Posted on 08/11/2013 8:24:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Friday, president Obama announced a plan to reform NSA surveillance.
Don't expect much of anything to come out of it. It's a dog and pony show designed to make people feel better as opposed to any solid measures as to how much data government collects on everyone.
Here are excerpts from the above article with my comments interspersed.
Independent: President Obama told a packed room of journalists at the White House Friday afternoon that he will work to reform Section 215 of the Patriot Act - the provision which currently allows the federal government’s intelligence agencies to collect domestic phone data.
The President also said that he will work to increase oversight with regards to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - the secretive judicial body that authorizes the government to collect data on communications coming in and out of the United States.
Obama said the reform will be accompanied with the roll-out of a new website which will provide Americans and people around the world the ability to learn more about the surveillance programs.
Obama: "The US will “make public as much information about these programs as possible.”
Mish: Expect to discover that the only thing "possible" is a bunch of government propaganda designed to purposely mislead the public about the extent of government data gathering activities.
Independent: Obama said he is forming an outside advisory panel to review the surveillance programs, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency and creating an independent attorney to challenge the government’s spy policies in court.
Mish: The NSA advisory panel will have as much say as an advisory panel of ants at an anteater convention.
Obama: "No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” Obama said. “I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference, and I think the American people’s preference, would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws. A thoughtful, fact-based debate that would then lead us to a better place."
Mish: Snowden is a hero.
Obama: "So the fact is that Mr. Snowden has been charged with three felonies,” added Obama. “If in fact he believes that what he did was right, then like every American citizen he can come here, appear before a court with a lawyer and make his case. If the concern was that somehow this was the only way to get this information out to the public, I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whistleblower protection to the intelligence community for the first time. So there were other avenues available for someone whose conscious was stirred."
Mish: There were no other avenues that would have done anything about the blatantly illegal data gathering other than making everything public.
Obama: "If you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person, and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying, ‘US, Big Brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, etc.,’ well, understandably people would be concerned. I would be too if I wasn’t inside the government. It's not enough for me to have confidence in these programs. The American people have to have confidence in them as well."
Mish: Obama has confidence in something blatantly illegal, and he has the gall to insist you should have equal confidence.
Obama: "The question is: How do I make the American people more comfortable?”
Mish: The answer is: Stop the spying on US citizens and stop the spying on our allies as well.
Obama: "I am comfortable that the program is currently not being abused"
Mish: Even if one foolishly believes spying on US citizens is constitutional, Snowden proved without a doubt the program was repeatedly and purposely abused. And that makes the president is a blatant liar.
Obama’s trying to convince us that U.S. spies are out in their overcoats, dark glasses, and soft shoes, and are edge art on Mad magazine.
He needs to reform the surveillance program so it's not so easily detected.
We all know that Obama’s speech on reforming the NSA was pure unadulterated BS, spoon fed to the idiot voters.
These are all bullsh!t lies. Just like the lies he spoke when he swore he’d get to the bottom of Benghazi, or when he said those responsible for the IRS scandal would be brought to justice, or when the FBI did this, the CIA did that, blah blah blah effing blah effity blah.
All lies....I believed OJ Simpson on his vow to “get Nicole’s killer” more than I do this pitiful little puissant tyrant.
Snowden....I'm still uncommitted
And Russia.....Do we think they don't spy along with every other damn country in the world??
Reform hell. It is criminal.
One would think, but he will NEVER go below 40% popularity. The numbers of entitlement voters will keep that from happening. All they care about are two things: 1(he is black) and 2) that they keep their stolen booty.
The media is already starting to gloss over his import now and trying to get the 2016 Democrat candidate stuff on-the-air. That way, they don’t have to admit we have a President who never had any business being there, even in a house staff situation.
With 60 percent of Americans saying they don’t approve of the surveillance, he is trying to do what he does best: fool the people even more.
Its ridiculous to believe Snowden had any info that China and Russia don’t already know about. Our defense industries are full of foreign nationals. Groups like the international crisis group are full of lefty state department officials who think sharing info is how to prevent wars and control nations.
The king was LYING then and he is LYING now!
The revelations about government snooping will lead to very secure VPNs popping up that are based in free countries.
The very data the NSA wanted to look at the most will all migrate to these new services.
Since the Snowden affair, the few VPN services that now exist have been overwhelmed with new subscribers. Those located in the US will be shut down soon IMO. They will be resurrected outside the country.
Encryption WILL keep the NSA from getting hold of unencrypted data passed through VPNs or encrypted email providers. The fact that the NSA leaned so heavily on Snowden’s encrypted email provider proves they can’t decode it. They would have left the email provider alone if they could decode it since they can easily get the data before it reaches the email provider...just as they get the data going to Yahoo, Gmail, Google..etc
Tapping the pipes to gather all data does no good if it is strongly encrypted.
The crap some spew about NSA being able to decode any encryption is pure baloney.
Oops I was caught. I didn’t even know this was happening. I will get on the reform band wagon and fix everything.
I promise! So help me satan s/ b hussain,barry,soetoro,umbugo,mohammed,alla, Obama!
There was a spy in the FBI. He had worked there for maybe 25 years. He was feeding secrets to some Russian chick. There was also a later Russian spy...a good looking chick IIRC.
Wouldn’t be funny if Snowden released info about Obama’s cell phone transmissions?.
The Russians warned us several times about the Boston bombers.
Obama blew Putin off..Big Time.
So much for Obama's real concern about "Security".
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