ANOTHER NEW STUDENT HEARD FROM:
Dear Edji
I have been following your blog on a daily basis from xxxxxx (In the U.K.) longer than I can remember. If you were to hold a retreat this side of the pond I would like to be the first in the queue.
My spiritual practice began 21 years ago with TM.
Since then I have been collecting Gurus and teachings like some women collect shoes. No sexism intended.
From The Maharishi I went onto Yogananda, Adi Da, Amma, Nissargadatta, Ramana Maharshii, Robert Adams, David Hawkins, Adyashanti, Tony Parsons, Rupert Spira and of course your good self.
You are probably familiar with most, if not all of these.
I have just started reading your book which I got via Amazon and I'm enjoying it very much.
Lately I have been feeling and loving the I am sense and I am also loving another with a sense of constant giving with no expectation of return.
Focusing on the I am and loving it brings an immediate sense of peace and joy. I shall try to remember to practice this as much as I can.
Recently I went through a period of enormous emotional pain due to my partner of 19 years leaving me for another person.
I remembered your teaching of not running from emotional pain but instead allowing oneself to totally feel it and become it.
When I did this the pain would be immediately transformed into unbelievable bliss and ecstasy.
Anyway Edji, I just wanted to thank you for all that you do and wish you good luck for next week's surgery.
Love B.E.
19 June 2013
18 June 2013
I need some technical support.
I have 5 audio recorded satsangs, and three with a web cam and the one with a Canon Camcorder in ACHD format.
The mp3 recording were done with a Sony digital voice recorder.
The last three months of Satsangs are unlike any recorded a year ago. So much has changed.
My voice recognition program, Dragon 12.5, was trained to do psychiatric reports and does not know how to handle satsang-style prose. With the medical reports I always dictated the punctuation, but in Satsang I don't, and Dragon is just guessing where to add them. So it produces a 2,000 word satsnag as one long paragraph with lots of periods and comas.
I have no experience with video editing, and my high power laptop that can do video, has either a memory problem or a virus.
So, I would appreciate it if someone could volunteer to transcribe a maximum of five talks, and someone else who can edit 3-4 video tapes, which would involve adding chanting tracks at appropriate places, and adding titles.
This would be much appreciated by me and many others.
I have 5 audio recorded satsangs, and three with a web cam and the one with a Canon Camcorder in ACHD format.
The mp3 recording were done with a Sony digital voice recorder.
The last three months of Satsangs are unlike any recorded a year ago. So much has changed.
My voice recognition program, Dragon 12.5, was trained to do psychiatric reports and does not know how to handle satsang-style prose. With the medical reports I always dictated the punctuation, but in Satsang I don't, and Dragon is just guessing where to add them. So it produces a 2,000 word satsnag as one long paragraph with lots of periods and comas.
I have no experience with video editing, and my high power laptop that can do video, has either a memory problem or a virus.
So, I would appreciate it if someone could volunteer to transcribe a maximum of five talks, and someone else who can edit 3-4 video tapes, which would involve adding chanting tracks at appropriate places, and adding titles.
This would be much appreciated by me and many others.
Recent Progress of a new student:
Ed, I feel the bliss and happiness on and off, kind of like waves today, that cause me to focus very strongly on the 'I AM'.
OH my! its happening again and again and something feels like exploding, think I swallowed Vesuvius. This AM it felt like I was actually going to disappear-that would be alright also.
Thank you much for these Blessings and Grace I am very open to them. S.
Retreat or Center in the U.K.?
I get a lot of hits to this blog from the U.K., England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales.
Would these U.K. readers be interested in a retreat in the U.K.?
Please email me at satsang.online(at)gmail(dot)com.
Would these U.K. readers be interested in a retreat in the U.K.?
Please email me at satsang.online(at)gmail(dot)com.
