Despite what Obama says about the NSA

[Montecresto]

The Obama administration points to checks and balances from Congress as a key rationale for supporting bulk collection of Americans’ telephone communications data, but several lawmakers responsible for overseeing the program in recent years say that they felt limited in their ability to challenge its scope and legality.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...e87394-004d-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html

 

[Beaudreaux]

This is a conundrum for me. I support the stated purpose and the reason for establishment of the program but have serious reservations about supporting the actual program as I know it. The problem is that since it's still a black-op, there isn't enough info in the public domain for me to make an educated decision. This is one of those programs that if you trust the government, you trust the program, if not... Hence my trepidation on giving it my complete support.

Oh, and glad to see you again Monte.

 

[Montecresto]

Hey Beau, glad to bump into you again too! Do you remember senator Church and the Church committee? Church had dire warnings concerning the NSA. Shortly after her retirement, Sandra Day O'Conner was asked about Bush's warrantless (read illegal) wiretapping and she said, it takes a long time for a country to degenerate into dictatorship but we should avoid that end by avoiding this beginning. Jimmy Carter, referring to the increasing concentration of power to the executive branch generally and the NSA program and others specifically has declared that the US is no longer a functioning democracy. And NO, the government CANNOT be trusted, because men are not angels and a redundancy of oversight is imperative to safe guard our liberties. Did you note the congressman's complaint in the op?

 

[Montecresto]

Despite Lame Protestations to the Contrary by the Government …

The Guardian, New York Times, the ACLU and others have shredded the claim that the U.S. government doesn’t spy on Americans.

But since Obama, top NSA brass, and a handful of congress members are still pretending that they don’t spy on us, let’s review the facts.

NBC News reports:

NBC News has learned that under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, the government has been collecting records on every phone call made in the U.S.

On March 2011, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee:

We put in place technological improvements relating to the capabilities of a database to pull together past emails and future ones as they come in so that it does not require an individualized search.

Read more here:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013...-it-mischievously-using-that-information.html

 

[Montecresto]

On June 19, Grayson wrote to the House Intelligence Committee requesting several documents relating to media accounts about the NSA. Included among them were FISA court opinions directing the collection of telephone records for Americans, as well as documents relating to the PRISM program.

But just over four weeks later, the Chairman of the Committee, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, wrote to Grayson informing him that his requests had been denied by a Committee "voice vote".
Oh, and it gets worse. Grayson spoke to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (basically the number two guy on the Intelligence Committee after Rogers) and was told that "he was unaware of any committee action on this matter." A staff member for Grayson asked the Intelligence Committee for the details of the voice vote, including the member-by-member voting. The response?
Thanks for your inquiry. The full Committee attends Business Meetings. At our July 18, 2013 Business Meeting, there were seven Democrat Members and nine Republican Members in attendance. The transcript is classified."
Say what? Here is a Congressional Representative -- who we are told over and over again can have full access to this information -- being told by the NSA's staunchest defenders, Rep. Mike Rogers, that his request is denied "by a voice vote" and then told that the details of that vote are now classified? At some point, you have to recognize that Rogers and the House Intelligence Committee are out of control. I realize they're trying to do damage control, but denying such direct requests from a Congressional Representative is really quite stunning.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...al-reps-access-to-info-nsa-surveillance.shtml

 

[Montecresto]

Update: Polls further confirm that Americans are deeply concerned with the unconstitutional NSA spying programs. In a July 10 poll by Quinnipiac University, voters were asked whether the government's efforts "go too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties" or "not far enough to adequately protect the country." The poll revealed that Americans largely believe that the government has gone too far by a margin of 45% to 40%. This is a clear reversal from a January 2010 survey in which the same question found that 63% of voters believed the government didn't "go far enough to adequately protect the country."

Polls further reveal Americans as highly skeptical of the programs. In an Economist/YouGov poll, 56% of Americans do not think the NSA is telling the truth about the unconstitutional spying. The same poll found that 59% of people disapprove of the spying, while only 35% approve of it. These numbers are not outliers and are supported by a recent Fox News poll (.pdf) finding 62% of Americans think the collection of phone records is "an unacceptable and alarming invasion of privacy rights."

 

[Montecresto]

The National Security Agency broke the law and ignored privacy protections thousands of times in each of the years since Congressional leaders expanded the agency’s power in 2008, according to a new report citing documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

The majority of the violations are related to unauthorized surveillance on Americans or foreigners inside the United States, conditions deemed illegal by executive order, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

The account is based on top-secret documents and a May 2012 internal NSA audit that found 2,776 infractions – including unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications – in the preceding 12 months alone. The audit, originally only meant to be seen by top NSA leaders, only accounted for violations at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Virginia, and other locations in the Washington DC region.

http://rt.com/usa/nsa-thousands-privacy-violations-report-553/