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?
Remember this?
It is too bad the my post replying to Darren and OS got killed or lost.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
We need to have a blog topic on the FISA Court.
-How it was created.
-Where it could find some basis in the Constitution and where it might be
repugnant to the Constitution.
-How it operates: why not two sides to every story? Why not in public? Why no
FISAblog like Scotusblog? Where is Lyle?
-Why it is a farce. Nothing ventured, nothing decided, nothing decisis, nada
gained.
-Which Branch of Government needs to get off its arse to stop NSA, CIA, KGB
and others, including FISA from killing America.
Here is the bottom line. Forty years from now. Do they spell it America or Amerika?
Obama is either a sociopathic liar, a weak-willed coward, or he doesn’t really run this country.
Here’s a fascinating message from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/07/nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong/
earsoftheworld NOW THAT is what I call a good intelligent post with some folks who know the business in their report. Too bad you had to go over the top with your comments. I always hated Hayden and thought he was a crook and a traitor, but now I KNOW he is.
@Lew “Does Roberts appoint the judges on the secret police state court?”
Apparently he chief justice makes the appointments.
From a recent article in the NYT: “The recent leaks about government spying programs have focused attention on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and its role in deciding how intrusive the government can be in the name of national security. Less mentioned has been the person who has been quietly reshaping the secret court: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ”
A concern mentioned in the article is that Justice Roberts seems to choose only conservative judges with long executive branch experience making “.the court more likely to defer to government arguments that domestic spying programs are necessary.”
Having not heard the message, and having now aided and abetted war crimes for five years, the President has failed. It becomes increasingly difficult to listen to anything the government says as the sound of the lies has reached nails on a chalkboard.
Seat grand juries today.
I hate to say it but I voted for this lying sack of crap. And oh my goodness do I regret it. Ooops I just made the NSA watch list. Watch this NSA…..I don’t know where I heard the saying, but “if Obama were given an enema you could bury him in a match box.”
Nick, Your concern is exactly mine. “And the MSM and most US citizens could care less.”
To find that a politician has changed his mind and cares less about the Constitution than he claims is old news, He will leave office as every other politician eventually will. But it is the citizens and their willingness to elect hack after hack and have no concern about the Governments violating the Constitution, that is the most disturbing thing of all.
Stephen Lendman, Great comment. And the MSM and most US citizens could care less. That’s what is most disturbing to me. “We’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled,” said Malcolm X. The irony is ripe.
Obama elevated the art of lying to an unprecedented level. He failed the Pinocchio test. He exceeded the worst of Richard Nixon. He outdid George Bush.
He’s more despot than democrat. He matched Star Trek. He went where no US leader went before. He made a mockery of changes to believe in.
The FISA Court is not a court. It does not deliberate two sides or opposing parties. It is at best a “review board” which is made up of chump judges who disgrace themselves by putting on robes for such an endeavor.
Google: The Judges Trial at Nuremberg. We prosecuted Krauts after WWII for such farce.
it figures there are those who are alright with the nsa. yesterday i went to fill out some papers for a apartment i applied for. and one of the papers i was asked to fill out.. had this question on it..
“To which Country do i owe my Allegiance?”
now do tell me what that has to do with me applying for an apartment in a co-op building?
a friend of mines who recently got laid off and applied for unemployment was told that she will have to fill and out and bring in a notarized statement that says she is a american citizen…. i ask again what do those two questions have to do with anything???
robin the reason for that form is that if you are not a legal resident or citizen, you cannot get benefits. simple. If your friend had a passport, that would be enough too, or a voter registration card. As for the co-op, it might be a condition in the bylaws.
Sorry, my error. It was not Arizona v. Grant it should have been Whren v. United States
Randy wrote:
“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.”
~+~
Actually that is incorrect. Individuals can be put in jail for under the Material Witness sections of state and federal law. Furthermore some states have civil arrests (WA was one of them) where individuals can be put in jail for not paying court ordered child support (non-criminal) and for contempt of court. Under other laws people can be taken into custody for things such as other issues such as investigations and held for 48 hours without charges being filed. Members of the military can be subjected to arrests for being AWOL even by members of the civilian police services.
As far as the STASI goes what about the all the people who got shot in the back just trying to leave East Germany or Berlin, did they get a trial?
