You don’t need privacy or secrecy, if you’ve got nothing to hide, right? I believe that’s how the line goes.
That’s why it’s totally unsurprising that ICE and DHS are trying to block a Netflix documentary from being published. [nyt]
In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process.
But as the documentary neared completion in recent months, the administration fought mightily to keep it from being released until after the 2020 election. After granting rare access to parts of the country’s powerful immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from seeing the light of day.
Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.
I’m amazed that there was anyone stupid or honest enough in ICE to allow a film crew to capture their criminal activities. They’re going to have to get better at propaganda, if they expect to get Soviet-level results. By the way, whoever permitted it would already either be dead or on their way to a work camp in Siberia, under that regime. Under the current regime, they’re probably going to get to be spokespeople or media managers.
Suddenly, Ms. Clusiau and Mr. Schwarz say, the official who oversaw the agency’s television and film department, with whom they had worked closely over nearly three years of filming, became combative.
That’s because they realized, after three years of working closely with them, that they were going to wind getting a bullet in the back of the neck.
After a bit of reading between the lines, it sounds as if Clusiau and Schwartz got permission to do the documentary right before ICE started to weaponize into its new form, so they were grandfathered in and nobody thought to run a clean-up campaign.
I need a word, and lack it: what do you call a government run by incompetents?
This is some transcendent incompetence; apparently the administration “up to the highest levels” has realized that the Netflix show is scheduled to be aired next month; before the elections but not much. Someone in the administration has figured out that that might be bad public relations. Elsewhere, the Secretary of the Is Water Wet Department announced that they will be releasing their findings after the election, because they don’t want anyone to be surprised at their conclusions, which have been heavily redacted.
I’m sure the Netflix show will be a hit, with marketing like this.
I love the word ‘redacted’ and I keep thinking it would be fun the legally change my last name to that.
Elsewhere, I assume by now that everyone knows that FTB’s own Crip Dyke is in Portland covering the troubles there. [crip dyke] Robert Evans from The Worst Year Ever podcast also did a report on what he’s been seeing and doing. [twye]
The answer should be: “we want to be able to identify you guys so we know who goes up against the wall when the revolution comes.”
Fractally (sp?) incompetent?
I believe the word you’re looking for is “omnishambles”.
Variants: Fractal, magnificent, self-regenerating, shit-the-bed, kleptocratic, …
The word is “kakistocracy.” (Really.)
The word is “kakistocracy.” (Really.)
If I pronounce it like “caca” that makes it even better.
Thank you!
It’s moments like these when the US government probably has to struggle with China-envy. They could just block Netflix for “subverting government authority” until the show was pulled “voluntarily”.
Regarding “kakistocracy.” I just looked up the etymology, it’s derived from the Greek work “kakistos” meaning “worst.”
However, in Latvian the work “kaka” means “poop.” Of course, I am getting the obvious mental associations.
Re: redacted: it makes a better middle name, especially if you spell it in all caps. “Marcus REDACTED Ranum” has a certain jaunty swing to it. It’s even more amusing than Elliot S! Maggin and David Malki! where the reader suspects bombast rather than enigma.
Following many others
A kakistocracy ([kækɪ’stɑkrəsi]) is a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens.
@ 5 komarov
It’s moments like these when the US government probably has to struggle with China-envy.
They would not even understand that the Chinese Gov’t is too competent to even get is to such a situation in the first place.
In one way looking at Washington it is a US version of the Upper Class Twit of the Year sketch.
Idiocracy works just fine, though it’s etymologically ambiguous.
“Meritocracy,” if you use it ironically like most people do.
Remember the Rolling Stone article about McChrystal? These idiots are so used to a deferential, fawning press that they are absolutely dumbfounded when someone does actual reporting on them and makes them look bad. Sure, these people in power look like idiots, but it also exposes the general level of incompetence in the press. These people, mostly rightly, believe that their malfeasance will never see the light of day, even if the press is there to witness it directly!
Given the uniquely absurd nature of Trump’s personality, I was going to nominate a specialized term for this subtype of kakistocracy: coulrocracy.
Then I gave it more thought, and frankly? Rule-by-clowns sounds too lighthearted for this reality.
Rule-by-worst it really is.
DrVanNostrand@#11:
Remember the Rolling Stone article about McChrystal? These idiots are so used to a deferential, fawning press that they are absolutely dumbfounded when someone does actual reporting on them and makes them look bad.
Yes, that was fairly amazing.
Petraeus was comparably stupid, too – these guys think they have super-powers and act like it.
Orion Silvertree@#12:
Then I gave it more thought, and frankly? Rule-by-clowns sounds too lighthearted for this reality.
We don’t want to get sued for defamation by a bunch of clowns.