Do you think this NSA "scandal" is a real scandal?

[kentuck]

Or do you think the IRS and Benghazi "scandals" are more newsworthy? Or perhaps you think none of them qualify as a true "scandal"?

The Benghazi "scandal" was a Republican Party creation in hopes of impeaching the President a few months down the road. It never had any traction or truth.

But the IRS scandal, they were sure it went all the way up to the White House. Unfortunately, after all their charges and theories, it turned out to be the brain child of some conservative Republican in Cincinnati, Ohio. They hate to turn it loose but they have no choice.

Then there is the NSA scandal. Republicans have little ground to stand on since their last President did the same thing they charge this President with doing except their President did it illegally. At least, this President went thru the channels so that it would not be illegal. He had oversight from Congress and had it reviewed by the FISA Court, however secret and scarce the oversight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy

If we listened to what the President said on the Charlie Rose show, he is under the impression that the NSA cannot listen to your calls by rule and by law. He said ""What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls … by law and by rule, and unless they … go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it's always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause."

Now, maybe they did and maybe they didn't??

Republican in the House have similar viewpoints to the President. The GOP Chair of the House Intelligence Committee told CNN the NSA " "is not listening to Americans' phone calls. If it did, it is illegal. It is breaking the law."

And the House GOP has released talking points agreeing with the guidelines that the NSA is supposed to follow. They claimed that the surveillance law only "allows the Government to acquire foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S.-persons (foreign, non-Americans) located outside the United States."

Now that may or may not be true?

Did the President know what was going on and when did he know it? I think they kept him out of the loop like they professed to have done on other issues? I think the NSA was operating as a lone wolf, perhaps with the assistance of the CIA? They received permission from Attorney General Holder to do whatever they felt needed to be done. In my opinion, they were operating as a separate entity of government without any oversight.

And it is a true scandal. The Senate and House Intelligence did not do their job. They were spoonfed the information the NSA wanted them to have. The Attorney General was remiss in his duties by not knowing and actually approving the massive spying operation. And although the President did not know, in my opinion, the buck does stop with him.

However, if it is truly a scandal, the President must lead in getting to the bottom of it. He should ask for the resignations of Atty-General Holder and NSA Director Alexander immediately and he should appoint an investigative board, perhaps of former judges, to investigate the entire matter. Also, he should request new members on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

The President's poll numbers have dropped dramatically since this story broke. Until he takes some sort of action to resolve the issue, the scandal will continue to grow, in my opinion.

[Tx4obama]

1. No.

But don't worry the Republicans will be pulling more things out of their butt in the near future that will get everyone all riled up

[zappaman]

4. +100 n/t

[Marie Marie]

13. So that is why these "scandals" stink to high heaven.

[JackRiddler]

25. On what planet is it Republicans driving this?

[pnwmom]

64. Together with Libertarians like Snowden. n/t

[frylock]

34. how many times must it be explained to you that the republicans SUPPORT this?

[stevenleser]

60. Most and even they managed to find a way to criticize Obama about it. You're not paying attention.nt

[pnwmom]

65. They're gleefully using this to separate Obama from his base.

They know their support doesn't matter to Dems at all; but that as long as the program's in place Obama's base will be upset with him. This is a win-win for them.

[davidpdx]

66. Yep

[frylock]

77. JFC, you give these fucking idiots FAR too much credit

[pnwmom]

78. Yeah, tell that to Karl Rove. nt

[frylock]

79. karl rove?

karl rove?!! bwahahaha!!! karl rove, the guy that secured TONS of money to ensure Obama wouldn't get elected again? that karl rove?! the same guy that nearly blew a gasket on fux during election coverage as his world came crashing down around him? that's the guy you're afraid of??!

my statement stands; you give these idiots FAR too much credit.

[treestar]

72. They do not. They support it only with a Republican in the WH.

Do you know zilch about Republicans? They have no shame when it comes to hypocrisy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. It is. But none in the rarified place that is DC

Wants to touch it...this is party independent.

[think]

12. +1

This is not a Dem vs Rep thing.

This is an intrinsic interpretation about how American society perceives itself through the looking glass (IMO).....

[ohheckyeah]

3. I think it's a real scandal...

I think it's an abomination.

There are, of course, a lot of paid operatives to say different.

[DURHAM D]

5. No. This is the real scandal -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/firm-that-did-background-check-on-snowden-is-under-investigation/2013/06/20/1d06c248-d9e1-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_singlePage.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

6. Of course it is and the President's decision to ignore it, then adopt it makes it all his.

Just like every other stupid decision he's made in his interminable fool's errand of trying to appease the people that would kill him if they could.

