President Barack Obama on Friday seemed to acknowledge that the determined effort by the White House and Congress to demonize Edward Snowden has not exactly worked. The White House has put pressure on many people in this town to make clear that Snowden is not to be praised in the media or by members of Congress. Various reporters and new organizations have held the line in mocking Snowden or refusing to call him a “whistleblower” rather than a “leaker.” After all, the fear seems to be that Snowden has to be a traitor or Obama would look like a tyrant. Even high-ranking members have been frog walked back before cameras for uttering a work of praise for Snowden. The problem is that it has convinced few people, even with alteration of Wikipedia and other sites to maintain the party line. Now Obama has come forward to assure people that Snowden is no patriot. No, I guess that title belongs to Obama and others who have engaged in warrantless surveillance and continue to mislead the public on the erosion of privacy and civil liberties. Those patriotic souls include John Clapper who lie under oath to mislead the public about the programs. He is not a perjurer but a patriot in America’s New Animal Farm. Notably, however, not a single reporter asked Obama about the perjury by Clapper. Instead, Obama laid out another set of meaningless measures designed to lull the public back into a comfortably and controllable sleep.
Obama seems to be going through the stages of Kübler-Ross from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance. Last week, he was in denial and assuring the public that they are not being spied upon even as more stories appeared revealing even broader surveillance programs. He then attacked Snowden and now insists that he is no patriot for throwing away his life to disclose these massive surveillance programs. He ended the week with bargaining, telling the public that he would create a committee of hand-picked experts to review such surveillance — just like his committee ratifying his killing of citizens without charges or convictions.
Obama clearly wants to have unchecked power but not be thought of as authoritarian. He returned to the theme that he can create the due process and review within his own Administration that is obviously lacking in Congress or the courts. He went as far as to say that a simple committee of his making would have avoided the Snowden affair because the public would have accepted his word for the status of their rights and privacy. “There’s no doubt Mr. Snowden’s leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than if I had simply appointed this review board.” In other words, I messed up by not first creating a screen for the programs to give my allies cover. In the meantime, his Administration is moving to remove the greatest danger to their warrantless surveillance programs: people.
What was particularly galling was Obama’s statement that “[g]iven the history of abuse by governments, it’s right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives.” However, his administration has been classifying even legal argument to prevent such questions from being asked and has pursued both reporters and their sources for any stories informing the public. His Administration is the most anti-whistleblower government in modern history and has abused national security laws in the pursuit of leakers to an extent that would make Richard Nixon blush.
Obama added as one of his great reforms on Friday that he would consider making the legal rationales for these programs more public despite the view that such classification was always ridiculous. So he will make legal arguments public and appoint his own committee to review his own policies.
Finally, he got away with telling the media that Snowden is not a whistleblower because he had “other avenues” to oppose the programs. Maintaining a straight face (and again without serious challenge from the press corp), Obama noted that “he can appear before a court with a lawyer and make his case.” First, by that definition, no one would be a whistleblower since they could all take the suicidal act of filing a public complaint or seeking judicial review. Second, if Snowden revealed the programs to an attorney, he would have been immediately charged. This is an Administration that put reporters under surveillance for speaking with leakers. It is also the Administration that has forced courts to dismiss dozens of public interest lawsuits by classifying the evidence needed to establish standing or the merits of the case. This includes the greatest victory of his Administration in killing the Clapper challenge (that’s right the same guy who lied to Congress recently). The Obama Administration succeeded in getting the Court to reject the standing of civil liberties groups and citizens to challenge the Obama Administration’s surveillance programs. President Obama has long been criticized for his opposition to such lawsuits and his Justice Department has continued a successful attack on the ability of citizens to challenge the unconstitutional actions of their government in the war on terror. The 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. insulated such programs from judicial review in yet another narrowing of standing rules. (After claiming that such surveillance programs were too classified to be discussed in courts, they then a few months later discussed such programs in the public only after Snowden’s disclosures).
