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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.
Nuff said.
Except that we all know he's actually talking about the PEOPLE being made more transparent, NOT the Government.
"The ruling class will pretend to be transparent though. Ummm, hey, look, here's some Khardshian TV show crap, forget I said anything."
"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... " So they're hiring a PR firm?
When the secret courts are open to public review and observation there might be more transparency and trust. Till then it's just smoke and mirror talk.
was replaced by Fear and Lies on January 20, 2009. Anyone who thinks anything Obama says (or does) will result in your privacy being respected and warrantless surveillance ended is delusional.
My confidence in this actually accomplishing anything is zero.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Their job will include figuring out how to maintain the public's trust and prevent abuse
Isn't it a little late for that?
Short of stopping indiscriminate surveillance, but that does not seem to be in the cards.
The Government watches the people, the people watch the government. Everyone's happy. A world with fewer secrets is a safer world.
If they're listening to US landlines without a warrant, then they are willfully violating the Constitution.
I worry that Bush and Obama have knowingly permitted this.
"What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs." - Obama.
You're not seeing the abuse, therefore it's not happening. Good one. Alternatively, the system IS the abuse, and we're all very well aware of it now, thanks to that courageous Mr. Snowden.
By the way, it's not OK to spy on Americans, but it is fine to invade the privacy of everyone else on the planet? Hmm. As a non-American, I can't say I agree.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
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.
Transparency is not the issue. Constitutionality is.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'd have a lot more trust in Obama if he weren't the one responsible for ramping it up to the level it is today. (If not, remind me again where the buck stops?)
Also, of course they're not interested in "ordinary" people. The instant they're interested in you, you're no longer ordinary.
Imagine Snowden was some political candidate's nephew. And imagine that, instead of leaking details of the entire operation to the press, he leaked details of the other candidate's campaign strategies (or sexual exploits) back to his uncle. You know, like the Watergate breakins?
If a junior flunky can do that sort of thing and get away with it, what makes you think it's not standard operating procedure?
The NSA has the power to utterly control the entire political process with an iron grip -- and that's before we start to worry about political dissidents being extraordinarily renditioned.
If Obama truly wanted to "address the situation," he'd completely dismantle the NSA. But, somehow, even if he truly wanted to, I rather doubt the NSA would let him....
Cheers,
&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
And what country do you suggest we use?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
> "What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs."
That's like saying, it is OK for the government to keep a loaded gun pointed at the head of every citizen because they haven't shot anyone.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"America is not interested in spying on ordinary people."
Then why is it? Why is it storing the metadata on every call and every HTTP request everyone makes? Is everyone not ordinary, or is America doing things in which it is not interested? I'm guessing it is option 3: You have redefined spying as "not spying" in your twisted little lawyer brain, to which I say, "Screw you, you forked-tongue traitor."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
When asked about how his opinion of the surveillance programs have changed, he said his perception of them have not evolved since the story broke worldwide. "What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs."
So I guess bypassing the Fourth Amendment doesn't count as abuse.From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure#United_States :
"A search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed."
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
This quote really bothers me:
What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs.
On the surface, it sounds like a fair point. To my knowledge, there haven't really been allegations of people digging into these records for specific unethical and abusive purposes. However:
(a) I would question whether the collection and warehousing of this data is, in itself, and abuse.
(b) It's pretty much impossible for us to know whether these programs are being abused, since there is no public oversight.
(c) If there were reports of abuse, I'm not sure we'd know about it, since it's apparently illegal to talk about this program.
All told, I don't feel particularly reassured. Even if there's no malicious abuse of the system, I would bet money that there's some casual abuse going on. As Obama is fond of saying, sunlight is the best disinfectant. If the NSA has done nothing wrong, then they have nothing to hide.
> "What you're not seeing is peopleactually abusingthese programs."
Given alarm bells don't go off if someone listens to content without a warrant, i.e. no physical mechanism to prevent, much less track this, how would he know?
Any one of a hundred senators or other powerful people know people in the NSA and could have an otherwise seemingly honest agent actually spying for them -- on business dealings, or opposing candidates. This doesn't even begin to address the supposedly "lesser-protected" metadata on who calls whom, which would have been more than enough to figure out who all the founding fathers were and round them up.
And even if every agent and powerful person were honest today, what about 10 or 50 years from now? I keep bringing this up, but a G. Gordon Liddy type wouldn't think twice about listening in on the opposition.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
At first, I thought this comment might be a joke mocking the conspiratorially minded, but nope, check the comment history and this guy is basically just crazy and racist.
