[Snow-i]

Hate to say I told you so, but the man we have in office is the worse thing for freedom since the Soviet bloc of old.

In a front page op-ed, the NY times editorial board has blasted Obama in a 180 turn from their endorsement in 2008.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/op...t.html?hp&_r=0

It is a sad era for our country with this man in office, but i remain hopeful that a news organization that has shown almost unwavering support for this administration is still run by free-thinking people. Apparently they've had enough.

They hit the nail on the head with this one:

"The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it."

I'd like to hear how you all feel about this, and what we can do as a nation to limit the damage he is doing to our freedoms until we can dismantle this administration.

This isn't just about the dragnet, it's also about the IRS scandal, EPA scandal, AP wiretapping scandal, the lies of his lieutenants to congress, the coverup of benghazi, the inability of him to take responsibility for the actions of his subordinates, the threatening of Benghazi witnesses, the list goes on....

[Snow-i]

The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future.

Emphasis mine.

Is this not in direct contradiction to the entire foundation of our judicial and executive branches?

[Shaddim]

WTG NYT, you're a year too late, as usual.

[OAW]

My only comment is this ....

If you thought this was fine under the Bush Administration to "protect us from terrorists" then you should have no problem with this now. Because it's the same thing. In fact, unlike Bush this was authorized by the FISA court. But if it's a big problem now that it's a DEM doing it well then that speaks for itself.

My point is this. The Patriot Act was a bad idea. Because many of us said from jump street that this type of sh*t would come about because of it. But many of our good friends on the right were cool with it as long as they thought it was Muslims being hemmed up by all of this. But naturally, now that they see they are on the list too it's a different ball of wax. Imagine that.

OAW

[climber]

When the act was first passed, anyone who opposed it was automatically on the un-patriotic side due the name of the act itself. Personally I find if insulting that an act that takes away our guaranteed liberties could in any way be considered patriotic.

Unfortunately one of the few issues that both Republicans and Democrats agree on the last few years is likely one of the worst bills in last 50 years.

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by OAW 

My only comment is this ....

If you thought this was fine under the Bush Administration to "protect us from terrorists" then you should have no problem with this now. Because it's the same thing. In fact, unlike Bush this was authorized by the FISA court. But if it's a big problem now that it's a DEM doing it well then that speaks for itself.

My point is this. The Patriot Act was a bad idea. Because many of us said from jump street that this type of sh*t would come about because of it. But many of our good friends on the right were cool with it as long as they thought it was Muslims being hemmed up by all of this. But naturally, now that they see they are on the list too it's a different ball of wax. Imagine that.

OAW

I had a problem with it then. I have a problem with it now. I have a problem with Obama getting elected on a platform of "transparency and accountability" and then this bullshit leaks. Obama never intended for this to public, just like what really happened in Benghazi will never be public, just like the protocol he uses for indiscriminate drone strikes will never be public. When is enough enough?

OAW, I'll say this once and leave it at that. It seems every thread you pop in and say "but the republicans did it too!"

I dont care which party these authoritarian assholes belong to.Republican and Democrat is all the same to me. The Dems beat the republicans out of Office over Bush's failings, and now Obama is doubling down on those failed policies. What are we going to do about Obama since Bush isn't here to rally against?

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by OAW 

My only comment is this ....

If you thought this was fine under the Bush Administration to "protect us from terrorists" then you should have no problem with this now. Because it's the same thing. In fact, unlike Bush this was authorized by the FISA court. But if it's a big problem now that it's a DEM doing it well then that speaks for itself.

My point is this. The Patriot Act was a bad idea. Because many of us said from jump street that this type of sh*t would come about because of it. But many of our good friends on the right were cool with it as long as they thought it was Muslims being hemmed up by all of this. But naturally, now that they see they are on the list too it's a different ball of wax. Imagine that.

OAW

So the party line is "don't complain, he's no worse than Bush"? This could very well go down as the most corrupt administration since U.S. Grant.

[subego]

Originally Posted by OAW 

My only comment is this ....

