“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Alan Grayson: Congressional oversight of the NSA is a joke. I should know, I’m in Congress
I’ve learned far more about government spying on citizens from the media than I have from official intelligence briefings
In the 1970s, Congressman Otis Pike of New York chaired a special congressional committee to investigate abuses by the American so-called “intelligence community” – the spies. After the investigation, Pike commented:
“It took this investigation to convince me that I had always been told lies, to make me realize that I was tired of being told lies.”
I’m tired of the spies telling lies, too. [..]
Pike’s investigation initiated one of the first congressional oversight debates for the vast and hidden collective of espionage agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA). Before the Pike Commission, Congress was kept in the dark about them – a tactic designed to thwart congressional deterrence of the sometimes illegal and often shocking activities carried out by the “intelligence community”. Today, we are seeing a repeat of this professional voyeurism by our nation’s spies, on an unprecedented and pervasive scale.
Charles M. Blow: Billionaires’ Row and Welfare Lines
A report last week in The New York Times says that developers are turning 57th Street in Manhattan into “Billionaires’ Row,” with apartments selling for north of $90 million each. [..]
It’s a great time to be a rich person in America. The rich are raking it in during this recovery.
But in the shadow of their towering wealth exists a much less rosy recovery, where people are hurting and the pain grows. [..]
The number of Americans now enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is near record highs, and yet both houses of Congress have passed bills to cut funding to the program. The Senate measure would cut about $4 billion, while the House measure would cut roughly ten times as much, dropping millions of Americans from the program. [..]
There is an inherent tension – and obscenity – in the wildly divergent fortunes of the rich and the poor in this country, especially among our children. The growing imbalance of both wealth and opportunity cannot be sustained. Something has to give.
President Obama spent this week trying to persuade America’s close allies, France and Germany, that the National Security Agency’s extensive eavesdropping in those countries is under adequate control. He was not entirely successful. His efforts to reassure President François Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany seem to have been as incomplete as the explanations the administration has given to the American public about the agency’s excessive domestic surveillance. [..]
Such surveillance undermines the trust of allies and their willingness to share the kind of confidential information needed to thwart terrorism and other threats. When the N.S.A. violates French or German law, law enforcement agencies in those nations cooperate with the agency at their own risk. There is also the more subtle damage done by the feeling that the United States plays by its own rules and respects neither the sovereignty nor the political sensibilities of some of its closest democratic allies.
Gail Collins: Roll Out the Health Care
If you’re a citizen who tries to keep up with current affairs, your latest responsibility is having a strong opinion about the troubled rollout of the health insurance marketplace.
Really makes you miss the government shutdown, doesn’t it? Try leading a lively dinner table conversation on software coding errors.
The Democrats are depressed. The Republicans enjoy pointing out that the Obamacare rollout has been a mess. But they obviously can’t pretend to be upset that people are finding it hard to sign up for a program their party wanted to kill, eviscerate and stomp into tiny pieces, which would then be fed to a tank of ravenous eels.
Well, actually, they can.
Eugene Robinson: Hail to the Washingtons
I’m a bit late to the topic, but the Washington, D.C., professional football team really ought to change its name. As encouragement for the franchise’s stubborn owner, we should just stop saying the offensive word.
The term “redskins”-it’s hard to write a column about a word without using it, I’m afraid-is a racial slur. Fans of the team, myself included, have pretended not to notice this uncomfortable fact for many years. Now we’re beginning to confront it.
The name fails the most basic tests of acceptability. Can you imagine employing it to address someone? Would you use it to describe anyone not associated with the team? If you overheard someone using the term in a non-football context, would you think more of that person or less?
The answers are obvious. To be honest, they always were.
Ralph Nader: Opting Out From the Corporate State of Surveillance
America was founded on the ideals of personal liberty, freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, mass spying, surveillance and the unending collection of personal data threaten to undermine civil liberties and our privacy rights. What started as a necessary means of reconnaissance and intelligence gathering during World War II has escalated into an out-of-control snoop state where entities both governmental and commercial are desperate for as much data as they can grab. We find ourselves in the midst of an all-out invasion on what’s-none-of-their-business and its coming from both government and corporate sources. Snooping and data collection have become big business. Nothing is out of their bounds anymore. [..]
It’s time for citizens to stand up and demand their right to privacy, which is a personal property. Mass surveillance and rampant data collection are not acceptable and should not be the status quo. Recall that there was once a time when the federal government could defend our nation without limitless access to computer records, emails, online search histories and wiretapping phone calls without open judicial authorization. Businesses could be successful without tracking and saving your shopping habits and student records were not commodities to be traded away. Why do they now do what they do? Because they can.
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