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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.
"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.
"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
> "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").
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
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.
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.
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.
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.