Had he come into office with an appreciation of the fact that this is a war and the only options are to win or die, we would all be better off.

[BenzoDia]

7. Having read the NSA's leaked Minimization procedures, I'd say it's not a scandal.

They distinguish between domestic and foreign communications and outline the conditions by which the information must be thrown away. It even says they have to scrub a US person's name for reporting when disseminating (a few exceptions apply including their consent). This is hardly the big brother stuff it was made out to be.

Also, poll averages show Obama's numbers are fine. A CNN outlier in both directions is the reason people think his numbers have dropped. ATM, most Americans don't really care all that much about this.

[kentuck]

10. So you believe the NSA followed all the rules and guidelines?

Even though we have not seen any proof? The document that the NSA leaked clears them of any wrongdoing? How can we know for sure?

[BenzoDia]

74. We can't know for certain without more leaks or testimony.

They should consider declassifying the fisa court orders every five years or so to increase transparancy. That way we can look over what's happening and take them to task if needes.

Also, perhaps we can elect directly elect the fisa judges or at least an oversight committee. They can keep the oversight procedures secret, but we'd be able to sleep better knowing one of ours is in the loop.

[JackRiddler]

33. Yay! Most Americans don't care! It is GOOD!

[BenzoDia]

75. It's unfortunate but true. It's still all about the economy for Americans.

[Jarla]

8. I think it may be a real scandal

But I'm not sure how much Obama is to be blamed.

I feel like some of these federal agencies have taken on a life of their own.

[JackRiddler]

35. Very good. Now the real question.

Who cares how much Obama is to be blamed? This is a long-running development carried by this country's most powerful and unaccountable industry, the military-industrial-intel-surveillance-law enforcement complex. Presidents have come and gone, the spying and police state has only grown.

Shouldn't we be more concerned about preserving human rights as protected in the US constitution? How can the career of some politician who is only temporary be a more important consideration than freedom itself?

[Jarla]

41. Yes I agree

And the traditional methods for changing the system - petitioning our elected officials to vote a certain way, electing different officials, filing lawsuits, etc. - are no longer all that reliable because our elected officials and judges are often at the mercy of this military-industrial-intel-surveillance-law enforcement complex.

[JackRiddler]

49. You want to know how to begin to change this system?

And it's only a beginning, but interestingly a number of countries in the last couple of weeks have displayed it:



That's Rio earlier tonight. You can find similar pictures from Istanbul, Bucharest, Athens and Tokyo just in the last couple of weeks. The causes differ, but are always related to the people fighting a ruling class motivated by the rules of capitalism, and there is an increasingly even more important common element: authoritarianism vs. democracy.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. absolutely

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. When you dig into the details, none of them is a scandal

Lots of surface bullshit. There's no there there.

[jazzimov]

14. Agreed. nt

[JackRiddler]

36. I'm sure you thought the same thing when...

the warrantless surveillance program was first revealed in 2005 under Bush. Right?

[alcibiades_mystery]

44. We're not going to have a conversation

Your "You thought X for Bush, and Y for Obama" is lame and pathetic, like most of your tired rhetorical cliches.

If I suspected for a second that we could have a good faith conversation outside of your silly little talking points, I'd be happy to discuss warrants, FISA warrants, and databases relative to the 4th Amendment. Since I don't consider you a person of good faith, I'll leave you to your talking points here. I'm not interested in anything you have to say, because you can't argue honestly.

[JackRiddler]

46. Parsing the sophistry, that's a yes. Thanks.

[stevenleser]

61. No, its not a yes. That person pointed out you don't discuss things in good faith. They're right.

You throw around logical fallacies, ignore facts pointed out by the other side and your tactics go downhill from there.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. irs is not even close to a scandal. neither is benghazi

[snot]

16. If the NSA surveillance doesn't make the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves,

I don't know what would. So yes, I think it's a scandal.

[Tx4obama]

27. Oh come on - the Founding Fathers thought slavery should be legal and that women shouldn't vote...

... who gives a fuck what they would think now

[snooper2]

47. You know what would make the founding fathers roll in their graves?

You REALLY want to know?