16 June 2013
A student enjoys the ride
Hello again Ed, Hope all is well with you. Thank you much for having me focus on loving the 'I AM' as today it felt like 2 things were in my experience. I could clearly see the 'I AM' as distinct from another existence which was like a void, a huge void, that was somewhat dark, non-thinking but separate from the 'I AM'.
At the time I knew that the 'I AM' was me but it was more like a yarn ball, full of ALL my past experiences interacting with each other but having absolutely no substance. Kind of like standing on thin air.
It seems ever since I connected with you something new and different happens within my meditations everyday and I don't try to save those experiences and relive them, I just let them come and let them go-forgetting about them.
Are you working with me at these times? I do spend many hours at it but it is all a pleasure cause I really want to practice and not read so much anymore. I am not forced into any of this, it is just happening and it is quite the enjoyable ride.
You will have to let me know where you actually live and back in my mind plan on spending as much time as possible with you, then it will just happen.
I love ya, Ed
S,
Dear S.
You are doing well. The Self is unfolding in you. The emptiness is the screen of all that is manifest. It is the container of all that is manifest. The unmanifest YOU is even beyond that, unknown and unknowable.
The I Am is a bundle of concepts and feelings, the focusing on of which will lead you to Turiya, the root of Consciousness as manifest. It is important to love it, otherwise the path can become very dead.
At the time I knew that the 'I AM' was me but it was more like a yarn ball, full of ALL my past experiences interacting with each other but having absolutely no substance. Kind of like standing on thin air.
It seems ever since I connected with you something new and different happens within my meditations everyday and I don't try to save those experiences and relive them, I just let them come and let them go-forgetting about them.
Are you working with me at these times? I do spend many hours at it but it is all a pleasure cause I really want to practice and not read so much anymore. I am not forced into any of this, it is just happening and it is quite the enjoyable ride.
You will have to let me know where you actually live and back in my mind plan on spending as much time as possible with you, then it will just happen.
I love ya, Ed
S,
Dear S.
You are doing well. The Self is unfolding in you. The emptiness is the screen of all that is manifest. It is the container of all that is manifest. The unmanifest YOU is even beyond that, unknown and unknowable.
The I Am is a bundle of concepts and feelings, the focusing on of which will lead you to Turiya, the root of Consciousness as manifest. It is important to love it, otherwise the path can become very dead.
12 June 2013
Ellsberg: We are a turnkey away from a police state.
Daniel Ellsberg On NSA Spying: 'We're A Turnkey Away From A Police State'
Posted: 06/12/2013 4:21 pm EDT
BERKELEY, Calif. -- Famed Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg had harsh words for the Obama Administration during an event here Tuesday evening, charging that the rapid expansion of government surveillance since 9/11 has left the country "a turnkey away from a police state."
"We're not a police state yet, but the foundation has been set," he continued. "It could happen overnight."
Ellsberg, 82, is a former military analyst who became one of the most famous men in America when he leaked a top-secret government report on the Vietnam War to The New York Times in 1971. He has since been a patron saint to the civil liberties movement and is viewed by many as a predecessor of modern-day leakers like Bradley Manning and now Edward Snowden, the man who recently released evidence of the National Security Agency's covert phone records collection and Internet data mining.
Speaking at a panel discussion on "our vanishing civil liberties" organized by the Berkeley chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the anti-war activist group Code Pink, Ellsberg argued that recent revelations of the large-scale collection of Internet and cell phone data should be of grave concern to all Americans.
"Reassurances by high officials on the limits of the surveillance state are worthless," he said, referring to a speech given by President Barack Obama last week where the president defended the NSA's monitoring programs.
"Legalizing this activity doesn't make it constitutional," Ellsberg said. "Congress cannot repeal the Fourth Amendment."
The event's decidedly liberal crowd gave a rousing chorus of boos to Ellsberg's mentions of both Obama and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the latter of whom has called Snowden's leak "an act of treason."
10 June 2013
My surgery will be on June 26, a Wednesday. I should be home the 28th or 29th, and need a day or so to rest before I see anyone.
