
Senator Biden On NSA Database (2006) [video] - ck2
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1613914n
======
ck2
Transcript: [http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-
show-...](http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-show-
transcript)

MR. SMITH: _Well, the president, though, said yesterday, we 're not listening
to the phone calls; we're just looking for patterns._

SEN. BIDEN: _Harry, I don 't have to listen to your phone calls to know what
you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to
determine every single person you talked to; I can get a pattern about your
life that is very, very intrusive._

    
    
      ---
    

Mind blown. I think history just went into an infinite loop because it EXACTLY
repeated itself in just seven years.

~~~
babakian
Transcript: [http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-
show-...](http://votesmart.org/public-statement/295064/cbs-early-show-
transcript#.Ubd9zfZ3hJw)

SEN. BIDEN: _But this idea that no court will review, no Congress will know,
and we 've got to trust the president and the vice president of the United
States that they're doing the right thing, don't count me in on that._

\---

Mind blown x 2

------
waffle_ss
To put it bluntly, if you change your opinion on fundamental issues like civil
liberties based on who is currently in office, you are an idiot and are part
of the problem in this country.

Unfortunately, we seem to have a lot of idiots: [http://www.people-
press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png](http://www.people-
press.org/files/2013/06/6-10-13-4.png)

~~~
fennecfoxen
I saw some meta-analysis of those numbers. I think it's useful to extract the
"people actually changing their minds" number:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732349560457853...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323495604578539593532047574.html)

"The Republican response went from 75% to 23% under George W. Bush to 52% to
47% under Barack Obama. If we assume the swing was entirely partisan--that is,
if we exclude the possibility that some Republicans opposed the policy under
Bush and favor it now--that means 52% of Republicans are consistent in support
and 23% consistent in opposition.

The Democratic response went from 37% to 61% under Bush to 64% to 34% under
Obama. Making the same assumption as above, that means 37% of Democrats are
consistent in support and 34% consistent in opposition.

Add the figures together and you come up with 75% of Republicans and 71% of
Democrats consistent in their positions, which would mean that well under one-
third of partisans switched for partisan reasons."

~~~
dragonwriter
Its also worth noting, in addition to the point gojomo makes that party
identification is self-reported and volatile (and the further, related, point
that people both enter and exit the sampled population over time), so that the
populations of "Democrats" and "Republicans" in the 2013 poll aren't the same
as the population in the 2006 poll, that the questions in the two Pew polls
that are the basis of that "metaanalysis" aren't about _the same thing_.

The 2006 poll question asked about warrantless wiretapping by the NSA (it
specified both "listening in on telephone calls" and "without a warrant".)

The 2013 poll questioned asked about asked tracking call information under
"secret court orders", which is neither listening in on calls or done without
a warrant. They are two different things; it is a mistake to treat them as the
same thing and consider different reactions to them as inconsistent.

(Though, given the specific differences, shifting from supporting the former
to opposing the latter is something I find odd, but I suppose it could be
consistent and not based on pure partisanship if it was grounded, for example,
in a strong ideological opposition to the idea of judges overseeing executive
national security actions.)

------
spikels
Biden is one of the most dangerous men in politics. Very convincing when
speaks (as in this video) and has a great sense for politics but not known for
his intelligence (barely graduated lower tier law school) or honesty (caught
cheating at law school and plagiarizing speeches, regularly called out for
inaccurate statements). Everything is just a means to an end - in this video
hurting his political opponents. I would be extremely surprised if he were to
repeat these statements while Vice President or perhaps someday President.
This makes me sad.

[http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-
plagiarism...](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-
in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-
checker/post/bidens...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-
checker/post/bidens-absurd-claims-about-rising-rape-and-murder-
rates/2011/10/20/gIQAkq0y1L_blog.html)

------
downandout
Regardless of political party, people that seek to rule over others tend to be
overbearing and hypocritical. Obama and Biden are clearly no exception to
this. Here is a very similar video of Obama -

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aznaD8yzVjM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aznaD8yzVjM)

I simply cannot understand how his base, including most of the media, is
sticking with him through all of this, but they are. This will likely lead to
additional brazen constitutional violations by this and the next
administration, regardless of political party, because there are no
consequences for any of them regardless of what they do. I weep for the
future.

------
macinjosh
Best part from the very end:

MR. SMITH: All right, Senator Joe Biden, thank you for joining us this
morning; do appreciate it.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much, Charlie.

MR. SMITH: Harry.

SEN. BIDEN: Appreciate it.

MR. SMITH: That's all right.

~~~
mr_luc
Joe Biden is like an amazing "character actor" of politics.

He has an almost Clinton-like ability to remain likable ... but whatever you
think Clinton was actually like, he came off as sharper conversationally than
Biden.

Still, the ability to remain likable in spite of gaffes seems to be vital in
Presidential politics -- look at Bush/Kerry.

~~~
crusso
Never underestimate the impact of the entertainment media in shaping public
opinion.

If SNL did a recurring imitation of Biden in an unflattering light, making up
things he didn't really say or just repeating the really dumb ones over and
over - Biden would be perceived a lot more like Sarah Palin or at best Dan
Quayle.