The level of disingenuous arguments coming out of the Administration now amounts nothing short of open contempt for the public and its intelligence. With both parties working to support the effort, it could well succeed. However, the degree to which Obama feels free to make such transparent arguments show how little he has to fear from contradiction in the media or in Congress. It is simply a problem of optics with a public that still feels uncomfortable with the expanding Imperial President established in the last decade. It is hard to get a public back to sleep when they wake up in a nightmare. That is when you have to tell them soothing stories.
Source: CNN
“Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” – Benjamin Franklin
@Gene H. – Yes I like the Puzzle Palace people because I have friends there or where there back in the day. If that makes me a puppet so be it. I don’t see General Alexander as a bad guy here. I do see so-called US Citizen Alawki as one and even though he got wasted by a Predator Drone with his “radicalized” American buddy I won’t shed a tear over his lack of due process. I say good riddance. He was the reason why MANY American soldiers were GUNNED down in cold blood at Fort Worth TX recently by their US Army psychiatrist. He was responsible for many other potential American deaths too. If my President has to lie about stuff to keep the enemies-of-the-state off-kilter then I welcome the “puppet” title.
Am I worried about getting the same treatment as an American citizen in the future? I don’t care. If I go-off-the-reservation and start killing Americans or planning it… I deserve whatever I get from the Obama Administration IMHO. I’m pretty sure Alawki knew his days were numbered and probably didn’t have the same qualms as you do foor his rights.
@Anonymously Posted – Just ignore those guys in blue wind breakers with bold yellow block letters on the back. Just tell them your with the The Rutherford Institute and your probably heavily armed as the 2nd Amendment guarantees you.
They’ll probably just go away…
“Uh Agent Smith did you hear him say Allah Ackbar?”
“Yes sir Agent Jones – clearly!”
“I’d say this is a ‘exigent circumstance’ don’t you?”
“Yup”
“Unit 20 to Strike Team One, bring up the battering ram – over”
“10-4!”
“Sniper One you have a green light!”
“10-4!”
Sorry for the corny humor… 😀
Why yes I am and I don’t appreciate my government trampling my rights and lying to me about it.
And not all puppets are paid.
@Gene H – ” It indicates he’s, how you Americans say, f–king lying.”
Uhhhh… Mr. Howington aren’t you an American too? 😉
@Gene H. – “Apologist”? OK I guess I deserve that…
However, I think Mr. Obama and the NSA are playing with words. Jennifer Glick at Forbes is no expert on the IC. She is only guessing and trying to fill in the gaps with speculation. She has an impressive resume but she still doesn’t have the big picture.
When I say playing with words I mean the NSA is not targeting Americans. It’s the foreign-Echelon-partners in Australia, UK, Canada, Israel, et al that are. They share the information with NSA. Technically this makes it all legal for them to say THEY aren’t doing it. But the information is only targeted at SUSPICIOUS Americans that involve themselves in suspicious communications.
General Hayden assured Americans that HIS NSA (when he ran it) aborts all FISA intercepts that involve non-POI Americans. I’m sure General Alexander follows that strategy too today.
So maybe I am apologizing too much for the NSA. I am not a NSA “sock puppet” (i.e. propagandists) as MM says. I just read up on them and I am not being paid for my apologies. I wish they would though. 🙂 (I hear most of them are retired ex-Navy people – I was never in the Navy. But I was a contractor for them once.)
“Yeah. Anyone not towing Obama’s line should be “careful”.”
OK I’ll buy that. Anyone preaching sedition or anarchy should be careful just like US Marine Raub just found out the hard way. He was arrested by FBI and sent to a looney-bin recently. He told the judge that THEY took his Facebook postings out of context. Then he started ranting “Cookoo for Cocoa Puffs!” 🙂
@Anonymously Posted – I thought you were calling for it. I didn’t know you were speaking about others doing it. You see someone ELSE may take you out of context too. I just hope it’s not FeeBee…:-)
Just a minor technical heads up, Gene: “toeing,” not “towing.” Consider:
“Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line.” — George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)
I had a little fun with that particular dead metaphor in Humpty Dumpty Omelets.
