In a recent speech, Glenn Greenwald discussed how the government and media treatment of WikiLeaks is symptomatic of a total lack of respect for the law and government transparency by the secret consortium of government and corporate power that runs the United States.
[Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the transcript of a speech delivered by Constitutional lawyer and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald at the Lannan Foundation on March 8. The speech was transcribed by the blog Contumacious. Please visit AlterNet to read the entire speech.]
by Glenn Greenwald
...[P]olitical controversies and political issues never take place in isolation. They're always part of some broader framework, that drives political outcomes, and that determines how political power is exercised. And so it doesn't really matter which specific topic, or which specific controversy of the day you want to discuss, the reality is, you can't really meaningfully discuss any of them without examining all the forces that shape political culture, and that shape how political outcomes are determined. So, in order to talk about any issue, you end up speaking about these same, broad themes, that are shaping, and I think plaguing, the political discourse in the United States.
This is something that I first realized when I started writing about politics in late 2005. One of the very first topics on which I focused was the scandal about the Bush administration eavesdropping on American citizens without the warrants required by law. This was first exposed by the NYT in December of 2005, so it happened around six weeks after I began writing about politics. I had this very naïve idea that this was going to be very straightforward and simple political controversy. The reason I thought that in my naiveté, was because what the Bush administration got caught doing [eavesdropping on Americans without warrants from the FISA court] is as clear as could possibly be a felony under American law. You can actually look at the criminal law that existed since 1978, when FISA was enacted. It says that doing exactly what the Bush administration got caught doing, is a felony in the U.S., just like robbing a bank, or extortion or murder, and that it's punishable by a prison term of five years or a $10,000 fine for each offense.
The report that the NYT published was that there were at least hundreds and probably thousands of instances where American citizens were eavesdropped on illegally and in violation of the law. So, I thought that this was going to be a fairly straightforward controversy, because I had this idea that if you get caught committing a felony, and the NYT writes and reports on that and everybody's talking about that, that that's actually going to be a really bad thing for the person who got caught doing that. I know it was really naïve. I'm actually embarrassed to admit that I thought that, but that really is was I thought at the time. I also thought that basically everybody would be in agreement that that was a really bad thing to do....that thing that the law said for 30 years was a felony and punishable by a prison term and a large fine. And, as it turned out (and I realized this fairly quickly) none of that actually happened. It wasn't a really bad thing for the people who got caught committing that felony.
And, not only did everyone not agree that that was a bad thing, very few people actually agreed that that was a very bad thing. So, what I thought I was going to be able to do was to take this issue and write very legalistically about it, and demonstrate that what the Bush administration had done was a crime, that it was a felony under the statute and that the legal defenses for it that they had raised were frivolous and baseless and that would be the end of the story. Crime committed, investigation commenced, punishment ensues. So what immediately happened, when I realized that none of that was really going on, of course then the question became why. Why was my expectation about what would happen so radically different than what in fact happened?
So, then I needed to delve into that dynamic, that I began by referencing that determines political outcomes. I had to examine the fact that we have a political faction inside the U.S. [the American Right] that is drowning in concepts of nationalism, and exceptionalism, in tribalism that leads them to believe that whatever they and their leaders do is justifiable inherently because they do it, and in a complete lack of principle...this is the same faction that impeached a democratically elected president not more than 10 years earlier on the grounds that the rule of law is paramount and we can't allow our presidents to break the law. And, yet, here they were defending it.
Please read the entire address at How the US Government Strikes Fear in Its Own Citizens and People Around the World by Glenn Greenwald (AlterNet 2011-03-21).
Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional law attorney and chief blogger at Unclaimed Territory. His forthcoming book, How Would a Patriot Act: Defending American Values from a President Run Amok will be released by Working Assets Publishing next month.
quote unquote: Brandeis on metasticizing wealth
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
Standard Operating Procedure
When he was asked this morning about the conditions of Bradley Manning's confinement at Quantico, President Obama said that he had queried the Defense Department about Manning's detention and had been assured that the handling of the whistleblower -- you know, months of solitary confinement, forced nudity, and other abuses -- followed standard operating procedure and fell within the norms of humane incarceration.
Well, sure, Manning's treatment meets DOD's standards. Using nudity to impose a sense of helplessness, for example, that is, stripping detainees to "demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor," is standard operating procedure for the U.S. military now; but it has been only since being introduced in 2002 at the prison at Guantanamo by President George W. Bush to encourage cooperation from persons who were, nominally at least, enemy combatants. Not only will President Change not be closing Gitmo as he promised to do during his campaign, not only has he embraced as his own the illegal and immoral procedures introduced there by the Bush administration, but now he's gone the extra step of rationalizing abuse of an American citizen detained on U.S. soil by citing as standard operating procedure practices that were confined heretofore and only recently to military lockups.
The president's disingenuousness is almost touching. President Bush queried his people, too, on whether torture was legal and within standard operating procedure, and got thumbs-up. In claiming to accept DOD's assurances that Manning procedures meet basic standards, Obama either seeks plausible deniability or lacks a moral compass. Neither option is reassuring and both reinforce the new immorality that has become standard operating procedure under Bush-Obama.
