Van Susteren Invokes CISPA To Blame Obama And Reid For Possible Catastrophic Cyber Attack

You know, I never thought I’d have to talk about CISPA again, but here we are. Thanks, Greta. Let’s get started.

For those of you who need a reminder about what the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is, it’s basically a bill that purports to improve cybersecurity but which was described by Infoworld as Big Brother’s Best Friend Forever. After being rightfully shot down, it was brought back as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2014 (CISA) and is even worse for anyone concerned about privacy rights.

As an attorney, one would think that Greta Van Susteren would have been at least mindful of the problems with the bills. But no. At least not when she has the chance to use them to blame President Obama and Senator Harry Reid for what she suggested are imminent, catastrophic cyber attacks.

Here’s what Van Susteren said on December 19:

Let’s all go off the record for a minute; What’s the next cyber attack? Our nuclear power plants? Banking System? Air traffic control? How about power grid? We are very vulnerable. Blame the president, and blame Senate majority leader Harry Reid, but do not blame House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, because they did try. They worked together, bipartisan. They worked together to get the House to pass a cyber intelligence sharing protection act, aimed at strengthening cyber security, and preventing attacks.

Now, that would not have stopped this (Sony hack), but at least it would have shown to all of us that our government gives a damn about protecting us, and knows about it. The House cared, and passed the bill. The Senate Intelligence Committee did try, but Senator Reid successfully killed any effort in the senate. So, did President Obama then step in and help? No, he did not get Senator Reid to put it up for a vote in the Senate, that House bill.

So, ask yourself: Where is the leadership? Easy answer: AWOL. There’s no negotiating, no deal.

That’s all kinds of classy, Greta. Instead of pointing out why Obama and Reid did not want the bill passed, instead of questioning why the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed such a bill, you smear Obama and Reid as uncaring and deliberately failing to protect the U.S. And, despite acknowledging that the CISA bill would not have prevented the Sony hacking, you nonetheless suggested that Obama and Reid are to blame for that, too.

This is the kind of “argument” I hear from Fox News talking heads like Sean Hannity or Keith Ablow. But I always thought Van Susteren was better than that. Apparently, I was wrong.

Watch it below, from the December 19 On The Record.

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Showing 5 reactions

commented 2014-12-28 15:31:13 -0500 · Flag

She’s caught up in what Ailes wants her to report (has no choice) because no other network wants her!
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ny-times-confirms-foxs-greta-van-susteren-held-talks-with-cnn-execs-about-returning/ She has sold her soul to FOX and has become their watchdog. I agree with J. West, below. IMO, defending FOX News is the only gig she has left in the media world. FOX producers left her alone when she first came on board, but it truly appears that is not the case anymore. She’s got to watch her ratings now more than ever.

commented 2014-12-26 22:59:49 -0500 · Flag

Greta van Susteren is not classy, not at all. She used to have some class, but she lost it years ago. She has, IMO, willingly allowed the Fox echo chamber to surround her and suspended her connection to reality.

Although I no longer see her show since she changed timeslots, I watched it happen over the years at her 10 PM show, and if I had access to Lexis-Nexis and the free time, I could trace it and lay out how it developed.

The short version is that somewhere in the middle of the ’08 primaries, she abandoned the intelligent crime/legal show she had been doing for Fox since she started with the network, and went over the course of a couple of months to doing all politics all the time, with a couple celebrity-focused or tabloid crime segments once in a while on the back end of the program.

That change in focus was surely mandated by the Fox suits. And as time went on, she gradually abandoned even a pretense of being anything other than a cog in the GOP-TV propaganda machine that is Fox.

She’s smarter and fairer than that, but she’s become caught up in what is, in effect, a cult. She needs deprogramming to snap back to reality.

commented 2014-12-26 14:18:59 -0500 · Flag

“As an attorney, one would think that Greta Van Susteren would have been at least mindful of the problems with the bills.”

Well, yeah, but don’t forget that even rapists and murderers are entitled to legal protection—usually by attorneys who don’t want to do it but who do want to retain their ability to argue cases in court. AND, it should also be remembered that such attorneys MUST provide the best defense for their clients, regardless of their feelings towards their clients. (And Greta is, in this case, essentially doing as her “client”—FoxNoise, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes—expects her to do. Arguing the side of the alleged criminal because she’s expected to.)

commented 2014-12-26 12:01:45 -0500 · Flag

VanSuckup is feeling the heat from some Fux Noise prime-time wannabes like “Judge” Jeanine and Dimberly Tinfoil. Gretel will need to toe the line in 2015 or be replaced.

NewsHounds posted about Van Susteren Invokes CISPA To Blame Obama And Reid For Possible Catastrophic Cyber Attack on NewsHounds' Facebook page 2014-12-26 09:00:07 -0500

Silly us. We thought Van Susteren was better than this.