Gilbert Doctorow and Ray McGovern — Gang of Four: Senators Call for Tillerson to Enter into Arms Control Talks with the Kremlin

Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont)

Voices of sanity crying in the wilderness.

Consortium News
Gang of Four: Senators Call for Tillerson to Enter into Arms Control Talks with the Kremlin

Gilbert Doctorow and Ray McGovern

See also

Russia Insider
Kremlin Publishes Full Megan Kelly Putin Interview - NBC Cut the Best Parts (Video + Transcript)

Steven Rosenfeld — Dianne Feinstein's Husband's Real Estate Firm Poised to Make $1 Billion Selling Post Offices

Today's blood boiler.

Washington business model: spouses spot deals with huge upsides.

Cronyism and corruption are bipartisan values.

AlterNet
Dianne Feinstein's Husband's Real Estate Firm Poised to Make $1 Billion Selling Post Offices
Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet

Rob Crawford — The CIA, the President, and the Senate’s Torture Report

Powerful forces on both sides of the partisan divide want the torture issue to disappear altogether. Many military, security and political elites recognize that U.S. torture, approved at the highest levels of government, created an unsurpassed crisis of legitimacy for the country. Their foremost objective is to restore that legitimacy. 

Arguably, this is the principal reason why Obama issued his executive order rejecting torture in 2009 (I believe that McCain would have likely done the same). It is why the new president counseled amnesia about torture and why he refused to initiate criminal investigations or even a commission of inquiry. It is why he has fallen mostly silent about the issue of torture. The U.S. relies on an image that it conducts its wars humanely and in accordance with international law. Brutality and illegality belong to the enemy. 

Occasionally, however, the brutal and unlawful exercise of state violence becomes public knowledge. The inhumanity of violence “shocks the conscience.” Legitimacy crises follow. For the U.S., the Abu Ghraib photos were a disaster but the disaster kept growing with a cascade of revelations that included documentation of torture of prisoners in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and CIA kidnapping, renditions, and torture in secret prisons. The reverberations are still being felt 

In 2014, national security elites in both political parties, including those who disagree about the permissibility of “enhanced interrogation,” are worried that the Senate report will further aggravate the prolonged crisis of legitimacy caused by U.S. torture—a crisis made worse by the government’s refusal to undertake criminal proceedings and support civil suits, and partisan politics resulting in continuing indefinite detention at Guantanamo prison camp and military commission trials that admit torture as evidence. Most Americans are still unfamiliar with the grizzly details of what their government authorized and which high officials did the authorizing. Globally, especially in the Middle East, the report will likely reactivate multiple resentments; and it may reinforce dismay among allies.…

For the national security elite as a whole, the history of state violence is better left buried or forgotten and dissident voices about current inhumane operations ignored. Above all, the use of violence as an instrument of policy must remain unencumbered.
For these reasons, even though the CIA will be rebuked by liberal Democrats and perhaps some legislative reforms will be attempted, calls for accountability will continue to be opposed. For national security elites, the release of the Senate report summary will be treated as the end of the story—time to turn the page to narratives more consistent with the myth of American Exceptionalism.  

Counterpunch
The CIA, the President, and the Senate’s Torture Report
Rob Crawford | Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences University of Washington, Tacoma

techdirt — Dianne Feinstein Accidentally Confirms That NSA Tapped The Internet Backbone

In short, "upstream" capabilities are tapping the backbone itself, via the willing assistance of the telcos (who still have remained mostly silent on all of this) as opposed to "downstream" collection, which requires going to the internet companies directly. The internet companies have been much more resistant to government attempts to get access to their accounts. And thus, it's a big question as to what exactly the NSA can collect via its taps on the internet backbone, and the NSA and its defenders have tried to remain silent on this point, as you can see from the redactions above.

However, as Kevin Bankston notes, during Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Dianne Feinstein more or less admitted that they get emails via "upstream" collection methods. As you can see in the following clip, Feinstein interrupts a discussion to read a prepared "rebuttal" to a point being made, and in doing so clearly says that the NSA can get emails via upstream collections:

techdirt
Dianne Feinstein Accidentally Confirms That NSA Tapped The Internet Backbone
from the but-of-course dept

Here's what I have to say to that marine who wrote that disrespectful and disgusting letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein

I don't know how many of you saw this, but this letter, posted by some marine corporal, is going viral on the Internet right now and in it, he shows some incredible disrespect for Senator Dianne Feinstein and, basically, our government and society.

Here ia the letter...

Senator Dianne Feinstein, I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one. I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America. I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man. I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public. We, the people, deserve better than you. Respectfully Submitted, Joshua Boston Cpl, United States Marine Corps 2004-2012

And here is my response to Corporal Boston...

Dear Corporal Boston:

You live in a society where there is a government and there are laws and you are expected to follow and obey those laws or be subject to the consequences. What you "feel" or "believe" is your right matters little as each of us in any civilized society, from time to time, are expected to give up some of our personal desires for the greater good of that society. I may feel it is okay or, my "right" to commit robbery, but society deems that to be unacceptable. That's how it works, Corporal Boston.

Sir, your disrespect for Senator Feinstein is a disgrace to our military and to the United States Marine Corp. Addressing Ms. Feinstein, a senior member of the United States Senate and Chairman of the Sentate Intelligence Committee as "some woman" is beyond disrespectful and an affront to all women.

You claim to be the flesh and blood of America, but there are 300 million other citizens who lay claim to that title as well and their voices deserve to be heard just as yours and they have, overwhelmingly, spoken up in favor of Senator Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban.

Who do you think you are? Get something straight, you do not protect my freedom, nor do you protect the freedom of Senator Feinstein and her colleagues; it is the Constitution and the respect for the laws of this country that do, because that is the only thing keeping our military force from being turned against our own citizenry.

You, sir, do not deserve the honor of being called a United States Marine. You are an insubordinate low life, who's comments are inciteful and border on treason. It's a sad day for the U.S. military when they've bred a cretin such as you.

Mike Norman