Wait til Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio figures out how much more humiliation he can get per Maricopa County tax dollar by stripping off those pink jumpsuits and tenting his charges in the nude.
Forgetting for a moment that the obligation to treat the accused as "innocent until proven guilty" precludes any punishment before conviction, the ugly way the Marine Corps has handled Manning would be inhumane (and unconstitutional) even if he had been convicted on all counts.
How far we've come just in the two years of Obama's presidency. It was, after all, pictures of naked prisoners that inspired the outrage over Abu Ghraib. Now torture techniques that were offensive under Bush are justified as standard operating procedure. That's change, all right.
See, also: This shameful abuse of Bradley Manning by Daniel Ellsberg (Guardian UK 2011-03-11)
Manning’s Father Condemns Treatment of Imprisoned Son by Kim Zetter (Wired Threat Level 2011-03-10)
WikiLeaks suspect's treatment 'stupid,' U.S. official says by Ellen Nakashima (Washington Post 2011-03-12)
Crowley resigns as State Department Spokesman by Ed Henry (CNN PoliticalTicker 2011-03-13)
Comments on Prisoner Treatment Cause State Department Spokesman to Lose His Job by Jack Tapper (ABC News Political Punch 2011-03-13)
Well, sure, Manning's treatment meets DOD's standards. Using nudity to impose a sense of helplessness, for example, that is, stripping detainees to "demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor," is standard operating procedure for the U.S. military now; but it has been only since being introduced in 2002 at the prison at Guantanamo by President George W. Bush to encourage cooperation from persons who were, nominally at least, enemy combatants. Not only will President Change not be closing Gitmo as he promised to do during his campaign, not only has he embraced as his own the illegal and immoral procedures introduced there by the Bush administration, but now he's gone the extra step of rationalizing abuse of an American citizen detained on U.S. soil by citing as standard operating procedure practices that were confined heretofore and only recently to military lockups.
The president's disingenuousness is almost touching. President Bush queried his people, too, on whether torture was legal and within standard operating procedure, and got thumbs-up. In claiming to accept DOD's assurances that Manning procedures meet basic standards, Obama either seeks plausible deniability or lacks a moral compass. Neither option is reassuring and both reinforce the new immorality that has become standard operating procedure under Bush-Obama.
Wait til Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio figures out how much more humiliation he can get per Maricopa County tax dollar by stripping off those pink jumpsuits and tenting his charges in the nude.
Forgetting for a moment that the obligation to treat the accused as "innocent until proven guilty" precludes any punishment before conviction, the ugly way the Marine Corps has handled Manning would be inhumane (and unconstitutional) even if he had been convicted on all counts.
How far we've come just in the two years of Obama's presidency. It was, after all, pictures of naked prisoners that inspired the outrage over Abu Ghraib. Now torture techniques that were offensive under Bush are justified as standard operating procedure. That's change, all right.
See, also: This shameful abuse of Bradley Manning by Daniel Ellsberg (Guardian UK 2011-03-11)
Manning’s Father Condemns Treatment of Imprisoned Son by Kim Zetter (Wired Threat Level 2011-03-10)
WikiLeaks suspect's treatment 'stupid,' U.S. official says by Ellen Nakashima (Washington Post 2011-03-12)
Crowley resigns as State Department Spokesman by Ed Henry (CNN PoliticalTicker 2011-03-13)
Comments on Prisoner Treatment Cause State Department Spokesman to Lose His Job by Jack Tapper (ABC News Political Punch 2011-03-13)
Creeping Socialism
[This is from an email making the rounds. Anonymous scores again. - J.]
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by my Municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communications Commission-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the Congressionally-regulated US Postal Service and drop my kids off at our local government-owned and Department of Education mandated public school.
After work, I drive my NHTSA-approved car back home on the DOT-maintained roads, to the house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshall's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, and post on FreeRepublic and Fox News Forums about how our GOVERNMENT is a horrible SOCIALIST TYRANT who can't do anything right and needs to stay out of my life.
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by my Municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communications Commission-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the Congressionally-regulated US Postal Service and drop my kids off at our local government-owned and Department of Education mandated public school.
After work, I drive my NHTSA-approved car back home on the DOT-maintained roads, to the house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshall's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, and post on FreeRepublic and Fox News Forums about how our GOVERNMENT is a horrible SOCIALIST TYRANT who can't do anything right and needs to stay out of my life.
Transportation: 1965? When will the US start spending again on infrastructure?
Here's an excellent example of celebrity in service to reform:
And, speaking of democracy,
you could make 35 new states out of California and the residents' votes would still be worth half those of people in Wyoming.
Welcome to Baja Arizona!
If we can't dump the unrepresentative U.S. Senate, at least we can get more democracy by carving up NY, IL, CA, IL, PA, MI, OH, TX, FL into smaller states.
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