Met my Senator at school event and asked him about Wikileaks & the 1st Amendment *Audio*

If anybody is interested, I was able to talk to Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland for a couple minutes at a school event and asked him about Wikileaks and the 1st Amendment.

Nothing earth shattering but some basic points:
-Did not see Wikileaks as a legitimate journalistic organization
-Laws may need to be made in the future re: things like wikileaks
-"Those responsible for leaking the documents" I.e. Manning should be tried for treason
-He views Wikileaks as using the dumping of documents for their own gain, could be complicit in espionage
-A couple other things I can't remember right now (small things) & about the NYT's role (just touched on it, nothing big)

Audio link:


I sort of sucked up to him a bit and acted very relaxed, i didn't want to draw attention to myself.

politicians all seem down to earth, that is part of their training as they like to seem like one of us but they are really just evil bastards.

reply to post by mossme89


thanks for posting..F for you..

having met a few politicians, yes, as one said,, they seam "down to earth"

and the ones i met were,,,,, until ...... as the office wore them down,, they changed..

jmho..

Cardin had confused me in the past, did many things I didn't agree with, but also a few good things. My thinking now is that he is 100% politician. The "good" things probably had other motivations. He's typical in that the government should have absolute control over the people. That arrogance and disrespect is so insulting.

Egypt has a little more respect for it's citizens now. It's too bad that a similar event may be what's necessary to gain respect from our own leaders.

Did he seem genuine or did you feel he was talking at you more than to you?

Originally posted by Paschar0
Did he seem genuine or did you feel he was talking at you more than to you?

Actually, both. He seemed to talk and answer my questions and if he trailed off to where he started just talking at me, he reeled himself back in.

I'll post the audio in a bit, though I'll have to delete it after a bit. I'm not sure if it's covered under Maryland wiretapping laws, which requires that all parties consent to a media recording. He was being recorded at the conference so.. but it's a gray area i'd rather not get into.

reply to post by lewman


Yep by the time they are president there acting skills are well honed, lol.

Personally i would not bother listening to the answers, but it must of been a learning experience for the op.

reply to post by andy1033


Idk, it was sort of interesting. I could be bias, but you know how they say the eyes are the window to the soul? You look at some people and you see so much below the surface. When i looked into his eyes, i didn't see much past the surface.

You can sort of get vibes about people also. Some people you get the feeling they're just bursting with life. Just being in their presence effects you. I think some people call it the aura? With him, it wasn't evil or anything, just physical and somewhat materialistic i guess you could say...

I would be very interested in seeing the video. I am sure you would be able to upload it to ATS media.

Quite frankly, I would have asked him some much tougher questions based on his responses. For instance...If Manning should be tried for treason, what should Bush be tried for after lying to the American public and pushing us into an unjust war as well as the illegal occupation of Iraq?

Politicians are great actors. The key to having a conversation with them, is to bring them out of their comfort zone. That is when you see their true colors.

Originally posted by MrWendal
I would be very interested in seeing the video. I am sure you would be able to upload it to ATS media.

Quite frankly, I would have asked him some much tougher questions based on his responses. For instance...If Manning should be tried for treason, what should Bush be tried for after lying to the American public and pushing us into an unjust war as well as the illegal occupation of Iraq?

Politicians are great actors. The key to having a conversation with them, is to bring them out of their comfort zone. That is when you see their true colors.

I didn't want to push it. They seemed slightly uneasy based on the topic. Plus there were other people waiting to talk. The last thing i wanted to do was to get thrown out of the conference, i mean atleast i got to talk to him. Maybe it's just because i'm pretty young, but when you meet someone with that status, you feel sort of intimidated. I guess maybe it's a innate human instinct because they have power? You wouldn't want to piss them off. It took a lot just to go up and talk to him.

I'm working on the video now. It's a huge file (2.54GB) and it's still processing in iMovie. It's 30 minutes long in 720p. The video is of the keynote, not me asking him the questions.

After listening to the audio, It's impossible to ignore how well honed his technique is. "Legitimate" news, and by that he means "information we can shape and spin", raw information is not good for you little constituent. "Financial gain", as if 99% of what HE does isn't for financial gain. Implying criminality despite maybe not being against any laws was right out of the playbook too.

Notice NOTHING positive about whistle blowing, how exposing wrongs is the RIGHT thing to do, no sir, whether he really believes that or is following political policy I don't know, but I suspect it's both.

I fear we won't be getting anything different that the Cardin's of the world for a while, they prop up a few bad choices for us and don't really care what we pick because they're all in the bag.

reply to post by mossme89


Your right about eyes, if you never look a person in the eye you will never have feelings for them, this is true.

I understand also you not wanting to cause problems for yourself, as you never can tell who the person is or what upsetting them can do to your life, lol. I think you where right not to make them too uneasy.

These people never like being put on the defensive, like how obama was not allowed to be given any real questions in last election. No one was allowed to ask him anything other than scripted questions. They must be taught but also that teaching and practise is not always enough for when they get put into a defensive position.

But you made the right choice not to push too far. Nice to see it anyway.

reply to post by mossme89


I look forward to the video.

Power does not impress me. It is something that is given and can be taken away. For me power is really nothing more than an illusion. As an example, Police have power. Now go find a video of the LA riots and tell me, how powerful do they look in that instance? George Bush has power... but if I were to catch him in an alley all alone, his power would mean very little and do him no good. Power is something granted to you by another, if you refuse to grant it, it is your alone.

Originally posted by andy1033
reply to post by mossme89

 

Your right about eyes, if you never look a person in the eye you will never have feelings for them, this is true.

I understand also you not wanting to cause problems for yourself, as you never can tell who the person is or what upsetting them can do to your life, lol. I think you where right not to make them too uneasy.

These people never like being put on the defensive, like how obama was not allowed to be given any real questions in last election. No one was allowed to ask him anything other than scripted questions. They must be taught but also that teaching and practise is not always enough for when they get put into a defensive position.

But you made the right choice not to push too far. Nice to see it anyway.

edit on 2/12/2011 by andy1033 because: (no reason given)

With the eyes, you know how some people you get a strong feeling from? It was the lack of feeling that surprised me. I don't think that means he's a sociopath, just seemed very empty and superficial i guess you could say. I actually thought at one point during his keynote "he's a puppet", meaning i just felt like he was sort of rehashing information. His speech reminded me a lot of what we hear from Obama.

If you look at the video (which I'm still trying to upload, should be up within the next hour), you'll notice he looks a lot at my camera and at me. There are some people that when they speak, you can sense their passion and the love behind their words. I didn't feel that with him.

He mentioned in his speech "I could use you in Washington", referring to an FBLA member with a black belt and also referring to the uneasiness after the Loughner shooting. The last thing i wanted to do was to seem like a "crazy" like Jared Loughner.

Video of Cardin's Keynote Speech

The quality of the video isn't great, but i was mainly trying to get the audio for the speech... On another note, i deleted the audio of the OP because it's a gray area in Maryland wiretapping laws. It's probably legal, but i don't want to take any chances. Shoot me a U2U if you still want to listen.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Just found this old thread. LOL it's amazing how immature and dumb I was. Wikileaks is illegal, simple as that. I realize that now.