…
He set his feet in hard cement:
Resolved to win the day
Into the sand he drew a line
To indicate he’d stay
He brought his toes up to the line
Then towed the line away
…
“In the long run the usage of those who do not think about the language will prevail. Usages I resist will become acceptable. It will not do to resist uncompromisingly. Yet those who care have a duty to resist. Changes that occur against resistance are tested changes. The language is better for them — and for the resistance” — John Ciardi
MM
Yeah. Anyone not towing Obama’s line should be “careful”.
sonofthunderboanerges 1, August 14, 2013 at 5:48 pm
@AP – Careful there AP… you don’t want to wind up like US Marine Brandon Raub! Remember RADICALIZATION is how al-Qaeda got started! :-/
=====
I should be “careful”? For suggesting that our policies are radicalizing people?
When they come for me, I’ll be sure to call John Whitehead.
“ANd another thing… NSA spying on Americans (according to Clapper) is not happening. Well he is right to a point.”
Apologist gibberish.
The fact that the DEA and IRS are getting information from the NSA and then systematically covering up where the information came from in order to pursue domestic prosecutions indicates that he’s not right at all. It indicates he’s, how you Americans say, f–king lying.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennifergranick/2013/08/14/nsa-dea-irs-lie-about-fact-that-americans-are-routinely-spied-on-by-our-government-time-for-a-special-prosecutor-2/
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/uk-dea-irs-idUKBRE9761B620130807
And so are you.
You’ve got more excuses for those seeking to and actually violating our rights than a porcupine has quills.
“I really don’t understand what the Obama-Dissenters want. They can’t have their cake and eat it too. Either you want bad-guys to go away or you want them to attack Americans over there and here. The CD (collateral damage) is really unfortunate but you have heard of the “fog of war”? Do we want more American boys and girls to loose (sic) their lives over there or do you want flying robots to do it? I could care less if they shoot down one of our drones.”
Rubbish.
One word:
Radicalization.
@AP – Careful there AP… you don’t want to wind up like US Marine Brandon Raub! Remember RADICALIZATION is how al-Qaeda got started! :-/
Another sneaky non-lethal to CD’s (collateral damage) method is to shoot in ADS (active denial systems) like an acoustic grenade into a human shield hut. Everyone disperses holding their ears and the Drone sniper or Hellfire picks off the HVT (high value target).
Also what about the Israeli micro-UAV killer drones I think they call WASP or SPARROW. These little monsters can fly through a hut’s open window and look around. They look just like what their names imply. Verify that there is no CD’s standing around and/or self-detonate or seek out the HVT and inject him with a hemotoxin of some sort. Or they could be used to signal the Drone pilot to unleash a AGM-114 with no worry of CD’s getting hurt or worse. Mr. Obama has many R&D choices. Unfortunately they all seem to be in Israel and will they cooperate with being humane to Muslim CD’s? Maybe not. I mean why haven’t IDF forces been deployed with Americans to the GWOT in SW ASIA (ostensibly to protect Israel)? Hmmm food for thought?
@Michael Murry – ANd another thing… NSA spying on Americans (according to Clapper) is not happening. Well he is right to a point. Despite the obvious accidental scoop-ups when doing Foreign Intel… The NSA has reciprocal agreements with foreign friendly-nations who DO have the legal right to spy on us. That would be UK and Australia and maybe a few others. We share with them on spies in their neck-o-the-woods and quid-pro-quo. I mean didn’t you know about Pine Gap at Alice Springs Australia? How about Menwith Hill in UK? Yes they all have Echelon (aka PRISM) intercepts and are aimed at us. Canada too.
So the NSA is doing it legally by the book. The other countries are following THEIR laws not ours. The information they provide is only suspicious stuff that has the ring of enemy-of-the-state stuff (like two patriotic-heroic Americans named Hadji and Habib talking about making a really great flambe shaped like the White House)
If WHISTLE BLOWING is uncovering wrongdoing, explain what WRONG DOING Snowden uncovered? The NSA has the legal right to do what it is doing. They are there since after WW2 to protect our NATSEC not to feather one’s nest as a certain faction of the CIA actually does (aka the Yale.edu Bunch). The PRISM (aka Echelon) is aimed at foreign sources of POIs (persons of interest). If an American in CONUS (Continental USA) gets scooped up in the fishing net they are thrown back into the water (as it were) ONLY if the “content” is not suspicious in nature.
