President Obama Defends NSA Spying

reply to post by smurfy

most sensible post so far, and the year, (1984) was not even the watershed, except perhaps that the snoopy's were beginning to have a sniff at ordinary folk.

Thank you…and you’re exactly right! 1984 was a time of recovery and American prosperity (according to our written history). We were recovering from the Carter years, expanding government control, sowing seeds that would eventually lead to more conflict, etc; but to most those were years of recovery.

I suggest that the CRAP we’re hearing today about RECOVERY is an even more grandiose lie. US is in so much debt today (and growing) that my great grandchildren (LONG from birth) will never repay the money these NWO usurpers are spending today.

We’re on a path of no return…My hope is to mitigate the suffering of my immediate family during the events leading to our inevitable demise. I know that sounds horrible but I’m a realist, skeptic, survivalist, student of history, and one ruthless bastard whose going to give’em hell.

F-U globalists! (we need a middle-finger emoticon)

President Obama doesn't need to defend NSA spying.

Does the world realize how many Corporate owned satellites are in orbit?

The companies that own them are free to do whatever they wish with those satellites. NOBODY to inspect what they're doing up there....are they spying on the world??.....You Betcha.....they could have their own "Santa List" of who's naughty and nice and could be beaming energy at people on Earth THEY don't like.

Nobody would be the wiser.

Not even the G-O-V is watching what those Corporations are doing with their satellites.....their servers....their software.

There's other evil being done besides the G-O-V.

reply to post by Pervius


In the United States of America, Companies are not under the Constitution. It wasn't written for them, about them and certainly not to restrict them. It certainly comes to function that way through the courts at times, but there was not even a passing thought given to that when the top 10 points were written. In fact, outside the 10th Amendment, even the states aren't largely a focus or taking any particular role in the U.S. Constitution.

That is a Federal set of restrictions to limit their conduct. I think the thread about corporate abuse is down the hall behind the door marked 'Derailers Anonymous'. Just my thoughts...when rationalization and justification become the ONLY defense to outrageous Federal conduct.

My favorite part was where he said, I don't see anyone saying we
aren't free because of security at airports, is he blind and deaf or something? i
don't have access to super secret NSA spying and even I have
heard people complain about airport security, how many issues
have there already been with the TSA hiring horrible employees,
touching children, treating people like we are all terrorists......

This is an interesting thing really, they are flat out caught red
handed as it were and now they have to flat out lie about it,
the public is really upset over this one and i really don't think
the lies will placate this time.

In all practicality, we are never going to turn back. The private sector profiles the hell out of people and engages similar programs, together with the government we will never exist in a private state as we once knew it sorry to say.

As far as the government is concerned; they "cannot" stop because it is the wave of the future, these programs are also integral parts of counter cyber warfare and espionage activities. The US is doing what it always has, staying on the cutting edge of technology... What "we" do not consider is that all this meta data is in fact used for much more extensive programs and artificial intelligence. We only see a very small part of the motivation, however I am not sure if the thing they are feeding this data to is useful, or even more dangerous???

The most important thing is that we keep our laws and procedures right, that is the part of the equation that could spell disaster.

The government can have records of you jerking off, cheating on your wife, looking at kiddy porn and gambling, doesn't mean $%#% all if they do not follow procedure in trying to prosecute you.

Neo,

"Those who sacrifice liberty for security soon find themselves as having neither. "

I don't think the people of this country will sacrifice their liberty. I really hope not. With liberty, comes security.

Originally posted by DocHolidaze
reply to post by Diabolical

 

i think its sad that you and many others believe we have a choice whom the president is

You know it my friend. We are just paying spectators in this ingeniously evil game

btw.

F* Hillary...you guys are nuts. Anyway...pick whomever you want...it won't matter.

Obama just keeps on playing the same old fiddle.

Many people are waking up now and realizing He might just be a pathological liar.

It is important that we listen closely and remember what he DOESN'T say, and start considering the opposite as truth.

He speaks for all the psychopaths and maniacs running things.