My point is this. The Patriot Act was a bad idea. Because many of us said from jump street that this type of sh*t would come about because of it. But many of our good friends on the right were cool with it as long as they thought it was Muslims being hemmed up by all of this. But naturally, now that they see they are on the list too it's a different ball of wax. Imagine that.

OAW

My point is this. Obama promised he wouldn't do this.

It was ultimately the only reason I voted for him.

The President is full of shit. Imagine that.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

My point is this. Obama promised he wouldn't do this.

It was ultimately the only reason I voted for him.

Actually ... he didn't. From a Sep. 2009 article .....

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties.

“The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general, wrote to Leahy, (.pdf) whose committee is expected to consider renewing the three expiring Patriot Act provisions next week. The government disclosed the letter Tuesday.

It should come as no surprise that President Barack Obama supports renewing the provisions, which were part of the Patriot Act approved six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

As an Illinois senator in 2008, he voted to allow the warrantless monitoring of Americans’ electronic communications if they are communicating overseas with somebody the government believes is linked to terrorism. That legislative package, which President George W. Bush signed, also immunized the nation’s telecommunication companies from lawsuits charging them with being complicit with the Bush administration’s warrantless, wiretapping program. That program was also adopted in the wake of Sept. 11.

These are the three provisions due to expire:

*A secret court, known as the FISA court, may grant “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying the target. Generally, the authorities must assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power and/or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday that 22 such warrants — which allow the monitoring of any communication device — have been granted annually.

*The FISA court may grant warrants for “business records,” from banking to library to medical records. Generally, the government must assert that the records are relevant to foreign intelligence gathering and/or a terrorism investigation. The government said Tuesday that 220 of these warrants had been granted between 2004 and 2007. It said 2004 was the first year those powers were used.

*A so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of an individual even without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday it has never invoked that provision, but said it wants to keep the authority to do so.

“The basic idea behind the authority was to cover situations in which information linking the target of an investigation to an international group was absent or insufficient, although the target’s engagement in ‘international terrorism’ was sufficiently established,” Weich wrote.

The American Civil Liberties opposes renewing all three provisions, especially the lone wolf measure.

Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, said in a telephone interview, “The justification for FISA and these lower standards and letting it operate in secret was all about terrorist groups and foreign governments, that they posed a unique threat other than the normal criminal element. This lone wolf provision undercuts that justification.”

Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions | Threat Level | Wired.com

OAW

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Actually ... he didn't. From a Sep. 2009 article .....



Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions | Threat Level | Wired.com

OAW

You're still defending him? To the death for our Dear Leader eh?

[subego]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Actually ... he didn't. From a Sep. 2009 article .....

I was discussing statements made on the campaign trail, hence the qualifier "why I voted for him".

Regardless, that's a pretty damning article in my book.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

You're still defending him? To the death for our Dear Leader eh?

When did I defend the Obama Administration on this issue? My only point here is that this is nothing new. As in ... this has been going on for a good decade. So why all of sudden people do people now want to start setting their hair on fire because of it? For the record, I opposed the Patriot Act. Thought it was a bad idea then. Still think it's a bad idea now. But it's the law because all too often the critics who warned against this very thing were dismissed as not understanding the realities of a "post-9/11 world".

As for my reply to Subego, I'm only pointing out that Obama publicly supported these provisions of the Patriot Act. Obama is a center-left guy for sure. But I think what happens is that people perceive him to be a lot further to the left than he actually is. Like all those people in the DEM base that got bent out of shaped because he expanded the war in Afghanistan or aggressively used drone strikes in Pakistan. Many of these people acted like they were "betrayed" or something. When the reality is that they were projecting their own positions onto Obama because of his charisma and general Bush fatigue. Because had they been actually paying attention they would have noticed that Obama explicitly said those would be his policies during the 2008 campaign. I'm just saying ...

OAW

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

I was discussing statements made on the campaign trail, hence the qualifier "why I voted for him".

Regardless, that's a pretty damning article in my book.