Those who wish to come should email me now and make arrangements. I don;t know how well I'll be able to cope with company until several days after the operation.
Contact me at satsang.online (at) gmail(dot)com
Those who wish to come should email me now and make arrangements. I don;t know how well I'll be able to cope with company until several days after the operation.
Contact me at satsang.online (at) gmail(dot)com
08 June 2013
TODAY THE GUARDIAN EXPOSED YET ANOTHER SECRET NSA PROGRAM CALLED "BOUNDLESS INFORMANT" THAT TRACKS INTELLIGENCE COLLECTED BY THEM AROUND THE WORLD.
ACCORDING TO BOUNDLESS INFORMANT, IN MARCH 2013 ALONE, 3 BILLION PIECES OF INTELLIGENCE WAS COLLECTED ON PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES, OR ABOUT 9 PIECES FOR EVERY PERSON IN THE US IN MARCH.
IF WE CAN BELIEVE OBAMA, THIS INFO IS JUST ABOUT FOREIGN NATIONALS, OR ABOUT 90 PIECES EACH. THIS IS NOT CREDIBLE. THE NSA IS NOT CREDIBLE. OBAMA IS NOT CREDIBLE.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box:Position1
The heat map reveals how much data is being collected from around the world. Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.
ACCORDING TO BOUNDLESS INFORMANT, IN MARCH 2013 ALONE, 3 BILLION PIECES OF INTELLIGENCE WAS COLLECTED ON PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES, OR ABOUT 9 PIECES FOR EVERY PERSON IN THE US IN MARCH.
IF WE CAN BELIEVE OBAMA, THIS INFO IS JUST ABOUT FOREIGN NATIONALS, OR ABOUT 90 PIECES EACH. THIS IS NOT CREDIBLE. THE NSA IS NOT CREDIBLE. OBAMA IS NOT CREDIBLE.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20full-width-1%20bento-box:Bento%20box:Position1
Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data
Revealed: The NSA's powerful tool for cataloguing data – including figures on US collection
• Boundless Informant: mission outlined in four slides
• Read the NSA's frequently asked questions document
• Boundless Informant: mission outlined in four slides
• Read the NSA's frequently asked questions document
Email
The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.
The National Security Agency has developed a powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from, raising questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications.
The Guardian has acquired top-secret documents about the NSAdatamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.
The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.
The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, "What type of coverage do we have on country X" in "near real-time by asking the SIGINT [signals intelligence] infrastructure."
An NSA factsheet about the program, acquired by the Guardian, says: "The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country."
Under the heading "Sample use cases", the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: "How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country."
A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA "global heat map" seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.
The heat map reveals how much data is being collected from around the world. Note the '2007' date in the image relates to the document from which the interactive map derives its top secret classification, not to the map itself.
Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14bn reports in that period, followed by 13.5bn from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America's closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7bn, Egypt fourth with 7.6bn and India fifth with 6.3bn.
The heatmap gives each nation a color code based on how extensively it is subjected to NSA surveillance. The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance).
The disclosure of the internal Boundless Informant system comes amid a struggle between the NSA and its overseers in the Senate over whether it can track the intelligence it collects on American communications. The NSA's position is that it is not technologically feasible to do so.
At a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee In March this year, Democratic senator Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
"No sir," replied Clapper.
Judith Emmel, an NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian in a response to the latest disclosures: "NSA has consistently reported – including to Congress – that we do not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or location of all communicants within a given communication. That remains the case."
Other documents seen by the Guardian further demonstrate that the NSA does in fact break down its surveillance intercepts which could allow the agency to determine how many of them are from the US. The level of detail includes individual IP addresses.
IP address is not a perfect proxy for someone's physical location but it is rather close, said Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist with the Speech Privacy and Technology Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If you don't take steps to hide it, the IP address provided by yourinternet provider will certainly tell you what country, state and, typically, city you are in," Soghoian said.