They are getting more and more desperate by the hour it seems.

Their collective brains are frosted beyond hope.

Obama seems a little listless lately too.

Millions of people fell for all the gags and con games.

Many will still not let go of the nightmare dream.

Too bad.

reply to post by neo96


There is no defense over this. More people die falling in a bathtub each year than are killed by terrorist attack. We do not surrender freedoms to stay safer in the bathroom. This stat is hard to believe but..something like 500,000 people die yearly from snake bites. Just google search if you do not believe me. We have not waged war on snakes. We have not surrendered our freedoms. Yes Obama allowed the security state to expand but for the OP to claim he has gone above and beyond Bush is hogwash. There is no torture taking place now. We are not kidnapping people in the middle of the night and placing them on unmarked planes to take to Egypt or Romania. There is too much invested in a police state to turn back now. We were distracted from the truth and allowed this to happen.

The 4th admendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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.[1]

Yet we go ape crazy if the second amendment may be infringed on. We go crazy if our favorite show is canceled. We have known since 2002 that piece by piece this intrusive police state had been installed.

I am afraid there is no turning back. Screw Obamas justifications for this that they brief Congress many times a year. It does not do any good if everything is classified or if they just flat out lie about the program.

reply to post by neo96


You know that we have reached maturity in our country when we elected the first Black president of the United States, and guess what??? He's a DOUCHE Bag too.

Isn't Equality Great, It show's the world that a black man can be just as corrupt, evil, and incompetent as the white man. But is #ing up so bad, that NO ONE will every vote for another black president again.

What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be “they,” it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause….

So point number one, if you’re a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it’s not targeting your emails unless it’s getting an individualized court order. That’s the existing rule.

Actually, what he said is essentially correct. In a way.

They ARE still gathering the data. They just need a warrant to ACTIVELY target an individual to then examine their data...technically. However, since they (NSA) have the data, and are generally assumed to be in possession of, and have access to, the data, there is NO CHECK OR BALANCE here to prevent them from accessing or using this data without such a warrant, and THAT is where the problem lies, in addition to the collection in the first place. So, essentially Obama is correct, he simply is telling a half-truth though. He isn't confirming the fact that they have unrestricted access to their own data.

reply to post by TheMagus


Star for the "lady boy" reference


I would say
a half truth
is still a lie

Originally posted by neo96

How can anyone continue to 'believe we don't have to sacrifice our freedom in order to achieve security' and say the hydrochloro BULL HOCKEY after that.

That airport security is more invasive than ever.
Drunk drivers aren't on no fly lists, or get droned.

Well in a free society there are not checkpoints at airports in fact that is not the America most of us older people grew up in.


Amazing how Obama sounds like GWB, but Obama goes above and beyond.

Those who sacrifice liberty for security soon find themselves as having neither.

American's it's for the 'common good' to save us from all the bad people, but as I look around don't see anyone to save us as most people are just rolling over for this tripe.

Something they would not have done under the last administration.

edit on 17-6-2013 by neo96 because: (no reason given)

I seriously disagree with several of your points.

Nobody should have the freedom to endanger others with their behaviour.

I have personally tested my reaction speeds after drinking. and even after 1 and 2 beers the reaction were significantly lower. And I have pretty strong stomach for alcohol compared to most people - do not get drunk easily and can tolerate a lot...

I prefer zero tolerance for drink and drive. Nobody should have the right of endangering the lives of others. It is not freedom if I have to walk around or drive with extra caution if there might be some idiots who decided to go home with a car while being drunk. If your drunk you get a taxi or wait till you are sober... I have waited 16 hours after party before I am ready to drive. It is uncommon round here to own a breathelyser and after party testing every hour or so in the morning to find out when one can drive.


Also airport security is the same. If something happens with/in airplane, the likelyhood of everybody dieing is very high, although accidents do not happen often, so the rates of death are low compared to other transportation. If some idiot decided to make a massacre that would be the best place, that is why the control must be high. Some of the rules might seem absurd, for example the liquid one, although the criminals are smart and many licquids can be turned to very dangerous substances with chemical reactions. And nobody needs a gun on an air plane..Full body scan is necessary as there are some idiots who are trying to smuggle weapons/drugs inside their body.

