While President Obama continues to tell the public that there is no widespread domestic surveillance program and denies the violation of privacy rights, another report again contradicts those statements. According to the Washington Post, the National Security Agency broke privacy rules thousands of times every year under the warrantless surveillance program. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that civil libertarians view the programs themselves to be violations of Constitution, but the Administration violated even those rules. Moreover, this information did not come from Congress or the White House. It came from Edward Snowden. You remember him. He is the guy Obama said is no patriot and could have taken a different course to address his concerns. The information reviewed by the Post is more than would have been shared with Congress under current rules.
Some of the “inadvertent” spying is astonishing. For example, the NSA according to this article wanted to listen to calls going to Egypt at area code “20” but made a mistake. That mistake happened to capture a “large number” of calls from “202” — Washington D.C.
The violations also included the unauthorized use of information on more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.
Obama insisted that “a court” reviews these programs, though he is referring to the widely ridiculed FISA court which lacks the authority to seriously monitor the program or reject all but a couple applications in its history.
A NSA official is quoted as saying that they are trying to do better and the public needs to trust the agency: “We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line.” Sure, but what if these entire warrantless programs are on “the wrong side of the line”?
Source: Washington Post
An allegory on the NSA’s invasions of privacy
Now they are playing the mistake angle. The mistake they made was they got caught red handed.
AP,
Honesty? Do you honestly think that a majority of people will make the connection that American’s FIRST Black man to be President is also the most impeachable in history… and skin color has nothing to do with it, unless we’re discussing how the Congressional Black Caucus continues to judge Obama by his skin color instead by the content of his character.
up next: Democrats willing to hand this torch of FIRSTS to Hillary Clinton, who, if Congress fails to constrain the Office of the President, will face mounting calls for HER impeachment… Unless Nancy Pelosi can convince the Democrats that Bush is making Hillary violate our Rights like he made Obama violate them…
Q&A: Senator Ron Wyden on NSA Surveillance and Government Transparency
‘If we don’t recognize that this is a truly unique moment in America’s constitutional history, our generation’s going to regret it forever.’
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/q-a-senator-ron-wyden-on-nsa-surveillance-and-government-transparency-20130815
What, finally, do you think is the best way to make sure we don’t go backwards? Should there be prosecutions? Are there other ways to encourage more transparency?
Wyden:
“The way we deal with this best, in my view, is to recognize this is a unique time in our constitutional history. These digital technologies have grown so rapidly, and we really can’t even get our arms around it. It used to be that the limits on technologies were to a great extent a form of protection for the American people. A lot of that seems to be going to the wind. We’re sitting here with computers in our pockets, smartphones, with the ability to track people 24/7. These issues are as important as it gets. And Americans have a right to real debate [on] the way you deal with the constitutional teeter-totter of liberty and security. It’s hard to think of anything more important to our country and our bedrock values. And I think what will protect people now will be the laws that we write to rein in this omnipresent, ever-expanding surveillance state. And if we don’t do it now – if we don’t recognize that this is a truly unique moment in America’s constitutional history – our generation’s going to regret it forever.”
About the only one to not lie about the NSA is Bo…
We don’t listen to domestic calls
Inadvertently
Without warrants
1000’s of times a year
since 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 8 months into 2013
And nothing is wrong with the sequence of LIES told by various regular liars.
And none dare cal it TREASON?
What’s an Oath for, if NOT obligating the taker to the People it’s was given by?
Is it impeachment season?
Or should Nixon be given a memorial on the front yard of the White House?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/nsa-spying-three-pillars-government-trust-have-fallen
“The three pillars of American trust have fallen. It’s time to get a full reckoning and build a new house from the wreckage, but it has to start with some honesty.”
Washington, DC trembles at the word ‘Nuremberg’ as well they should.
Why can’t Obama lie fast enough to get ahead of the truth?
So when the president goes on T.V. and/or makes a press conference about the NSA…
… He’s not lying when he does?
AP,
No hanging for the U.S. Nazi Government, prison.
