From The Ramparts

Random Musings About Current Events

Random Musings About Current Events

“The fact that the government is trying to track (but not wiretap) every call you make and every call you receive — at home or on your cellphone is, to say the least, disturbing. It means that your phone company (if you are a customer of AT&T, BellSouth or Verizon) tossed your privacy to the wind and collaborated with this extraordinary intrusion, and that it did so secretly and without following any court order. That is, unless you're lucky enough to be served by Qwest, the one major phone company that had the integrity to resist government pressure. It means that unless public opposition changes the government's course, this database will be compiled, updated and expanded into the indeterminate future, through countless administrations with who-knows-what interests and motives.” www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-05-11-phone-records

Things must be really getting bad the corporate mind control apparatus is actually pumping up rather than continuing to suppress (ala the New York Times) information about the government’s abuses of privacy and the construction of a massive snooping system to spy on millions of AmeriKKKans. Come on, George Bu$h is an imbecile but there aren’t that many terrorists out there. So who are the NeoCon crazies really afraid of? Perhaps they are afraid of dissenters who will not lay down and go along with the Nazification of AmeriKKKa. Maybe they are fearful the snoozing AmeriKKKan public will actually wake up and begin to connect the dots and discern how they are being duped, lied to and manipulated. This is not just a case of a few folks inadvertently being bugged, tracked or spied upon. No this is wholesale illegal invasion of privacy. It will make COINTELPRO look tame by comparison. "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA Today. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans -- most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. ‘It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,’ said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is ‘to create a database of every call ever made’ within the nation's borders, this person added.” Leslie Cauley, USA Today
Hmm, so let me get this straight George Bu$h approved massive culling of phone calls and patterns of ordinary citizens in direct violation of the FISA Act and FCC Act of 1933 and on top of that he is recommending the may who did it, Air Force General Michael Hayden to head the CIA?!!! Is it me or do you smell something fishy here? Is this like Bu$h putting Michael Brown in charge of FEMA or Bu$H not reprimanding, court marshaling or firing any of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the CIA, FBI or FAA following 9-11? Do you see a pattern here? Is Dubeya mimicking another fraud and fake the late Ronald Reagan and his out and out illegal Iran Contra dealings as well as his failed Voodoo economics which have destroyed the federal government’s budget?!!
Benito Mussolini called his brand of fascism “Corporatism, the blending of the state and corporations”. Do you see any similarity with Mussolini’s 1925 Italy and Bu$h’s 2006 AmeriKKKa? “AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers. The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans. Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.” The fact that AT&T, Verizon and Bell South willingly and knowingly colluded with the government to violate the law makes the situation doubly alarming. It is a clear example of government and corporatist collusion to undermine the rights of ordinary AmeriKKKans. Will this information drive Bu$h’s approval ratings even lower? Will this be the event that sparks a grass roots backlash/revolt? Will this be the telling point when AmeriKKKans rolled over, acquiesced and played dead in the face of full fledged fascism? Citizen groups are taking Bell South AT&T and Verizon to court for violating their rights, anyone planning to join their class action suits?

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Several weeks ago I wrote the immigration issue was bogus, now I’m not so sure. I was watching C-SPAN and I saw a protested demanding more border security, more federal and state prosecutors to try illegal aliens. Then I remembered a subsidiary of Haliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root recently received a contract to build “emergency immigration detention facilities” “Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Haliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with ‘an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs,’ KBR said. Later, the New York Times reported that ‘KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.’ Like most news stories on the KBR contract, the Times focused on concerns about Haliburton's reputation for bilking U.S. taxpayers by overcharging for sub-par services. ‘It's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Haliburton with even more taxpayer dollars,’ remarked Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Less attention centered on the phrase "rapid development of new programs" and what kind of programs would require a major expansion of detention centers, each capable of holding 5,000 people. Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to elaborate on what these ‘new programs’ might be.” http://www.alternet.org/rights AmeriKKKa already incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world! Given what we know about the Bu$h-Cheney/NeoCon crazies’ megalomaniacal tendencies, this does not look good or bode well for Joe and Jane Sixpack. Now looking at a table top picture, I see Bu$h and Co using the bogus immigration issue to push more draconian laws, executive orders, domestic martial law and internment camps as a way to stifle dissent and squash resistance to their plummeting approval ratings, fascist programs and perpetual wars. As Charles Barkley would say, I may be wrong, but I doubt it.
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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 9:25 PM