The Morning Plum: Obama takes tentative step towards surveillance transparency

[ProSense]

The Morning Plum: Obama takes tentative step towards surveillance transparency

By Greg Sargent

Today President Obama will meet with the newly constituted Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to take the first steps in the direction of having that “debate” over the proper balance between liberty and security that he says he wants, in the wake of revelations about NSA surveillance programs. It’s unclear how significant meeting with this board — which is designed to review terrorism programs to ensure attention to privacy concerns – will prove.

But buried in the White House guidance from a senior administration official about the event is a real piece of news: the White House has directed the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department to look at whether to declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions authorizing the NSA surveillance programs.

The senior official says that the DNI and DOJ have been directed “to review Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions and filings relevant to the programs and to determine what additional information the Government can responsibly share about the sensitive and necessarily classified activities undertaken to keep the public safe.”

As you know, a coalition of conservative libertarians and civil liberties liberals in Congress are pushing for legislation that would compel the declassification of FISA court opinions, and is asking the Obama administration to declassify them himself. The idea is to make a debate about the legal rationale for these programs possible. So in one sense, the fact that the President has asked for an internal review designed to move things in this direction is a good development...“If the administration is considering releasing more information about the NSA’s surveillance activities, that’s a welcome development,” Jameel Jaffer, a leading attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, emails me. ”I’d note, though, that the administration said it would consider this possibility several years ago and nothing came of it. So while we appreciate the gesture towards transparency, we’ll wait to see what’s actually released.”

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/06/21/the-morning-plum-obama-takes-tentative-step-towards-surveillance-transparency/

Here's How the NSA Decides Who It Can Spy On
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023060180

[Logical]

1. This is 100% proof that Snowden did a GREAT thing. See this text from the article above....

“If the administration is considering releasing more information about the NSA’s surveillance activities, that’s a welcome development,” Jameel Jaffer, a leading attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, emails me. ”I’d note, though, that the administration said it would consider this possibility several years ago and nothing came of it. So while we appreciate the gesture towards transparency, we’ll wait to see what’s actually released.”

This comes as the Guardian reported late yesterday that it had obtained two government requests for FISA court authorization — which were granted — that show the NSA was given broader leeway to examine data on domestic communications than has been previously known. Jaffer says the latest revelations add new urgency to the push for declassification.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. K&R

[sibelian]

3. THAT'S what I wanted to hear.

Thank you for posting, Prosense, and thank you, Mr Obama.