The Three Big Lies: How The Federal Government Kept Its Post-9/11 Spying On Americans A Secret
from the three-big-lies dept
Last night, the first episode of Frontline's United States of Secrets aired, going deep into the history of "The Program," which is what the Bush (really Cheney) White House referred to the NSA program to spy on Americans based on incredibly shaky legal theories -- theories that were locked in a safe in Michael Hayden's office at the NSA, which almost no one was allowed to see. If you want additional background or summaries of the episode, Monday night's Fresh Air was great, including interviews with both the director of the program as well as Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe -- two NSA whistleblowers (who we've mentioned before) who had their lives turned upside down due to totally bogus FBI raids, which were clearly a response to their whistleblowing activities. Another great summary comes from PRI's The World.Either way, the thing that stands out to me is how the administration tried, desperately to stop anyone from revealing "The Program" with three big lies, which are discussed in all three of the links above. Here's the short summary of what happened any time anyone sought to raise issues about the legality of "The Program":
- It's completely legal and has been judged as such (though don't ask why)
- It's "unbelievably effective." You wouldn't believe the threats we're stopping -- and that's why we can't talk about it.
- If you reveal it, hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack -- and the blood will be on your hands if you reveal and/or stop this program.
As for the "it's working," we've seen recently what a huge and incredible lie that was. Similarly, while the NSA and its defenders love to throw around the idea that if anyone reveals anything "blood will be on your hands," that threat is always issued when whistleblowing happens, and it's always a massive exaggeration.
Either way, those three big lies were effective in scaring people off from doing anything about the program -- including Bill Keller at the NY Times, who spiked James Risen's big story about the warrantless wiretapping (a part of the larger program) for over a year (well past the 2004 Presidential election). And, of course, since the program became known finally when Risen was getting ready to publish a book about it (and thus Keller felt he couldn't sit on the story any longer), those "hundreds of thousands of deaths" were (once again) proven to be nothing but bogus FUD.
Of course, in the past year, Ed Snowden has revealed many more details of The Program and what it later turned into, and thus provided even more evidence that the three claims were just ridiculous lies all along. And yet, for over a decade now, those three big lies have been at the heart of the NSA's program to spy on Americans.
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Filed Under: david addington, dick cheney, fud, nsa, surveillance, united states of secrecy
Reader Comments
The First Word
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Of course!
Means that "hundreds of thousands of Americans may die in a future attack" by the US Government against people rebelling!
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"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. --- Abraham Lincoln
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Absolutly unbelieveable!
-Because if we told you about the YOU we're stopping, you'd be found not guilty when the court found out, how we found out and told the prosecutor to jam you up.
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This nation is filled to be brim with idiots and their fear!
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We have sent 6000 to their deaths
We have directly and indirectly caused the deaths of millions in multiple countries
We have returned home over 100,000 severely hurt solders
We have destroyed our reputation around the planet
We have destroyed our constitution
We have created far more terrorists than existed prior to 9/11
We have damaged the future of millions of Americans
We have put monsters in charge of our government and its agencies
We have thrown away what it meant to be an American to get revenge for the deaths of 3000.
In comparison:
-over 1/2 million die of cancer each year in the US
-approx 30,000 die each year in the US in car accidents
-approx 38,000 die each year of suicide in the US
Were these people not worth as much to our government as the 3000 in the towers?
Our leaders are absolute failures and need to be removed from power, not just talked to.
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Lies
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Really doesn't make sense
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"Frontline" does it again
Damn you, Frontline. And thank you, too, I guess. grr.
P.S. The Frontline website (linked in the article) has some good additional reading and links, including a guide to the major news stories revealing the NSA abuses as well as government reports going back to 2004.
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Re: Lies and the lying liars that tell 'em
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Congress
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Neither party represents their constituents (the people) anymore, they only ever represent their own party and whoever pays enough to materially support them. We would be a lot better off if we could drop the political party system, the left vs right ideology, the us vs them mentality, remove money from politics and work together to build a better nation.
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Meanwhile, political players would continue to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt among the people and sooner or later we'd be back to where we started, but with more targets to shoot at. The call to arms would still be along Red/Blue lines, though. People like simplicity, after all.
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Re: "Frontline" does it again
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John Ashcroft, an unlikely hero
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The Last Word
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