Right after President Obama's re-election, Maxine Waters (D - CA) said, what Glenn described as, one of the dumbest things he's ever heard anybody say.
During an interview with Roland Martin on TV One, Waters praised the President for putting together a campaign database that has information "about everything on every individual."
…sounds like this is starting to become a hobby of President Obama's.
“And that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before,” Waters said, referring to President Obama's Organizing for America.
Organizing for America has since been converted from a campaign organization to a 501(c)(4) called Organizing for Action.
“The inauguration represented the beginning of his second term, but it also represented the countdown to the end of his presidency. And the reality is, like anything else, you better get what you can while he’s there because, look, come 2016, that’s it,” Martin said.
“I don’t know, and I think some people are missing something here,” Waters said.
“The president has put in place an organization that contains a kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” she added. “That’s going to be very, very powerful.”
Martin asked if Waters if she was referring to “Organizing for America.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” Waters said. “And that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before.”
Waters said the database would also serve future Democratic candidates seeking the presidency.
“He’s been very smart,” Waters said of Obama. “I mean it’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place."
"How much does Maxine Waters hate the President?" Glenn joked.
"He must think, can somebody please, for the love of heaven, shut her up?" Pat responded.
"I mean, listen to what she's — she's, again — now, I know she's talking about Organizing for America here, but the same people that have put together this NSA thing are the same people that are doing his work," Glenn said. "This stuff exists and is out there. Here's why this is really important: The line that she said, "what he is leaving in place," that's the same thing that those who are against the PATRIOT Act tried to tell dopes like me: Once you put it in, you never get it out."
"There is no going back," Pat added.
"Right. And so whatever is left in place the next guy can take," Glenn continued. "And that's exactly what happened. Bush put it into place, everybody was screaming about it, but because our guy was in charge, we said, oh, that stuff's not happening. Now the roles have reversed."
Glenn's fear is that this is just the beginning. Data collection and technology are certainly not moving backwards. What will happen to privacy rights if there is another 9/11? What will that president do?
Or worse, what happens if this technology gets in the hands of someone looking to do harm? Stu notes that at the end of the NSA whistleblower's interview from Hong Kong that was released yesterday, he mentions that the new, unforeseen threat is tyranny like in Turkey.
"That's how he ends that interview and that is powerful. It's the exact point, by the way, you made last week when you were talking about if Hitler had this technology at the time, there wouldn't be a Jew left on the planet," Stu said. "That's because he would be able ‑‑ he would have been able to find them. He wouldn't have been able to move, they wouldn't have been able to do anything. There would be no escapes."
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