Posted on 06/08/2013 2:03:18 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
President Obama on Friday defended the governments collection of data on the phone records of millions of Americans, saying that it was a modest encroachment on privacy and one he thinks is both lawful and justified in order to identify terrorists plotting to attack the United States.
Obama emphasized that the government does not collect information on individual callers or eavesdrop on Americans conversations without a warrant.
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We now know what Obama was using those jug ears of his for.Obama once waxed effusively about the sounds of the Arabic call to prayer, now it's calls through Verizon he'd describe as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.'
In California yesterday, Obama tried to reassure people worried about big government overreach by brilliantly redirecting people's attention to Obamacare, a program of big government overreach. Reacting for the first time to the flood of news stories about his NSA scandals, Obama was at first speechless. Then incoherent. (His staff forgot to bring his 'passionate' remarks to the podium.)
Obama defended the need to spy on Americans by the millions. (It marked the first time in the Obama era that the head of the executive branch wasn't claiming he only learned about something by reading it in the papers.)
He complained about the tone of the reportage. He said the news media don't fully appreciate the limits of these programs that seized 121 million Verizon phone records, access customer information from credit rating agencies, tap into Apple, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Skype, Microsoft, Facebook and Paltalk to extract photos, audios, videos and emails to track people's movements.
Obama said that "By shifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respects to folks who might engage in terrorism." People were stunned and shocked. Obama used the word "terrorism"???
Obama claimed nobody spying on you at NSA is listening in on your phone calls. 'And if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan.'
To erase any nagging doubts, he assured Americans that they're only collecting metadata on you, including the number you're calling, what time of the day you're calling, where you're calling from, how long your call is, how often you call your doctor, or, in Obama's case, how often calls are placed to make sure his college records are still sealed.
Even more comforting, he said the only way they could listen to your calls is by simply going to a secret court to get approval. 'I promise you the most transparent and open administration in history.'
"I know that the people who are involved in these programs, they operate like professionals ... the last thing they'd be doing is taking programs like this to listen to somebody's phone calls," said Obama. 'And I know the people at the IRS would never target Americans based on their personal beliefs nor leak private information to third parties. And if they did, it's clearly Cincinnati's fault.'
In a further sop to the checks-and-balances set who still doubt the wonderful, good and clean motivations of government bureaucrats with this much secretive power, Obama noted that you shouldn't worry because members of Congress are in on it too. And sworn to secrecy on everything they'd been briefed on. And if you can't trust Congress, who can you trust?
Obama: I'll be leaving "this office sometime in the next three and a half years," so I would "have a personal interest in making sure my privacy is protected." In fact, they still don't know where he was on the night of Benghazi.
Obama's babbling about how massive invasions of privacy like this are worth it begs the question (well beyond his competency to address), 'how so?' So sophisticated the labyrinthine colossus of 'counterterrorism' that government in Washington built that it blissfully missed the Fort Hood shooter, the Little Rock Army recruiting station shooter, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber and the Boston Marathon bombers. All of the foregoing happening on Obama's watch. Too busy spying on Americans to notice repeated Russian warnings about the older Tsarnaev. Too busy trying to nab notorious, home grown master spy James Rosen to notice Faisal Shahzad's plans to detonate Times Square. Too busy eavesdropping on suspicious Tea Party church lady types in Missouri aiding and abetting their grandkids' Big Gulp indulgences to take seriously any warnings from the underwear bomber's old fogey dad about the son having been radicalized. The Fort Hood shooter did everything warning-wise but put the date and location in neon lights. With a fine and dandy 'security' apparatus like this, that won't profile Muslims so it uselessly dragnets everyone regardless, who needs the Keystone Kops?
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
Saturday morning ping! Have a great weekend, y’all!
So basically, Obama is saying, “Trust me.” Doesn’t every con-artist say those words to potential victims?
Thanks for the ping to another excellent essay
I wouldn’t trust that arrogan pos from here to [-]here
It’s worse than anyone knows John.
"The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hope Valerie Jarrett, and the NSA read that last paragraph more than once.
5.56mm
I’m starting a movement. I’m asking everyone to place ten calls a day to strange numbers that you’ve never called before. You don’t have to stay on line very long. It will drive NSA crazy. They will have ten times the phone calls to sift through.
Bingo.
Nothing the government creates is ever put to good use, only political use and this is no different. We either accept that or we severely restrict government. Eventually it’s monopoly on force must be broken if we’re to keep our liberties. I believe government should be prohibited from owning weapons. Hat would end abuse entirely.
JH2 don’t stop, you’re on a roll. Keep up the excellent work.
Maybe in the next 3.5 years they will be able to find Barry’s birth certificate or somebody who remembers him from Columbia. :-)
Islamofascist serial killers don't match the profile of the evil church going, honorably discharged guy, working not on welfare, legal gun owner, NRA member and still married to the mother of his children. So big lesbo sis and Erich the America destroyer left the Islamfascist serial killers alone to profile and go after the guys fitting the profile described above.
Thank you so much for your excellent essay, dear JohnHuang2!
Well said JH2, that sums it up!
Better watch your back, JH2.
Big eyes are reading this.............
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