Bring them up from the dirt and have them watch 5 episodes of this-

[MADem]

62. Thomas Jefferson might not get too upset, but he was a bit of a libidinous cad, then, wasn't he? nt

[davidpdx]

67. I'd torture myself before being subjected to that garbage

That and Honey Booboo. Even thinking about it makes me want to go flush my head in the toilet.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

17. Benghazi & IRS are bs Republican grandstanding. Spying on Americans is a scandal. n/t

[Tx4obama]

29. It was BUSH that spied on Americans illegally. Obama is not spying on Americans. n/t

[Th1onein]

51. OMG, I can't believe you just said that! LOL, that is really funny!

[Tx4obama]

54. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Gandhi

[Th1onein]

63. Yes, hopefully, we will win. And the surveillance state will lose.

[customerserviceguy]

18. Yes

There's a distrust of a nosy, interfering spying government out there, and both the NSA and IRS scandals feed into it. It's much harder for the general public to relate to the AP spying or Benghazi scandals, because the average American is not a reporter or a foreign diplomat.

[JackRiddler]

19. It's not scandal. It is the apparatus of tyranny.

And this apparatus has been built over many decades, as presidents came and went, before it finally went turbo under the Bush regime.

I dispute that Republicans consider it a scandal. There might be a handful on the Rand Paul end who think it is. Most of them are with Cheney. They fully approve of the lucrative business for well-connected military-industrial-intel contractors. Republicans are all for plundering tax money for the national security state. They fully approve of total surveillance and total policing. They can't wait to get their hands back on it, without any limits or the pretend limits the government is purporting are in place. The only thing most of them think is scandalous is that the administration is pretending there are limits on this beast. They want no limits on the beast.

And just because it's "legal" doesn't mean it's not self-evidently unconstitutional.

[kentuck]

22. I would agree with your point about Republicans.

The fact that our allies are pissed off to the max has to denote some degree of seriousness. The largest spy operation in the history of the world is hardly a trivial matter.

[snot]

76. Agreed; which is why, even if anyone's foolish enough to trust Dems with it,

we must bring it under much stricter supervision by a body directly accountable to the people.

[Logical]

20. NO! Neither is the IRS a scandal. But this NSA shit is extremely disappointing!!! n-t

[sheshe2]

21. Poll #'s~

Decline, not exactly according to TPM. And now CNN is walking back there initial poll.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/in-contrast-to-cnn-poll-pew-shows-stable

A new survey from Pew Research Center released Wednesday indicated that President Barack Obama has largely weathered the controversies that have consumed the country's attention as of late — a far cry from a survey released earlier this week that showed his approval rating had dipped sharply.

The Pew poll showed that 49 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing while 43 percent said they disapproved. Those numbers are virtually identical to Pew's poll in May, when 51 percent said they approved of the President's job performance and 43 percent said they disapproved.

But Pew's latest runs counter to a CNN/ORC International poll released on Monday that found an 8-point drop to Obama's approval rating in the last month. The CNN/ORC poll also showed that Obama's support among Americans under the age of 30 had plummeted by 17 points since May.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/barack-obama-cnn-poll_n_3456322.html

POLLSTER UPDATE: CNN Poll Exaggerates Barack Obama Approval Decline

Obama's approval rating has declined since May but not nearly as much as implied by a new CNN poll. Americans are just as opposed to military aid to the Syrian rebels now as they were before Friday. And pie charts still suck. This is the HuffPost Pollster update for Monday, June 17, 2013.

SNIP

Obama's approval is down since May - Four other pollsters -- Gallup, Rasmussen Reports, Fox News and Economist/YouGov -- have tracked Obama's approval since the NSA revelations were first published in June 6. When compared to their prior surveys in May, the other organizations all showed declines in approval of 1 to 2 percentage points (averaging -1.7 points), and two of four showed slight increases in disapproval (averaging +0.8). None show anywhere near the dramatic pattern of the two CNN surveys.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. The NSA scandal is a bipartisan cluster fuck.

This is not about Obama. It is about the future of this country as a democrat republic. It is about the aggregation of unconstitutional, unregulated, and above all secret power into the executive branch, a process that started with World War II, accelerated with the Cold War, and cascaded into a crisis of governance with the neocon perpetual war on terror initiated after the attack by al Qaeda in 2001 .

The documentation provided by snowden confirmed what had been rumored back in 2006 - that the NSA, under secret provisions of the patriot act activated a program of massive surveillance of the entire population. The program is roughly Poindexter's TIA program, nominally rejected by congress and then implemented by the Bush administration under secret provisions of the patriot act. The Obama administration has simply maintained the existing programs. It is a bipartisan scandal.

We now live in a state that has a established a comprehensive internal monitoring and surveillance program targeting the entire population. Call it Stasi State 2.0, the totalitarian dream of comprehensive monitoring of its entire subject population, enabled by computer database and monitoring technology beyond the comprehension of the original Stasi State, East Germany, which basically coerced everyone to spy on each other and maintained vast paper dossiers on all of its citizens.

