Evening Tides

++Huffington Post has an historic video clip of a grey-haired 63-year old Dr.J, Julius Erving, making a smooth slam dunk. I remember the Dr when he played at U.Mass. 

++A Philadelphia couple,who are Verizon customers, are suing President Obama and the NSA for targeting their cellphones because they are critics of Obama and the military. They have sued unsuccessfully before because their son was a Navy Seal, who was killed in a helicopter attack in Afghanistan. 

++Larry Klayman, ambulance chase par excellence, is suing all Internet companies who are involved in the Prism program in a class action suit. Klayman certainly knows that lobbyists won the Telcom companies immunity from all suits from spying allegations.

++More promising ,however, is that Edward Snowden did reveal a list of Americans targeted for surveillance,which he has given over to the Guardian. This would provide evidence for ACLU lawsuits. The Supreme Court rejected the ACLU's bid to close down the surveillance program because it argued it could not prove their clients were actually targets. This time they will be able to move the ball forward.

++In an astonishing move, the national security agencies actually briefed the entire House of Representatives on their programs and safeguards. Impressive display of CYA.

++Frank Gaffney writes in the Washington Times today that Obama is spying on all Americans instead on jihadis. Naturally, he claimed that the IRS director met a record number of times with President Obama at the White House to target conservatives.

++It has been a month since President Obama outlined his policy on national security at the National Defense College. In the speech, he wanted to establish legal guidelines for drone attacks among other things. Maybe now is the time to pivot on the surveillance state and reign it in before a Bobby Jindal becomes President. 

++Rep. Issa refused today to release the transcripts of interviews with IRS officials like Rep. Cummings demanded. Wait until the weekend for them to be released.

++Former congressman Ron Paul warned that his supporter Edward Snowden might be killed by a drone attack. 

++Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame urged Snowden to seek asylum in Latin America. Others have urged the Scandanavian states or Iceland. The local Hong Kong authorities want him to leave that enclave. People believe that he can get asylum by using the treatment of Private Manning as an example.

++A former military contractor with a Top Secret clearance wrote at the Democratic Underground that don't be naive about the surveillance program. The only practical way to modify it is to repeal the Patriot Act, which paved the way for abuses since 9/11.

++The EU wants briefings by the Obama Administration and guarantees that their citizens' rights to privacy would be observed.

++The Obama Administration has announced they will be tapering off any prosecutions of detainees held at Gitmo. Senator McCain publicly floated out the trial ballon of closing the base down and sending the remaining detainees to upstate Illinois as the Obama Administration wanted to do in the first months after President Obama took office the first time.

++Missing in all the outrage over the surveillance program is any coverage of the Chinese stealing the plans and blueprints of all the future weapons planned by the United States. Also missing is any coverage of the Pentagon putting on its internet the plans to build a rocket base in Israel, which prompted fury by the Israeli government.

++The State Department is fighting back hard on the memo of the Inspector General saying that there has been cover-ups of misdeeds by State Department personnel. The Ambassador to Belgium fought back saying that he did not consort with prostitutes in the park outside his home.

++The Pentagon did successfully test their new bunker buster bombs to demonstrate they can destroy Iranian nuclear sites buried in the mountains north of Tehran.

++Conservatives are saying that Gallup shows that W is now more popular than President Obama. Ah, no, not quite. W is at 49% people liking him. Obama is at a 47% approval rating for the job he's doing. His popularity is always significantly higher as I noted throughout election year. Apples and oranges.