Satsang today, Saturday June 8, 6 pm California time.
Subject: Who knows?
Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com
Sign in with the password "edji" two times.
Then please mute your microphone.
Subject: Who knows?
Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com
Sign in with the password "edji" two times.
Then please mute your microphone.
07 June 2013
Today marks Day 1 of the Death of the Hope of Freedom in America (DHFA)
Over the last 3 days we have found out about massive intrusions into our privacy of all phone calls, all emails, all Skype and Facebook messages, posts, and chat, youtube posts and credit card records of all Americans online or on phones, cell phones and landlines, as well the arrest and charging of reporters as conspiring to give comfort to enemies by publishing stories about this massive invasion of privacy.
Today Obama defends these 7 years of First and Fourth Amendments as necessary for national security, and the White House further states it will not cooperate in any investigation of these programs because such inquiries would be a threat to national security.
The Boogiemen are exposed. Bush and now even worse, Obama.
Apparently, all Senators, and especially Diane Feinstein, knew all about these massive domestic spying programs from the beginning, and did not tell the public because the information was classified as "Top Secret." Which means, according to Obama, the information was not really secret (except to all of you reading this), because your elected representatives have known all about it all along.
The curtain is down, the Wizards of secrecy, the Boogiemen are exposed, and they refuse to retreat.
WHAT PROTECTION DOES ANY ORDINARY CITIZEN HAVE AGAINST AN ALL-KNOWING CENTRAL GOVERNMENT?
In a related story, we find that top CEOs of major corporations, along with top government officials from all over the world, are attending the meetings of the secretive Bildenburg group, which along with the Trilateral Commission and other groups stes to form international policies.
THIS IS THE MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IN SPADES THAT EISENHAUER WARNED US ABOUT IN 1960.
Today is not the day freedom died, but even the hope of freedom when the government's massive domestic spying programs are exposed, and they refuse to revisit this policy.
OBAMA NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED FOR MULTIPLE VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. FEINSTEIN HAS TO GO FOR THE SAME REASON.
Today Obama defends these 7 years of First and Fourth Amendments as necessary for national security, and the White House further states it will not cooperate in any investigation of these programs because such inquiries would be a threat to national security.
The Boogiemen are exposed. Bush and now even worse, Obama.
Apparently, all Senators, and especially Diane Feinstein, knew all about these massive domestic spying programs from the beginning, and did not tell the public because the information was classified as "Top Secret." Which means, according to Obama, the information was not really secret (except to all of you reading this), because your elected representatives have known all about it all along.
The curtain is down, the Wizards of secrecy, the Boogiemen are exposed, and they refuse to retreat.
WHAT PROTECTION DOES ANY ORDINARY CITIZEN HAVE AGAINST AN ALL-KNOWING CENTRAL GOVERNMENT?
In a related story, we find that top CEOs of major corporations, along with top government officials from all over the world, are attending the meetings of the secretive Bildenburg group, which along with the Trilateral Commission and other groups stes to form international policies.
THIS IS THE MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IN SPADES THAT EISENHAUER WARNED US ABOUT IN 1960.
Today is not the day freedom died, but even the hope of freedom when the government's massive domestic spying programs are exposed, and they refuse to revisit this policy.
OBAMA NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED FOR MULTIPLE VIOLATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. FEINSTEIN HAS TO GO FOR THE SAME REASON.
OBAMA DEFENDS MASSIVE DOMESTIC SPYING; SAYS PROGRAMS NOT SECRET, CONGRESS, YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, KNEW ALL ALONG. THE PROGRAMS ARE MERELY "CLASSIFIED." (Which means secret to you--the public.)
HUFFINGTON POST:
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully defended revelations that the National Security Agency is collecting phone records and electronic communications, saying that Congress was fully briefed and the programs are limited in scope.
"The programs are secret in the sense that they are classified. They are not secret, in that every member of Congress has been briefed," he said during a speech in San Jose, Calif. "These are programs that have been authored by large bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006."