It is a crisis of governance. The executive branch is an institution with a life of its own, it has an institutional memory, protects its acquired powers, and has developed comprehensive barriers against any oversight and regulation from congress or the courts. Using national security as justification, neither congress, the press, nor the people of this country have knowledge of what is being done within the occluded security state. What we do know are the bits and pieces that leak out, either deliberately or not.

Perhaps you trust Obama to not abuse the unconstitutional power acquired by the executive branch. Certainly five years ago partisan republicans trusted Bush. But the history of state power is that it will be abused. We have a congress captured by corporate interests and both incapable and unwilling to even attempt to reign in the executive branch. We are in a perpetual state of war, and the federal courts have made it clear that they will use that as an excuse to do nothing as well. Who will the next president be? How long before the system supposedly being used to protect us from phantom external enemies is used against internal dissidents? How long before the database is routinely mined for evidence in all sorts of criminal cases? How long before it is used to disadvantage the opposition party?

J Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in Washington for decades because of the dossiers he kept and his willingness to use them for political gain. One man, a small paper database. You think, you really think, what the NSA is doing is not a problem?

[kentuck]

24. +1000

This should be a stand-alone post.

[JackRiddler]

39. Bravo! Please repost as OP!

[tularetom]

26. Benghazigate and IRSgate are bullshit made up republican scandalmongering

Spying on American citizens without a warrant is an actual scandal.

So is spying with a phony warrant from a kangaroo court.

[tech3149]

28. In a way, yes

I think it's sort of a semi-official leak to let us know that we are not beyond the reach of the security state. It's just an easy way to let the average citizen know that if you oppose us we will know and there could be consequences.
It provides a much more acceptable optic than pepper spaying or tazering protestors in the street.

[Agnosticsherbet]

30. NSAGate is important.

As a society, we need to discuss what is acceptable, but not simply by the NSA. Thousands of corporations are developing massive databases of information on people. Unless you're living in a cave in arctic with no links to the outside world, people have built and are building massive databases. If we are going to have this concept of privacy, then we need some serious controls on who can collet it and what they can do with it.

[Bonobo]

31. You're damned right I do.

I sure as fuck did not work to get Obama elected so he would secretly continue these totalitarian state-sponsored surveillance spying bullshit.

[backscatter712]

32. If it was a Republican "scandal", Darrel Issa would be on it like flies on shit.

But he's not, which indicates the authoritarians in the GOP (which is to say 95+% of the GOP) are perfectly fine with violating our Constitutional rights.

This is an actual scandal, not a GOP "scandal".

[frylock]

37. ^this^

[Scootaloo]

38. I think it's a scandal from 2003

That's taken a decade to get any real outrage going.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

40. Daniel Ellsberg thinks it's more important than the Pentagon Papers.

But, what does Daniel Ellsberg know about leaks, scandals, and the lies of government?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ellsberg-snowden-nsa-leak-pentagon-papers-142811185.html

Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971 exposed the secret history of the war in Vietnam, thinks Edward Snowden's leak of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs was more important than his.

"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material, and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago," Ellsberg wrote in an op-ed published by the Guardian on Monday. "Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an 'executive coup' against the U.S. constitution."

Ellsberg added on CNN Sunday night that “it can’t be overestimated to this democracy. It gives us a chance, I think, from drawing back from the total surveillance state that we could say we’re in process of becoming, I’m afraid we have become. That’s what he’s revealed.”

[kentuck]

42. Our European allies think it is a pretty big deal, also.

What do we know?

[nenagh]

56. And the elephant in the room is that no one really knows, unless one is Stephen Spoonamore perhaps,

how vulnerable certain cyber network systems are to removal of data or the possibility of whole streams of data flowing to other entities other than NSA.

[bigwillq]

43. Yes

We should be outraged by what our government does.

[BlueStreak]

45. It is a serious problem. I would call it a "cancer" rather than a "scandal"

There are a few things that will destroy this country, and this creeping totalitarianism is one of them. Another is the vast concentration of wealth at the top. A third is the health care mess. And a 4th is the systematic elimination of a free press.

And if Obama chooses to go along with one or more of these cancers, then everyone here should hold him accountable. He has made a good effort on health care. On the other three big cancers, he hasn't lifted a finger.

[kentuck]

48. I am paranoid.

I think my posts are being monitored. Why do I think that?

Every time I attempt to click on a link or a post, I have to do it two or three times as if someone else is busy with it? It's never done that before??

Oh, but they can't do that! I live in America! I am not a foreigner!

[mwrguy]

50. It is a made-up to attack Obama

[Rex]

52. I still think the Wall Street bailout is the biggest scandal.

Declaring capitalism and not practicing it at all.