I mean if you are sending an innocent-sounding grocery shopping list to Hadji bin Mohammed in Saudi Arabia and Hadji is a KNOWN member of al Kaka… then NO you get spied on and rightly so. General Hayden said in an interview that his analysts are supervised and that if they scoop up a innocent American (i.e. talking in a US sex chat room) thy are instantly aborted and no further surveillance. Even if the meta-data on the automated side does not match up to POI watch-lists it is instantly FIle-13 to the Circular File. Not stored.
So in essence the NSA is doing everything by the book unless you know otherwise?
White House insists James Clapper will not lead NSA surveillance review
Officials stress director of national intelligence will have limited role after Obama seemed to imply Clapper would head panel
Ewen MacAskill in New York
Tuesday 13 August 2013 17.59 EDT
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/13/white-house-james-clapper-nsa-surveillance-review
“The White House has moved to dampen controversy over the role of the director of national intelligence James Clapper in a panel reviewing NSA surveillance, insisting that he would neither lead it nor choose the members.
Statements by Barack Obama and Clapper on Monday night were widely interpreted as the director of national intelligence being placed in charge of the inquiry, which the president had announced on Friday would be “independent”.
The apparent involvement of Clapper, who has admitted lying to Congress over NSA surveillance of US citizens, provoked a backlash, with critics accusing the president of putting a fox in charge of the hen house.
But the White House national security council insisted on Tuesday that Clapper’s role would be more limited.
“The panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the intelligence community,” national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
The DNI had to be involved for administrative reasons, because the panel would need security clearance and access to classified material, she added.
After the White House and the Pentagon released their statements saying Clapper had been asked by Obama to “establish” the panel and report its findings, media outlets reported this to mean Clapper heading the panel and choosing the members.
Republican congressman Justin Amash, who led a revolt that narrowly failed in its effort to cut NSA funding, tweeted: “Pres Obama believes man who lied to public in congressional hearing about NSA should lead NSA review process meant to build public trust”.
Clapper apologised last month for misleading a Senate hearing by denying that the NSA collects information about millions of Americans.
In response to leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Obama announced at a press conference on Friday that an independent panel of outsiders would be set up to investigate concerns about the scale of NSA surveillance.
The president appeared to backtrack on Monday evening when he said he was directing Clapper “to establish a review group on intelligence and communications technologies” that would brief and later report to the president through Clapper by December.
Clapper, in a separate statement, echoed this but described the investigatory body as “the director of national intelligence review group on intelligence and communications technology”.
Timothy Lee, writing in the Washington Post, said: “The announcement doesn’t inspire confidence that the president is interested in truly independent scrutiny of the nation’s surveillance programs. The panel will be chosen by, and report to, director of national intelligence James Clapper.”
But on Tuesday the White House repeated Obama’s promise that the panel would be independent and contain outsiders. It described media reports of Monday’s statements by Obama and Clapper as inaccurate. “I can confirm we are not backtracking on what the president announced,” said Hayden.
She added that the panel members woul be appointed soon.
“The panel will not report to the DNI. As the DNI’s statement yesterday made clear, the review group will brief its interim findings to the president within 60 days of its establishment, and provide a final report with recommendations no later than December 15 2013.”
She added: “As we announced on Friday, the review group will be made up of independent, outside experts. The DNI’s role is one of facilitation, and the group is not under the direction of or led by the DNI.
“The members require security clearances and access to classified information so they need to be administratively connected to the government, and the DNI’s office is the right place to provide that. The review process and findings will be the group’s.”
One of the US senators who has led the challenge to NSA domestic surveillance, Ron Wyden, said he hoped that the creation of what he described as an independent board would be one part of ensuring that the security and civil liberties of American are protected.