I fully agree with both of these. If you don´t like these rules, do not drive or do not fly a plane... easy.

reply to post by Cabin


You do realize that it wouldn't take a genius to smuggle a bomb or weapon onto a plane right? Our current measures only prevent doing so with standard weapons. One could easily fabricate a weapon's parts and integrate those into common everyday items that would go right through the carry on scanner, then assemble the weapon once onboard. So, if ineffective, why endure the unnecessary steps of our security measures?

Anyone trying to do something on a plane these days is going to get pounded by the passengers the moment they make such a move. That's still the BEST security measure, and I'm sure the terrorists are well aware of it these days.

Technically he is correct about the NSA. It works with the cia to gather intelligence and provide 'national insecurity' for americans. Foreign powers are tasked with this job and this is convenient because it bypasses the USA laws. Ask the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa to spy for you.

As for the fbi they can probably tap you with or without probable cause after the patriot act was signed into law.

reply to post by Gazrok


Its much easier to pay the cleaning crew, pilots, mechanics, security personel to smuggle the weapons onboard at a convenient time and at a convenient place. Then the terrorists know where to find them and when to go into action.

Staff are getting their pay cut so a few million dollars can do miracles me thinks. Heck maybe even a few hundred thousand. I remember reading someone bringing a plane down just to collect their spouses life insurance policy years ago.

How did the PLO hijackings happen in the middle east? They had help. Normal people don't do bad things. Sick people and those with a cause do.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by neo96

 

I fail to see where he defended NSA spying... In fact, he denied it.

Øbama likes to call the NSA & other Intel agencies operations as 'Transparent...and not spying

he and the administration have a window (transparency) into the actions of the population
which 'is a good thing'...according to the psychos and Czars in the administration

recall the Øbama pledge to have the most open and transparent administration there ever was...
it just depends upon the definition of open and transparent means (a'la Clinton-esque speak)

to Øbama...open & transparent means him looking into our windows & thru walls
and not 'we-the-people' having a full disclosure of government data-mining & surveillance activity directed at the population....

the Øbama-Care Act/Law is just another way to get everyones' DNA samples collected and categorized into ratings of projected life expectancy and gene tendancy for aggression behavior

Originally posted by Gazrok

What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be “they,” it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause….

So point number one, if you’re a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it’s not targeting your emails unless it’s getting an individualized court order. That’s the existing rule.

Actually, what he said is essentially correct. In a way.

They ARE still gathering the data. They just need a warrant to ACTIVELY target an individual to then examine their data...technically. However, since they (NSA) have the data, and are generally assumed to be in possession of, and have access to, the data, there is NO CHECK OR BALANCE here to prevent them from accessing or using this data without such a warrant, and THAT is where the problem lies, in addition to the collection in the first place. So, essentially Obama is correct, he simply is telling a half-truth though. He isn't confirming the fact that they have unrestricted access to their own data.

This is exactly it. People need to realize that all phone calls, emails, and texts are recorded and stored. The NSA or the CIA can look at this data any time they want. The only time they would get a warrant is if they planned to use it.

All Phone Calls Are Recorded & Permanently Stored

I will make the argument that no body actually knows the process or scope of the actual spy program. This is perhaps the most secret thing the Govt has done since The Manhatten Project. We know what they tell us.. Or someone leaks. Maybe Snowden leaked this to keep people away from the actual program. Maybe he leaked this and some of it is accurate. I have been reading everything I can about the NSA since late 2001. My feeling is the spying is total and complete.

I think it is silly to speculate about the program without knowing actual real facts. Imagine in 1945 if it was leaked we have a weapon that will end the war. That was all the information we would get. The speculation would have been crazy and very very wrong.

This piece in Washington Post last year was great.

projects.washingtonpost.com...

