I just listened to the NSA speech by President Obama and as expected there is precious little in terms of real change. For civil libertarians, it is a nothing burger served hot and with a sympathetic smile. It is much of the same. Another review board composed of government officials. Another promise for the Executive Branch to review itself. I am in Salt Lake City today on the Sister Wives case, but I am struck by the absence of civil libertarians on the coverage by the networks. I will have to run to court but I was underwhelmed. It seemed like another attempt to reinvent privacy in a new surveillance friendly image.
As I tweeted earlier, it was rather unpersuasive to hear Obama say that he was always intended to force reforms and that Snowden was merely a coincidence. If you step back, you will note that the programs will continue and the intelligence community will retain its authority with little outside independent limits. The speech had the feel of a car salesman coming back from “speaking with the manager” and saying that he is able to offer a deal that no one likes but he wants to offer because he likes the customer. Of course, this “deal” does not require our consent.
In the end, the changes are either undefined (like the privacy advocates) or basically “trust us were your government” (including a reminder that NSA people are your neighbors).
The Paul Revere reference at the beginning seemed to set the less than honest approach of the speech. Revere and the Sons of Liberty were watching public movement of an enemy at war. Likewise, Obama again references “court” review of the metadata as if it were a true court applying real probable cause. FISC has been widely ridiculed as a rubber-stamp for the government. The Court is given a standard that is hard for the government not to satisfy with even the most casual filings.
In the end, it was in my view more spin than substance from the President.
What did you think?
How can anyone trust anything this LIAR says. Lie to me once shame on you, lie to me twice shame on me.
Randy,
I for one have a lot of problem with private data collection as well as governmental. My distrust of data mining is on a number of levels. First of all, there is always the risk of a data dump, such as the compromised credit information lost by Target when their servers were hacked. Also, I don’t appreciate Google, Microsoft and who knows what others are watching everything I do on the Internet. Currently the purpose is for targeting advertising, but every time I visit a site that sells chemicals, ammunition or tools that can be used for gunsmithing, I get a twinge and the pucker factor goes up.
I have joked a couple of times that I may be on the no-fly list because of some of my writing on this blog. Except it may not be a joke.
If the government was truly competent in what it does, I would be less militant. But it isn’t. I read the IRS has managed to misplace millions, if not billions of dollars. So far this past year, the IRS has lost $67 million. As in gone. That was money for the ACA trust fund and they can’t find it.
Then there was the incident of the Border Patrol hassling a couple of gay guys in a Cirrus SR22 in Iowa City. Hell of a long way from any border.
Don’t you feel a lot safer knowing these are the people in charge of your information?
The difference, Randy, between AT&T and the gov’t is basic, corporations cannot throw you in jail or deprive you of your liberty when they disagree with you or view you as trouble. And then it goes on from there.
It might be that in your experiences and what might be visible to the public now is one thing, but what happens if the spy and data gathering machine is then transferred into some nefarious leadership in the future? It only takes a change of intentions to turn the system on the American public and create a system worse than East Germany. Part of the way we deter tyrrany is to stop it when at the beginning before it takes complete control and a meltdown of society ensues to eject it from gov’t.
I understand what you are talking about with the admirable effort to protect the citizenry from foreign or domestic attacks but consider many of the efforts of people who think they are doing the right thing might not necessarily be doing what is just. If it wasn’t for adherence to the constitution this country would be a far less free country and one that we probably wouldn’t recognize.
And consider this also. Just think how many people now are concerned about writing e-mails or posting issues because the government might come knocking at their door. Think it doesn’t happen? Well why is there all this debate and worry in the public forum if people weren’t even slightly afraid about what is going on?
Look at Martin Luther King. The FBI under J. Edgar spied on him and tried to frame him as being sexually immoral to discredit him and put him out of the public focus. What was his crime? Advocating civil rights and ending segregation, something that we take for granted today. This was greatly unconstitional yet the gov’t did this to him and others. Anyone who thinks the gov’t now isn’t prepared to do these things today are ignoring the reality of what is going on. And with this president acting unilaterally on so many issues what is to say he will be benevolent to respect congress or the will of the American people when he is disagreed with.
If the public had any idea how much power even a local police officer has to destroy an individual’s life or livelihood, and I mean truly understood and not just watching TV but having the experience of working as one, they would be scared stiff at dealing with the cops. It is mostly because police are scrutinized by various oversight and constraints by the courts and other issues and because 98% of officers are committed to doing the right thing. But once the police are fully corrupted then nighmare scenarios will ensue. I have arrested people and several of them were put away for 40+ years. They deserved what they got but if a cop wanted to shaft someone it doesn’t take much to “make the case” against them and lie their way into the suspect’s conviction. Now imagine what a federal agency or a political machine can do to an individual or everyone else if corrupted. It is just like the spy system the NSA and gov’t has here. The system of law enforcement is well established and capable here especially at the local level. Without oversight and accountability it takes not much for the muscle of the system to do evil. Now we can see a megamachine of spy capability that has been created by the feds can do the same thing if not worse.