~~~
Zimahl
SNL does portray Biden as a caricature. Jason Sudekis played him as a quick
talking ex-fraternity asshole who takes upskirt pictures of Hillary Clinton
and then proclaims "You've been Biden'd!". SNL isn't doing him any favors - to
them he's a lovable buffoon.

~~~
crusso
What they did with Biden was to do a good physical imitation, but to have him
act uncharacteristically as a spoof. What they did with Palin was to go after
her in as cutting a manner as possible in order to take her down as a credible
candidate.

Here are a couple of examples off of Youtube. The first one, they went out of
their way to make Biden look large and in charge.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8LcbtQ75A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl8LcbtQ75A)

This second one, Biden is commiserating with George W. on being second in
command. So even when imitating Biden, they make sure to really make Bush the
butt of the joke.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lyZrtd83Mk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lyZrtd83Mk)

The SNL folks have long admitted that they used their skits to push a
political agenda:

[http://www.worldtribune.com/tv/videos/as-stupid-as-he-
acts-c...](http://www.worldtribune.com/tv/videos/as-stupid-as-he-acts-chevy-
chase-admits-he-wanted-carter/)

~~~
Zimahl
I guess if that's how you see it, I just have to disagree. To me, someone who
voted for Obama/Biden twice, in both of those skits they do a fairly good job
of making him seem incompetent, simple, and short-sighted. In the second, they
equate him with their version of incompetent W - that doesn't seem all that
flattering.

EDIT: Adding the 'Biden Bash'[1]

[1] [http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/biden-
bash/n320...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/biden-bash/n32032)

~~~
crusso
_I guess if that 's how you see it_

So despite a very well known SNL actor's ADMITTING that what they did was
focused and political. Despite his extraordinarily relevant insight stating
that they still do it that way... that's just how I see it?

At some point you have to wonder if your theories are falsifiable or if
they're just dogma.

~~~
Zimahl
First, Chevy Chase hardly represents the current cast of SNL. He hasn't been
on the show for decades.

Second, I was talking about how you think SNL is building up Biden with
positive sketches. I don't agree that they are very positive. Sorry if that's
my opinion.

Third, no shit they push a political agenda but its probably less biased than
Fox News. They do attack those who are insanely inferior politically (Palin,
Perry, Bachmann) because they can and should. I'm just saying that dumb
Democrat decisions don't get the kid gloves you seem to be just so sure they
do. After the election there hadn't been a lot of noteworthy political
sketches this season, they didn't seem to be able to make light of the gun
control debate, the sequester, etc.

------
jacoblyles
Isn't partisan politics a wondrous thing?

~~~
mpyne
Do we know that the VP is supportive of this program? Admittedly it's hard to
tell what parts of a politician's speech are principles and which are just to
build their party or tear down the other one's party.

~~~
ck2
Of course he is supportive now - they purposely made it "legal".

See we fell for the promise that they would end _illegal surveillance of
Ameicans_

We thought that meant no more surveillance on Americans.

Instead they just made it "legal".

I really cannot believe they did that word game and we fell for it.

~~~
mpyne
Surveillance on Americans _by the NSA_ is still illegal. What we're upset
about is that NSA has made it easier to abuse the law to perform surveillance
of Americans by pre-caching Verizon phone record metadata and automating FISA
compliance in a fashion that may actually be usable on arbitrary user IDs.

In other words they've made it easier to do all that surveillance if they
choose to, but as far as I'm aware even Snowden has not claimed to see the NSA
actually track an American down using the system, only that the NSA _could_ do
it easily.

While that is certainly a serious matter that warrants public debate, it's not
the same as what you're referring to (which makes me wonder why... it's not
like this issue requires any exaggeration).

------
temp453463343
This makes me think there is a shitload we don't know about. (like this
program has stopped a nuclear bomb going off in San Diego or something).

To have so many people switch their minds about privacy and to have this so
secret for so long means there has got to be something BIG that they heard of
day one of their jobs that drastically changed their value-system/world-view.

My guess is Snowden didn't have the whole picture (b/c he worked for a
contractor)

~~~
gridmaths
false logic.. your justifying an actual erosion of freedom based on massive
speculation. And you could bring anything into that argument, because it will
always be secret and non verifiable.

Another theory is that Stuxnet stopped Iran nuking San Diego.. but that didn't
require recording the private communications of everyone on the planet.

~~~
temp453463343
... I wasn't justifying anything.

I was just speculating.

I think this is a rather unique situation where a lot of pro-privacy people
seemed to have switched sides.

That raises questions. What everyone seems to be concluding is that these
people were insincere before and now their true colors are coming out. That
sounds highly improbably and very conspiracy-theory-ish.

It's more likely that there is a lot going on than we know about. It doesn't
necessarily make it okay.

It's just something to think about.

------
ndesaulniers
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from
pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
George Orwell, Animal Farm

------
D9u
"It's not fascism when we do it!"

