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Obama Announces Surveillance Reforms
In a speech today, U.S. President Barack Obama announced changes for the operations of the country's intelligence agencies. He says the current program will end "as it currently exists," though most of the data collection schemes will remain intact. However, the data collected in these sweeps will not be stored by the U.S. government, instead residing with either the communications providers or another third party. (He pointed out that storing private data within a commercial entity can have its own oversight issues, so the attorney general and intelligence officials will have to figure out the best compromise.) In order for the NSA to query the database, they will need specific approval from a national security court. Obama also announced "new oversight" to spying on foreign leaders, and an end to spying on leaders of friendly and allied countries. Further, decisions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will be annually reviewed for declassification. A panel advocating for citizen privacy will have input into the FISC. There will be chances to national security letters: they will no longer have an indefinite secrecy period. Companies will be able to disclose some amount of information about the NSLs they receive, something they've been asking for. Another change is a reduction in the number of steps from suspected terrorists that phone data can be gathered. Instead of grabbing all the data from people three steps away, it's now limited to two.
Sure, we're still going to spy on your web history and every phone call, email, text, etc. that you send or receive. But this time WE PROMISE not to look at it! Satisfied, assholes?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I don't see any of the "changes" they've made or have talked about making as protecting American freedom from a surveillance state. All I see is Washington trying to sweep things under the rug and bury things deeper.
We made a change, won't you please forget it ever happened now? OOooooh look over there!!! Shiny!!!
That's what scares me the most.
Obama is a very smart man. He's a scholar who taught Constitutional Law for twelve years. He campaigned on a reduction of surveillance and spying. Then, once President, he did a 180.
Something happened to make him change his mind. Was he corrupted by power? Are the monied interests that powerful that they made him deny what he'd been teaching for years? Or is there something else afoot?
Everything is better with chainsaws.
You're reading is FAIL --- has Gitmo ended(1)? Is Afghanistan over(2)? Did Iraq linger and linger(3)? A passing familiarity with recent events makes it sarcasm as obvious as a cement truck barreling down the freeway.
(1) Obama did have a plan to close the Gitmo facility, and transfer its practices to the Thomson SuperMax in Illinois, aka Gitmo North. Anyone who can't see the how Obama used the word "close" there in a deceptive manner needs to take some reading comprehension courses. http://www.salon.com/2009/12/15/gitmo_3/
(2) Obama at one point tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan over GWB's numbers. That's the opposite of ending it. http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/22/chart-u-s-troop-levels-over-the-years/
(3) Obama quit Iraq only when the Iraqi government wouldn't extend SOFA. SOFA prevents US soldiers from being tried for crimes committed in Iraq, in Iraqi courts. When Iraq wouldn't extend it and thereby extend the official troop presence, Obama pulled out and everyone gave him credit for peace, when really, he merely failed to make more war.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/10/23/obamas-revisionist-history-on-ending-the-iraq-war-a-lesson-from-the-3rd-presidential-debate/
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good