Surprise: At the End, Obama Administration Gave NSA Broad New Powers

PJ Media ^ | February 15, 2017 | Michael Walsh

[jazusamo]

This story, from the Jan. 12, 2017, edition of the New York Times , was little-remarked upon at the time, but suddenly has taken on far greater significance in light of current events:

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

One of the central questions behind the Mike Flynn flap that should have been asked but largely wasn't is: who was wiretapping the general? The answer, we know now, was the National Security Agency, formerly known as No Such Agency, the nation's foremost signals-intelligence (SIGINT) collection department.

Once compartmentalized to avoid injuring private citizens caught up in the net of the Black Widow (as we all are already) and her technological successors, the NSA was suddenly handed greater latitude in what it could share with other, perhaps more politicized bodies of the intelligence community. Why?

[NoLibZone]

Socialists adore police states.

"Obama quarterbacked the greatest expansion of electronic surveillance in U.S. history."

Not Fox News!
Not Sean Hannity!

Politico!

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/challenging-obama-knows-best-transparency-nsa-92624_Page3.html

[Jacquerie]

As our Framers knew, standing armies were justified as defense against foreign enemies. In time, they were always turned inward to defend the Prince from internal opposition.

Such is the NSA.

[Art in Idaho]

So, Obama expanded the NSA with broad new powers and will have moles only reporting to him. Gee, I wonder why he did that? . . It's pretty obvious the Obama and his plants were behind this whole Flynn debacle.

Trump needs to get his own loyal people from NSA reporting only to him. All of Obama's phone calls, whereabouts, who he's meeting with. Obama truly is a domestic enemy and could send his thugs to the White House on any given night and voila' we have martial law. You think this is absurd? It happens all the time in banana republics. Are we there yet?

Obama needs to be treated as a domestic enemy who is potentially dangerous. He needs to be monitored and watched closely. If we're overdoing it, fine, better be safe than sorry. I don't trust Obama and his long term plans, not one bit.

[jazusamo]

I couldn’t agree more, he is a domestic enemy and should be treated as such.

From the moment he was inaugurated to his last day in office he blatantly worked against what was best for our nation and he won’t change.

[Art in Idaho]

From the moment he was inaugurated to his last day in office he blatantly worked against what was best for our nation and he won’t change.

Yes, he sure did and he won't change. I feel really bad about this because Trump has so much on his plate and wants to do so much to help America. Obama needs to be dealt with early so he's not a thorn in Trump's side on a daily basis as Trump tries to MAGA!

[Art in Idaho]

Andy McCarthy on Levin now saying Obama was investigating Trump’s server trying to tie him and Manafort as Russian agents. Did search of their server at Trump Tower in Oct, Nov, phone taps, NSA surveillance, etc. Trying to get Trump while Hillary has a plethora of felonies with her server, Clinton Foundation, etc. Obama was trying to get Trump, no doubt about it. They went to court, talked with a judge about potential FISA laws broken re contact with Russia, etc. The FISA court said no. This is just the gist of it from listening to Levin just now.

[Art in Idaho]

The more we're finding out about all of this, one thing is clear. It's all going back to Obama and his cronies as the source. Way beyond community agitation. This is sedition and treason. Lock him up!