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I don't understand. President Obama seems to be a great friend to the NSA, and I understand the NSA has greatly expanded powers under his administration. Pres

I don't understand. President Obama seems to be a great friend to the NSA, and I understand the NSA has greatly expanded powers under his administration. President Obama threatened openly in a press conference to punish whistleblowers after the Snowden fiasco blew up. Why should we put any faith in President Obama and lobby him to do the right thing now? The opacity, doublespeak and contempt shown to the people by this administration ranks it at the bottom in my book.

001sky 12y ago
Nothing congress is going to pass will become law without POTUS signature. The premise of this article is>>> that OBAMA will sign {#INSERT_LAW_HERE}. So why not just sign an (new) executive order? eg. NSA's mission, as set forth in Executive Order 12333, is to collect information that constitutes "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" while not "acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons". NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities within the borders of the United States, while confining its own activities within the United States to the embassies and missions of foreign nations http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-...
- tptacek 12y ago
  You should probably re-read the US Constitution. It's not really very long. And, once again: the problem with Executive Orders as a solution to overreaching surveillance is that they are not binding. This administration, and every other one, can revoke them on a whim. The same thing is not true of an actual law.
lern_too_spel 12y ago
Then you understand wrong. According to Snowden's documents, the NSA has diminished its powers under the Obama administration (e.g., bulk collection of email headers for feeding their social graph and proposing to end bulk collection of call log data).
- adventured 12y ago
  The NSA has drastically increased its powers and data collection under the Obama Administration. 1) Snowden said these programs have gotten dramatically worse under Obama. He has said that numerous times. 2) Prior to Obama's election, it didn't have all the tech companies lined up into XKeyscore. That was put into place on his watch. 3) The NSA also was not yet illegally tapping into and stealing bulk data from these companies via interception, to get around collection restraints. 4) The NSA's massive Utah data center was built during his Administration. 5) In 2009 Obama's DOJ admitted to illegal surveillance abuses, and claimed steps had been taken to correct such. They lied of course, they did the exact opposite: they massively expanded surveillance. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html 6) The U.S. Marshals Service overflight program came into existence during Obama's Administration. The service was initiated in 2007, and the flight program was put into place by the Obama Administration. Worth noting: he also didn't stop it, he expanded the program. 7) The NSA began actively helping other agencies illegally (eg the DEA), via parallel construction, during Obama's Administration. This practice has massively expanded under Obama's watch. 9) Obama also loves to use the Espionage Act to persecute journalists that act to reveal the dirt of his Administration. 10) The Obama Administration continued to lie about the programs. The Obama Administration continued to refuse to admit their existence. The Obama Administration massively expanded all surveillance programs. This is all continuing right now. 11) During Obama's watch, the Stingray device has gone from being a piece of military technology, to being handed down from the Federal level to the local and state level. During his Administration, efforts have been made to expand illegal surveillance from the domain of the Federal Government, and to ensure widespread surveillance at all levels, so the Feds have a greater total access to communications. There has never been a more abusive surveillance President in US history. And there are another easy dozen items on this list, of abuses by the Obama Presidency when it comes to surveillance.
  - lern_too_spel 12y ago
    1) As I've already shown and will continue to show in this post, Snowden's own documents refute this. Snowden clearly didn't have time to look at what the documents he spidered actually say. 2) Xkeyscore is merely a database and does not constitute new surveillance. Snowden's documents show that it contains fewer sources under Obama (no more email metadata). 3) The NSA significantly reduced the scope of its upstream collection under Obama in April 2012. http://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fisc0912.pdf&ved=0CB4QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHOnLiH-z9ZCtai5B8Py1RnXu0rcQ&sig2=mxzyVWOwvKtNKaPJFzpycQ http://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fisc0912.pdf&ved=0CB4QFjA... 4) A datacenter does not constitute new surveillance, whether it's built or not (not). 5) Your article says that Obama's DOJ found pre-Obama abuses, once again, the exact opposite of what you claim. Your claim that Obama lied about taking steps to fix this are unsupported by any of your links. Simply stating something does not make it so. 6) There is no proof that the overflights are recording data from anybody other than the targets. You're engaging in wild speculation here. 7) According to my link above, this claim is false. The NSA shut down any ability to assist in parallel reconstruction with upstream data in 2012. 8) There is no 8. 9) Again, false. No journalist has ever been prosecuted (or persecuted) with the espionage Act. http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2013/06/24/journalists-and-the-espionage-act-prosecution-risk-is-remote-but-real/ http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2013/06/24/journalis... 10) More unsourced claims. What expansion? 11) There is no evidence that the Stingray records data from anybody other than the target. http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-23163 http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-23163 Where does this leave us? Three counts of reduced NSA powers (email headers and other upstream collection and phone records) and zero counts of increased powers.