I suppose my point here is that in the 2008 campaign Obama never argued for a repeal of the Patriot Act. He's only argued for enhanced judicial oversight and a pullback from some types of warrantless searches. And it is certainly true that there is more FISA and Congressional oversight than during the previous administration.

OAW

[subego]

It is?

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

It is?

Actually it is. Now of course, that is really only "putting lipstick on a pig". I get that. My point here is that Obama campaigned on doing that very thing. So we really shouldn't be "shocked" and "outraged" that we still have a pig and not bacon. Just saying ...

OAW

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Actually it is. Now of course, that is really only "putting lipstick on a pig". I get that. My point here is that Obama campaigned on doing that very thing. So we really shouldn't be "shocked" and "outraged" that we still have a pig and not bacon. Just saying ...

OAW

How do you know there's more oversight when the entirety of the program was (and still is) classified from the get-go?

[subego]

@OAW,

Let's take this one at a time.

Where is this extra oversight you speak of?

[subego]

Okay, I lied, two at a time.

Here's a direct quote from him on the campaign trail:

"No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime."

[subego]

Welcome to the second term, people.

And I'm not saying welcome to Obama's second term, I'm saying welcome to the second term of any president you choose.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

@OAW,

Let's take this one at a time.

Where is this extra oversight you speak of?

In a nutshell, the big controversy during the Bush Administration was over warrantless wiretapping. That is no longer the case under the Obama Administration:

The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (AKA "Warrantless Wiretapping") concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the "terrorist surveillance program",[1] part of the broader President's Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. Critics, however, claimed that it was in an effort to attempt to silence critics of the Bush Administration and their handling of several hot button issues during its tenure. Under public pressure, the Bush administration ceased the warrantless wiretapping program in January 2007 and returned review of surveillance to the FISA court.[2] Subsequently, in 2008 Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which relaxed some of the original FISA court requirements.

During the Obama Administration, the NSA has officially continued operating under the new FISA guidelines.

And then there is this ....

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the top two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that the widespread monitoring of Verizon phone calls made in the United States has been going on for years, and that Congress is regularly briefed on it.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) also defended the National Security Agency’s request to the company for all the metadata about phone calls made within and from the United States.
“As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the past seven years,” Feinstein said. “This renewal is carried out by the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress.”
Chambliss said the report in the Guardian Wednesday was “nothing new.”

“This has been going on for seven years,” he said. “…every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this. To my knowledge there has not been any citizen who has registered a complaint. It has proved meritorious because we have collected significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years.”

The Obama administration is defending the program, arguing that the policy is a vital tool in monitoring terrorists and has the approval of “all three branches of government,” according to a senior administration official.

“On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls,” said the official, who asked not to be named. “The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call.”

White House: Obama 'welcomes' surveillance debate - Josh Gerstein and Tim Mak - POLITICO.com

So under the Bush Administration the NSA by Executive Order only was monitoring the content of "phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other communication" .... but only for persons outside the US regardless of if the other party was in the US. No Congressional oversight. No Judicial oversight by the FISA court.

What has been revealed here (thus far) is that the Obama Administration has directed to the NSA to collect metadata about phone records of all US Verizon customers (and likely other carriers as well). Not the content. With Congressional authorization and oversight. Authorized by the Judicial branch via a warrant issued by the FISA court.

That is the difference. IMO while what the Obama Administration is doing is wider in scale, it's far less intrusive and has a system of checks and balances in place. And seeing how there simply is no political will on both sides of the aisle to repeal the Patriot Act altogether, this is about as good as it's going to get.

