Breaking Down New N S A Policy

First the Provisions and then the Commentary

CNN) -- President Barack Obama talked in sometimes lofty, often technical tones Friday about changing how the government does its anti-terror snooping. That includes how it collects records on many of your phone calls, emails and online chats.  Here's what it all meant:

1. The public will get a voice before the secret intelligence court -- sort of

The way things work now at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the government asks a judge in secret for permission to collect, say, phone records. No one gets to argue the other side.

Obama said he wants to open the court's doors to advocates from outside the government who can "provide an independent voice in significant cases."

Obama announces changes at NSA

The idea is to make sure outside voices have a say -- voices that might not always buy into the intelligence community's arguments -- but who knows what that panel will end up looking like.

2. New limits on telephone records

If you've been paying attention the last few months, you know the National Security Agency has been slurping up details on millions of phone calls placed in the United States. The agency isn't recording the actual conversation -- they're after stuff like the phone numbers involved and the time and length of each call.

Blog: What others are saying

That won't end, exactly, but Obama says big changes are coming. First, fewer calls will be cataloged. And analysts will now have to get a judge's approval to dip into the records. Later, the government will stop collecting and storing those records. Where they'll go is still up in the air, though.

3. Super-secret "we want your stuff" letters are changing

Remember the movie, "Fight Club?" Remember the line, "First rule of fight club is you do not talk about Fight Club?" Well, the government has something like that called the National Security Letter program. It requires tech companies to cough up info about suspected terrorists and others without so much as a peep.

Obama wants to change it so those letters don't always stay secret. He also wants to give tech companies more latitude to reveal information about what the government asks for. He didn't say exactly what they'll be able to reveal, but at least maybe they'll be able to finally acknowledge "Security Club."

4. People living outside the U.S. get some love, too

Revelations sparked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks didn't just rile up Americans. We learned the United States had been monitoring leaders of some of its allies, such as Germany. The United States also doesn't extend the kind of privacy protections to your everyday Italian or Peruvian living outside the United States.

So Obama says the United States will take what he calls the "unprecedented step" of developing some privacy safeguards for citizens of other nations living abroad. That might include limits on how long the government keeps personal information and taking steps to make sure it's used only in very limited circumstances.

5. So this ends all the drama, right?

Hardly. Critics of U.S. intelligence practices barely waited for the speech to end before pouncing.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he thinks Obama's speech amounted to little. "I think it's embarrassing for a head of state like that to go on for almost 45 minutes and say almost nothing," he said.

Another privacy advocate called the reforms "mere window dressing."

"Rather than dismantling the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance programs, or even substantially restraining them, President Obama today has issued his endorsement of them," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, an anti-surveillance organization.

Snowden is expected to speak up about the changes next week, Assange told CNN.

 

The Teleprompter-In-Chief Fails to Impress …

President Obama did exactly what the American people predicted: made a pretty speech, but failed to rein in NSA spying.
CNN correctly notes:

Critics of U.S. intelligence practices barely waited for the speech to end before pouncing.

Representative Rush Holt says:

The President’s speech offered far less than meets the eye.
“His proposals continue to allow surveillance of Americans without requiring a Fourth Amendment determination of probable cause.  They continue to regard Americans as suspects first and citizens second.  They continue to allow the government to build backdoors into computer software and hardware.  They fail to strengthen protections for whistleblowers who uncover abusive spying.
“The President spoke about navigating ‘the balance between security and liberty.’  But this is a faulty and false choice.  As Barack Obama himself urged in his first inaugural address, we must ‘reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.’
“The Fourth Amendment and other civil liberty protections do not exist to impede police or intelligence agencies.  To the contrary, they exist to hold to hold government agents to a high standard – to ensure that they act on the basis of evidence, rather than wasting time and resources on wild goose chases.
“Even the modest improvements announced today are subject to reversal at a stroke of the President’s pen.  A standard of ‘trust my good intentions’ isn’t good enough.  Congress should reject these practices and repeal the laws that made the NSA’s abuses possible.”

Senator Rand Paul says:

President Obama’s announced solution to the NSA spying controversy is the same unconstitutional program with a new configuration ….
“The American people should not expect the fox to guard the hen house,” Paul said about Obama’s promise to appoint a special White House oversight director to keep a watchful eye over the security programs.

