“This is giving Big Brother a desk in every federal agency and telling him to go to work”
by digby
Charlie Pierce weighs in on the McClatchy revelations in his inimitable fashion:
I don’t want to hear about “safeguards” because I don’t believe in them any more. I don’t want to hear about “transparency” any more because the president lost his privileges on that word when he cited the secret rubber-stamp FISA court as the vehicle for transparency last week. I don’t want to hear about “oversight” because, really, stop kidding us all. And I especially don’t want to hear about how all the administration’s really done is “formalize” programs that were already in place, as though giving the creation of a culture of informers the imprimatur of the presidency makes it better. This, after all, is what you’re “formalizing,” as dramatized on June 13, 1971 by the Oval Office Players, Richard M. Nixon, artistic director:
President Nixon: Doesn’t it involve secure information, a lot of other things? What kind of-what kind of people would do such things?
Kissinger: It has the most-it has the highest classification, Mr. President.
President Nixon: Yeah. Yeah.
Kissinger: It’s treasonable. There’s no question it’s actionable. I’m absolutely certain that this violates all sorts of security laws.
President Nixon: What-what do we do about it? Don’t we ask for an-
Kissinger: I think I-I should talk to [Attorney General John N.] Mitchell.
President Nixon: Yeah,
No, Mr. Current President, this is not business as usual. This is not even the NSA sifting through e-mails and phone calls. This is giving Big Brother a desk in every federal agency and telling him to go to work.
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