The Queens of Stalingrad

Queen Finestain of Stalingrad

"The people of the United States need to be watched" exclaimed one of the Queens of Stalingrad, Queen Finestain.

"Every phone call, every email, every letter, every credit card transaction, every check written, and every place they go needs to be written down in government files", she went on to say.

That is how the Queens of Stalingrad see things (BTW, "D.C". has been renamed secretly).

"You just can't trust Americans to do the right thing, so we keep a close eye on them", she emphatically declared as Malcom Eirie of the Pogo News Empire listened intently --as she looked over her shoulder then back to Malcom to continue her royal discourse, adding: "these Americans have enemies you know, and we have to find out who those enemies are because three people have been killed in bombings since 911 and well, they want to take all that freedom away from Americans you know", quipped the Queen, finishing the interview.

Stalingrad's Queen Har D Har Har

She said this in an interview with a reporter from the main newspaper of Stalingrad, The Pogo, which uses the motto "We have met the enemy and it is us."

Next in line to put out the new Stalingrad Spin, a hit on the doublespeak circuit, Queen Har D Har Har, who is having multiple affairs with the Keystone Kops down in Louisville, spoke up to say "it does not matter that lightning kills more Americans than terrorists do", while sipping a glass of T-Bag wine.

"We have to tap somebody's phone, read somebody's email, open somebody's post office envelopes, seize somebody's financial records ... otherwise Mr. Eirie, how do you think we will be able to justify the spy centers we use to watch people in das Homeland?", she mused.

Queen Har D Har Har was speaking of:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

Stalingrad's Queen Jane t Approximately

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

(The Keystone Complex To The Rescue - 3). And yesterday Dredd Blog noted that these queens are talking about records of your cell phone and other phones:

"... all call detail records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls. This Order does not require Verizon to produce telephony metadata for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries. Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.), trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call."

(Obama Administration Rides Into The W Sunset). But these queens are quick to point out that the similarities to authoritarian regimes is just an accident:

Authoritarianism is a form of government ... characterized by four qualities: (1) ... constraints on political institutions and groups (such as [the press,] legislatures, political parties, and interest groups), (2) a basis for legitimacy based on emotion, especially the identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems" such as underdevelopment or insurgency ["home grown terrorists"]; (3) neither "intensive nor extensive political mobilization" and constraints on the mass public (such as repressive tactics against opponents and a prohibition of antiregime activity) and (4) "formally ill-defined" executive power, often shifting or vague.

(Wikipedia, "Authoritarianism", emphasis added). In the United States the Queens of Stalingrad are now required to violate their oath of office after they swear to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution which reads in relevant part:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

(Wikipedia, "Fourth Amendment", emphasis added). There is no way that individual suspicion was articulated or even mentioned in the FISA court order to "get all of everyone's phone call records."

The Queen's Spin the issue arguing that it is sanctified because there is probable cause to believe these millions of people affected by privacy invasion do not like fascist authoritarians who ignore the supreme law.

"So, these Stalinist practices must continue until morale improves", they added.

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Queen Jane Approximately


When your mother sends back all your invitations
And your father to your sister he explains
That you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?

Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?
...

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The next post in this series is here.