Leading constitutional and military law expert Jonathan Turley writes:

I just listened to the NSA speech by President Obama and as expected there is precious little in terms of real change. For civil libertarians, it is a nothing burger served hot and with a sympathetic smile. It is much of the same.
***
The programs will continue and the intelligence community will retain its authority with little outside independent limits. The speech had the feel of a car salesman coming back from “speaking with the manager” and saying that he is able to offer a deal that no one likes but he wants to offer because he likes the customer. Of course, this “deal” does not require our consent.
In the end, the changes are either undefined (like the privacy advocates) or basically “trust us were your government” (including a reminder that NSA people are your neighbors).
The Paul Revere reference at the beginning seemed to set the less than honest approach of the speech. Revere and the Sons of Liberty were watching public movement of an enemy at war. Likewise, Obama again references “court” review of the metadata as if it were a true court applying real probable cause. FISC has been widely ridiculed as a rubber-stamp for the government. The Court is given a standard that is hard for the government not to satisfy with even the most casual filings.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund notes:

Rather than dismantling the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance programs, or even substantially restraining them, President Obama today has issued his endorsement of them. What are billed as ‘reforms’ are mere window dressing, cosmetic changes that leave this unconstitutional system intact and, in fact, provide presidential ratification.
Today’s speech full of minimization and outright denial regarding the now-documented massive scope of NSA spying on the population served as the presidential announcement of an intention to permanently implement a national surveillance grid and indiscriminate mass data collection. Every keystroke will still be captured, every phone call will still be logged.
***
Using tactics of misdirection, the president has tried to reframe the issue as who should house the massive collection of data on law-abiding people, rather than the real issue, which is that this massive indiscriminate collection and warehousing of data must stop. This speech will fail to stop the tide of opposition of people in the United States and around the world who reject living under a Surveillance State.

The Guardian reports:
Obama’s NSA speech: an affirmation that mass surveillance has a future

Eisenhower's Fairwell Address

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunities they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening.

Three days from now, after half century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening, I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.  Like every other -- Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.  Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation. My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years. In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the nation good, rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling -- on my part -- of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.  We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.  Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension, or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.  Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insiduous [insidious] in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment. Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.  But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of threat and stress.  But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.  A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime, or, indeed, by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.  Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States cooperations -- corporations.  Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.  Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.  Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.  Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.  It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.  Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.   During the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many fast frustrations -- past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of disarmament -- of the battlefield.  Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.  Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.  So, in this, my last good night to you as your President, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and in peace. I trust in that -- in that -- in that service you find some things worthy. As for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.  You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations' great goals.  To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its few spiritual blessings. Those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibility; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; and that the sources -- scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made [to] disappear from the earth; and that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it.

Thank you, and good night.

Is Barock Obama the "Manchurian Candidate"?

 It struck me that President Obama has in essence inoculated the right against any agenda the liberals might put forward.  The tea party were already armed to the teeth on the guns issue before President Obama breathed a word of it.  There was little right wing organization after the Democrats were swept into power in 2007 but this fate could never be replicated once President Obama was in office.  To recite the long list of ways in which President Obama has capitulated, in vain I might add, to the right wing- - is something I won’t repeat here.  But here is some I missed.  Religion used to be sacrosanct "hands off" for a Presidential candidate.  A man's relation with his church and his pastor were considered private.  But in the case of President Obama he wanted to be President so bad, he dumped his long standing church and pastor at the drop of a hat, at the merest whisper of discontent from the right.  This signaled to them "I am weak; I'm a man you'll find easy to push around".   President Obama showed the gravest of moral weakness in making this "Deal with the Devil" alias Governor Christie, to win the Presidency.  Christie agreed to "make nice with him and shun Romney" in exchange the Democratic Party would not support the democratic candidate for US Senate in New Jersey this year.  The first thing I'd do if Governor Christie came to me with a deal like that would be immediately to go to the media and make the charge public.  That's what any person of moral character would do.  But President Obama didn't.  He valued keeping his job and the prestiege that goes with it, above moral principles.  The President was willing to sacrifice Social Security - - payments already slashed to less than one fourth the actual inflation rate of about seven percent now, to one and a half.  It's a joke.  And one a lot of people suffer for.  And President Obama is willing to make it lower.  We already have much stronger gun legislation here in California than the bill President Obama put forth.  He has this knack of hitting the ground running with watered down bills, like with Health Care, again signaling to his apponent,  "See, I am afraid.  I'm trying to meet you half way" when a guy with his education knows better.  He's a poker player.  He should know.  Eric should be vigerously prosecuting voting rights violations in a half a dozen states, such as Florida and North Carolina.  The President talks little if at all about blacks, students and senior citizens being disenfranchised at the voting booth.  Now there is yet a new revelation about the NSA that they have some kind of USB plug that enables the government to spy on personal computers, even if they are NOT hooked up to the internet.  There is even talk about "cooperating with distributors to make it so.  The president is effectively muzzled.  Ironically there is a kind of "speech" that does nothing to actually SOLVE a problem but actually Inflames the opposition and energises them as an "excuse" to do what they do, and I have had first hand experiance with this behavior from my own Dad which by his interference in events "only makes things worse" but when the battle is actually engaged - - he's not there.  The President says "Black people - I feel your pain" but then does absolutely nothing about it, in terms of getting the Attorney General involved in litigation.  There is a Devo song called "Shrivel Out" that goes you better not complain - - or express discontent - - ".   The message is sent out to his own people that "If you dare to speak up on your own behalf or worse yet Fight in your own behalf, you are not doing my Will".  Jesus gave the Jews the same message, and you know what soon happened to them and their nation.  Now people just might be getting wise to this follow.  They are figuring out they've been brainwashed by the President.  The democrats are figuring out that muzzling themselves “Just to keep their President happy” is in the end self defeating.  Protecting this President has become a non starter for many enlightened progressives.  Where the idea of the "Manchurian Candidate" comes in - - I have to refer to a program that's usually on right now at this hour called "Vampire Diaries".  If you've been "The Three Faces of Eve" you know there is an inequality among the personalities, just like in America there is inequality among the races.  Eve Black knew everything about Eve White and all her thoughts and petty and sometimes vain hopes, and she scoffed at her.  But meanwhile Eve White knows nothing concrete about Eve Black except "something is wrong with me".   In the same way President Obama just may - at one time - many long years ago - a progressive, a lot more progressive than me, as a matter of fact.  But in 2004 Obama "went commercial" with that Convention hype job and that utterly vaccuous speech he gave at the convention that year.  I've listened to it again and believe me, there is no substance to it at all.  It's just a lot of empty imagry, much like a typical Sunday sermon (from those who actually tallent at this sort of slight of hand verbiage to begin with)  It's like some entity "took over" the President's personality.  This "entity" knows and has access to all the President's former thoughts, just like a government agency may now gain access to YOUR private thoughts and records on your computer.  We know that Vampires propigate their kind by biting on the neck and drawing blood.  So there is apparently some demonic "entity" or substance in the blood which is transferred at this point.