"Your duly elected representatives have consistently been informed," he said.
News outlets revealed this week that vast spying programs began under President George W. Bush and have continued under Obama. The Guardian reported Wednesday that the National Security Agency had obtained a court order to collect phone records from Verizon Wireless customers, while The Washington Post reported Thursday of the existence of a program launched in 2007 called PRISM, which tracks information from nine leading U.S. Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, YouTube, Apple, PalTalk and Skype.
In response to a question after his speech, Obama defended the programs as essential to combating terrorist threats. "They may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism," he said.
He also argued that some have overstated the impact of the programs. "Some of the hype we've been hearing over the past day or so -- nobody has listened to the content of people's phone calls," he said.
"I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy," he continued. "I think it's a sign of maturity, because probably five years ago, six years ago, we might not have been having this debate."
Obama portrayed the programs as a trade-off between security and civil liberties. "I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security, and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society," he said.
He also expressed his displeasure that the domestic spying programs' existence was leaked to the press. "I don't welcome leaks," he said. "There's a reason these programs are classified."
HUFFINGTON POST:
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully defended revelations that the National Security Agency is collecting phone records and electronic communications, saying that Congress was fully briefed and the programs are limited in scope.
"The programs are secret in the sense that they are classified. They are not secret, in that every member of Congress has been briefed," he said during a speech in San Jose, Calif. "These are programs that have been authored by large bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006."
"Your duly elected representatives have consistently been informed," he said.
News outlets revealed this week that vast spying programs began under President George W. Bush and have continued under Obama. The Guardian reported Wednesday that the National Security Agency had obtained a court order to collect phone records from Verizon Wireless customers, while The Washington Post reported Thursday of the existence of a program launched in 2007 called PRISM, which tracks information from nine leading U.S. Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, YouTube, Apple, PalTalk and Skype.
In response to a question after his speech, Obama defended the programs as essential to combating terrorist threats. "They may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism," he said.
He also argued that some have overstated the impact of the programs. "Some of the hype we've been hearing over the past day or so -- nobody has listened to the content of people's phone calls," he said.
"I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy," he continued. "I think it's a sign of maturity, because probably five years ago, six years ago, we might not have been having this debate."
Obama portrayed the programs as a trade-off between security and civil liberties. "I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security, and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make some choices as a society," he said.
He also expressed his displeasure that the domestic spying programs' existence was leaked to the press. "I don't welcome leaks," he said. "There's a reason these programs are classified."
OUR COUNTRY IS IN DEEP, DEEP TROUBLE!!!!
"THEY" KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU--EVERYTHING.
SEE ARTICLE BELOW FROM HUFFINGTON POST:
David BromwichProfessor of Literature at Yale
The security policy of the U.S. government from Cheney to Obama has passed from secret surveillance of communications abroad to secret surveillance of all communications at home. In what stages did it happen? Some day the history will be written; for now, it is instructive to rehearse the facts. Five years ago, Barack Obama was a candidate for president who pledged to filibuster a congressional bill awarding amnesty to telecoms that illegally gave information on American customers to the government. When Obama backed down from that promise, he pledged, if elected, to have his attorney general investigate the surveillance of Americans and bring the NSA and the justice department back within the limits of the fourth amendment. As it turned out, he made Eric Holder his attorney general, and the security policy of the Obama administration came to be defined, most of all, by its harsh prosecution of whistleblowers who brought to light illegal searches and seizures by the government.
Yesterday in the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald offered a startling glimpse of the program of systemic surveillance Dick Cheney innovated and Obama has refined. A FISA court order, obtained by Greenwald and linked in the article, compels the Verizon Business Network to furnish for the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis for the duration of this order. . .all call detail records. . .created for Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls." This command is sweeping. It makes Verizon hand over to the FBI all "From" and "To" information about all phone calls made by all customers using Verizon. The order is dated April 25, 2013. It expires on July 19, 2013. It is classified "Top Secret," and due to be declassified on 12 April 2038. It is one of the approximately seven million documents which the Obama administration hides from most Americans every year.
