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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama’s Unparalleled Spy State
http://www.alternet.org/surveillance-facebook-googleUS President Barack Obama walks down the West Wing Colonnade in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, June 5, 2013. Obama called for "meaningful reform" and respect for universal rights in Bahrain, during talks with Crown Prince Salman
Now we know for sure: The Obama administration has presided over the most thorough expansion of the domestic surveillance state of any U.S. presidency. Even as the nation was still absorbing the news, broken by Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian on Wednesday night, that the National Security Agency has been routinely collecting phone call records for millions of Americans, the Washington Post and the Guardian published articles revealing even broader government snooping powers: Since 2007, the NSA and the FBI have had the power to watch nearly every aspect of our online life as well.
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a persons movements and contacts over time.
The nine companies are Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple. (PalTalk, according to the Post, hosted significant traffic during the Arab Spring and in the ongoing Syrian civil war.)
The program is code-named PRISM, and while it was created during the administration of George W. Bush, the Post reports that it has experienced exponential growth under Obama.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Only the despicable treachery of those vile vermin allowed the forces of evil to triumph over good.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)When I came to this planet website I didn't really plan to stay so long or I would have picked a less obvious handle.
6000eliot
(5,643 posts)Both parties made this happen, and most Americans gladly went along. The time to get angry was OVER TEN YEARS AGO! Now they are just carrying water for the far right.
treestar
(82,383 posts)marmar
(76,990 posts)No, you can't pin it all on Obama, but you can't absolve him of blame either, n'est-ce pas? These Bush initiatives have been carried on, and some pumped up on steroids.
burnodo
(2,017 posts)Is everything you people disagree with carrying water for the far right?
treestar
(82,383 posts)becomes the current President's. As if they invent it all anew each time there is a new President.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And it was so unfair of radical leftists to blame them for it.
randome
(34,845 posts)But I suppose Obama the Kenyan Dictator should not be surprised to have this pinned on him.
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[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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burnodo
(2,017 posts)Do you trust Republicans when they're "reviewing" this program?
randome
(34,845 posts)There is a special FISA court that reviews this. There is a judge who approves the warrant.
With that many layers of review, I'm satisfied.
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[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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burnodo
(2,017 posts)but I seriously doubt that this "review" actually looks at everything being done
Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)I have no means of influencing anything that happened before I arrived on site as an individual, or as a leader. I can only decide how things will happen from now on. President Obama had nothing to do with how things got started. The morons who fired up this mess were idiots who tore up the Constitution on a daily basis.
President Obama is smarter. Unlike Bush and the morons around him, President Obama not only studied Constitutional Law, but taught it. I would expect that an idiot like Bush would not give a damn about the Constitution, nothing he did showed that he had any understanding of it's importance. President Obama on the other hand, has had the power since 2009, and most importantly, is well versed, has taught countless students the importance of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
The 4th Amendment.
Where is the probable cause that justifies the seizing of the records for every single person in the nation? Where is the idea that we are protected from improper listening to our conversations, and examinations of our personal messages?
Bush was an idiot, we said so for eight long years. We protested his shredding of the Constitution, we objected to his spying program. We know he lied, and we shouted it from the rooftops. We elected a Constitutional Scholar, a Constitutional professor, who was as smart as Bush was dumb, to end this crap. I elected him to set things right, and to end the unconstitutional practices of Bush and the cabal.
Make no mistake, I don't hold Bush blameless. But he is an idiot, and it is easier to understand how an idiot would screw up something he doesn't understand than to excuse a Genius like Obama who taught that individual civil liberty is important. A child should not have a gun, because a child doesn't understand how dangerous it is. A child makes a mistake, and if not excusable, it is at least a mitigating circumstance when the question of punishment comes up. An adult has no such excuse. A brilliant adult like President Obama knows better, and did it anyway. Democrats who know better did it anyway.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)eg. the formula for coca cola, Apple's next move in cell phones, pre-order information for next Christmas's retail inventory, etc. etc. So a corporation with connections inside the NSA can know exactly what their competitors' next moves are, how much they pay their key employees, who has health issues and everything else.
Such information can also be used to profit heavily in the stock market.
If there was ever a doubt this kills it -- the game is rigged.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Response to KurtNYC (Reply #16)
randome This message was self-deleted by its author.