Dec 20 2013

Chickens Home To Roost

Officials’ defenses of NSA phone program may be unraveling

By Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, Wasington Post

Published: December 19

From the moment the government’s massive database of citizens’ call records was exposed this year, U.S. officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe.

But six months into the controversy triggered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear.

In a three-day span, those rationales were upended by a federal judge who declared that the program was probably unconstitutional and the release of a report by a White House panel utterly unconvinced that stockpiling such data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks.

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Barack Obama is scheduled to hold a press conference at 2 pm. ET today prior to a two week vacation in Hawaii.

2 comments

    • on 12/20/2013 at 17:52
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    • on 12/21/2013 at 01:30
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    So he basically said, about the NSA program:

    Addressing the week’s NSA news, the president said he’s “going to make a pretty definitive statement about all of this in January.” Obama again defended the agency’s bulk collection, saying that “I have confidence that the NSA is not engaging in domestic surveillance and not snooping around.” But “we have to refine this to give people more confidence.”

    Obama did open the door slightly to allowing phone companies-and not the government-to collect and store customer metadata that can be requested on an as-needed basis. But he remained resolute that section 215 of the Patriot Act is being used to correctly justify surveillance for national security purposes, and that addressing public confidence in the NSA’s programs is his top concern.

    “There have not been actual instances in which the NSA has acted inappropriately in use of this data,” he said. “But,” he said, “people are concerned about the prospect and possibility” of that happening.

    According to the National Journal.  http://www.nationaljournal.com…

    “People are concerned”???  Really???  Ya think?  And I don’t believe that allowing phone companies to “collect and store customer metadata” is any better than the government doing so.  Since he said that section 215 of the Patriot Act is “being used to correctly justify surveillance for national security purposes,” I really do not expect any great changes.  Maybe a few minor cosmetic changes for propaganda purposes, but that’s about it.    🙁

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