want to see this kind of corruption end, our first goal must be to get money out of politics.
If that makes sense to you, I would suggest signing this petition: WOLF-PAC [wolf-pac.com]. Launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood* and publicly finance all elections**. Since Congress won't pass such an Amendment on its own, the plan is to instead have the State Legislators propose it via an Article V Convention. At least 34 States need to cooperate for this to work, but already many have reacted with enthusiasm, most notably Texas. If successful, we should see a much more respectable group of politicians emerge within one or two election cycles.
*) The aim is not to end legal personhood for corporations, but natural personhood. The latter became a problem following the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which grated some of the rights of natural persons to corporations and makes it easier for them to lend financial support to political campaigns.
**) At the State level, more than half of all political campaigns are already publicly financed in some way, so there's nothing strange about doing the same for political campaigns for federal office.
Re:"what is necessary to be done" (Score:2, Informative)
In the sense that it was time for America to have a president who didn't grow up white.
It it wasn't time for American to have a president who didn't grow up with a penis?
You are just as bigoted as everyone else, except you are worst because you are an hypocrite. Vote for the competence, not for the appearance (colour, sex, religion, etc).
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"what is necessary to be done" (Score:5, Informative)
You admit that you didn't check it, so how the hell would you know?
I admit that I hadn't previously seen it, but I did check it. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1301/23/se.01.html [cnn.com]
You are wrong. Her testimony in no way indicated any wrongdoing. The quip that made it in the news was an admonition from a freshman Senator who was trying to bait her that she replied in kind to.
The biggest possible scandal that ANY potential Presidential candidate has ever been involved in, and you wonder why it matters?
Yeah, like George Bush committing treason at least twice that we know of (both material aid to the Iranians who were enemies of the US at the time). Oh no, that gets no coverage, does it?