In an email to the Guardian, Wyden, a Democrat, said: “That board must be able to take an unbiased look at intelligence gathering and surveillance practices, so that the Congress and the public can be confident that an honest and straightforward review is taking place.”
He added: “It is my hope that DNI Clapper will take just such an approach to establishing this review panel, because anything less will do little to improve the confidence the public has in the intelligence community.”
Wyden was the senator to whom Clapper admitted giving an “erroneous” answer at a Senate hearing about the extent of domestic surveillance.
Michelle Richardson, a legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, who specialises in national security and transparency, said: “We hope Clapper constructs a panel with a diversity of views and expertise. He needs to look outside the immediate intelligence community that has been creating and operating these programs over the years.
She added: “It was disappointing to see that the DNI’s press release didn’t even mention privacy or the constitution.””
The committee is over 12 years old now. It was recommend by the 911 Commission. Yes it has been very ineffective during it’s tenure. The only full-time employee is the director (@ 165k per year). The others are 4 part-time lawyers. Well only 3 are actual lawyers. The problem is that not one of them has any IC (intelligence community) background. Like sending chickens to figure out what the foxes are up to.
I did not know Clapper was forming a new committee. If I where him I would appoint Richard Clarke (s/b director), Wayne Madsen, Michael Scheuer , Robert Baer, and Victor Ostrovsky. You need this trade-craft lineup to discover where the bodies are REALLY buried (just an expression). They all have varied IC back-stories. Victor is not a US citizen but his high-ranking Mossad background will open up PLENTY of secret hidden agenda doors. Many of our REAL hidden-enemies come from Victor’s theater of operations. However, Victor may be too truthful and that’s not what Clapper’s real agenda is I think… I think they want to protect Victor’s nemesis’s because they are so engrained and ostensibly control our American society.
I find Mr. Obama’s choice of corporations interesting to say the least. Two of which are the IC’s largest surveillance prostitutes and here too. Not sure about the “fruity” one. Steve Job’s had an aversion to spooks due to his cocaine problem I think. Not sure if he allowed the “clipper-chip” in his fruit-salad like the others did (i.e. Intel, IBM, etc.).
@Bruce E. Woych – “A special committee of the House of Representatives headed by Representatives John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and Samuel Dickstein of New York, who was later alleged to have been a paid agent of the NKVD, heard his testimony in secret.”
You do know who the NKVD was don’t you? Proves my point that the Russians have thoroughly infiltrated USA (See Moscow’s own version of Snowden).
Snowden said: “After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power — the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government — for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism. From a business perspective, this was the obvious strategy, but what benefited the institutions ended up costing the public dearly.”
You see this type of comment makes me suspicious of Snowden and his TRUE mission. I mean, no disrespect, but the “script-kiddies” at the Puzzle Palace are NOT this politically eloquent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SZD8UNt6Js
@sonofthunderboanerges : More on Major General Smedley Butler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
“In 1935 he wrote the exposé War Is a Racket, a trenchant condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. His views on the subject are summarized in the following passage from a 1935 issue of the socialist magazine Common Sense:[14]
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
“In November 1934, Butler alleged the existence of a political conspiracy of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt, a series of allegations that came to be known in the media as the Business Plot.[56][57] A special committee of the House of Representatives headed by Representatives John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and Samuel Dickstein of New York, who was later alleged to have been a paid agent of the NKVD,[58] heard his testimony in secret.[59]
The McCormack-Dickstein committee was a precursor to the House Committee on Un-American Activities.”
(Major General Smedley Butler: Absolutely amazing integrity)
=================================
also see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/13-7
“In an encrypted email exchange with the NYT’s Peter Maass, Snowden explained:
After 9/11, many of the most important news outlets in America abdicated their role as a check to power — the journalistic responsibility to challenge the excesses of government — for fear of being seen as unpatriotic and punished in the market during a period of heightened nationalism. From a business perspective, this was the obvious strategy, but what benefited the institutions ended up costing the public dearly.”