Obama’s Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying

[Red James Cash]

Obama’s Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying

August 10th, 2013

(TechDirt) – We’ve spent much of the afternoon detailing some of President Obama’s statements concerning his response to the NSA surveillance revelations, combined with some of the documents released by the administration. But a key point in all of this is highlighted in the Associated Press’s coverage of the press conference Obama says phone spying not abused, will continue President Obama flat out admitted that this was about appeasing a public that doesn’t trust the administration, not about reducing the surveillance.

President Barack Obama made it clear Friday he has no intention of stopping the daily collection of American phone records. And while he offered “appropriate reforms,” he blamed government leaks for creating distrust of his domestic spying program.

In an afternoon news conference, the president acknowledged the domestic spying has troubled Americans and hurt the country’s image abroad. But he called it a critical counterterrorism tool.

Even more to the point, his comments represent a fundamental misunderstanding of why the public doesn’t trust the government. That’s because he keeps insisting that the program isn’t being abused and that all of this collection is legal. But, really, that’s not what the concern is about. Even though we actually know that the NSA has a history of abuse (and other parts of the intelligence community before that), a major concern is that scooping up so much data is considered legal in the first place. So, when President Obama says that we should blindly trust the government not to abuse the data, that’s missing the point:

“Understandably, people would be concerned,” the president said. “I would be, too, if I weren’t inside the government.”

That’s not particularly comforting.

Source: techdirt.com

 

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[vpnavy]

Like I have said before - all you member's that voted for Obama must be so proud!

 

[Edward1976]

And like I've said before, would you rather the government and the people who protect you have no intel about incoming and present threats? Yes or no. Like I've said before also, the people under scrutiny comprise about 0.05% of the population and are made up of mostly military aged male Muslims in this country either illegally or semi-legally. The other part is Chinese and Russian hackers and spies, a smattering of assorted whack jobs who send threatening letters to the President and throw tea bags onto the White House lawn, people who are in contact with big time drug dealers, child pornographers and customers. That's it in a nutshell. Do you fall under one of the above catagories? Then you should worry. If you don't, relax. While I don't personally work with PRISM, I do know several people who are involved with the program and they're straight up men and women and doing a good job under a large amount of public outcry. Like I said, if the idea of living in a country with a dumb, deaf and blind military and security departments, you need to look at it like this: people hate Americans. It's true, I've spent most of my working career overseas and I've seen it. That's how it is. We need people looking out for us, and aside from abducting people on the street, electric intel is the only other option. Got any better ideas? I'm all ears, and NOOOOOOOOO, mass deportations/public hangings is not an option. Seriously, any better ideas let's hear them, because the government has been spying on citizens since they were steaming open letters by candlelight to the sound of horses hooves. p.s. ever heard of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg?

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Once again I do not choose to exchange my freedom or rights for lies or temporary security provided by the state.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

-B.Franklin



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[GMD52]

Eddy,

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I agree with TH, and will not trade my rights for an incompetent attempt to protect me! If they had better people doing their assigned tasks, they wouldn't need broadcast spying. These are my feelings, and are not open to debate.