I will add if you have read anything over the last 12 years it has been clear that they were spying on US citizens. All you had to do was figure it out yourself. The clues have been there. I have said in posts on this very website that we are being spied on and they know more about me than I do about myself.

This was written 2008.

A new article by investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham reveals, a governmental unit operating in secret and with no oversight whatsoever is gathering massive amounts of data on every American and running artificial intelligence software to predict each American’s behavior, including “what the target will do, where the target will go, who it will turn to for help”. The same governmental unit is responsible for suspending the Constitution and implementing martial law in the event that anything is deemed by the White House in its sole discretion to constitute a threat to the United States. (this is formally known as implementing “Continuity of Government” plans). [Background here.] As Ketcham’s article makes clear, these same folks and their predecessors have been been busy dreaming up plans to imprison countless “trouble-making” Americans without trial in case of any real or imagined emergency. What kind of Americans? Ketcham describes it this way: “Dissidents and activists of various stripes, political and tax protestors, lawyers and professors, publishers and journalists, gun owners, illegal aliens, foreign nationals, and a great many other harmless, average people.” Do we want the same small group of folks who have the power to suspend the Constitution, implement martial law, and imprison normal citizens to also be gathering information on all Americans and running AI programs to be able to predict where American citizens will go for help and what they will do in case of an emergency? Don’t we want the government to — um, I don’t know — help us in case of an emergency? The federal government has been developing a highly classified plan that will override the Constitution in the event of a major terrorist attack. Is it also compiling a secret list of citizens who could face detention under martial law?

www.christopherketcham.com...

PBS reported this.

Known as Aquaint, which stands for “Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence” [which is run by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)], part of the new M Square Research Park in College Park, Maryland. A mammoth two million-square-foot, 128-acre complex, it is operated in collaboration with the University of Maryland. “Their budget is classified, but I understand it’s very well funded,” said Brian Darmody, the University of Maryland’s assistant vice president of research and economic development, referring to IARPA. “They’ll be in their own building here, and they’re going to grow. Their mission is expanding.” “The technology behaves like a robot, understanding and answering complex questions,” said a former Aquaint researcher. “Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL.” A naturalized U.S. citizen who received her Ph.D. from Columbia, the researcher worked on the program for several years but eventually left due to moral concerns. “The system can answer the question, ‘What does X think about Y?’” she said. “Working for the government is great, but I don’t like looking into other people’s secrets.

www.pbs.org...

I guess my argument is no one actually knows what is going on. I know for a fact this program has many different aspects and is immense in scale. It is highly compartmentalised and ultra top secret. I seriously bet less than 10 people in this Country know the actual scope and reach of this program.

The FISA court had 1800 requests last year. 0 were denied. The Govt is gonna play legal games with this program. Cheney said... These are not your private records these are business records.

reply to post by GArnold


Ran out if room. The Govt will play legal games with this to justify it.

Remember the Justice Dept green lighted the enhanced interrogation program( known in every other Country on Earth as torture). And green lighted rendition ( kidnapping people in dead of night and placing them on unmarked aircraft to be taken to Countries where they turn a blind eye to torture--err enhanced interrogation.)

I have quite a bit of information about the NSA and Stellar Wind and Prism on my blog. If you are interested....feel free to comment or send me message here if you feel so inclined. Feedback is appreciated.

drakeequation.wordpress.com...


From 2010.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

projects.washingtonpost.com...

Or this from 2010. As I argued this information was out there. If you paid attention what Snowden leaked is not a shock or surprise.

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators. The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing. The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

projects.washingtonpost.com...

I guess to me the most shocking aspect to this is that as a whole US citizens sat back and allowed this police state to happen under our noses and we demanded no accountability. We get way way upset about the possibility they might alter the law so guns were harder to get. Yet no outrage with the fact our privacy and 4th admendment rights have vanished. Vanished.

I will also argue that it is too late to turn back. There is way too much invested in this far reaching spy program ( from just outright dollars to the thousands of people who work on one aspect of this or another). This spying is the new reality. The new reality is looking like 1984 a bit except with better technology.1