Posted on 05/07/2017 12:02:38 PM PDT by John Semmens
The Obama Administration sought and obtained intelligence on thousands of Americans during 2016. Though the NSA is legally forbidden from directly spying on Americans and has temporary authority to conduct warrant-less searches of foreigners, during 2016 government officials conducted 30,355 searches seeking information about Americans and distributed over 3,000 reports with unredacted names of US citizens.
U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the growth in queries about Americans, but declined to offer any justification on the grounds that being pressured to provide justification "would endanger national security. All the public needs to know is that the government has its own very strict rules. They need to trust us and let us do our jobs."
Susan Rice, former National Security Adviser to President Obama, was seemingly deeply enmeshed in the surveillance scheme. As such, her appearance before a congressional committee was requested by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). Rice declined to appear, saying that the request wasn't bipartisan. "I see no upside for me in being interrogated by Republicans," she said. "Why should I voluntarily testify? And if they try to compel me to, I can invoke my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination."
An article by Jeff Kisseloff in The Nation pointed out that "abuse of power by presidents is a long standing tradition. FDR did it. JFK did it. LBJ did it. Why should we be surprised that Obama did it? These are all men we trust. They have the proper world view. Any corners they cut in pursuit of progressive values shouldn't be held against them.
In related news, the Democratic National Committee defended rigging the Party's primary in favor of Hillary Clinton. DNC attorney Bruce Spiva argued that "the Democratic Party is a private organization and can make and interpret rules however it wants. Its bylaws mandating impartial and evenhanded treatment of competing candidates is really discretionary. DNC officials can do whatever they want. The fact is, the Party decided early on that Clinton would be the presidential nominee and took the steps that were necessary to make that happen. Sanders was lucky we even let him run as a Democrat. We could have done it like we did in the old days and let Party honchos pick a candidate in some backroom. Instead, we put on a show so voters would feel involved, but we sure as Hell weren't going to let them decide who would represent the Party."
if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,261573.0.html
Look for an empty chain in your registry.
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