Obama Promises Broad Review of Surveillance Programs

Obama Promises Broad Review of Surveillance Programs

www.wired.com

Forced by recent leaks to respond to criticism that the government is exploiting legal loopholes to conduct widespread surveillance of U.S. citizens, President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged today that the government needs to be more transparent about its surveillance activities. Obama promised a broad review of the programs to determine what changes Congress needs to make to the Patriot Act to protect privacy and civil liberties.

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This is such a laugh I don't even know where to begin. So it looks like the pressure is starting to get to Mr. Obama and he is making public statements towards looking into this.

Obama had called for a review of the programs in April, before the Guardian newspaper began publishing the first leaks from Snowden. But the review was a secretive closed-door process. Snowden’s leaks have forced the issues into the spotlight and ensured that the public has been able to voice its concern and anger over the programs and pressure Congress to fully engage in ways they have failed to do until now.

Seriously!?! So we are to believe that Obama was already going to review the NSA's spying and it was CONVENIENTLY put into effect before the leak. So Mr. Obama why all the outrage over the leaked information that Snowden provided? If you were already going to implement a bunch of changes you should have just confirmed his story and then provided the documents to show that you already had plans to change things on the books.

But no, you decide to do everything in your power to shut Snowden up. Then when it becomes clear that he has become out of your reach only NOW do you admit that you were making changes to the spying program all along. Me smells some fecal matter in the air.

President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged today that the government needs to be more transparent about its surveillance activities.

There's that word again. Well no crap you have to be more transparent when everyone already knows the truth anyways...

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Oh wow! A real, bona fida review? Will this be anything like the Benghazi investigation? Maybe Clapper himself can do the review in top secret meetings?

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Damage control engage.

"It's cool guys, just drink some of this . . . cherry drink."

Yeah right and if you believe anything that comes out of Obama's mouth then I have a bridge to sell you. Cheap!

Our "pres" has proven himself a complete liar and enabler of liars.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


But I thought there wasn't a domestic spying program?

Now, I honestly believe that reviews will take place. Reviews on how to keep a tighter lid on what "our" government is doing. As soon a Obama started talking about "Transparency" I quit watching. The only way I will ever believe the President is sincere is if he will drop all charges against Snowden. If he doesn't want to call him a patriot, that is fine, but stop trying to punish him for revealing the truth about the Federal Government.

Originally posted by ObservingTheWorld
Now, I honestly believe that reviews will take place. Reviews on how to keep a tighter lid on what "our" government is doing.

Absolutely right and they're already beginning the clamp down.

The National Security Agency, hit by disclosures of classified data by former contractor Edward Snowden, said Thursday it intends to eliminate about 90 percent of its system administrators to reduce the number of people with access to secret information.

The NSA Intends To Fire 90% Of Their System Administrators To Eliminate Future Leaks

We all know how they like to play with words and hide things in plain site, so I'm always amused when I see politicians use this line.

President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged today that the government needs to be more transparent

That means INVISIBLE !!

Ok, let's go through the run down...,


You get caught doing something bad in private
And you scold the guy who says anything about it
Then you say you have been doing it
And that you will make sure that the Private monitoring is privately monitored...


Sounds Legit....

So do you think they will open up the FISA court?

konklone.com...

Nobody will actually tell you where the door to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — also known as the "FISA Court" — is. It's understood to have moved from the Department of Justice to the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in 2009, but when I visited Prettyman, the employees in the first floor District Clerk's office (gently) laughed at my attempts to find anything about the Court. They referred to it as the "Room of Requirement", and said they had no idea what floor it was even on. But if you walk through each floor of the Courthouse, and if you believe the Washington Post's 2009 description of the FISA Court door as having "biometric hand scanners" and being in a "public hallway", then it becomes pretty obvious that on the 3rd floor's solemn hallway, you've found your door:

I can only show you a drawing, because one of the first things that happens when you walk into the Prettyman Courthouse is they take away your phone. Unless you're staff or a juror, no recording devices allowed.Your laptop and phone will get put in a little metal locker along with your photo ID, and you'll be given a key to get them on the way out. To the right of the door, next to the intercom and the small sign saying "Access Restricted", is a biometric hand scanner. It's a Schlage HandPunch, a device that quickly snapshots the three-dimensional bone and joint structure of the hand and matches it against previously registered snapshots.

