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Even the Mainstream Liberal Press Slams Obama On Spying
Presidential candidate Obama said in 2007:
[The Bush] administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.
I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.
That means no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists.
He frequently repeated his “no warrantless wiretapping” pledge thereafter.
In light of the revelation that the Obama administration has been spying on our phone calls Americans (the government has tapped every call in America, and is spying on everything we do online), media on both the left and the right are now admitting that Obama and Bush are indistinguishable. This includes, by way of example, Politico, National Journal, and Huffington Post:
Another widespread comparison is East Germany. For example, the Washington Post notes:
“Here we are, under the Obama administration, doing it sort of like the Bush administration on steroids,” [NSA expert James Bamford] said in an interview with the Associated Press. “This order here is about as broad as it can possibly get, when it comes to focusing on personal communications. There’s no warrant, there’s no suspicion, there’s no probable cause … it sounds like something from East Germany.”
The Daily Beast writes:
Fifteen years ago, all of us would have laughed at the notion that the government would assert the right to know about every phone call made by ordinary American citizens suspected of no crime—that’s something that East Germany would do, not the American government. How have we gotten so comfortable with the panopticon state in little more than a decade?
And the Atlantic notes:
TSA’s surveillance of our communications is most likely much, much bigger than [metadata]. Technology has made it possible for the American government to spy on citizens to an extent East Germany could only dream of.
(The Atlantic is correct.)
The New York Times Editorial Board says that Obama has lost all credibility (and slams defenders of the Big Brother spying program):
The Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.
***
A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names.
***
Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where.
This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy.
The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the vice chairman of the committee, said the surveillance has “proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys and only on bad guys over the years.”
But what assurance do we have of that, especially since Ms. Feinstein went on to say that she actually did not know how the data being collected was used?
The senior administration official quoted in The Times said the executive branch internally reviews surveillance programs to ensure that they “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”
That’s no longer good enough. Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions.
***
Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, said that the National Security Agency overstepped its bounds by obtaining a secret order to collect phone log records from millions of Americans.
“As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the F.B.I.’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said in a statement. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses.” He added: “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.” [Sensenbrenner also asked: "How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation?"]
Stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.
Howard Fineman slams Obama and invokes the Founding Fathers:
The Verizon story is yet more evidence that America is reaching a crisis point in the more than decade-long trend of expanding federal power to reach into the private lives of Americans. At the same time, the government inevitably is becoming more opaque, and more focused on leaks, in the name of protecting the investigations that it instigates in the name of national security.
The time has come for a deep, serious national debate on the balance between freedom and security.
***
Osama bin Laden’s attack on Sept. 11, 2001, set off a new chapter in the age-old argument between liberty and security, a debate in which Ben Franklin warned that those who would sacrifice the former for the latter will end up with neither.
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"Even the Mainstream Liberal Press Slams Obama On Spying"
Are they slamming him on spying or on spying on them?
I keep thinking... why are these scandals all getting released, one after another, seemingly every weekend...
Then I thought, well maybe this is arm-twisting, by those who can twist arms, for not taking a bigger role in Syria.
The conspiracy theorist in me also questions...
---what if this was all fake? The whole program... just another Star Wars program designed to put open dissent off of the internets and to reduce spontaneous off-agenda gatherings like the OWS groups.
I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that the Government has been spying on me for more than fifteen years.
Started with intercepting my snail mail, before I had email.
Now they probably track everything.
I think Syria is on hold until the Saudis have named their new king. By all accounts it seems the Saudi King at the moment is either dead or a vegetable.
Neocon arm twisting over Syria.
suspicious when Weekly Standard reported that Barry had used the IRS to target tax exempt status of neocon organizations. Barry crossed the wrong gangsters.
Gang versus gang warfare. What else is new ?
"Barry crossed the wrong gangsters."
Perhaps "gangsters" is not the best yet description, and ZH'ers here could expound this line of conjecture.
...and just where does the Vatican fit into this picture? Seems to me that quantities of Au on loan have been requested to return home / or else.
The NYT is just a Harvard Soviet propaganda operation for the East Coast elite centered in NYC. You can count on nothing from them and I don't give a flying fuck what they think.
Take a look at this: http://thedocs.hostzi.com/DoD_NetOps_Strategic_Vision.pdf
That is something I care about and it was just leaked by Anonymous. Kudos to them.
Well they did more than download...
My unit will no longer access DOD files
firefox had no such problem
NYT = Pravda, Goebbels, Newspeak & Animal Farm's top pigs, all brought up to date, like Kansas City, only this ain't no musical.