This revelation is only the latest indication of the modus operandi of the Holder justice department. If anything has slowed the public challenge to the conduct of the attorney general, it is that his infractions against the first amendment bruised different parties in such diverse ways. The Right has taken most seriously the language about "conspiracy" used to obtain secret warrants against the Fox reporter James Rosen; while the liberal side has been struck by the unraveling of the post-Watergate restraint on vendettas against investigative journalism. But the character of the FISA court order shows how far the abuses have reached beyond party. William Binney quit the NSA in 2001, in disgust at its policy of encroachment in the name of protection. Today on Democracy Now, Binney gave a precise idea of the extent of the data that Verizon is commanded to surrender to the Holder justice department:
NSA has been doing all this stuff all along, and it's been all the companies, not just one. . . .If Verizon got [a FISA order], so did everybody else, which means that, you know, they're just continuing the collection of this kind of information on all U.S. citizens. That's one of the main reasons they couldn't tell Senator Wyden. . .how many U.S. citizens are in the NSA databases. . . .If you collapse it down to all uniques, it's a little over 280 million U.S. citizens are in there, each in there several hundred to several thousand times.
Thomas Drake, whom the justice department harassed and prosecuted for whistleblowing on the massive "waste and abuse" at the NSA, made a related observation in the same extended pair of interviews. With an indiscriminate generality of focus, such as this order demonstrates to be the rule in the Obama administration, "there's no need now to call this the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let's just call it the surveillance court. It's no longer about foreign intelligence."
A generalized approach to prosecution emanates from the White House itself. Death warrants have been issued for "signature strikes" by drones on human targets whose names are unknown, and against whom no specific charges are stated. The justification? Their pattern of observed behavior is a "continuing and imminent threat" or a "continuing, imminent" threat. Well, a continuing imminent threat is a good deal like a chronic acute illness. It gives an automatic warrant for a doctor to prescribe x-rays and antibiotics every day for a lifetime. But our doctors, in this case, live in the sky and you cannot get a lawyer to sue them for malpractice. With the presidential jargon that christens assassination as "delivering justice" to terrorists and speaks of unknown victims as a "continuing imminent threat," this administration has been engaged in a purposeful corruption of language. But that corruption is necessary, since, without it, we might not accept the change of morale in which we are being invited gradually to acquiesce.
And what of your phone calls, reader? And what of mine? In the connection between the dates of certain calls and certain subsequent events, may it not be that a "signature" or pattern worthy of prosecution will be discoverable at some future date? Medical records also will be subject to the same interested construal if a government agency large enough and operating under secret orders can lay its hands on them. There is, in fact, a deep correspondence, which we tend to ignore, between the protection-state at home and the war-state the government operates abroad. Still, in the initial response to Greenwald's article and the court order, Republicans have been characteristically worried about the leak and not the contents of the leak; most Democrats have been silent; and a bipartisan inertia has appeared in comments by senators Feinstein, Graham, and Chambliss: they knew all along what was happening, they say, and Americans should be grateful for the acts of a state that has the goodness to protect us and the discretion to do it in secret. But there are fresh warnings, now, from senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, and from others too: Jeff Merkley and Barbara Mikulski and Dick Durbin, and a Republican, Mark Kirk, and an independent, Bernie Sanders. The warnings all say: the more we give to the government on the pretext of sheer protection, the more it will take and use as it pleases.
The press has scarcely begun its pursuit of the issues around the AP and James Rosen seizures. There is work to be done -- but now, with the Guardian disclosure, reporters may claim to question the government as direct and not as mediating advocates of the public. The president who has heard fewer unrehearsed questions from the press than any president in modern times should be made to answer for his experiments against the first and fourth amendments. Let reporters ask what data he supposes government is not allowed to collect. For it has come to seem on the face of things that there is nothing the Obama administration will not claim a right to know about us for our own good.
