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Yes, they do. What they want, when they want.

The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.

The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.  ...TheGuardian

Which is just additional evidence that the liar isn't Snowden.  It's the NSA.  And circumventing FISA seems to be just another easy step for the NSA -- easy and familiar.

Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.

Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets. But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst. ...TheGuardian

Really easy.  Just click.

One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed to provide both legal and targeting justifications. ...TheGuardian

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Obamacare threat is really a threat to Republican members of Congress

The voters  keep saying "Leave it alone, already!" 

The latest poll was picked up by The Hill earlier today.

Voters oppose forcing a government shutdown to defund ObamaCare, according to a new poll from the Morning Consult website.

The survey found broad opposition among registered voters to conservative Republicans' threat to shut down the federal government unless President Obama agrees to defund his healthcare law.

But by a two-to-one margin, voters said they would be less likely to vote for a lawmaker who cast such a vote, according to the Morning Consult poll. ...The Hill

Let's imagine Manning was leaking inside info from a Mafia organization

Because isn't that what he was doing?  Sending America the message:  "All is not well here."  Or are we so sure that our military and our government are bastions integrity (yeah, right!) and our document classification process is unassailable (not!)  Is Manning guilty for dialing 911?

Floyd Abrams was interviewed this afternoon on "The Takeaway."  Interesting, cool assessment of Manning and the verdict.  He has warm words for the presiding judge.  He makes some interesting points but he makes Manning sound like a weirdo. When it comes to the Constitution, we are all "weirdos" and all subject to the same laws and considerations. The Department of Justice (corrupted in some areas by the Bush administration,  maybe still a mess in the current administration) exhibited a kind of madness with respect to the Espionage Act -- I mean, talk about  weirdos!

Here's Abrams:

More here:

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Frank Rich is as angry as most of us are.

Under the prosecution’s Orwellian logic, essentially any classified information given by a whistle-blower to a journalistic outlet (whether WikiLeaks or the Times, which published Manning-WikiLeaks revelations) amounts to treason if “the enemy” can read it. Well, the enemy, whomever it may be at any given moment, can read anything it wants on the Internet, the government can (and does) stamp its every embarrassing action “classified,” and so almost any revelatory investigative reporting on national security (the Pentagon Papers, the Abu Ghraib revelations, you name it) could in principle lead to the death penalty (even if that punishment wasn’t sought in the Manning case). That’s a powerful deterrent, clearly designed to stop whistle-blowers, reporters, and news organizations from taking the risk of uncovering government misbehavior. It’s a particularly devastating blow at a time when investigative journalism is shrinking anyway because of the financial woes of the news business. The Obama administration’s increasingly virulent efforts to shut down hard-hitting journalism — exemplified as well, recently, by the attempt to force Times reporter James Risen to testify in another leak case — is not just outrageous on First Amendment grounds but also makes you wonder what else the White House is hiding. Let’s not forget that high among Manning’s revelations were the cockpits videos chronicling the killing of civilians in an American air strike. What else is there that the Obama administration is so desperate to keep quiet that it will take on leakers with a virulence unmatched by any modern White House?  ...Daily Intel

Money and war

Funny how the term "hawk" has caught on in two major areas of policy.  We even have a bird of prey as our national symbol.  Predator drones?  The predatory actions of transnational corporations as part of their relationship with Congress and with consumer?

Hawks, for economists, are the guys who worry about inflation all the time -- inflation being, it seems,  the other Al Qaeda of the right.  Economist  Paul Krugman has been thinking about the terms "hawks" and "doves" as they're used in discussion of economic policy and comes to this conclusion:

I think the hawks view what we’re going through as a supply-side phenomenon; they don’t really believe that we are suffering from a demand shortfall, and they also don’t seem to think that the zero lower bound makes any difference.

And the crucial point is that they have been wrong every step of the way, but keep demanding monetary tightening anyway. ...Paul Krugman

But as for the general use of the terms "hawk" and "dove," Krugman comes to a very sane conclusion about who the hawks represent whether we're talking about the war industry or the deficit industry.

... Hawks aren’t people willing to do what needs to be done; they’re people with a strange compulsion to do what doesn’t need to be done. ...Paul Krugman

Ain't that the truth.

Next we need to figure out why we keep doing -- and allow others to keep doing in our name -- the unnecessary and wrong stuff over and over and over again.

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Over and  over again?  Sure.  And in spades.  Immediately what come to mind are the endless reminders, from the Mekong Delta through Nicaragua to Iraq and Afghanistan, of where our hawks take us.  There's always a photo or an account or a video of the hawks at work -- not least of which is "the video of a military helicopter shooting at two vans and killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists." That was presented to us by a young American who will almost certainly receive heavy punishment for reminding us of what happens when we do what doesn't need to be done.

Governments have addictions, too

And their addictions are considerably more destructive than anything street dealers or Mexican cartels have to offer.  Obama has the addiction to secrecy -- more accurately, to cover-up -- and and he's got it bad.

There is no question that Private Manning broke laws. In February he pleaded guilty to 10 of the less serious charges against him, which exposed him to up to 20 years in prison. But prosecutors continued to press the more serious charges, which included violations of the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that has become the Obama administration’s hobbyhorse to go after government workers whose actions look nothing like spying. Under President Obama, the government has brought espionage charges more than twice as often under that particular law as all previous administrations combined. ...Private Manning still faces the equivalent of several life sentences on the espionage counts regarding disclosure of classified information. The government should satisfy itself with a more moderate sentence and then do something about its addiction to secrecy. ...NYT

The secrecy addiction was no less virulent during the Bush/Cheney years.  Or back to Reagan and the awful lying and cover-ups centered largely on our unforgivable actions in central America.  Or Kissinger's secret interventions in Chile.  And on it goes.  God only knows what Obama inherited or what he will pass on to the next, no less corruptible, president.

Why we are willing to accept this even as people like Bradley Manning are punished for revealing high criminality is what we should be talking about.  Why is Bradley Manning a throwaway while we continue to support a system -- from on-the-ground military right through the "national security" apparatchiks -- who are our  predators, not our protectors?

Who is this sweet deal for?

President Obama, seeking to break a stalemate with Republicans, announced here Tuesday that he would cut corporate tax rates in return for a pledge from Republicans to invest in more programs to generate middle-class jobs. ...NYT