Moreover on the issue of the president talking about not tapping the telephones of the citizenry and listening in. Well I’ll tell you terrorists don’t call other terrorists on an open telephone line and blab their plans out. Bin Laden learned that lesson with his satellite uplink. So the president’s pledge to end it was simply window dressing. Information from e-mail, banking transactions, and credit cards is exponentially more useful to the gov’t than some pen register of the 1970’s ever was. In fact, one can get more information from metadata than the content of the email message to begin with.
I sympathize and understand your message about the gov’t wanting to protect the citizenry from attack, but what else is the gov’t afraid of is what is more worrying.
Darren The fact is that the government does not have the ability to throw any person in jail either unless they are accused of a crime. The one instance that was the exception was the Padilla case, which got tossed by the SCOTUS. There is no question that was an abuse of outrageous proportions. I also have to note that was done by W Bush, not Obama.
As for a nefarious regime taking power, it did not take such a nefarious regime to do exactly that in the not so distant past when the Constitution was for all practical purposes a dead letter. You need to learn some US history. We were in FACT just such a Stasi kind of regime in the US back when I was growing up and active politically. At least the Stasi did not go out and murder people without some so called trial. The US DID. The US also went out and imprisoned hundreds of people for thought crimes up until the SCOTUS finally outlawed it.
Once again, I refer you to the ACLU statement in which it states that for the FIRST time such checks as you advocate are being enacted. I saw the Presidents statement to establish review and advocates for the public. I welcome such measures which can fight against such abuses as happened in the past. This is a good opportunity to try and balance the our rights under the Constitution and the legitimate right to defend ourselves against crimes and attacks.
I have personal experience with how much power cops have to throw you in jail on their whim. When I first moved to Houston, the police were totally corrupt and it was nearly a police state. Most cops were totally corrupt, but I am sure that about 70% of them thought they were doing the right thing. The rest were outright crooks. Now what they considered the “right thing” was is quite different from what the law said. So there were virtually no cops who respected the law at all. THEY were the law.
The system of collecting data is hardly the same as that of accusing and convicting people of actual crimes. I agree that the listening in on phone calls is basically useless and that it should not be allowed without some warrant. The real intel as you pointed out comes from the mass collection of data which I think can yield useful intelligence. For those who are not committing criminal acts, getting such data is no threat at all. The only way it can be misused is if it has trade secrets that can be handed off to others who can use it for their own ends. As you note having outside observers and regulators is the only way to keep such things legitimate and in line with our rights. So I will endorse the ACLU statement with that one reservation.
It was classic Professor Obama, assessing and being calm and quietly assertive. I bought in 2008. John Podesta is going to head the review board. He is a POLITICAL HACK. He’s your guy and he asked you all to bend over, grab your ankles, and “squeal like a piggy.” It appears a lotta folks enjoy it! NTTAWWT. Where is the outrage?? Because, this was outrageous.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
For what it’s worth, I gave GWB the same benefit of the doubt.
What Michael Murry wrote.
Randyjet: “I can hardly see the problem with the NSA gathering metadata of such simple things as telephone records as to who and where calls are made. Then there is the fact that ALL financial transactions over $10,000 are reported as well.”
The problem, Randyjet, is that such things are none of their damned business.
Paul
So for me there is only one question. What does the NSA have on Obama to have him cower in fear?
=====================
The toxins of power are out upon everyone who is exposed to power.
Our cultural amygdala is not only getting curiouser and curiouser, it is getting uglier and uglier.
Paul,
What does the NSA have?
Please, please, please let it be an affair and a blow job so we can begin the process of ridding ourselves of this madness.
And as for that “noun plus verb plus 9/11” thing that President Obama tried to sell again as his all-purpose excuse for dragging out hopeless quagmire wars while bankrupting the treasury and trampling on our Constitutional rights, it just seems to me like yet another iteration of:
Changing Commanders in Brief
The last guy-in-charge said, “Go shopping.”
This war, he said, wouldn’t last long;
Our victims, he swore, would repay us
For plundering them for a song.
In six months, at most, we’d be winners;
The enemy vanquished and fled;
And then, with our mission accomplished,
We’d leave them to count up their dead.