[railsback]

53. Its a scandal if you watch internet porn

and suddenly have become paranoid… which doesn't make it fun anymore. Its the end of freedom!

[Warpy]

55. The real scandal is subcotracting such sensitive work

to corporations with no public oversight.

Any other scandal is made of hot air at this point.

[dem in texas]

57. Times have changed

Everyone is watching us. You have a card on your key chain that the checker at the supermarket has to have swipe so you can get a lower price. Then the supermarket knows everything you buy and whether you like white toilet paper or blue. You look for something on the internet, maybe visit a few sites looking for a new electric skillet. The next time you sign on, you are presented with ads to buy electric skillets (this happened to me). I get robocalls and junk mail trying to sell Medicare insurance, hearing aids, motorized chairs, things aimed at the over age 65 market. How do they know that my husband and I are both seniors? I just heard Jonathan Alter on the radio today, talking about the Obama campaign and how they used Facebook friends of donors to expand their voter participation.

Times have changed, we are awash in information. With a little effort and time at your computer, there is all kinds of things you can find out about people. And the nature of the enemy has changed. We are no longer fighting Russia or some large country. The danger of attack is coming from small groups of 10 to 20 people who can cause huge amounts of damage and death. How do you identify these people? I seems logical to track them electronically. I am not saying I totally approve of what our government is doing, but I see why they are doing it. I don't care if they collect information about my calls or what sites I visit on the internet, after all many companies are already doing this. I just want to see the proper safeguards in place.

[moondust]

58. Pandora's Box

Lawyers eye NSA data as treasure trove for evidence in murder, divorce cases

And sleazy politicians and Wikileaks and news organizations and who knows who all would love to get into those databases if they can just find a leak.

Fame, fortune, and power...

[JDPriestly]

59. The "inadvertent" surveillance is the only real scandal, but

it isn't Obama's scandal. It is the NSA's scandal.

[BlueCheese]

68. The IRS and Benghazi are political games.

Trivial, pointless theater. Mudslinging without purpose.

The NSA business is terrifying. It's much worse than a scandal, which is often more about some personal failing or malfeasance than anything critical. This is a fundamental question about what our relationship with our government is-- does it serve us or does it rule us?

People who keep talking about it in terms of politics are underestimating its significance, in my opinion. This is bigger than that.

[HardTimes99]

69. Benghazi and the IRS were total unadulterated bullshit. The NSA thing transcends

'scandal,' imo. In fact, there may be no "scandal" whatsoever. For all I know, the Obama administration, the intelligence sector and all agencies including the NSA scrupulously followed the law as they understood it. But what an abomination of a law they were following. The pretzels they have contorted themselves into with their tortured metaphors about books on shelves, with 'least untruthful lies,' with charges of 'treason' and 'espionage,' illuminate the problem with 'secret government' of any stripe and what that can do to the citizens' trust in their government.

Other aspects deserve serious scrutiny as well, namely, the outsourcing of intelligence to the private sector, the potentially serious lapses in the vetting of Snowden and the budgets of all these black box items (currently running close to $100 billion per year from what I've read).

I absolutely concur with your sense that the President can get out in front of this by doing a general house-cleaning, not to exclude firing DNI Clapper who so blithely perjured himself before the Congress. The longer this is allowed to fester unaddressed save by charlatans and demagogues, the further trust in the government and its legitimacy will erode. I'm not sure if that makes it a 'real scandal,' but it definitely makes it real.

Great thread and discussion.

[carolinayellowdog]

70. there has to be a better word but I can't come up with one

this is something that damages the reputation of the entire US government in the eyes of the world and our own citizenry, yet is staunchly supported by both parties. That goes beyond Watergate, Plame, Lewinsky, or any of the minor scandals in that they always were about one party attacking another.

"Scandal" trivializes it.

[treestar]

71. The "NSA" is a legal issue, not a "scandal."

[graham4anything]

73. Real Polls show, this has had ZERO effect. The polls that showed otherwise said Mitt won. End.

I have 100% discounted the above as a smear, because here there and everywhere is being foisted by the
exact same people who foisted the last 150 smears against this President and Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

It is so painstakeningly obvious

I now know just based on the who not to even read the what

In the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, really, he only needed a little sleep.
The remake came from people who saw the expectations of the first, so it was done with a different angle

Bing Crosby "everybody has an angle"

and the moral of the story is
Yodel and practice wellness, and don't text and drive and one can live to be 90.
He wasn't named Slim after all for no reason.


No 48 ounce sodas. They will kill you. No texting while driving it will kill you.

Just yodel. and live to be 90.

imho