Spying on Americans: "Business as Usual" under Obama

[Orwellian_Ghost]

NSA "engaged in 'overcollection' of domestic communications"



In an explosive report, The New York Times revealed that the agency "intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year."

According to investigative journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, "several intelligence officials" told the paper that the ultra-spooky NSA "had been engaged in 'overcollection' of domestic communications of Americans."

As numerous critics have charged, the NSA's driftnet surveillance of electronic communications would dramatically escalate precisely because of Congress' passage of the shameful FISA Amendments Act (FAA) last summer.

When revelations that domestic spying have increased since Obama's January inauguration are coupled with the Justice Department's aggressive moves to suppress litigation that would hold former and present officials accountable, claims of "overcollection" by the agency become a code word for business as usual.



NSA has powerful allies in the Obama administration. Although agency officials declined to comment on the controversy, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, a former admiral with extensive ties to the corporate security industry, recently told Congress he believed NSA should be given the lead in cybersecurity, arguing the agency has the computer "wizards" with the requisite skills.

And so it goes...

http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2009/04/nsa-spying-overcollection-or-business.html

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. The NY Times report you cite doesn't say anything about Obama spying.

It is talking about Bush's spying...and that the overuse of spying has come under fire from the Obama Administration.

"The legal and operational problems surrounding the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees and a secret national security court, said the intelligence officials, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because N.S.A. activities are classified. Classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts."

[stillcool]

5. Reading the words as they appear..

on the page, I don't get that either.

[TBF]

7. Actually it talks about that in the very first paragraph:

"The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews."

"In recent months" would indicate under Obama's administration I would think. I guess you could argue that they didn't pin them down to exact dates, but it's still quite alarming. At least I find the whole thing alarming, maybe others are ok with the spying.

[jody]

8. TBF, please don't upset the apologists with facts. n/t

[TBF]

10. :)

nt

[SemiCharmedQuark]

11. It doesn't specify what "recent months" means. The entire report is based on

a review started under the Bush administration and continued into the Obama administration.

[TBF]

12. May have began under Bush, sure, but if Holder's going to court on it

then it's most definitely continuing, in some fashion, under the Obama Administration.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

13. The question is, is it the *same* fashion as under Bush.

As the OP suggests.

[jody]

14. Understand, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is". ROFLMAO n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

17. From Jonathan Turley

As George Washington University Law Professor and constitutional scholar, Jonathan Turley, told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on "Countdown" April 7,

“I think right now, the Bush people are bringing out their mission-accomplished sign, because they've not only gotten Obama to protect Bush and Cheney and others from any criminal investigation on torture, but he's now gone even further than they did in the protection of unlawful surveillance. This is the ultimate victory for the Bush officials. They have Barack Obama adopting the same extremist arguments, and in fact exceeding the extremist arguments made by President Bush...

You cannot any longer suggest that President Obama is advancing the civil liberties and the privacy interests that he promised to advance. This is a terrible roll-back. It's a terrible decision.” ("Countdown" with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Tuesday, April7, 2009)

And with Congress' passage of the abominable FISA Amendments Act (FAA) last July, handing the NSA carte blanche to continue warrantless spying and driftnet surveillance of Americans, granting grifting telecom giants such as AT&T, Sprint and Verizon get-out-of-jail-free-cards in the form of retroactive immunity for their collusive and wholly illegal activity with NSA and other state agencies, []America's post-constitutional new order continues apace. As I reported last September, "the extent of these illegal programs have revealed, the 'enemy' is none other than the American people themselves!"

Three months into the Obama administration, the contours of a new and improved "liberal" police state reveal the same rotten, nidorous core as that of their predecessors. This time around however, the mailed fist of the capitalist state is gussied up with Smiley Face emblems and Hello Kitty stickers.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Obama-Administration-Endor-by-Tom-Burghardt-090413-850.html

[jody]

18. I understand, I was just quoting Bill Clinton re "is". n/t

[TBF]

20. Yes, that has to refer to that new filing in Jewel v. NSA in which DOJ

is seeking greater unlawful surveillance on behalf of Obama. I remember the day I read about that (earlier this month) and was mortified: http://www.eff.org/cases/jewel.

[TBF]

15. I agree. I'd like to know that as well in detail. Holder asked to make changes -

so which changes did he make, and why? The report has very little detail on that.

[bvar22]

29. OOPS!

Wrong place.

[tigereye]

24. it takes time to turn the tanker around, like the President said - I don't

know why people expected that everything would happen right away. At least he is making an effort to look into these things, to change the policies, to undo most, if not all, of the crap that Bush did.

[TBF]

25. That ship's headed right for the iceberg with this filing:

http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewelmtdobama.pdf

and we're all aboard. This does not undo what Bush did - it takes it further. Read it for yourself.