Now from what I understand, the NSA is collecting a huge database of what phone numbers dialed/texted other phone numbers and for how long. Not even the name tied to the account to my knowledge. As an IT guy I can tell you that this database has to be MASSIVE with billions of records added daily. Any individual's records are far beyond a "needle in a haystack". More like a "grain of sand in the Sahara desert". In any event, the NSA is not allowed to access this database without a specific warrant from the FISA court where the government must show some sort of probable cause. From a security standpoint I can understand why the government likes this tool. You have a guy on the terrorist watch list. He does something to raise a red flag. The government presents the evidence to the FISA court and obtains a warrant. Then they can immediately gather all of his communication records. Who he's called. Who's called him. No waiting on Verizon to hand over its records or AT&T to hand over theirs. It's already there so they can "connect the dots" instantly. Of course, that's how it's supposed to work. And like anything else it can be abused. But thus far our political leadership has decided that the security benefits outweigh the privacy risks. So here we are.

OAW

[subego]

The Times altered "has lost all credibility" to "has lost all credibility on this issue", and has not noted the alteration AFAICT.

There isn't a ****ing palm big enough for this facepalm.

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

How do you know there's more oversight when the entirety of the program was (and still is) classified from the get-go?

See my post above. But as for the program being "classified" ... we have no choice but to rely on the word of the members of the other branches of government that such oversight is taking place. Such programs are secret for a reason. The government doesn't want to reveal to our enemies the steps it is taking to catch them slipping. Naturally that will only diminish their effectiveness. So this really comes down to a question of ....

How much do you trust the federal government on this issue?

Again, the political leadership of our nation has collectively and consistently decided to invest this power in the Executive branch since 9/11 via the initial passage and subsequent reauthorizations of the Patriot Act. Personally, I would have preferred to see no Patriot Act at all and dare I say a more "Ron Paul" like foreign policy in the Middle East as the mechanism for dealing with al-Qaeda. But y'all don't hear me though ...

OAW

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

The Times altered "has lost all credibility" to "has lost all credibility on this issue", and has not noted the alteration AFAICT.

There isn't a ****ing palm big enough for this facepalm.

While I can understand their thinking that the initial verbiage was overstated ... the alteration should have been noted with a simple explanation as to why.

OAW

[Snow-i]

Originally Posted by OAW 

See my post above. But as for the program being "classified" ... we have no choice but to rely on the word of the members of the other branches of government that such oversight is taking place.

Yes, we as free people do have a choice OAW. We can force transparency and accountability. (Do those terms sound familiar?)

Such programs are secret for a reason. The government doesn't want to reveal to our enemies the steps it is taking to catch them slipping. Naturally that will only diminish their effectiveness. So this really comes down to a question of ....

Who exactly are our enemies? The American public? Because that's who's being targeted here, OAW. If not now, then one day this information could be used nefariously. The American government is not immune to corruption as many recent examples demonstrate.

How much do you trust the federal government on this issue?

Somewhere between zero and not at all. Where there's smoke, there's fire...and this government is blowing an awful lot of smoke up our asses. How can I trust the leader of our government who consistently says one thing and does another? Trust is not a given, it's earned.

Again, the political leadership of our nation has collectively and consistently decided to invest this power in the Executive branch since 9/11 via the initial passage and subsequent reauthorizations of the Patriot Act. Personally, I would have preferred to see no Patriot Act at all and dare I say a more "Ron Paul" like foreign policy in the Middle East as the mechanism for dealing with al-Qaeda. But y'all don't hear me though ...

You want us to temper our outrage. Now is the time to effect positive change....not say "well they've been screwing us secretly for 7 years so I guess its okay now - we knew this could happen under the law but Dear Leader Obama would never!"

The political leadership of this country should be the people of this country, who's representatives act on behalf on their best interests. How, again, is this serving our best interests and not their best interests?

[subego]

@OAW,

I'll respond to your post later (real life intervenes), but if you will tolerate one more question:

Does this revelation show behavior which follows the narrative Obama campaigned on?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

They hit the nail on the head with this one:

"The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.".

That's the softened version. Originally it read "The administration has now lost all credibility" full stop.

edit: subego beat me to it

[OAW]

Originally Posted by subego 

@OAW,

I'll respond to your post later (real life intervenes), but if you will tolerate one more question:

Does this revelation show behavior which follows the narrative Obama campaigned on?

Depends on what you mean by "narrative". As a candidate Obama opposed certain aspects of Bush administration policy ostensibly authorized by the Patriot Act. So many people were under the "impression" that he was opposed to the Patriot Act in its entirety. But that has never been the case as evidenced by his voting record as well as his public statements on the matter.

OAW

[OAW]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Yes, we as free people do have a choice OAW. We can force transparency and accountability. (Do those terms sound familiar?)

If you are of the mind that "transparency and accountability" all of a sudden means that the "classified" nature of intelligence gathering is out the window then you are being hopelessly naïve. Again, such programs are secret for a reason. Come on now. I know you know better than that.

Somewhere between zero and not at all. Where there's smoke, there's fire...and this government is blowing an awful lot of smoke up our asses. How can I trust the leader of our government who consistently says one thing and does another? Trust is not a given, it's earned.

Fair enough.

You want us to temper our outrage. Now is the time to effect positive change....not say "well they've been screwing us secretly for 7 years so I guess its okay now - we knew this could happen under the law but Dear Leader Obama would never!"

The political leadership of this country should be the people of this country, who's representatives act on behalf on their best interests. How, again, is this serving our best interests and not their best interests?

It's not about tempering your outrage. My point here is that the Patriot Act was "controversial" from jump street. Since it has been repeatedly reauthorized for over a decade now ... simple logic and common sense says that these types of activities would continue. With that legislation still in place what possible reason would any right-thinking person have to believe that such domestic surveillance was all of a sudden out of bounds? I just don't get why people are trying to act all brand-new about the situation. No scratch that ... actually I do. The American people as a whole could give two shits about all of this as long as it was "out of sight ... out of mind".

OAW

[subego]

Originally Posted by OAW 

Depends on what you mean by "narrative". As a candidate Obama opposed certain aspects of Bush administration policy ostensibly authorized by the Patriot Act. So many people were under the "impression" that he was opposed to the Patriot Act in its entirety. But that has never been the case as evidenced by his voting record as well as his public statements on the matter.

OAW

This has nothing to do with whether he supported the the entirety of the Patriot Act.

During the primaries, Obama made a lot of hay out of the illegality of the NSA program.

When the NSA story broke in 2005, assuming you agreed the program was illegal, why that was a problem for people can be broken down into two groups.

The first group had a problem because it was illegal.

The second group had a problem because it was illegal and unnecessary.

These are vastly different opinions. What the first group wants is to alter the law to make it legal. They're 100% behind the program, the problem for them is our current structure doesn't reflect the needs of reality. Their opinion is the the administration made a mistake in assuming the Patriot Act gave them authority, so we fix this by explicitly giving them the authority.

What the second group wants is blood. The "mistake" was the hubris to think the immense power granted by FISA weren't enough, along with the fatally short-sighted view that gross expansion of government power makes us safer.

As should be expected, the people in the first group weren't particularly indignant. Honestly, if you're in the first group and your reaction is indignance, you're an idiot. They dared not to get the rubber stamp on something where the whole nation would be less safe if they didn't do it. I'm so mAD!!!!!!1!!!1

Obama firmly placed himself into the second group as a candidate in the primaries. He wasn't using Bush as a speed bag because he felt Congress hadn't given him the powers to do what he needed to do.

Then, once Obama locked in the primary, he flipped 180° and voted to expand FISA.

I'd say, at the most charitable, those were mixed signals.

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Emphasis mine.

The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future.

Is this not in direct contradiction to the entire foundation of our judicial and executive branches?

Question for the Hon. Senator from CA.: With Prism monitoring FaceBook and YouTube, how did Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev slip through the dragnet considering everything Tamerlan was posting on both sites?

[Chongo]

Candidate Obama V POTUS Obama

Candidate Obama debates President Obama on Government Surveillance - YouTube

[subego]

Originally Posted by Snow-i 

Emphasis mine.

Is this not in direct contradiction to the entire foundation of our judicial and executive branches?

Nope.

Didn't you see The Minority Report? We're all about the precrime.