001sky 12y ago

Nothing congress is going to pass will become law without POTUS signature. The premise of this article is>>> that OBAMA will sign {#INSERT_LAW_HERE}. So why not just sign an (new) executive order? eg. NSA's mission, as set forth in Executive Order 12333, is to collect information that constitutes "foreign intelligence or counterintelligence" while not "acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons". NSA has declared that it relies on the FBI to collect information on foreign intelligence activities within the borders of the United States, while confining its own activities within the United States to the embassies and missions of foreign nations http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-...

tptacek 12y ago
You should probably re-read the US Constitution. It's not really very long. And, once again: the problem with Executive Orders as a solution to overreaching surveillance is that they are not binding. This administration, and every other one, can revoke them on a whim. The same thing is not true of an actual law.

lern_too_spel 12y ago

Then you understand wrong. According to Snowden's documents, the NSA has diminished its powers under the Obama administration (e.g., bulk collection of email headers for feeding their social graph and proposing to end bulk collection of call log data).

adventured 12y ago
The NSA has drastically increased its powers and data collection under the Obama Administration. 1) Snowden said these programs have gotten dramatically worse under Obama. He has said that numerous times. 2) Prior to Obama's election, it didn't have all the tech companies lined up into XKeyscore. That was put into place on his watch. 3) The NSA also was not yet illegally tapping into and stealing bulk data from these companies via interception, to get around collection restraints. 4) The NSA's massive Utah data center was built during his Administration. 5) In 2009 Obama's DOJ admitted to illegal surveillance abuses, and claimed steps had been taken to correct such. They lied of course, they did the exact opposite: they massively expanded surveillance. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html 6) The U.S. Marshals Service overflight program came into existence during Obama's Administration. The service was initiated in 2007, and the flight program was put into place by the Obama Administration. Worth noting: he also didn't stop it, he expanded the program. 7) The NSA began actively helping other agencies illegally (eg the DEA), via parallel construction, during Obama's Administration. This practice has massively expanded under Obama's watch. 9) Obama also loves to use the Espionage Act to persecute journalists that act to reveal the dirt of his Administration. 10) The Obama Administration continued to lie about the programs. The Obama Administration continued to refuse to admit their existence. The Obama Administration massively expanded all surveillance programs. This is all continuing right now. 11) During Obama's watch, the Stingray device has gone from being a piece of military technology, to being handed down from the Federal level to the local and state level. During his Administration, efforts have been made to expand illegal surveillance from the domain of the Federal Government, and to ensure widespread surveillance at all levels, so the Feds have a greater total access to communications. There has never been a more abusive surveillance President in US history. And there are another easy dozen items on this list, of abuses by the Obama Presidency when it comes to surveillance.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  1) As I've already shown and will continue to show in this post, Snowden's own documents refute this. Snowden clearly didn't have time to look at what the documents he spidered actually say. 2) Xkeyscore is merely a database and does not constitute new surveillance. Snowden's documents show that it contains fewer sources under Obama (no more email metadata). 3) The NSA significantly reduced the scope of its upstream collection under Obama in April 2012. http://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fisc0912.pdf&ved=0CB4QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNHOnLiH-z9ZCtai5B8Py1RnXu0rcQ&sig2=mxzyVWOwvKtNKaPJFzpycQ http://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/fisc0912.pdf&ved=0CB4QFjA... 4) A datacenter does not constitute new surveillance, whether it's built or not (not). 5) Your article says that Obama's DOJ found pre-Obama abuses, once again, the exact opposite of what you claim. Your claim that Obama lied about taking steps to fix this are unsupported by any of your links. Simply stating something does not make it so. 6) There is no proof that the overflights are recording data from anybody other than the targets. You're engaging in wild speculation here. 7) According to my link above, this claim is false. The NSA shut down any ability to assist in parallel reconstruction with upstream data in 2012. 8) There is no 8. 9) Again, false. No journalist has ever been prosecuted (or persecuted) with the espionage Act. http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2013/06/24/journalists-and-the-espionage-act-prosecution-risk-is-remote-but-real/ http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2013/06/24/journalis... 10) More unsourced claims. What expansion? 11) There is no evidence that the Stingray records data from anybody other than the target. http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-23163 http://m.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-23163 Where does this leave us? Three counts of reduced NSA powers (email headers and other upstream collection and phone records) and zero counts of increased powers.