Obama makes a sham of our Constitution in his NSA "reform" speech | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We have an inherently dishonest President. If you did not already know that or if you doubt it then you should review his speech on the massive spying program the National Security Agency is operating. Obama made a much ballyhooed speech Friday (1-17-14) that was supposed to be his move to reform this monstrosity of a violation of American's inalienable rights as encoded in the Fourth Amendment.

    Just to review, our Constitution originally provided that Americans would be secure from a spying government unless the government had a particularized reason to believe a citizen was or had been committing a crime. If and executive official it had such probable cause the official went to the judicial branch to show the evidence. The judge would then issue a search warrant. As originally adopted this protection from unreasonable search and seizure applied to letters in the postal system. Today that postal system is electronic but the same principle of being secure in our persons and effects applies. The NSA spying program is simply illegal. And no law passed by Congress or Executive Order handed down by the Executive Branch changes that fact that violating our privacy is an invasion of our inalienable rights as Americans.

    Take that concept an apply it to what Obama said Friday and you see that he is simply lying, once again.

    James Oliphant, writing at the National Journal puts this way:

    The White House promised Friday that it was ending the NSA's most controversial surveillance program "as it currently exists." But make no mistake, it's still going to exist.

    In fact, what President Obama has announced will have little operational effect on the National Security Agency's collection of Americans' data. And, significantly, the administration has attempted to dodge some of the biggest decisions, passing the ball to Congress, which will likely do nothing if recent trends hold.

    Much of the attention in the run-up to the speech involved the NSA's retention and search of so-called metadata  -  calling records, including calls made by U.S. citizens, that help the government identify potential terrorist relationships. And the president didn't come close to what privacy advocates have wanted  -  a sharp culling of the program or its outright termination.

    Instead, the goal of Friday's announcement  -  as it has always been  -  was to reassure a skittish public both here and abroad that the program is being used responsibly. "This is a capability that needs to be preserved," a senior administration official said.

    After Friday, keep in mind how the status quo has, or has not, been altered:

    1) The phone metadata still exists.

    2) It will be kept, at least in the short-term, by the government until Congress figures out what to do with it. (And don't think the telecom lobby won't play a role in that.)

    3) It will be searched.

    4) Searches will be approved by a court with a record of being friendly to the government, one without a new privacy advocate.

    5) National security letters can still be issued by the FBI without a court order.

    6) Much of this activity will remain secret.

    The president made two major policy prescriptions. First, he called for the data to be housed somewhere other than within the government. Second, he said before the NSA can search the calling-record database, it should obtain judicial approval.

    To the first, the president would not specify where the data will be ultimately stored. He wants the Justice Department and the intelligence community to come up with a proposal within 60 days. The administration is reluctant to force telecom providers to house the data, both because of logistical problems and because the industry wants nothing to do with it. Some have suggested creating a private consortium, but that will take time. And if it proves that there is no better place to keep the data, it well could remain with the U.S. government. (Sounds a little like GITMO.)

    To the second of Obama's measures, judicial oversight will come in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which critics say acts as a rubber stamp for government surveillance requests, rather than by more independent-minded federal judges on other courts. The Wall Street Journal last year estimated the Court rejects less than 1 percent of all requests; the chief judge has maintained that it sends back up to 25 percent. Either way, the overwhelming majority of requests are granted unimpeded, particularly when the requests are time-sensitive.

    Tellingly, the president rejected a recommendation from an outside panel to establish a "public advocate" inside the Court to represent privacy interests. Instead, he wants an outside group of experts to consult on cutting-edge legal matters, not on day-to-day surveillance requests.

    Yes, the FISA review adds an extra step to the process (one that may frustrate counterterror hawks), but it likely will do little to restrain the NSA. (The president is taking one concrete step, limiting searches to two "hops" away from a subject's phone number, not three.)

    The president also rejected a recommendation that the so-called national security letters used by the FBI to obtain business records from investigation targets be subject to judicial approval, after the bureau objected to the idea.


    Click here to go to the original source to read the rest of the story. There is a link in the article to the full text of Obama's speech. The man has no respect for the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend.

    Consider this issue from another perspective. Rather than think in terms of the government using these data to charge a person with a crime, consider that this is the same government that used, contrary to law, the Internal Revenue Service to target political groups that they thought disagreed with them on public policy. Then tell us you have confidence these data from our private records would not be used to target law-abiding Americans not because they are a terrorist threat but because they are a political threat.

    Finally, when you read Obama's words about have "confidence" in the government, consider that he also says he had no idea the NSA was doing what it was doing until he heard about it in the news (vis-à-vis Edward Snowden). If he has no more control over what his minions are doing than that, how would anyone have any confidence they are not abusing this information?

    Click here for another take on the same topic ("you can't trust the Obama Administration").
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Governor McCrory Praises Character Building at Annual MLK Prayer Breakfast Editorials, Beaufort Observer, Op-Ed & Politics Michael Speciale Announces Re-election Bid

HbAD0

 
Back to Top