Killing them would be doing as they did.
Frank, I think it’s time for your Prozac.
Must be a full moon.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/16/nsa_violated_surveillance_rules_thousands_of
Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, the judge with the—the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, saying, we have to rely on the accuracy of the information that’s provided to us by the court, so—provided to us by the NSA?
ALEX ABDO: That’s exactly right. We’re letting the NSA police itself, and now we know the consequences are that there are thousands of abuses each year that affect untold number of Americans. But if you look back at what the government told the Supreme Court last year, they were defending the law that allows it to engage in this sort of dragnet surveillance of our international communications. And the primary defense of the government was, don’t worry about the NSA, the secret court in Washington is protecting the right to privacy of the countless Americans in the country. And now we have the court itself saying that it doesn’t have the capacity to review the government’s claims that it’s abiding by the law. That’s a truly shocking revelation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, these more than 2,000 mistakes that the audit found are only in the Washington, D.C., area, where NSA is working, and people like Edward Snowden were working in Hawaii as a contractor for the NSA, so other parts of the NSA that were not in the Washington area are not even included in this audit.
ALEX ABDO: Absolutely. We still don’t know the full extent of the abuses of the NSA of these very permissive laws. They have a number of listening facilities. The number could be significantly higher. And even more importantly, each one of the incidents doesn’t just relate to a single person. One incident, for example, was the sweeping in of D.C. communications instead of Egypt communications, affecting potentially thousands of people. So the number could be much, much higher, but we still need more disclosures from the government. If the administration truly welcomes this debate, it needs to give the public the facts it needs to have the debate.
AMY GOODMAN: According to The New York Times, Alex, the NSA is searching the content of virtually every email that comes into or goes out of the United States without a warrant. You’ve written about this.
ALEX ABDO: That’s exactly right. The law that Congress passed in 2008 gives the government essentially unfettered authority to read and listen to our international communications. Now we know they’re doing it with a dragnet by literally sifting through every single email that goes into or out of the country. You simply don’t need that sort of authority to defend America. The government should be targeting terrorists, targeting wrongdoers, not indiscriminately surveilling Americans inside the country.
AMY GOODMAN: And the news yesterday, that wasn’t clear if it was true, that General—that Clapper, James Clapper, who we know lied to Congress on this issue, would be the one that President Obama would put in charge of the review of the NSA?
ALEX ABDO: That’s right. The president promised an independent review of the NSA’s surveillance activities, and news broke that the director of national intelligence might be the one overseeing that review. That would be to add insult to injury. The review needs to be independent. We need Congress to get involved, too, to have a full and meaningful review of these disclosures and their consequences for millions of Americans. And that can’t happen when we allow the NSA to police itself.
AMY GOODMAN: ACLU representing Edward Snowden?
ALEX ABDO: I can’t comment on that. We are coordinating his legal defense within the country, but I can’t say any more than that.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much, Alex Abdo, for joining us, staff attorney at the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
All the U.S. Government Invasions are illegal as were the Nazi Invasions. They are crimes of aggression.
It is time for Nuremberg on the Potomac War Crimes Trials.
That oversight role the FISA court is supposed to provide? Eh, not so much as it turns out. This is a good article about the secret court and the appointees to it:
“Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited”
“The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-ability-to-police-us-spying-program-limited/2013/08/15/4a8c8c44-05cd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
Obama is one of the biggest criminals in world history.
Question:
What do Laura Bush, Lynne Cheney, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, Eva Braun, Emmy Göring, Martha Mengele, Rachel Kaganovich and Jiang Qing have in common?
Answer:
They all married Mass Murderers / War Criminals
Investigator Mike Zullo on The 100% Forged Obama Birth Certificate
Mainstream media complete blackout – NSA blackmailing the biggest hindrance to get Congress to act
How can they last week say they were getting rid of the Network Administrators and replacing them with machines to eliminate mistakes and then claim they are an organization run by humans and mistakes are going to be made?
They are going to run out of scapegoats or excuses either way.