Given that, and how fervently the Court wants to be seen as in service of the public and not the executive, it's absurd that the FISA Court's door should stand nameless and undocumented in a public hallway. On top of that, there's no obvious way for the public to interact with even the Court's unclassified work. I visited Prettyman not just to gawk at the door, but to find paper versions of the documents the FISA Court has been filing at its official public docket.The Court invented their public docket on the fly back in June, and I'm very glad it exists, but from a public records standpoint, it's a mess. The Court publishes scanned image PDFs that are impossible to search through electronically. Some PDFs show up in multiple dockets, their publication times are only discernible from a clerk's physical stamp, and the links are unpredictable. It's not even clear whether the links or the site itself are permanent.

So a court with a hidden court room. No Clerk of the Court to talk to. And you have to have palm scanned and code to even get in when you know where it is. How open are they going to be?

reply to post by JBA2848


Some good information there about the secret court. Obama must think the whole nation is a bunch of fools. This is clearly a bunch of lip service and damage control now that the government can do nothing to get Snowden. So now all of a sudden they've been looking to clamp down on the spying all along. More smoke and mirrors to try to placate the masses. "Hey look not only are we doing something about this, but we've been looking to do something about this all along. *wink wink nudge nudge*"

Wouldn't it be nice if that worked both ways.
such as, ok, you look into this rights stomping issue
and we will look into paying taxes.

Don't worry Americans, after we "review" the NSA spy grid we, the Obama Administration, will work on all the other promises we broke. First order of business, government transparency!












FOOLED YOU

Originally posted by VoidHawk
We all know how they like to play with words and hide things in plain site, so I'm always amused when I see politicians use this line.

President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged today that the government needs to be more transparent

That means INVISIBLE !!

Also known as the "Shadow Government".

Originally posted by Bassago
Yeah right and if you believe anything that comes out of Obama's mouth then I have a bridge to sell you. Cheap!

My thoughts exactly. This guy is such a liar. Par for the course, of course but still. The idea that anyone believes his crap at this point (And I'm sure there are many who are that stupid) is mind blowing.

reply to post by Krazysh0t



LOL, 'broad review"....this is the Broad that'll be doing it:

reply to post by Krazysh0t

That promise of Obama is just about as good as all the other promises he has broken in the last five years. Virtually every promise he made, he has broken. Even with Obamacare, he promised it would bring health care costs DOWN. Now, of course, we know that health care premiums are skyrocketing anywhere from 25% to 100% a year! Keep your own doctor-promise broken. Many will be forced into state markets which their doctor is not in.
Provide jobs?-Well, Obamacare is costing millions of people their jobs, as companies cut employees down to part-time workers so that they don't have to provide healthcare insurance.
Everyone will participate-Really? What about all the waivers he has given to companies and organizations that contributed to him?
I could go on and on.
Maybe I should:
End all wars- he started more wars than Bush, overthrew governments that were our friends and left the people to the mercy of the Muslim brotherhood and Al Qaeda. Now he is egging to start a war on Syria.
He's turned Putin into an adversary, instead of an ally.
Under Obama, Russian and China are now conducting point military operations. Can you blame them?
He promised the most open administration. What do we have. Spying on every American citizen, reading all their emails, and everything they have on the internet.

Here is a site that lists dozens of major broken promises of Obama. Read them and weep:
www.politifact.com...

Originally posted by VoidHawk
We all know how they like to play with words and hide things in plain site, so I'm always amused when I see politicians use this line.

President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged today that the government needs to be more transparent

That means INVISIBLE !!

What about us plain old citizens and residents of the US, are we allowed to be invisible too? That would be awesome

The Guardian is the only newspaper pushing this...go straight to the horses mouth.

www.theguardian.com...

Anger is starting to grow, people are starting to be vocal, need to keep applying the pressure.