Janet Napolitano Slams Drudge: 'He's Just Wrong'
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano Tuesday laughed off attacks on her by the Drudge Report, saying that the conservative website was "just wrong" to suggest the government was overreaching in its efforts to keep Americans safe.
"I have my own nickname," Napolitano told Politico's Mike Allen. "It's kind of a deal. You know that you've made it when you get your own nickname."
"I think my nickname is 'Big Sis.' And I don't think [Matt Drudge] means it kindly, actually," she added. "I think what he means is we are watching too much -- kind of an Orwellian view. And he's just wrong -- he's just wrong."
The DHS secretary explained that her department's privacy office took great care to prevent government overreaching.
"Madam Secretary, what I thought you were going to say -- and why I really perked up -- I thought you had a nickname for him," Allen noted.
"Maybe," Napolitano replied, laughing. "No, I think we should try to keep our discussion at a high level."
GOD knows the men can't!
except the zealot baggers..Who cares!
Is it just me, or is it STUNNING to hear the Party that brought us warrantless searches & wiretaps to suddenly be so concerned about privacy?
BTW: I believe we can watch tonight's GOP debate live online here.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
When it was an R in the White House creating these policies not a peep was heard about how our civil liberties were being eroded from the right. It was a big deal around here though, like the wars were around here.
But in all fairness, now that a D is in the White House and those same policies are being continued and expanded, along with an increase in War Inc., the silence around here is deafening. Unless it is to make fun of the right for being hypocritical, that is. PBS's special last night Top Secret America, along with the incredible Glen Greenwald on our civil liberty erosion, is especially poignant.
While I agree that it is depressing so much of the "Patriot" Act is still in use, Napolitano is making the point here that they are operating with "privacy concerns" in mind... a definite step in the right direction over Bush.
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
They're very concerned while they violate people's rights. It's heartening how concerned they are.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
How can a sexual assault on an air traveller (TSA pat downs) equate to "operating with privacy concerns"?
And you find it "depressing so much of the Patriot Act is still in use". How about all of the Patriot Act is still in use. Hell, it's even worse, as Glreenwald states today: Just as nobody could have strengthened the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template the way Obama has, so, too could nobody have provided vindication for those policies the way he has.
This is not a step in the right direction, this is a leap in the wrong direction. This may be the only thing in DC that is truely bi-partisan in nature.
Napolitano is making the point here that they are operating with "privacy concerns" in mind
If she has ANY privacy concerns in mind, she'll shut down Fatherland Security forthwith. Let the other 50~60 American spy agencies take up the slack.
far left loon >.<
We're only going to spy on you a wee bit, Brownies honour.
far left loon >.<
.Most of the criticism of Obama's stance on Civil Liberties has come from the Left and, oddly enough, from the Tea Party. Republicans and conservatives who are not Tea Partiers seem to have no problem with Obama in this arena.
Napolitano...you're a fucking blind fool.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Except that I would also dissolve DHS.
Is he even around still? How very 2003.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Was Drudge concerned about this when Dubya was Prez?
People weren't being radiated or felt up when they went through TSA under Bush.
Lucy Napolitano has made a bad situation even worse.
Really? So, does that mean government overreaching just hasn't happened? Or does that mean that government overreaching is aggressively prosecuted?
Who cares? Napolitano has a nickname.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
"I think what he means is we are watching too much -- kind of an Orwellian view. And he's just wrong -- he's just wrong."
So. That's the entirety of your argument, Napolitano? 'He's just wrong'?!
This is the answer of someone who is absolutely doing the immoral things they're being accused of, but wishes to face no scrutiny or consequence for their actions. It's like being accused of murder, and then on the stand, your only defense against the testimony of the officer involved is to say "He's just wrong!" and then expecting that proffered statement to keep you out of prison.
Janet Napolitano: In dealing with matters as deeply important as our civil liberties or how your domestic spying programs violate them regularly, and with vigor, I would assert that under no circumstances is the argument 'He's just wrong' sufficient to counter such massive and clearly founded accusations against you and your agency. This is the entirety of your argument, because you have no other to offer. No empirical evidence to back your statement. No Human Rights or Civil Liberties watchdog group will back your lies about these accusations, because they're the ones making the accusations against you.
So who do we believe? The head of an agency that has OPENLY and REPEATEDLY declared it's intention to ever further intrude upon our privacy and violate our rights, or the entire groups of people who dedicate their lives to monitoring what you're doing, and constantly fighting to stop you?
