I shared some nauseating and jaw-dropping examples of hypocrisy the other day, but the Obama Administration’s continuation (and expansion!) of Bush-style surveillance-state tactics surely must set some sort of record for double-talk.
Even by Washington standards.
So regardless of your views on the merits or demerits of collecting metadata, let’s enjoy some cartoons mocking the White House’s forked-tongue policies.
We’ll start with one from Jim McKee that doesn’t make a strong philosophical point, but I’m hokey enough that I liked the use of Santa Claus.
This next cartoon from Steve Kelley should make honest liberals cringe with embarrassment.
This Scott Stantis cartoon may be even better because it links Obama with Bush and Nixon. I knew they all shared a statist orientation on economic policy, but who knew they had the same affinity for monitoring other people’s communications?
But this second Jim McKee cartoon may be my favorite because it goes after the hypocritical statists directly. You can see why I’m glad that McKee’s work has come to my attention.
In closing, I suppose I should provide some initial thoughts on the more serious issue of whether the Obama Administration is improperly and needlessly invading our privacy.
If I understand correctly, the government did get judicial approval before collecting this data, so perhaps there’s nothing improper about this data-collection scheme.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a wise or good policy. Like most (if not all) libertarians, as well as other sensible people, I wonder whether the government will misuse the information being collected. If nothing else, the recent IRS scandals should make all of us very sensitive to that possibility.
But even if you assume that politicians and bureaucrats are angels, that still wouldn’t necessarily make this a good use of law enforcement resources. And that’s an empirical question.
I’m not qualified to give an answer, but I’m definitely in the need-to-be-convinced category. This policy reminds me of anti-money laundering laws, which also were put in place with the excuse that government would collect and analyze large amounts of data to help deter crime.
All the evidence, however, shows that these laws are a costly failure. The invade our privacy, hurt the poor, impose high regulatory costs, and have little or no impact on underlying crimes.
So put me in the skeptics camp. National defense is a legitimate function of government, and I fully realize that there are people out there who want to kill me and my family for no other reason that our freedoms, so I don’t automatically object to government actions in this area.
But I want their efforts to be concentrated and effective. And if our government is so big and bloated that we can’t monitor and stop known bad guys (like some of the 9-11 terrorists and at least one of the Tsarnaev brothers), then I don’t want to give the bureaucrats new powers without some sort of convincing argument that we’ll get positive results.
[…] https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/hoisting-obama-on-his-own-surveillance-state-petard… – Image fromI’ve used Taylor Swift/Christmas song lyrics as the sub-headings cause this was originally posted on December 13 (her birthday/Christmas time). […]
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Obama has nothing to do with NSA spying and is actually a strong believer against it
[…] Using an image that will cause many of us to wince, Glenn Foden manages to combine Obamacare and the NSA spying scandal. […]
[…] Using an image that will cause many of us to wince, Glenn Foden manages to combine Obamacare and the NSA spying scandal. […]
What stupid polititcian shall we vote in next time? More Republicans than Democrats voted with Obama against the Amash (R)/Conyers (D) Bill to defund mass surveillance…. WE ARE FUCKED WITH BOTH PARTIES! I hope to find good indendents to vote for, for president and congress. Yes! I write president and congress with small letters, until proven they deserve better.
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http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-130613.html
[…] Mitchell at International Liberty staked a respectable position regarding the still-unfolding NSA surveillance story. But some of the comments from his more […]
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
A few humorous pokes at the NSA domestic spying.
In the early part of this century, I worked for a company where we used computer models to assess massive amounts of data for fraud detection. I offered our services to the FBI at the time, telling them how we could “anonymize” the data so that nobody could be at risk. This was shortly before 9-11, and I was disappointed when the FBI told me that the Graham-Leach-Blyley act prevented them from even HAVING data on US citizens. I was also disappointed when I saw how easy the pattern for the 9-11 attackers would have been to catch and prevent. I later respected their decision when I was talking with one of our health care clients. They had an analyst who had access to all of that data, and she decided to make life miserable for her ex-husband.
Having seen that, I am afraid I side with the whistle-blower on this whole thing. It’s not that ALL of them cannot be trusted. It only takes one or two bad ones who have access to all of that data to ruin the lives of several unsuspecting recipients of their anger. This is exactly why our founders had the foresight to put the 4th ammendment in place.
I would like to see our so-called protectors doing a little more profiling of suspects before runnign off with all of my neighbors data. Yes- PROFILING! I said it. I am getting tired of them telling me that when they are searching ME in an airport that it is for my own safety. It is NOT. I am not going to do anything to blow up any planes. So every moment they waste searching me is a moment they could be using to investigate somebody who really does have our worst interests at heart. The same goes for the 80-year-old couple I saw them practically strip searching in Nashville a few weeks back. That did absolutely nothing for my safety. However, I admit being a little nervous when they did not search the guy wearing the turban.
We have to stop this nonsense, and focus our resources on the things that promise the most return on time invested. We simply don’t have enough resources to waste on searching the innocent, nor does our constitution allow it.
Steve
>>I wonder whether the government will misuse the information being collected.
Wonder no more, it is the only way Obama has been elected, misuse of confidential information. It is mothers’ milk to his ilk.
So let us give all our medical information to the IRS, they are so worthy of trust after all. /s
http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-110613.html
Edward Snowden: “The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things… And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse. [The NSA will] say that… because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.”
Not just Nixon but Wilson, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Clinton, Bush I and II,
just imagine what Richard Millhouse Nixon could have done with a turnkey totalitarian state…
[…] Hoisting Obama on His Own Surveillance-State Petard | International Liberty. […]
Don’t claim that a secret court, issuing secret opinions, passes the straight face test for “judicial approval”. Please point out that everything Hitler did was “legal” under the conditions that he created and maintained.
Also please give note to the fact that whatever security benefits are obtained by this policy are far more than offset by the future security threats posed by future malevolent administrations (or parts thereof).
Dan stop pussyfooting around on this issue. As a libertarian you should know better. Government gathering of information for whatever purpose is wrong. As limited government libertarian you should know that government’s only purpose is defence against foreign invasion ie a coast guard and perhaps reservist army. Not even courts should be in the government domain since private mediation and arbitration is much more efficient. As a no government libertarian I would go further because government whether limited or unlimited is nothing more than a criminal gang engaging in a protection racket and thus there should be no government and no government collection of any data on anyone.