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Kathleen McCook's avatar

Yes.... "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct" is the part people forget.

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SimulationCommander's avatar

I always thought it was the first part that people forgot, because they refer to the patriot act and not the USA PATRIOT Act, but it doesn't really matter.

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

I know--after 20 years it makes one seem like a curmudgeon to explain it, but keep it alive, the knowledge. I think the "USA" part was very clever. I didn't agree but they play a long game, don't they?

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Jala's avatar

Appreciate your expertise Kathleen.

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

I teach about the history of censorship so have followed for years but this new insanity is really hard to convey. People understand book censorship, but seem less riled about all explored here on Racket. I do not understand why it doesn't have people more upset.

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Bill Heath's avatar

I have a hypothesis. Most people don't have a principled objection to authoritarianism, so long as it's their tribe making the rules.

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Bill Owen's avatar

Killing kids with drones in Waziristan was a bad thing for liberals.

Until Obama started doing it.

At ten times the pace that Buhs did it.

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Melinda Barnes's avatar

This is my best explanation, as well.

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Running Burning Man's avatar

Just subscribed to your Substack!

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flipshod's avatar

I like the comparison between being "united" and being "cohesive". I guess Australia was never separated enough to use "united" and "The Cohesive States of America" doesn't flow and is ridiculous anyway.

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Bill Heath's avatar

Legislators create quite a few inventive names eveey year. It's an Equal Opportunity game, though. I believe I've told you the story about the Corps Recruitment Operations Centre of Special Human Intelligence Targeting.

@Simulation Commander: it matters a great deal. When Nancy Pelosi proposed legislation making it virtually impossible for a Democrat to lose an election, she named it "For The People Act."

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Feral Finster's avatar

Do tell us about CROCSHIT.

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Bill Heath's avatar

About 45 years ago I was in the military acting as a "controller" in a CPX (Command Posr Exercise.) I was about as junior an officer as could be. A Major came to me and asked where Prisoners of War were kept at the Corps level. I told him it was the Corps PW Cage. He replied that this was too crude a term (NB: It was accurate) and he needed a more sophisticated term for his briefing to the Corps Commander. I told him that it could be called the Corps Recruitment Operations Center of Special Human Intelligence Targeting, but was usually referred to by its initials.

He returned to where he was preparing to brief the General, and related that to the poor Private who was creating slides for the briefing, and confidently told the General the prisoners were being held in the C.R.O.C. of S.H.I.T. Hr returned half an hour later, clearly upset, and upbraided me.

When he finished screaming, I told him he had been given the true answer and chose to disregard it. His anger was misdirected.

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Feral Finster's avatar

That is hilarious. Let me take a SWAG, you military career didn't last too long?

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Bill Heath's avatar

Au contraire, mon ami. At the time I was a WO1, in Interrogation. As a CW2 I served as the Operations Officer/Acting Naval Attache to Colombia, then as a primary staff officer in the Counterintelligence Battalion covering the eastern U.S. Then as a CW2/CW3 as a strategic planner in the Office of the National Security Advisor, finally as a human intelligence case officer CW3. I declined promotion to CW4 to retire.

My attitude never changed. Look through the Archives and find my posts about my military career. Most Army Warrant Officers are helicopter pilots; the remainder are largely administrators. Intelligence Warrant Officers are always smartasses. Before speaking each time I made sure I was invaluable to my current organization and was right.

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Running Burning Man's avatar

Where are the archives you mentioned? How do I access that? Thx.

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Bill Heath's avatar

My columnтАЩs Archives

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