[tigereye]

35. I"m not sure that a motion to dismiss a suit ( that has not even

taken place yet) based on govt position of sovereign immunity implies that the Obama administration wants the wire-tapping to continue at the level at which it was initially authorized. Granted I did not read it all and am not a lawyer, but there seem to be many legal precedents for their position. Perhaps the best remedy is a Congressional one. (although I realize the previous Congress shoved many protections aside post 911 for the hastily and ill-conceived Patriot Act.)


:shrug:


I guess my main beef is folks unwillingness to allow Obama and the folks he has appointed to analyze more of the legal, ethical and pragmatic situation and to take necessary steps to eradicate most, if not all, of Bush's maladaptive actions. He has already over-turned a number of reprehensible policies.

[bvar22]

30. The White House is NOT a "tanker".

Direction can be changed with the simple stroke of a pen.

[tigereye]

34. no, I don't think all policy is that simple - that was the metaphor that he used

[MadHound]

31. And how much effort does it take to simply say no to warrantless wiretapping?

After all, it's not like a war, we're not having to bring men or material home. It's not like the economy, we don't have try some strategy and then wait for a few months to see if it works. All you have to do to stop warrantless wiretapping is to not challenge these cases in court, issue an executive order returning matters to where they were pre-Bush, and pull the goddamn plug. This isn't rocket science, and three months is more than sufficient time for this travesty of justice to be tossed on the dust heap of history. Instead, Obama is not only condoning what Bush did, but is actually expanding upon it.

[tigereye]

33. I don't think he has any intention of condoning what Bush did - he released

a lot of records that Bush never would have released. I don't know enough about this particular policy and the changes in it to debate it with you at the moment, but I'll have a look.


Personally, I don't see any reason for warrantless wire-tapping.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

16. Sure it does

Read it again and consider the context.

The NSA told members of congressional intelligence committees recently that it was having “operational and legal problems in complying with the new wiretapping law” passed by Congress last summer.

In other words, the NSA is continuing the illegal practices initiated secretly under the Bush administration.

Please remember that Obama interrupted his campaign last July to come back and vote on the FISA measure which essentially provided congressional sanction for the secret and illegal warrantless wiretapping program initiated by the Bush administration in 2001. The legislation explicitly allowed the NSA to conduct dragnet surveillance of international communications by Americans.

There's no surprises here as Obama completely supported the FISA legislation. Of course Obama could immediately come forth with a public statement on the matter something along the lines of, "I will not allow any illegal wiretapping on American citizens by the NSA or any agency during my term as president and will work to overturn the FISA legislation that allows for spying on US citizens."

Now that would be a pleasant surprise. I'd support that statement and action. But I don't think anything of the sort is coming. In fact Obama certainly does echo the entire narrative of the National Security State and the various memes from the "War on Terror" even if the language has been altered slightly, only slightly.

Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left

By Paul Kane
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Obama sought to walk the fine political line between GOP accusations that he is weak on foreign policy -- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called passing the legislation a "vital national security matter" -- and alienating his base.

"Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program," Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.

<snip>

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/06/20/obama_supports_fisa_legislatio.html

[Ellipsis]

2. Greatest in 3 minutes. n/t

[Scurrilous]

3. Yep.

That was fast.

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Curiously so.

On edit: Slick graphics, though.

[maryf]

22. Here's another cool graphic that would work here:

[TBF]

28. Some people are actually concerned about privacy in this country.

Others flip with the wind depending upon who is in office.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. What report do you get this: "When revelations that domestic spying have increased since Obama's

January Inaguration" from?

[TBF]

9. If Holder had to go to court to seek a renewal "after new safeguards were put in place" -

that says to me they've still been doing all this under Obama. They don't go into what the new safeguards are but they do say they are now in compliance with all laws. Whether we like those laws or not would be another subject (which we pretty much did have a good amount of discussion about last June if I recall correctly).

This is the exact quote from the NYT report that I'm referring to in this post:

As part of a periodic review of the agency’s activities, the department “detected issues that raised concerns,” it said. Justice Department officials then “took comprehensive steps to correct the situation and bring the program into compliance” with the law and court orders, the statement said. It added that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. went to the national security court to seek a renewal of the surveillance program only after new safeguards were put in place.

[Mari333]

19. very distressing. very. nt

[maryf]

21. K&R

my computer clicks too!

[Irish Girl]

23. haha, your 'don't worry about that clicking on your phone' photo freaks me out!

I just finished a call early due to all this annoying clicking I kept hearing over the line. I shouldn't laugh because I do take spying very seriously. But now every time I hear that clicking over the line, I'll be picturing two fat intelligence officers sitting behind a monitoring system nibbling on donuts and sipping their coffee.

[maryf]

26. Early morning kick, nt.

[blindpig]

27. K&R

Change you can believe in.

[TBF]

32. K&R n/t

[maryf]

36. Are people afraid to rec this post?

I think it is so important and one that would do your namesake proud, OG...

[omega minimo]

37. It's okay cuz he's a Constitutional Scholar

:think: :hide:

[bvar22]

38. Error: You've already recommended that thread.

So I will have to settle for a plain, ordinary KICK.
:dem: