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Obama on Surveillance: "We Can and Must Be More Transparent"
Today President Obama held a press conference to address the situation surrounding the NSA's surveillance activities. (Here is the full transcript.) He announced four actions the administration is undertaking to restore the public's confidence in the intelligence community. Obama plans to work with Congress to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to give greater weight to civil liberties, and to revisit section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which is the section that allowed bulk collection of phone records. (Of course, "will work with Congress" is a vague term, and Congress isn't known for getting things done lately. Thus, it remains to be seen if anything substantive happens.) Obama is ordering the Dept. of Justice to make public their legal rationale for data collection, and there will be a new NSA official dedicated to transparency efforts. There will also be a new website for citizens to learn about transparency in intelligence agencies. Lastly, a group of outside experts will be convened to review the government's surveillance capabilities. Their job will include figuring out how to maintain the public's trust and prevent abuse, and to consider how the intelligence community's actions will affect foreign policy. In addition to these initiatives, President Obama made his position very clear about several different aspects of this controversy. While acknowledging that "we have significant capabilities," he said, "America is not interested in spying on ordinary people." He added that the people who have raised concerns about privacy and government overreach in a lawful manner are "patriots." This is in stark contrast to his view of leakers like Edward Snowden: "I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot." (For his part, Snowden says the recent shut down of encrypted email services is 'inspiring.') When asked about how his opinion of the surveillance programs have changed, he said his perception of them has not evolved since the story broke worldwide. "What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs." Obama also endorsed finding technological solutions that will protect privacy regardless of what government agencies want to do.
Except that we all know he's actually talking about the PEOPLE being made more transparent, NOT the Government.
Either that, or he's operating on different definition of transparency. The secret kind of transparency.
Just like "imminent" threat means "any/vague" threat according to the drone memo.
I want my email back. Show me a plan that restores my Lavabit access and I'll take this effort seriously. This isn't a game.
Less than 48 hours ago with Jay Leno he said, and repeated: "We don't have a domestic spying program."
Today he admits that some spying is taking place, but they are "not interested in spying on ordinary people", and the domestic spying program has safeguards to help keep it from being abused.
That is quite a backstep.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
To an extent I agree with you... But it may have one very important consequence that Obama didn't intend. Snowden now has a glaring example of how his revelations caused changes in policy and government. Making it rather obvious that what he was doing was "whistle blowing" something there are protections for in law. Now, that doesn't mean the administration doesn't have zillions of lawyers that will find a way to put the guy in jail forever if they catch him but I think this change has at least taken the death penalty off the table. This is good news for Snowden.
False. Bush's Patriot act expired in 2011. Obama signed the extension. Anything that happens under the Patriot act now is Obama's fault, not Bush's. If it is company policy to beat employees who do wrong, and a new boss takes over and keeps beating people who do wrong, do you blame the old boss, or the new boss when the new boss beats you?
they wanted him to install backdoors so that lavabit wouldn't work like it claims(and attacks to be delivered upon access).
for other kind of action they could just have bust in and take the servers. maybe they were going to take over it by spooks so he had to officially close it down before that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Start a party! Or join one that is in line with your ideology! Be active! Recruit others!
We need political groups who are endorsed by, or at least ideologically in line with, some of the NGOs and foundations that we (or at least I) support: EFF, Amnesty International, and others.
I wonder what the Nobel Peace committee thinks about this whole mess that they endorsed a priori?
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Obama is part of the abuse.
Part of the abuse? I don't think so.
At this point, Obama appears to be the primary force behind the abuse. He's the one with the "kill list", too.
Why aren't Google, Apple et. al. doing the same as Lavabit and Silent Circle? They should shut down until they are happy that their customers are happy with what they are doing.
To be taken seriously, he'd have to put Snowden in charge of this new transparency initiative. Obviously that's not going to happen.
Actually what amazed me about the President's statement is that there currently is no adversary in FISA court hearing. Little fucking wonder it so rarely rejects requests. It sounds like a judge, a few DoJ lawyers and someone from the NSA (or whoever) have a nice little chat at the end of which the judge brings out the rubber stamp and away they go to spy on whomever they like.
It just stuns me that a FISA court can even rationally be called a court. It's sort of like calling a block of wood with no wheels a car.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've been on slashdot, fark, reddit... and no matter how one-sided an argument is there is always a small group of enablers or sympathizers for the other side.
Cop beats a black guy to death for running away -- I guess shouldn't have run from a cop; guilty or not...
Someone accidentally cuts off a car; other driver road rages and smashes out the windows -- should be a more careful driver then...
Child dies from malnutrition because vegan mother only eats fruit or some shit -- it is a personal decision how to raise your kids...
I scanned through the comments... and holy shit. There is no one defending this obvious cover-up. I don't know if public opinion is changing, people are fed up with government abuse... but Snowden might just be that piece of straw.
The broad scope of the warrant ensures this. Since there is a secret warrant backing this, this is not unconstitutional.
There are constitutional requirements for warrants which cannot be met so long as the warrant is secret:
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
"A broad scope" would mean that the warrant fails fails to particularly describe the place to be searched. Moreover, the requirement for probable cause is fundamentally impossible to reconcile with the idea of a "secret warrant". Before a warrant can be issued, they have to establish probable cause, and produce the evidence ("Oath or affirmation") supporting it, at which point the warrant is no longer a secret.
Then there is the fact that legislating anything secret, or for that matter prohibiting any form of communication on any topic, runs squarely and obviously afoul of the First Amendment right to free speech... Whatever specific kinds of speech the authors may or may not have had in mind, there are no exceptions whatsoever in the text; not for national security, or copyright, or anything else.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
He will do it just after shutting down Gitmo.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.