Obama Asks Congress To Renew 'Patriot Act' Snooping

mi writes: President Obama has asked the Senate to renew key Patriot Act provisions before their expiration on May 31. This includes surveillance powers that let the government collect Americans' phone records. Obama said, "It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure." The call came despite recent revelations that the FBI is unable to name a single terror case in which the snooping provisions were of much help. "Obama noted that the controversial bulk phone collections program, which was exposed by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, is reformed in the House bill, which does away with it over six months and instead gives phone companies the responsibility of maintaining phone records that the government can search." Obama criticized the Senate for not acting on that legislation, saying they have necessitated a renewal of the Patriot Act provisions.

Comments

What a guy

[That Palin Thing]

How's that hopey-changey stuff workin' out for ya?

:: winks ::

:: snaps gum ::

Re:What a guy

[IamTheRealMike]

These career govt employees feed info to the pres, make recommendations, and fight for their interests. Even if a new pres wants to turn on a dime, Washington DC is a large ship that turns slowly.

Bingo. The old UK comedy "Yes Prime Minister" was a rather cutting illustration of this phenomenon at work.

What happens to someone when they become the prez? Enormous numbers of apparently experienced people begin telling you all kinds of secret things. They stress the importance of secrecy. They tell you about this plot or that plot. They say it's vital they get new powers and they not-so-subtly imply that if you don't help them Women And Children will DIE! And although it's left unstated you know perfectly well that if you don't give them what they want, you will see leaks in the press from anonymous officials that paint you as a prevaricator, as weak, as unconcerned for the lives of Patriotic Heroes And Their Women And Children.

The problem any US President has, and I daresay many other countries presidents, is that they are immediately submerged into a fantasy world woven from the agendas of the people around them mixed with their own pre-existing views, and those people are themselves also in a slightly less extreme form of a personal fantasy world and so on all the way down. A toxic brew of patriotism, belief in American exceptionalism, militarism and most of all pervasive classification means that it's impossible for a prez to penetrate the fog of misinformation that surrounds them. They can be manipulated into believing nearly anything because it would take an incredibly strong willed personality to say directly to the senior bureaucrats feeding them classified intelligence, "I think you are bullshitting me and I am going to personally audit your shit and prosecute you if you're lying to me".

Obama is very much NOT a strong willed personality. He sees himself primarily as a reasonable man who finds compromise between different factions. This makes him easily manipulated: all it takes is for people who agree to present him two apparently opposed positions - one extreme and one very extreme - and Obama will reliably pick something that is quite extreme. And the officials around him know that.

In hindsight it should have been obvious. Obama has no real track record of achievement in politics. He supported no particularly controversial positions, or showed any particularly clear thinking. Compared to Bush he seemed like a genius of course but Bush was a fucking man child, so that wasn't hard.

For that reason, Rand Paul fans might be disappointed if he won. I don't expect he would be able to accomplish as much change as people would like.

Almost certainly not. But it looks like Rand Paul is made of stronger stuff than Obama. Paul consistently argues for positions that piss off most of his party. He seems able to come to conclusions about things himself regardless of what other people believe. He seems to have fairly strong principles. He doesn't come across as the sort of wishy-washy people person that Obama is. If there's any US politician that actually might tell the people in his secret briefings "stop bullshitting me or I fire you", it's probably Rand Paul.

we need change!

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

We need to elect someone who puts an end to this nonsense. Maybe the guy who said this would be a good candidate:

This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.

That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.

Oh, wait...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Dear Mr. Obama

[DickBreath]

If the NSA had only been spying on terrorists we wouldn't even be having this conversation. (although it's not really a conversation, but you get my point)

Why would the NSA and CIA be spying on Congress? Is it someone's goal to set up the apparatus of a police state?

Why is the NSA spying on the EU Parliament? Are they looking for terrorists in Parliament?

See: TED How the NSA betrayed the world's trust — time to act
at: 4:30
also see at: 12:40 (or at 12:00 for better context) "I don't think they're looking for terrorists in Parliament."
(see at: 6:00 if you believe in encryption golden keys)

Re:Silver lining

[Infiniti2000]

I'm thinking the same thing. Maybe it's a ploy. After the Republican president and Republican-led House (and fairly even Senate) first passed the Patriot Act into law in 2001, having Obama support it now is the best way to have the Republicans of today reject it. Hell, you can steer the Party of No around right now just by having Obama support the opposite viewpoint of what you want.

Re:Those who would give up..

[TheGratefulNet]

the CURRENT system is designed (patched) to disallow major changes. so, no peaceful solution exists to reform us.

you want violence? I'm ok with that, if its othe only way to fix things, but I'm not excited about living thru it. no sane person is.

but I repeat, peaceful solutions won't work when the game is all stacked against reform and the power broker club circles the wagons and protects themselves against ANY real change.

show me one government that has gone this bad and self-corrected without a revolution. name one.

Ok, folks. Can we just?

[Opportunist]

Can we just fuse them back into the "Democratic Republicans" and be done with the whole show every other year? It's getting tiresome and it's mostly a waste of money and TV airtime, and in general a huge insult to the collective intelligence of the US people.

Seriously. Why not change the whole election game to something like the American Idol election? Everyone can vote as often as they like, corporations get a mass text rebate so they don't lose their right to choose who's going to make their laws, and the money for the messages goes to a fund for nations with crippled economies. In other words, hand it to the IRS.

And the candidates don't have to lie to us about what they claim they'd do, they have to sing and dance for us so they at least entertain us instead of just making us mad.