"Now that it is politically imperative, we must do the thing, and the other things. We must have the courage, the tenacity, the morale fortitude, to do whatever it is that will make me popular again. This is not about right or wrong, but about the morale certainty that of what is the right thing to do, which is that course of action that I now advocate. And I will continue to advocate, using great speeches and the soaring power of words, whatever it is that will cause applause. In fact I will continue, tirelessly, night and day, to talk my out of this, and the other things. So pay very close attention, to my words. Nothing else, just what comes out of my mouth. Thank you, good night, god bless America, thank you all, and god bless America."
GW Bush signed the patriot act.....not obama.....the patriot act created these programs.....
Who cares? After 4 1/2 years, you can firmly say that Obama has taken ownership of that problem, especially after the "compromise" reauthorization in 2011. Obama ran on a campaign that in part was supposed to be about putting an end to war on terror abuses. Instead, the only "wrongdoers" Obama has pursued with any vigor in connection with war on terror crimes and state surveillance are government whistleblowers.
I voted twice for Obama. And now, I just feel like I've been voting against "the wrong lizard" the whole time (because I don't believe for a second that Romney or McCain would have been better on 4th Amendment rights). I'm getting incredibly disillusioned with American democracy, and it's the fault of the people for spending far more time getting worked up on partisan circus issues than real, substantial matters of policy. I'd say we need a revolution, but I'm even more terrified of the most eager revolutionaries than I am of the lizards in charge.
I just don't know what to do anymore.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
We plan to change nothing about what we're doing, but how can we change people's perception of it so that they give us no hassle? Obviously a marketing problem! Invoke the science of persuasive and reassuring words! Obama has really messed up siding with the NSA. Goodbye any good feeling he might have generated abroad for America. It's all gone a bit sour, sorry.
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to remind you guys that 5% popular vote for any Presidential candidate gives his/her party total ballot access, federal funds, and most importantly a legitimate voice that no media outlet can ignore without discrediting itself. Due to its popularity, the Libertarian party is the easiest to take across this hurdle, but an effort to organize a 5% vote for any 3rd party can work just as well. It doesn't even matter if you disagree with the party, anything that disrupts the celebrity-focused and soundbite-based political environment will be to your benefit.
Remember that the winner takes all electoral college system makes your vote in a non-battleground state absolutely worthless. Your deep red/deep blue state is staying that color with or without you. Invest your vote instead into something worthwhile.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
"What you're not seeing is people actually abusing these programs."
So, aside from ignoring the fact that on a weekly if not daily basis there is a news report of these programs resulting in an abuse of liberty, we're just supposed to ignore the fact that the programs' very existence is an abuse?
There is absolutely zero reason to believe anything Obama says; on the contrary, there is good evidence to support believing the opposite of what he says is true, based entirely on his own record of honesty.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
First, they deny the NSA spying allegations. They half-admit the allegations while simultaneously going after the whistleblower full bore. Now, Obama starts speaking of transparency? Where was that transparency this whole time? It's lie after lie after lie.
you need to read of the USA cases more closely. If the government convinces the court that there is already proof of existence of incriminating data in your files, you can be compelled to provide keys. It is only in the case where it is *unknown* whether or not there is incriminating data that you have 5th amendment protection.
very fine line to understand, and one the government can exploit.
They haven't shot anyone ordinary.
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.
At first, I thought this comment might be a joke mocking the conspiratorially minded
It's getting tough. I tried to make a comment joke mocking the conspiratorially minded, but all the things I thought of sounded half-serious. I can't pretend to be paranoid anymore, thanks Obama.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Tricky Dick Nixon was hounded into resignation over illegally wiretapping a handful of phone lines at the DNC headquarters back in 1972. The Bush and Obama administrations are each guilty of billions of counts of the same crime. Why the FUCK isn't anyone getting impeached?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
Obama on Surveillance: "We Can and Must Be More Transparent"
...now that we've been caught.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I think the worse offense is that the US government is compelling its citizens to spy on each other and abridging their First Amendment free speech right to complain about it without due process using all three branches of government: Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The checks and balances have failed. The US President has come before the world and said as much - and he is a professor of constitutional law. As much as any run-of-the-mill tyrranny the US is no longer about the consent of the governed, but about raw force and power. Speak out, go to prison. The noble experiment is over.
I propose that we all sit around whining about it.
There will also be a new website for citizens to learn about transparency in intelligence agencies
Whenver I visit one of the intelligence agency websites, my webcam light turns on and it won't turn off until I reboot my computer :(
coding is life
Tricky Dick Nixon was hounded into resignation over illegally wiretapping a handful of phone lines at the DNC headquarters back in 1972. The Bush and Obama administrations are each guilty of billions of counts of the same crime. Why the FUCK isn't anyone getting impeached?
