We have previously discussed how Barack Obama has become the president that Richard Nixon always wanted to be. From his Administration’s comprehensive attack on privacy and civil liberties, investigation of journalists, to his claim of unilateral authority to kill citizens, Obama has created an Imperial Presidency that could haunt this nation for generations. He has succeeded with the silent acquiescence of many liberals and Democrats who have embraced personality over principle in continuing to support his Administration. Now, a new report documents how the National Security Agency under Obama has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites to be used as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of people consider radicals. The obvious comparison to Nixon is only dwarfed by the comparison to J. Edgar Hoover, but again the silence is deafening from the Democrats. In the meantime, the so-called “reforms” of the NSA as expected would preserve the massive data-gathering programs of the agency — as guaranteed by such “reformers” as Dianne Feinstein.
Among the targets is at least one person identified as a “U.S. person.”
The program reportedly has already targeted six Muslims deemed radical and subject to such “personal vulnerabilities.” The published NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, details the surveillance to gather dirt on enemies. When combined with the utter lack of congressional oversight and unchecked executive powers, such surveillance quickly becomes insatiable for intelligence officials who can destroy people by revealing embarrassing private details.
The NSA is gathering dirt such as “viewing sexually explicit material online” and “using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.” Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for National Intelligence, responded to media requests with little more than a shrug, saying such activities “should not be surprising” since the “the US Government uses all of the lawful tools at our disposal” against people deemed enemies of the state. Of course, it is available at their disposal because of a President with what is increasing viewed as authoritarian appetites and a Congress that has no appetite to fight for abstract principles like privacy.
Bush officials are already applauding Obama for his Administration’s gathering of dirt on targeted individuals. Indeed, advocates of the program are now citing the controversial claim of the President to kill people on his sole authority as a rationale for this new controversial system under a lesser evil rationale. Stewart Baker, former general counsel for the NSA in the Bush administration and someone viewed as a nemesis to civil liberties by many, insisted that “On the whole, it’s fairer and maybe more humane” than vaporizing them.
The published documents refer to one target as attracting the NSA’s ire by arguing that “Non-Muslims are a threat to Islam” and then identified his vulnerability as “online promiscuity.” Another academic dared to write in support of the concept of “offensive jihad” and so the NSA targeted him for his “online promiscuity” and “publishes articles without checking facts.”
Of course, with the rest of the unchecked powers secured by Obama with the support or acquiescence of Democrats and many liberals will be handed over to the next president . . whoever that may be.
“One ordinarily associates these kinds of tactics with the secret police services of authoritarian governments. That these tactics have been adopted by the world’s leading democracy – and the world’s most powerful intelligence agency – is truly chilling.” -Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director
ACLU Press Release:
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/nsa-reportedly-sought-discredit-radicals-disclosing-online-sexual-activities
NSA Reportedly Sought to Discredit “Radicals” By Disclosing Online Sexual Activities, Visits to Porn Sites
November 27, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
NEW YORK – The NSA considered discrediting six people by revealing surveillance evidence of their online sexual activity, visits to pornography websites, and other personal information, according to a report today in The Huffington Post. The article cited documents leaked by former NSA contactor Edward Snowden. The targets of the NSA’s plan were all Muslims whom the NSA characterized as “radicals” but who were not believed to be involved in terrorism. The documents say one of the targets was a “U.S. person,” a term describing American citizens and legal permanent residents, but all of the targets were reportedly outside the United States.
American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer had this reaction:
“This report is an unwelcome reminder of what it means to give an intelligence agency unfettered access to individuals’ most sensitive information. One ordinarily associates these kinds of tactics with the secret police services of authoritarian governments. That these tactics have been adopted by the world’s leading democracy – and the world’s most powerful intelligence agency – is truly chilling.”
I wonder if this information is to be used against Clarance Thomas…..
DogBiscuitGuy,
Two concerns:
1) Does this mean the Commander in Chief does not know what his military men are doing on his watch?
2) Dianne is a Right Wing RepubliCon?
Obama, Obamacare, Obamascare, et al.
I read about this issue on another blog and they did not frame it with Obama at the Helm, in the cathouse, on the telescope, doing the blackmail….
Democrats have been lame and paranoid since the Joe McCarthy era when the Republicans began the practice of calling them either traitors or “soft on Communism”. It started before that when Joseph Kennedy was holding Prime Minister Chamberlain’s umbrella when the Brits capitulated to the Nazis. Johnboy Kennedy learned his lesson. Ya cant be soft on Communism. So we got the Vietnam War. Then when Communism receded we got the Twin Towers and the terrorists. If you do a parallel go back to 1933 when the Reichstag Fire occurred and President von Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decrees. Google that one folks. The Nazis blamed the Communists for burning their Parliament building (The Reichstag). Different strokes for different folks. Blaming Obama is kind of like blaming Hindenburg for the Nazis. The right wing RepubliCons are off to the side pushing for these programs today just like the Nazis pushed von Hindenburg in 1933.
