January 8, 2011, Twits
The only thing I can say about Justice Dept. efforts to subpoena Twitter account private messages of a member of the Icelandic parliament (and more importantly, former Wikileaks volunteer) is... at least they're doing it in a way that can be talked about, to wit, a subpoena, rather than a "national security letter." The reason is somewhat obvious: the use of a subpoena means that anything obtained by subpoena can eventually be used in a hypotehtical court prosecution of Emmanuel Goldstein Julian Assange, whereas anything obtained by a national security letter might have a slight Fourth Amendment problem. For whatever reason, the show must go on viz Assange... well, he not only embarrassed the Imperium... the mother f***er used his notoriety to get laid.
Anyway, this Wikileaks angle is a most interesting coincidence, I suppose, as the connection between Wikileaks, Guantanamo and not-so-slow-ascent of American totalitarianism is the basis of Andy's visit to our shores (and to Stately Dog Manor)... that, along with the ignominious 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay (Candace has more). The mirth and merriment will continue on Tuesday, at yon 9th anniversary, commencing 11 am on 1-11-11... with a big protest event in front of the White House. (Candace advises me that at that very moment, Judge Richard Leon will be reading his verdict in the case of her client Razak Ali in the D.C. federal courthouse... oh, what to do... what to do? [BTW... Candace's client Razak is an Algerian who would actually like to go home... unlike Farhi Saeed bin Mohammad, who had won his habeas case, but nonetheless, asked to remain at GTMO rather than be returned to Algeria, where he feared abuse, torture or worse... even as Farhi's petition for review in the U.S. Supreme Court was pending, the Obama Administration shipped him back to Algeria anyway. My interview with Farhi's lawyer Buz Eisenberg is here, for some background.] Sufficeth to say... the Obama Administration has given up on trying to find third countries to house our military's house guests... even as it continues to vilify detainees the Administration has already concluded pose no threat to anyone... even as the President signs laws that supposedly restrict his "flexibility" to release admittedly illegally held men... lather, rinse, repeat...]
Well, not sure if I'll go down to D.C. for the mirth and merriment myself, but for those of you who can... I strongly urge you to show the un-shameable Barack Obama some "tough love" on Tuesday and show him that the perfect is not the enemy of the good, but the good is very much the enemy of his "Bush's third term" excuse for governance. (Barack himself will, much as his predecessor, likely have the curtains drawn, while, perhaps unlike his predecessor, he ponders why so many people who went out of their way to support him don't like how he's doing things quite so much... but he'll just attribute it to us being "retarded" and otherwise "impractical.")
I will note that I was at a New York City educational event yesterday, which was about as insanely disorganized as anything could be, when a gentleman with a thick Russian accent observed it, and said something akin to "This country is crap; I lived in Africa and nothing was as disorganized as this... ten years... this country goes the way of the Soviet Union!." I looked at him, and said, "Ten years? You're an optimist, my friend." You see, creeping totalitarianism is expensive... it's going to bankrupt us long before it fully manages to enslave us. And that's the good news.
Snapshot of a country that has lost its moral compass some time ago... a country that long ago traded its birthright for SUV's, happy meals and I-phones (with a prozac chaser)... and whose populace knows not to ask too many questions. This has been... "Twits."