Even now, government aides are most concerned about "the magnitude of the leak." The question that troubles them is not, How did we come to this? but rather, Shall we prosecute the whistleblower? The pattern is so galling and tedious, and its harms so invisible to all but a few, that we may be tempted to relax and wait for the next election. But remember again the language of the court order. On an ongoing daily basis. All call detail records. Including local telephone calls. The next president will inherit this. No names, no records of words (not yet), no inculpating or exculpating evidence (just "signatures"), but still: these are outlines of the communicative behavior of upward of a million persons, with similarly compelling orders out to the other telecoms. The aim is to capture by index the whole of the U.S. population. The amazing and routine FISA order is a blind command for the opening of a thousand eyes.
The plainest rebuke to such procedures comes from the language of the fourth amendment itself.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
By what right are the addressed envelopes of the spoken communications of 280 million citizens plucked from the air by government and filed away? Supported by whose oath and what affirmation? There is a simple force to the words of the fourth amendment after all. It says: we do not live by secret laws, and we will not abide by general warrants. And to the comfort offered by senators Chambliss, Graham, and Feinstein, who ask us to sleep well and sleep long, there is a simple reply. In what country do they think they are living, and under what constitution?
"THEY" KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU--EVERYTHING.
SEE ARTICLE BELOW FROM HUFFINGTON POST:
David BromwichProfessor of Literature at Yale
The security policy of the U.S. government from Cheney to Obama has passed from secret surveillance of communications abroad to secret surveillance of all communications at home. In what stages did it happen? Some day the history will be written; for now, it is instructive to rehearse the facts. Five years ago, Barack Obama was a candidate for president who pledged to filibuster a congressional bill awarding amnesty to telecoms that illegally gave information on American customers to the government. When Obama backed down from that promise, he pledged, if elected, to have his attorney general investigate the surveillance of Americans and bring the NSA and the justice department back within the limits of the fourth amendment. As it turned out, he made Eric Holder his attorney general, and the security policy of the Obama administration came to be defined, most of all, by its harsh prosecution of whistleblowers who brought to light illegal searches and seizures by the government.
Yesterday in the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald offered a startling glimpse of the program of systemic surveillance Dick Cheney innovated and Obama has refined. A FISA court order, obtained by Greenwald and linked in the article, compels the Verizon Business Network to furnish for the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis for the duration of this order. . .all call detail records. . .created for Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls." This command is sweeping. It makes Verizon hand over to the FBI all "From" and "To" information about all phone calls made by all customers using Verizon. The order is dated April 25, 2013. It expires on July 19, 2013. It is classified "Top Secret," and due to be declassified on 12 April 2038. It is one of the approximately seven million documents which the Obama administration hides from most Americans every year.
This revelation is only the latest indication of the modus operandi of the Holder justice department. If anything has slowed the public challenge to the conduct of the attorney general, it is that his infractions against the first amendment bruised different parties in such diverse ways. The Right has taken most seriously the language about "conspiracy" used to obtain secret warrants against the Fox reporter James Rosen; while the liberal side has been struck by the unraveling of the post-Watergate restraint on vendettas against investigative journalism. But the character of the FISA court order shows how far the abuses have reached beyond party. William Binney quit the NSA in 2001, in disgust at its policy of encroachment in the name of protection. Today on Democracy Now, Binney gave a precise idea of the extent of the data that Verizon is commanded to surrender to the Holder justice department:
NSA has been doing all this stuff all along, and it's been all the companies, not just one. . . .If Verizon got [a FISA order], so did everybody else, which means that, you know, they're just continuing the collection of this kind of information on all U.S. citizens. That's one of the main reasons they couldn't tell Senator Wyden. . .how many U.S. citizens are in the NSA databases. . . .If you collapse it down to all uniques, it's a little over 280 million U.S. citizens are in there, each in there several hundred to several thousand times.