Wanna guess which one we'll likely side with in this matter?
There's also the other small problem with the fact that the passengers you regularly humiliate and violate in the name of 'security' have actually caught and subdued more terrorists than you have, and only AFTER the incendiary device has easily slipped right by all the actors in your 'Security Theater'.
We could go on listing your failures and violations all day, you know. But in the end, all you'll have is that tired, pathetic, one-line excuse/argument to counter it with: "He's just wrong..."
EPIC FAIL!
Man will never be free, until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
Testimony or evidence? Evidence would be another matter - that can be refuted.
But testimony is different - eye witness testimony is very often the weakest proof of all, even though it is weighted highly, and testimony such as "the government is overreaching in its efforts to keep Americans safe" is devoid of any facts to be refuted or verified. So the whole thing is just puffery.
Unless she was presented with these clearly founded accusations made by drudge... they are not outlined in this article, are they?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
I guess you don't fly a lot, do you?
You're playing semantics games with my argument in a purposeful attempt to avoid the main thrust of it. Why is that?
There are any number of legal actions filed and even won over the years by the ACLU and various other Human and Civil Rights watchdog groups against the TSA, and the federal government at large. To say that there is no evidence of abuse when there very clearly is, and then dismiss any such claims as hearsay, displays a total disregard for the truth, evidence-based justice, or for that matter, empirical thought.
Simply do a google search for ACLU TSA. Doesn't even have to be a carefully worded search, and you'll come up with plenty of evidence.
You'll not catch me defending Drudge very often, but say he were to list all of the TSA's known and alleged transgressions. He would have to have written out quite a weighty tome before even getting to his short opinion piece by your standards.
The TSA's attitude toward privacy and/or civil rights is such common colloquial knowledge, that it is fodder for late night talk show monologues, as well as any number of movies and stand-up comedy routines.
To claim to not know of the TSA's abuses/declared intentions to abuse civil liberties at this point, you almost would have had to spend the last decade in a cave on Mars, under a rock, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, shouting 'LALALAAA!! I can't hear you!"
Or maybe you just work for them. The two would seem to be largely equivalent in that regard...
Man will never be free, until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Denis Diderot
Defunding of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just might be a good way to save a few dollars. We are not safer, we are just harassed into thinking we are.
Harassment doesn't make me feel any safer. In fact, it has the opposite effect.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Big Sis seems to be disregarding the unconstitutional changes made to FISA under the Bush administration.
Obama has not declared these changes null and void by executive order, nor has he advocated to have them changed through legislation. In other words, Big Sis is unconstitutionally spying on American citizens just like the last administration which was Drudge's baby by the way. Maybe not Big Sis directly, but via other agencies.
Both of these parties are full of shit.
I also failed to mention The Patriot Act.
"When you're president -- as opposed the head of a private equity firm -- your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." - President Barack Obama
1984 - George Orwell.
Where the hell is our Bill of Rights?
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Far be it from me to agree with a hack like Drudge, but as a 16-year Arizona resident, I know first hand what a thoughtless, mindless thug Ms. Napolitano happens to be. For a while now I've wondered if Mr. Obama was a traitorous DINO or merely a spineless coward. If Ms. Napolitano was brought into his administration to give it the appearance of brutish backbone, I can almost imagine the latter.
As far as I am concerned, the entirety of the Department of Vaterland Security is an overreach!
Mark P. Kessinger
New York, New York
yea, big sis. privacy concerns... and how to get past them. you have your "own" legal
department; sure you do... you have to because any honest lawyer would read you
the constitution's bill of rights and suggest you follow it.
privacy... like "nude" body scanners, warrant-less wiretaps, secret home invasions,
secret "no fly, and no travel lists.... on and on.
who writes the opinions from your legal department? the infamous puppy on a
string, mr. wu, from Bush/Cheney days?
I, for one, would feel much better about your "legal advice team" if they weren't
dependent upon you for their jobs.
somchy
Comrade Janet and her black suits sniffing up your crotch. Starve the beast
Mr. Drudge didn't seem mind when GWB was kidnapping people off the streets and tapping our phones, but suddenly he's aghast when a democratic administrations is watching out for terror plots. What's the matter, is he affraid she'll catch a right wing extremist about to blow up another federal building full of innocent men, women and children?
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