The Times is as good for NOT reporting news as emphasizing only the parts that please them ideologically. Even when other news media are covering a popular story (particularly one detrimental to the administration) the Times will remain silent. Is it news when events are NOT reported? LOL
WB channels Kuato, I just know it.
Naked Capitalism wasn't impressed with the New York Times' story on Glen Greenwald titled Blogger, With Focus on Surveillance, Is at Center of a Debate. Even Wikipedia describes him as "an American political journalist, lawyer, columnist, blogger, and author", but NYT decides to marginalize him with the "blogger" label.
"Given the Times’ greater fealty to Obama than to Bush, and the dearth of any reliable American media outlets to its left, no wonder Greenwald’s source(s) came to him and the Guardian. The Times’ reluctance to give Greenwald all the credit he is due reflect its inability to face up to what his scoops say about the sorry state of American journalism"
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/nyt-gives-damning-with-faintest-p...
The New York Times just called The Guardian "a blog". Brilliant...just...fucking...brilliant.
A rose by any other name....
Who really gives a crap about what the nyt thinks.
All the propaganda fit to push. (new nyt slogan)
MSM doesn't report the outrage.
Nothing changes.
MSM reports the outrage.
Nothing changes.
This was a coordinated attack. It's obvious that Oh Bummer has pissed off his handlers about something.
Or maybe the puppet masters have decided that something else is more important than the Obama plan.
this is masterpiece theater 3000 for YOUR benefit. This has NO consequences on anyone in power or their operative puppets.
This is a warning, period. This escalations are mere flesh wounds that Obama can shake off the second the MSM changes the dialog. You'll KNOW he is being taken down the very second you read any fucking thing about his SS #, forged birth certificate or sealed college records in the MSM. That is his achilles heel. He can't fight the MSM coming in from that angle.
I tend to agree with the Banker from Brussels, this is to scare him into action on something. You'll know he is going to act as soon as the MSM backs off OR he's taken down for good per the above scenario.
Not necessarily. He may just not be worth that much anymore as the Magic Negro. Perhaps it is now time to make him the ultimate fall guy?
Besides, if they turn DC into scandal central, then the true operatives can do whatever they please with impunity as there will be no "moral force" to manage due to the sudden, complete lack of political mandate.
In other words, it'll make a nice fog of war.
Monica 2.0?
How ironic the magic Negro is bringing back debt slavery. So when do we all get shipped back to Africa?
don't worry, just watch msm and dancin with the stars, they are conveniently bringing africa to you.
Obama has a lot of scandals yet to be uncovered. It may be a coincidence but these "We are watching you" scandals all started right after insiders started to leak info about Bemghazi and the supposed innocent Saudi student in Boston who was arrested then not arrested then deported then not deported.
'We know everything you are saying and writing' has has a chilling effect on the ones who know where the bodies are buried.
+1 upvoted for a good point.
By any other name, it's still collusion.
those 2 hypotheses aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
perhaps a little of both?
yup, the GWO photo on PuffHo is the tell.
they're sending him a message.
Next NYT editorial, "We Sorry"
New York Times = Toilet Paper of Record. Gerald Celente had that right. Those whore presstitute banker teabag cocksuckers have NO problem lying to us about Saddam's WMD, why Benghazi happened, covering up when Putin spanked Dick Cheney in Georgia in 2008, etc. If those piece of shit collaborators said the sun was out I'd find the nearest window and check that fact my damn self...
Making Bush look good since Tuesday, January 20, 2009.
well, I wouldn't go so far as to say making him look "good". perhaps, to use a bush type english language...it makes him look less awfuller.
The MSM is owned by the same people who own Bush/Obama/Congress. This dust up will be forgotten in a nanosecond by the people as our owners smile with satisfaction as another slice of our freedom is added to the pile of their control. May all of their employees burn in hell.
em-ploy-ee
hmm.
I think the word we use is "minion"
BCCI?
Pre-crime punishment will be next
Where have you been, it's been here since forever- through racial, and more recently online then medical, profiling.
' EVEN MSM '
those sack of whores can burn in fucking hell with their Clown Puppet Prince.
Obama and Bush are the same?
Phuck You
No, it's the fucking easter leprebunny bringing gold fucking eggs.
Of course they're the same you dumb-fuck. Same policies, same wars, same funding companies, same bankster masters giving the top-level orders, same in-bed-with-herpes with the Pentagon.
Every 4 years the people who own and operate the U.S. government choose a new face to represent their product on TV.
Think of Jay Leno for Doritos or Bill Shatner with Priceline, just to name a couple. These guys probably hate snack foods and cheap hotel rooms by now, but it's a gig and they just have to read the teleprompter to get a nice regular check and tons of bennys.
They had George W. as the corporate face of U.S. for 4 years and they results were favorable enough to renew him for a second 4 years.