Thomas Drake, whom the justice department harassed and prosecuted for whistleblowing on the massive "waste and abuse" at the NSA, made a related observation in the same extended pair of interviews. With an indiscriminate generality of focus, such as this order demonstrates to be the rule in the Obama administration, "there's no need now to call this the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Let's just call it the surveillance court. It's no longer about foreign intelligence."
A generalized approach to prosecution emanates from the White House itself. Death warrants have been issued for "signature strikes" by drones on human targets whose names are unknown, and against whom no specific charges are stated. The justification? Their pattern of observed behavior is a "continuing and imminent threat" or a "continuing, imminent" threat. Well, a continuing imminent threat is a good deal like a chronic acute illness. It gives an automatic warrant for a doctor to prescribe x-rays and antibiotics every day for a lifetime. But our doctors, in this case, live in the sky and you cannot get a lawyer to sue them for malpractice. With the presidential jargon that christens assassination as "delivering justice" to terrorists and speaks of unknown victims as a "continuing imminent threat," this administration has been engaged in a purposeful corruption of language. But that corruption is necessary, since, without it, we might not accept the change of morale in which we are being invited gradually to acquiesce.
And what of your phone calls, reader? And what of mine? In the connection between the dates of certain calls and certain subsequent events, may it not be that a "signature" or pattern worthy of prosecution will be discoverable at some future date? Medical records also will be subject to the same interested construal if a government agency large enough and operating under secret orders can lay its hands on them. There is, in fact, a deep correspondence, which we tend to ignore, between the protection-state at home and the war-state the government operates abroad. Still, in the initial response to Greenwald's article and the court order, Republicans have been characteristically worried about the leak and not the contents of the leak; most Democrats have been silent; and a bipartisan inertia has appeared in comments by senators Feinstein, Graham, and Chambliss: they knew all along what was happening, they say, and Americans should be grateful for the acts of a state that has the goodness to protect us and the discretion to do it in secret. But there are fresh warnings, now, from senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, and from others too: Jeff Merkley and Barbara Mikulski and Dick Durbin, and a Republican, Mark Kirk, and an independent, Bernie Sanders. The warnings all say: the more we give to the government on the pretext of sheer protection, the more it will take and use as it pleases.
The press has scarcely begun its pursuit of the issues around the AP and James Rosen seizures. There is work to be done -- but now, with the Guardian disclosure, reporters may claim to question the government as direct and not as mediating advocates of the public. The president who has heard fewer unrehearsed questions from the press than any president in modern times should be made to answer for his experiments against the first and fourth amendments. Let reporters ask what data he supposes government is not allowed to collect. For it has come to seem on the face of things that there is nothing the Obama administration will not claim a right to know about us for our own good.
Even now, government aides are most concerned about "the magnitude of the leak." The question that troubles them is not, How did we come to this? but rather, Shall we prosecute the whistleblower? The pattern is so galling and tedious, and its harms so invisible to all but a few, that we may be tempted to relax and wait for the next election. But remember again the language of the court order. On an ongoing daily basis. All call detail records. Including local telephone calls. The next president will inherit this. No names, no records of words (not yet), no inculpating or exculpating evidence (just "signatures"), but still: these are outlines of the communicative behavior of upward of a million persons, with similarly compelling orders out to the other telecoms. The aim is to capture by index the whole of the U.S. population. The amazing and routine FISA order is a blind command for the opening of a thousand eyes.
The plainest rebuke to such procedures comes from the language of the fourth amendment itself.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
By what right are the addressed envelopes of the spoken communications of 280 million citizens plucked from the air by government and filed away? Supported by whose oath and what affirmation? There is a simple force to the words of the fourth amendment after all. It says: we do not live by secret laws, and we will not abide by general warrants. And to the comfort offered by senators Chambliss, Graham, and Feinstein, who ask us to sleep well and sleep long, there is a simple reply. In what country do they think they are living, and under what constitution?
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