You mention the NSA collection of all this data is essentially harmless unless someone is arrested or trade secrets published. Again, that does not address the issue of privacy and the constitutional protections. This is exactly the same as police or federal agents going in and photographing everything visible through the windows of everyone’s house. Not a problem? Well you’ve just given whatever agency the ability to sift through everything and discover whatever they might want to use against the person. There is no difference here. The fourth amendment states effectively that homes, papers and effects are not to be searched unless supported by probable cause and a search warrant. Blanket searches are not permitted. In fact, in WA it is illegal for the gov’t to take areal photographs of fenced areas of people’s homes without a search warrant. Taking a high-res photo of sections of the city and then searching every person’s property is the same thing being done here by the NSA.
But I am a bit confused about what you are saying. You indicate the mass collection of data is no threat at all but then you go on saying how there is a lot of corruption in the police forces. What would stop a corrupt government agent or LEO or politician from then using the treasure trove of data to go after citizens as innocent as you have mentioned were thrown in jail illegally?
As for the SCOTUS coming around to prevent abuses, this is certainly not always the rescue system for individual rights in all cases. The Dredd Scott decision, and several others in history have not been necessarily favorable to ordinary people. Professor Turley has even made much mention of these on recent cases, Gant v. Arizona was one of them where police can make pre-text stops on fishing expeditions to stop and later search people while looking for reasons to arrest them. Washington’s supreme court threw out pretext stops but the fed court did not. The SCOTUS also ruled that the feds can search your laptop computer if you cross an international border and BP can search your vehicle at check points a hundred miles from the Mexican border. You as a private citizen are temporarily detained for doing nothing at all wrong, much less just travelling within the US, and being a citizen thereof.
OS From what I have read of intel collection, the way that they use mass data is to look for outliers in the mass. It is a legitimate function of police to look at those anomalies and to follow them up. It only becomes personalized when there is enough data to establish some suspicion of some individual. I have had lots of experience with the foibles of the FAA and the government so I know all of those horror stories apart from malicious intent. They are irritating to say the least, and it only becomes a real problem, if they take some action against a person that adversely affects them. Then there are the courts and the legal system to right those wrongs. As long as those remedies are available and as Darren would like to say, they are NOT corrupted, we are not in danger of losing our liberties. I have fought too long and hard to see all the gains that we made from the 60s-80s be vitiated now. I differ with the ACLU on many items, but I think that their letter is a good starting place. I would defer my opinion on the mega date collection to others independent of NSA to make the judgment as to how useful this technique is.
Even the no fly list is subject to errors, the most notable one being Sen. Ted Kennedy who was denied boarding at DCA when a Ted Kennedy came up on the list. A pilot from Cape Air lost his job because he was suspected of being a terrorist because he had the same name as one who was on the no fly list. He finally got cleared after a number of years. The problem is that there are too many cops out trying to make work, and that is a real danger. What I think is needed is how to have them work smarter rather than wasting time, manpower, and money in fruitless investigations. I am not in intelligence or police work, so I have to once again defer to those who do have that experience and knowledge. The idea of having oversight in some panels, rather than Congressional committees is an excellent idea since the previous laws were not effective in that oversight because of political pressure.
OS
I get the same feeling now about where I go online after I case I had years ago. While investigating an internet fraud case I ran across an individual (unrelated to the fraud case) who was making some suspicous purchases off a large internet auction sight. He was buying a lot of surivalist items, some kook books (like illicit weapon making, anarchist cookbook type of things and gov’t conspiracy books) he would also throw in a lot of chaff such as cheap auction items like recipes for BBQ and other items (one or two bucks) dozens of them that effectively hid by numbers or obscurity what he was buying. Those alone are not cause for concern. But, he was also buying hardware here and there that could be assembled to build some highly dangerous constructs. I’m not going to say what it was in this forum but they were also the same items that could be used in another context that was completely harmless. What did it for me was one of his items tied the potentially dangerous construct being likely was a book concerning that topic.
I called up ATF and informed them with what was going on.
While I believed this case was certainly worth looking into, years later I began to recognize how easy it would be for some agency watching over the internet, and coming to conclusions too quickly, could nab someone who is just reading up on a subject or buying items that might seem in certain contexts to be nefarious if construed that way.
On another topic given all we have seen lately with the NSA and companies datamining their customers, the aspect of being a cashless society is is no longer certain. There is much advantage these days of buying everything possible with cash and never giving personal information to retailers if possible, especially in light of the ability to spy on it by someone else later.