Our generals trained for the last war,
Their learning-curve zero or less.
In six years they’ll figure out something;
Just what, will be anyone’s guess.
They had them a “surge” in their payments
To “enemies” placed on the dole
So they wouldn’t shoot us so often
Because of their land that we stole.
The new guy took over, saluting,
A race that had already run
Its course, ‘cause the bungler before him
Had exploited all of the fun.
The new guy got rolled up like sushi.
He blew his chance early to leave.
More “surging” has just raised the death count.
What next does he have up his sleeve?
It sounded so good while campaigning:
One little “good” war for one bad;
Except that the Afghans hate bombings
As much as Vietnamese had.
Our generals, though, won’t admit it:
They’ve taken eight years to do what?
Yet somehow they think we’ll applaud them
For not knowing doodley-squat.
They say they need more stuff and faster
Yet won’t explain what they would do
Except to extend their disaster
By breeding more pooches to screw.
In common-sense language, the answer
Replies to their “more, more, more” rant:
“You would have, of course, if you could have;
You didn’t, therefore, so you can’t.”
The new guy Obama, like Dubya,
Thinks playing Commander-in-Brief
Means mission-creep “more” and saluting
The Pentagram treasury thief.
“A trillion a year?” Oh, who’s counting?
“And all for what?” Don’t be a bore.
“And who will pay?” No one, we promise.
It’s what we call slush-funded “war.”
Obama won’t ask the right question,
To wit: “What on earth have we ‘won’?”
Like Pharaoh, he thinks he can dictate:
“So let it be written, then done.”
He cried: “Yes, we can!” while campaigning,
This slogan he sold and we bought.
In office, however, he’s changed things:
Himself. Now he says, “We cannot.”
Our Wealth Care rules out Single Payer
Our troops must remain on patrol.
The votes don’t exist in the Congress
That Democrats cannot control.
We gave him majorities, plenty,
Yet these he seems ready to blow.
Now Wealth Care and Quagmire have named him:
Commander of Old Status Quo.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2009
As Deputy Dubya Bush and Sheriff Dick Cheney no doubt frequently (and gleefully) remind President Obama: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
“… learning new information can and should change one’s opinion, and this change doesn’t make one a hypocrite.” — consiglieri39
“New information” does not necessarily mean that one can and should change one’s opinion on the basis of it. Everything depends upon the quality and relevance of the information. Such new information can just as easily confirm one’s opinion if it contains additional evidence of wrongdoing or else contributes nothing relevant to the point at issue.
Of course, changing one’s opinion as a consequence of learning something consequential does not make one a hypocrite; but changing one’s opinion based on bogus propganda from suspect sources calling their “information” “new” makes one not so much a hypocrite as a credulous fool. For President Obama to claim that he hasn’t done anything wrong but will fix the unbroken anyway, chiefly by preventing any further disclosures of wrongdoing constitutes such a glaring contradiction in terms that it mocks its own transparent pretensions even as it utters them. In other words:
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has become “It ain’t broke, but we’ll fix it anyway by making sure that no one else can ever report that it’s broke.”
Not the crime itself, but the uncovering and publishing of it has become “criminal” or “espionage” or “treason” in the view of the U.S. government. So much for the First Amendment — along with the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth. There you have my summation of what I understand President Obama said while not saying anything at all. Yes, his lips did move, but that only confirms that he lies just to keep in practice; just so he won’t forget how.
So for me there is only one question. What does the NSA have on Obama to have him cower in fear?
No, by violating your oath of office does make you a hypocrite.
O.K.
Tomorrow or the day after either Greenwald or Wikileaks will reveal more of Obama’s lies… Just wait for it.
Then, on cue, wait for the defenders of a rogue State. Right randyjet?
rafflaw
consiglieri,
Might I add the subsequent violations of other Rights and Laws?
… Free association
… Rights of the accused
… Review of evidence
SECRET laws and
SECRET policies decided by
SECRET courts
… as to how these laws and policies shall be applied to the American citizen.
WE AR NO LONGER SELF GOVERNING
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” – James Madison
What is being expanded upon by decay is the definition of “foreign enemy.”
In the end, that is being defined as “them.”
This much is obvious.
But have the next candidate and script been chosen?
We seem to be going in a downward spiral as if that was the plan.
consiglieri,
I don’t doubt that Obama has more information that may have aided in his acceptance of the spying program, but just because he may have been scared by that intel or by the agencies plying that information does not make the 4th Amendment moot, does it?
Rafflaw – Of course, it doesn’t. I was simply pointing out that learning new information can and should change one’s opinion, and this change doesn’t make one a hypocrite.