Now we have the new guy. And again, the owners found his TV performances were giving a good return. Enough to give him another 4 year contract.
If you grok Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan as the guys who represented the corporate interests of the U.S. government on TV, you have achieved a better understanding of how the place operates.
Obama and Bush are EXACTLY the same i.e. indistinguishable?
There are at least 21 stupid fucktards or pathetic liars here who down arrowed my post.
What percentage of the American economy did George Bush socialize? I'll wait a long long time until one of you down arrowing cowards answers that honestly!
Why don't one of you stupes explain how Bush's 600 billion dollar budget deficits are "indistinguishable" from Obowels 1.5 trillion dollar budget deficits ...exactly the same only to retards.......
Tell me how many rounds of QE Bush did, if he is exactly the same as Obama? Speak up down arrowing retards! Exactly the same Dumfux????? Do Da maff!
Fill me in as to the racist laws and policies passed under Bush that reward people based on the color of their skin?
What HASN'T Obama lied about? Did Bush lie about everything?
Fools and cowards......
You morons who think "both parties are the same" or "Bush is indistinguishable from Obama" are dumber than dogshit.
" I'll wait a long long time until one of you down arrowing cowards answers that honestly!"
Medicare Part D.
Iraq war was a jobs program.
Man ... you really are a toolbox. I bet you vote.
... fuck yeah!
Actually, the highest defict during Bush's term was $438 billion. Obama several quarters that exceed that, and will still be double even with the massive sock it to rich make liberals feel better tax increases. Bush did a lot of things wrong with fiscal policy, but he's WAY out of Obama's league.
If Bush was still in office, we'd still have FISA courts and all the rest, but at least we wouldn't have ObamaCare. We also wouldn't have the IRS being used as a political hammer (Bush: 1 visit from IRS commissioner, Obama: 157 visits)
If we still had Bush, we wouldn't have an army of eco-holy warriors and union thugs running America's regulatory apparatus, terrorizing business with the ruthlessness of the NKVD.
If Bush were still in office, the Ambassador to Libya wouldn't be a corpse, or at least he'd man up and not blame a video.
If Bush were still in office, they'd be drawing up impeachment articles over tapping reporters phones
So anyone that says Bush and Obama are the same is a complete, clueless moron.
Junk away.
"Actually, the highest defict during Bush's term was $438 billion. Obama several quarters that exceed that, and will still be double even with the massive sock it to rich make liberals feel better tax increases. Bush did a lot of things wrong with fiscal policy, but he's WAY out of Obama's league."
WHO bailed out all the inbred blueblood Wall Street fucktards like Goldman and JP Morgan in 2008? Who? If you can't mention that little piece of corporate socialism then you are a lying piece of collaborator whale shit.
"If Bush was still in office, we'd still have FISA courts and all the rest, but at least we wouldn't have ObamaCare."
Along with Santa Claus and the fucking Easter Bunny too, right you Wall Street partisan asshole? Bush created the American Gesatapo known as Homeland Security, an unnecessary piece of BIG GOVERNMENT growth that makes this country more like Hitler's Germany that Bush's grandpappy loved financing like a traitor cocksucker that he was.
Obama is only CONTINUING all the banker imperial wars Bush started. And all the wiretapping bullshit. And all the drone bullshit.
And never forget - BUSH STOOD DOWN THE MILITARY ON 9/11. So his banker funded Al-Qaeda cocksucker friends could have a successful 'Pearl Harbor' event to justify making this country a national socialist hellhole. And stupid collaborator assholes try excusing his fucking treason because a day without kissing ass is like a day without sunshine for those types...
Yes and Bill Clinto stood down when the Yemini government offered to extradite Osama Bin Laden to the Unites States from a Yemini prision. Who pressured slick willie to lay off Al-CIAda's leader? Graham Fuller, retired CIA officer who was an in-law to the Boston Bombers?
Blue and Red fascists run this country. Suckers Vote.
Here's a simple test you can do yourself before you spout this ignorant bullshit:
Google 'top 10 Bush campaign donors', then Google 'Top 10 Obama campaign donors.'
You will see Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and a number of similar corrupt fucktard corporations on BOTH lists.
Your haggling over the minor details of their corruption only shows you to be either:
1) A fully brainwashed Kool-aid drinker who believes whatever his TV tells him
2) A Cass Sunstein memorial dissident cognitive infiltrator asshole
3) A collaborator piece of shit who wants this country to burn according to the will of his Wall Street masters
In any case you need to get a REAL education or you need to fuck off and die. If we wanted to hear a bunch of Wall Street parrots and traitors we would go to CNBC or FOX news. Piss the fuck off...