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Shutdown Shenanigans | Unfilter 69

chris

The rampant disfunction of US Government has triggered a partial shutdown for the first time in 17 years after congress failed to break a partisan deadlock. But is the Shutdown a scam? Can tea party members force Obama to neuter his signature legislation while holding the the Federal government hostage? We’ll cut through the crap.

Meanwhile the shutdown shenanigans have provided an excellent distraction from recent major NSA leaks, we’ll dig through the latest outrageous revelations.

Then it’s a little GMO talk, your feedback, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States, according to an N.S.A. memorandum from January 2011. The agency was authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of every e-mail address, phone number or other identifier, the document said.

Over the weekend, investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill told an audience in Brazil that he and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald are working on a project involving “how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the U.S. assassination program.”

We know a bit about the NSA’s connection to America’s global capture/kill machine already.

In the 2010 report “Top secret America,” Dana Priest and Will Arkin of The Washington Post reported that the NSA provided the capture/kill squads of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) with a huge advantage after the signals intelligence agency “learned to locate all electronic signals in Iraq.”

After his release from custody Sept. 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels “vindicated” by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American’s phone records.

Nacchio was convicted of selling of Qwest stock in early 2001, not long before the company hit financial troubles. However, he claimed in court documents that he was optimistic about the firm’s ability to win classified government contracts — something they’d succeeded at in the past. And according to his timeline, in February 2001 — some six months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — he was approached by the NSA and asked to spy on customers during a meeting he thought was about a different contract. He reportedly refused because his lawyers believed such an action would be illegal and the NSA wouldn’t go through the FISA Court. And then, he says, unrelated government contracts started to disappear.

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This Week’s New Supporters:

Shutdown Showdown

What we’re seeing is the collapse of institutional Republican power. It’s not so much about Boehner. It’s things like the end of earmarks. They move away from Tom DeLay and they think they’re improving the House, but now they have nothing to offer their members. The outside groups don’t always move votes directly but they create an atmosphere of fear among the members. And so many of these members now live in the conservative world of talk radio and tea party conventions and Fox News invitations.

“Shutdown can’t stop lobbyists from their appointed rounds,” by Byron Tau: "Beltway lobbyists are making their normal load of Hill meetings and client work happen — in spite of a federal government operating without hundreds of thousands of staffers and …

One of the biggest problems for lobbyists on Capitol Hill on day one of the shutdown was simply getting into the congressional office buildings for the access they need with lobbyists and staff. Massive lines formed Tuesday outside the House and Senate office buildings because the shutdown forced the Capitol complex to reduce the number of open entrances. Even after the morning rush of staffers arriving for work was over, it was common to see lines of nearly 100 people waiting to get into the congressional office buildings. … [David Urban, a lobbyist with the American Continental Group] – ‘being a good lobbyist,’ he joked – [said:] ‘I had one of the staffers come pick us up and he drive us into the garage’ … bypassing the security lines. … ‘I went to a 7:45 a.m. breakfast on the Hill this morning with two congressmen — it was packed and they were on time,’ said Brian Johnson, a tax and trade lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute. ‘With long lines at all the congressional buildings, I’m thankful I’ve built relationships where folks on the Hill will just take a call — most of them, that is.’

“We have not made the required $5.6 billion Retiree Health Benefits prefunding payment due Sept. 30, 2013,” wrote USPS spokeswomen Patricia Licata in an email to CNNMoney. She added that the default has absolutely nothing to do withthe federal government shutdown. “We have been saying for several months that we will be defaulting on this payment. This is the third time we have [done so],” Licata wrote.

Postal officials have long complained about a Congressional mandate that requires them to set aside billions of dollars for a retiree health care fund each year. The Postal Service also defaulted on these prefund payments last year. In fiscal year 2012, the Postal Service lost a total of $15.9 billion, including $11.1 billion in defaulted payments that it owes to prefund health benefits for retirees.

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