 In terms of the weather we won’t be getting cooler, rainier weather come the middle of January.  Now it’s because the Pacific Ocean is far too chilly and this generates a high pressure zone off where it blocks oncoming rainstorms.  This pattern- - rather than being close to spending itself- - is likely to go on for months, perhaps even years.  (Sellah)  So the long and short of it is- - things feed on themselves.  Good can feed on itself, and evil also feeds on itself.  That means it has a way of replemishing itself when its energy gets low, so it keeps going.  People say "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" but this is untrue.  Ask someone whose ever had a heart attack if this is true.  Ask someone with arsnic or mercury or lead poisoning whether this is true.  The first thing you do is to get the poison out of your system.  But the tea party as it were doesn't have to rely on "random movement of weather fronts".  It has this vast body of water that is in essence fueling it.  For the tea party- - it is being fueled by the most reactionary of forces such as those who even in this day think that women should marry early and remain "barefoot and pregnent".  The propigation of their own kind is something the right wing values.  It's also kind of their way of thumbing their nose at those who say "There are too many people in the world taxing the planet's resources" and nobody uses more of the world's natural resources than the very rich.  And they also have these long dynesties because their wealth now is taxed at such a low rate that their wealth becomes self sustaining- - whether or not the next generation, or the one after that, ever works a normal job or is productive or contributes to society in any way.  FOX is the right wing echo chamber that appeals to these simple minded people, who keep the minority of the rich and priveleged in power- - where they work as it were in destroying the lives of the very people who voted them into power, much, as a matter of fact, as President Obama has done with the left.

I guess Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks got snubbed at Oscar Nominations.  Oprah is considered one of those "dangerous forces' by the right wing, I imagine, and will go to any lengths to muzzle her, and an awful lot of anti Oprah media buzz has been heard lately.  I chafe at this notion of "one movie about the advancement of Black people is enough for award nomination".  They never went along with Black quotas before, why start now.  (Just think about that one for a moment)   I'm wondering whether the Word has gone down from On High- - for people accepting awards at this year's Oscars to "Styfle" as Edith Bunker was wont to say.  That is- - "Don't make it political.  Politics aren't fashionable right now".

Tomorrow is January 17th and the anniversary of the Northridge earthquake of 6.7 magnitude, which happened when the weather is very much like it is now - - warm and sunny, unseasonably so.  Some say like the pastor of Calvary Anaheim that it was God "banging on the ceiling" to alert the makers of pornography in Northridge to "knock it off".  That imigry is strange because it would imply that God's residence is in Hell.  In the Federation January 17th is the "guardian of secrets day", which is associated with the demon Osmodeus.  This demon is associated with the Crestorians, one of those "signs" not found on Jeopardy tonight.   I guess some secrets are best Kept, if it keeps bad people from finding out about them.  (Selah)