Perhaps this quote from Joseph Stalin will provide illumination:
"A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Even in the "non-secret" courts, many people are being convicted on secret evidence.
Specifically, a huge number of people are being convicted of possession of child pornography, yet no one except the police and prosecutors are allowed to see the evidence.
I have heard from numerous sources that many convictions have the number of images exaggerated - for instance, 40 images became over 600 images - and even the defense attorneys won't question this lest they be seen as being "soft" on possession of pictures. The quality of the images also appear to be exaggerated - in rare cases where some of the evidence has come to light, it has turned out that some images deemed worthy of conviction included pictures of fully dressed teenaged cheerleaders giving a public performance, cartoons of a girl whose loose swimsuit revealed a nipple, and so forth.
More commonly, the images that secure a conviction are ostensibly legal images of child models or simple nudes. In a current series of cases men in the U.S. are being convicted of possession of nudist videos which a U.S. Federal Court has previously found to be perfectly legal. (The AZOV cases.)
There apparently is now also a large sub-category of actual child pornography (I am told it is about two fifths) that consists of children, on webcams or otherwise, producing pictures of themselves - mostly nude or masturbating. Despite the fact that we know that these are the sorts of images often earning convictions, prosecutors and law enforcement routinely describe all of these images as "child abuse imagery" and "images of sadistic rape". Of course, no one who is not a prosecutor or in law enforcement is allowed to see this evidence to judge for themselves, so of course we must simply take the word of these proven liars on faith. Yes, they lied about all those other cases involving so-called "child pornography" - but honest, they aren't lying this time.
I recently came across a comment from a prisoner (who committed real crimes) concerned about the safety of his children when they visit him in prison, because forty percent of his fellow inmates are "pedophiles" - which most likely means they were convicted for possession of pictures, regardless of their actual sexual orientation or deeds. The percentage of prisoners being held for possession of pictures, based on secret evidence, is apparently a large and growing portion of the prison population. It seems that this sort of conviction is intended to replace the convictions for drug crimes that are beginning to dwindle as the public is becoming aware of damage done by the War on Drugs. Naturally the law enforcement community prefers this type of prisoner as they are less dangerous to warehouse than other populations, being generally peaceful and non-violent - and when the public becomes wise to this they will begin warehousing undocumented immigrants. Whatever is required to allow private prisons and public prison guard unions to profit.
All this can be done because the evidence is kept secret from the public - with anyone who sees the evidence in danger of being sent to prison themselves, and then be put on a public registry for life and prevented from getting most jobs and even from living in many areas.
All of this in spite of the fact that there is no evidence that consensual sex between adults and children is harmful to children. (See Rind et al (1998) - the only scientific study ever condemned by Congress.) Of course, societal reaction to adult-child sex, which often includes forcing children to testify against the people they love most in the world, often has dire consequences. Some children have even committed suicide after being forced to testify against their lover.
Clearly secret evidence is something that can not be tolerated any more than secret courts.
Installing tap rooms in telephone switches and internet exchanges isn't illegal in and by itself. Tapping the lot and temporarily storing it isn't technically illegal either, as it's only a step to make traffic accessible to scrutiny.
Automatically scanning all such traffic for keywords or patterns of keywords or patterns of communication that may point to terrorist activity probably isn't illegal either.
Only the very last step, taking the data generated on domestic traffic by the electronic dragnet and having it looked at by NSA analysts may violate the law. May, because again there are circumstances that warrant inspection outright, such as a court warrant, or establishing that at least one of the parties engaged in domestic communication is also communicating with a target outside the US.
That's because you can't sensibly fence it off. US citizens have a way of communicating abroad and then turning around and communicating domestically.
So there is so much grey territory here that one should think trice before shouting that it's "illegal".
And even in the (unlikely) event that the courts and the House could be sold on doing something that harmful to national security there are ways of tapping into domestic communications (the "last step") that don't involve NSA analysts: just share the take and ask e.g. the Brits to sift through it.
Sorry, but wholesale Internet and Email surveillance are here to stay. Just as they are in China, Russia, France, the UK and lots of other places I don't know of. And why? Because the Internet has developed into the mainstream of human communication and interaction for any distance beyond one's immediate physical surroundings. Governments simply can't ignore that. Which is why "laws" will be (re-)interpreted, (re-)formulated, or adapted outright to allow it.