Meester Word Press, one of my favorite presstitutes, would not accept my comment.
HELP! I need somebody HELP! won’t you pleeeze pleeze heeellllp mmmeeeeee …
Why Care About The NSA?
The DOJ will not be prosecuting the military NSA or the civilian WiggyLeaks, because:
(The Dissenter). 😉 🙂
Who woulda thought such a thing?
Barack, my middle name is ‘Jedgar Hoover’ Oh! bummer! And I don’t care that he was a ‘closet Queen’
I know some people who still believe the Benghazi attack was caused by the infamous Mohammed video. So, there’s that worship factor. One should NEVER worship anyone, particularly a politician.
The reason this is happening is because there are too many deer in North Carolina.
They were doing this before Obama knew he had a peenis.
Well Mister ‘Resident’… Let me tell you, my favorite variety of porn is ‘interracial’… You know, like your father f**king your mother!
“In the age of mass call-tracking and XKeyScore, hotel-room bugs seem almost quaint.” -Brett Max Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project
Indeed.
Echoing Dirty Past, NSA Sought to Reveal Porn Habits to Discredit Targets
By Brett Max Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 12:06pm
https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/echoing-dirty-past-nsa-sought-reveal-porn-habits-discredit-targets
Excerpts:
As Greenwald notes, it’s a story that’s eerily reminiscent of past abuses of government surveillance authority. Greenwald’s new report does not provide evidence of the NSA marshaling its vast databases to influence individuals or events within the United States. But you need not be a conspiracy theorist or a novelist with a knack for bending history to imagine how granting the NSA the power to “collect it all” might have seriously chilling and destructive repercussions here at home.
In fact, the NSA appears to be taking this effort right out of the shameful playbook of our not-so-distant history. Most infamously, as part of the COINTELPRO program, J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obsessively monitored the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr., picking and choosing from the results to produce a report chock full of insinuations about King’s role in an evolving Communist conspiracy against the United States. Never mind that King unwaveringly espoused non-violence. It was King’s rising public stature and broadly influential political ideas that led the government to see him as a threat.
The FBI viewed no space as off limits. The agency consistently bugged King’s hotel rooms to monitor his planning of the 1963 March on Washington and to keep tabs on his strategic partnerships with other civil-rights leaders. But it also sought to compile a dossier of embarrassing information about King’s private sex life that the government could (and did) employ to discredit King and obstruct his political efforts.
…..
Indeed, Greenwald’s new story is a warning shot to those of us who have thus far ignored the Snowden revelations on the basis of having “nothing to hide.” As Greenwald makes clear, the subjects of the NSA’s newly exposed effort to target individuals with influence on social media have tangential (if any) ties to real terrorists or violent extremists. And as the ACLU has explained, the entire premise of the NSA’s focus on so-called “radicalizers” — the theory that a person’s adoption of what the government views as “radical” ideas is a step to terrorism — has been debunked. Intelligence programs based on that discredited theory are not just wrong, they’re ineffective. But they do very real damage to belief communities and political activists singled out for surveillance based on their views.
The efforts reported by Greenwald cut to the heart of the zone of expression and association that must remain free from intrusive, dragnet surveillance, both abroad and at home. In his very first public words, Snowden himself addressed the alarming consequences of the NSA’s hunger for obtaining and storing an incomprehensibly vast record of our lives:
Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded…[T]hey can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrong-doer.
In the months since the first Snowden revelations, few have managed to evoke the existential threat presented by unhinged NSA surveillance with such plain, direct force. In an instant, Greenwald’s new story has brought this surveillance nightmare— “collect it all” meets COINTELPRO — jarringly close to the here and now.
maybe it was because fewer democrats voted in favor and most who voted against were democrats. So he figures democrats should know better.
Although the first time, the only senator to vote against was Russ Feingold. The second time around 10 voted against, all democrats.
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml
Ah I see some have already addressed the question of Professor Turley’s admonishment of only Democrats and liberals.
Is Prof. Turley admonishing Democrats and liberals for not speaking out against such intrusions because he thinks Democrats and liberals have the moral imperative to do so and NOT Republicans and conservatives? Why the pass on Republicans and conservatives? Is it because Republicans thought Bush was correct in his many overreaches in American’s privacy in the name of national security, and they are not capeable of understanding their own complicity in setting up the ramped up security state of today? Or does Professor Turley think Democrats and liberals have some power to influence President Obama? If that where so, he would’ve listened to us the times it was evident he was going to capitulate to Republicans demands in the past. He lost the support of some of his base then. I don’t think President Obama cares about his base.
Chrissake, Mr. Turley says it primarily because it is Obama who has been in the WH since 2009, and there was a time, not long ago, when Dems decried this evil. They now embrace it.
“It bothers me that often when the prof writes these stories he does not admonish repubs, only “democrats and liberals” ”
I’m pretty sure this is because our host considers the Republicans beneath contempt.