But I'm guessing NSA operates under "everybody's" radar including WH?

Last edited Thu Jun 6, 2013, 01:57 AM - Edit history (1)

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Whether one likes the man or not is irrelevant.

100%.

Thanks for the clarification!

Haha. But yeah I wish this leak was more surprising. I proudly voted for POTUS twice, this stuff bums me out, a lot.

Very sad.

Things don't really surprise me at all. I never really questioned it. Just kind of always assumed it was happening. It's about as shocking as 'Keith Richards was into drugs' or doping in baseball. Of course they're keeping records about your phone calls. Do you actually someone at the NSA saying "oh no. We can't do that. It's illegal/immoral/unconstitutional"? I'm sure they spend most of their time just figuring out more crap like this to do ("what if we just gather everyone's medical records for... reasons?&quot , and the rest just trying not to get caught. Just assume that people in power do disposable things to stay in power and you'll never be disappointed.

And doesn't understand chess

It's a more comlicated form where one can't understand the strategy until the game is over. Of course by then you've lost and can't do anything about it......

That was disappointing.

he was the embodiment of every social movement ever, when in actuality he was a center-right shill for vulture capitalists, with authoritarian sympathies.

If only he'd done that, he would have been more successful.

when all this shit started. He didn't. He had 8 years when the party was basically leaderless and he stood off to the side making money. I wish him well but I don't give a fuck what he thinks about anything today.

feel like he showed undue deference and respect to the Supreme Court for its ruling in 2000 in Bush v. Gore. I think he should have called out the SCOTUS as the shitstains they were for that despicable ruling that dealt a fatal blow to the principle of one man, one vote.

[center]''For in reason, all government without the consent of the
governed is the very definition of slavery.'' ~Jonathan Swift

[/center]

I think it went nowhere, if I recall correctly.

Let's see, "7 months before the September 11, 2001 attacks" -- that would make it sometime in February of '01.

Yeah, that worked out well, didn't it?

it makes it any less outrageous but this is not news to anyone.

naive enough to believe President Obama when he promised during the 2008 campaign to change that sort of thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/my-position-on-fisa_b_110789.html

Was that outrageous? There is a court order. So challenge the law. What good is blaming the current President? Really.

The law doesn't require that the government use these tactics. It allows the government to do it. So it is at the government's discretion whether to use these tactics or not. It's a bad law and Obama should be calling for its repeal rather than using it himself. I agree with Former President Gore about this.

the only way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it. I agree with that. Letting them sit on the books unenforced creates opportunities in the future for someone to dust them off and use them. When the Court might have struck them down long ago.

The repeal might not get through congress but at least President Obama would have moral authority on the issue.

He says "up", they say "no, down". He demands in speech after speech for them to do it and they say "no". And then DU says "that's a good speech but where's the action"? So he does an EO and Congress takes it to court and it is thrown out. Then an outraged DU demands to know why he doesn't do anything?

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

We're going through that bullshit right now with Gitmo, where once again, for the 4th time, Congress (including Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, of all people) refuses to authorize funding the closure (where $$$ is needed to move equipment and personnel, etc).

Just like the rethugs, the only way to get action is to piss people off and make them mad enough to demand action. Otherwise they're content to sit on the sofa with a bag of chips and watch Game of Thrones or Dancing with the Stars.

opposition to this sort of thing.

There are probably a million laws that deserve to be repealed. This is a free country - ask your Senators and Congressmen to repeal them. If we all do that, something might happen.

This is consistently being done over and over and over (TSA grope, NSA letters and EVERYTHING in the Patriot Act, Drones, immigrant deportations, marijuana arrests) because ALL of these laws are on the books and ALL can and SHOULD be repealed by Congress (rather then them planning a 38th attempt at repealing Obamacare). When people feel what it would be like when the existing laws ARE enforced (under a benign President), the hope is the outrage will force Congress to damn sure do something about it.

Just like proposing right wing initiatives pushes the republicans to the right, making them unelectable, enforcing fascist laws gets people mad enough to fight back! This 13d chess theory has worked so well for Obama and his voters so far! I can't wait to see how this will go!

without any reforms whatsoever?

That law?

The law that the NSA is now using under his administration to spy on Americans?

That law?

If it is unconstitutional, that is the answer.

The President no matter who it is should enforce the laws on the books, otherwise they just sit there.

He signed the relevant provisions of the law into effect for four more years, calling it "an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat." The White House is defending the NSA's activities. Clearly they are 100% actively on board with this invasion of privacy, even if you (strangely) insist they are not.

The way to have the law struck is for it to be enforced and declared unconstitutional by the courts. The person affected can challenge it. There are people who have filed suit over it, pending since 2009. The courts however, hear both sides of an issue.

stored and use huge computers to analyze connections ALL THE TIME. And Obama didn't start this - he's just doing what all administrations, probably at least since Bush I, have done.

Big Brother says there is no such thing as the right to privacy, and we meekly accept it.

of a burgeoning POLICE STATE.

??

By CHARLIE SAVAGE and EDWARD WYATT
Published: June 5, 2013

... The order ... directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over ... all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls” ...

Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It is not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers ...

The four-page order was disclosed Wednesday evening by the newspaper The Guardian. Obama administration officials at the F.B.I. and the White House also declined to comment on it Wednesday evening, but did not deny the report, and a person familiar with the order confirmed its authenticity. “We will respond as soon as we can,” said Marci Green Miller, a National Security Agency spokeswoman, in an e-mail ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/us/us-secretly-collecting-logs-of-business-calls.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130606&_r=0