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Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

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Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#31

Post by bjourne »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #15
spikels wrote: post #10

Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question: "But has FISA court turned down any request?" We get this answer: "The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion." Just blather, incoherence and grasp…

The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.

Couldn't it just be laziness? Is it customary to clean up someones speeched transcript so that it reads better in written form?

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#32

Post by rooshdi »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #15
spikels wrote: post #10

Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question: "But has FISA court turned down any request?" We get this answer: "The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion." Just blather, incoherence and grasp…

The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.

Yea, it does sidetrack from the substance of the discussion.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#33

Post by Spearchucker »

weland wrote: post #18

Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could e…

> And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity.

Referring to a living, breathing human being with feelings, emotions, needs and wants (just like any American) as an "entity" is what Rory Miller calls "othering" [1]. The point of othering is to remove the humanity from someone or from a group of people. It makes it easier for someone to monitor, torture and... kill someone else.

And Americans are masters at it. People in the middle east, regardless of anything, are referred to by Americans as hajis. Gooks in Vietnam. And so on. It's subtle, but it works on Joe Public as well as it does on American soldiers invading some random country.

It's inhumane.

[1] Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594392137

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#34

Post by eru »

Qantourisc wrote: post #13

What surprises me the most is Americans never stopping and wondering about people outside the US. This is why I never used a lot of services inside the US, and the few I have I will remove over time.

Most are happy to buy "Made in the USA." and bash economic immigrants. Just because they were born on the wrong side of the border. Not unique to the USA, though.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#35

Post by bcit-cst »

jacobolus wrote: post #23
weland wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I hate about media. Charlie, dude, you're the moderator. You're a journalist who's been schooled and has tens of years of experience in the field, whose duty is to inform your viewers/readers about current events. If they aren't informed, ask the fucking question. "But has FISA turned down any request?" "The -- because -- whatever". "Ok, so has it turned down any request?"

Charlie Rose gets lots of inside access and high-powered guests because his MO is to kiss up to powerful people, ask softball questions, and follow whatever plan he made for the interview, regardless of the answers he gets. He almost never asks useful follow-up questions, often doesn’t seem to pay any attention to what his guests have to say, and asks lots of moronic paragraphs-long yes-or-no questions (my favorite a…

I cant disagree with you more . I am long time hn lurker and this is my first post. I have been religiously watching Charlie Rose for the last decade . He is one of the best interviewers in the game . I learned more about the NSA surveillance program from this one hour interview than every other newsgroup ( tv , reddit , hn etc ) combined over the last week.

He really is a genius . He gets more out of the guest than anyone else. People sometime think that interviewer should be aggressive try to catch the interview off guard , make home slip etc. This approach doesn't help anyone.The guest just become defensive and tries to pick and chose every word while the interviewer just comes off the as dick.

I takes a long time to appreciate Charile's Rope-a-dope style of interviewing.He just keeps sucking up to the guest lets him get through all of their talking points they have memorized and then the magic happens.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#36

Post by sneak »

Spearchucker wrote: post #33
weland wrote: post #18

Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could e…

> And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity. Referring to a living, breathing human being with feelings, emotions, needs and wants (just like any American) as an "entity" is what Rory Miller calls "othering" [1]. The point of othering is to remove the humanity from someone or from a group of people. It makes it easier for someone to monitor, torture and... kill someone e…

Yeah, Snowden pointed this out in his QA today:

> More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

It's insane that the president is openly declaring that they are more than willing to violate people's civil rights, just as long as they didn't happen to be born in the USA.

(And what about dual citizens? Or US citizens like me that live abroad? OR THE SIX AND A HALF BILLION OTHER HUMANS WHO DESERVE PRIVACY TOO)

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#37

Post by weland »

crdoconnor wrote: post #27
weland wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I hate about media. Charlie, dude, you're the moderator. You're a journalist who's been schooled and has tens of years of experience in the field, whose duty is to inform your viewers/readers about current events. If they aren't informed, ask the fucking question. "But has FISA turned down any request?" "The -- because -- whatever". "Ok, so has it turned down any request?"

You'll enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KHMO14KuJk (not american, sadly)

I am familiar with Jeremy Paxman's work. It's impressive.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#38

Post by angersock »

crdoconnor wrote: post #27
weland wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I hate about media. Charlie, dude, you're the moderator. You're a journalist who's been schooled and has tens of years of experience in the field, whose duty is to inform your viewers/readers about current events. If they aren't informed, ask the fucking question. "But has FISA turned down any request?" "The -- because -- whatever". "Ok, so has it turned down any request?"

You'll enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KHMO14KuJk (not american, sadly)

Now that is how you keep your eyes on the prize during an interview.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#39

Post by weland »

bad_user wrote: post #22
weland wrote: post #18

Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again. I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could e…

You skipped something - besides the foreign entities that represent a perpetual threat, you also have the internal elements classified as " fierce civil libertarians ", for now ;-)

Yes, yes, we had those, too. In the beginning, they were fierce opposites of progress, prisoners of the old mentality. It then became rather uncomfortable to label them as such, when a twenty-year old mentality was about as old as the regime itself, so we ended up with similar derogatory terms: fiercely anarchist, adversaries of order, hippies, and as the reality got more and more dire, mentally-troubled and drug users.

Re: Obama Can’t Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

#40

Post by angersock »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #15
spikels wrote: post #10

Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question: "But has FISA court turned down any request?" We get this answer: "The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion." Just blather, incoherence and grasp…

The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.

No, people that get flustered or that aren't practiced at speaking talk like that.

Basic speech trick is pausing for a second, thinking through your answer, and then giving it carefully. This gives you time to avoid null words and ums and false starts.

If you're the POTUS, I'd be more than happy to give you a little time to think over your answers about surveillance questions before you bumble through them.

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