It matters little who is President when it comes to our out of control National Security Agencies

[cali]

and it boggles the mind that anyone could be so oblivious to the history of those agencies that they're willing to accept them as regulated and law abiding.

Since their inceptions, they all have histories of bad act after bad act. Do you think that stops simply because someone with a D after the name is in the White House?

Whether it's the NSA or the CIA, we're talking about a very dark history.

And that's where I start from when it comes to trusting those agencies.

[bowens43]

1. I agree, however the current occupant of the White House put his stamp of approval on it.

[1-Old-Man]

2. That is just a silly thing to say. If its true then we are not a self governing nation.

Both those two and all of the other "intelligence" agencies in our Government could be cut off at the knees tomorrow. The key is funding. People who do not get paid do not go to work. Its really that simple and if we want to reign in rogue agencies defunding them is the quickest and surest way to do it.

And I better be right about this, because if I am not then we are not in any sense of the word a free people.

[cali]

3. Of course it's true. How on earth can you deny facts and history?

Are you really so uninformed? As far as funding goes, it's virtually impossible to cut funding for defense/national security. What's silly as all get out is the claim that cutting funding for defense/national security is viable. It's not that simple and it's absurd to claim it is.

You're wrong. Quite wrong.

[Savannahmann]

4. How about an example of what she's talking about?

In the 1940's, the US Army Intelligence decided that they could intercept the communications of the Russian Embassy. These were encoded, but they weren't worried about breaking the code, they wanted the messages and could break the code later. So General Marshal organized the Venona Project. It was decided after consulting with J. Edgar Hoover and the Secretary of State that the President didn't need to know about this effort.

It was years later that the cryptographers managed to break the codes of those messages, FDR was dead, and President Truman was in the White House. Yet, despite changes to every position except Hoover, nobody told the President what they were up to. This policy continued until Eisenhower was elected President in 1952. The main reason that they had to tell Eisenhower, is that he was aware of the program when he was the Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force of Europe.

A program that ran for ten years, and nobody thought the President needed to know.

In Washington they call this Plausible Deniability. The idea is that the President if they get caught, can deny all knowledge of the program or operation, and the organizations can do the dirty tricks that they need to.

The Navy got permission from the National Security Advisor, a man named Henry Kissinger, to invade Soviet Waters and tap the underwater cables, project Ivy Bells. If it had failed, then who besides Kissinger could have said that the President knew?

So yes, there are thousands of projects, programs, and operations that are going on that at best, the President is only vaguely aware of. That has been the Modus Operandi since the conception of these agencies. To think otherwise is absolute naiveté.

[Progressive dog]

7. It was silly and we are a self governing nation. nt

[uponit7771]

5. yes it does....obama started the nsa spying on all humans there was nothing

..in place before he was president /sarcasm cause this is needed here

[jsr]

6. It's a parallel government

with secret rules and accountable only to itself.

[cali]

8. I told you so

I know people hate that, but well: I told you so.

It's almost a law of... something, that National Security Agencies will act outside the law

[mick063]

9. No one is fighting harder for the NSA right now than our President.

Bad press, foreign pressure, and politics have forced every political move, from both the executive and legislative branches, to rein the NSA in.

The President gives ground reluctantly and only out of political necessity.

[cali]

11. that's a good summation. spot on.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. It's a bit like the cold war bipartisan consensus that dominated America politics

especially from the late 40's until the withdrawal from Vietnam. The Republicans ran on a claim of being tougher on Communism and the Democrats constantly had to prove that they were just as rabidly anti-communist as the Republicans. Just as in recent times Democrats felt they had to prove they were just as big of fighters if not bigger fighters of terrorism than Cheney and Rumsfeld. Obama did not in any personal sense cause the expansion of the Intelligence Industrial Complex anymore than LBJ caused in any personal sense the escalation of the Vietnam War. Both of these were products of a misguided policy that created a fearful public that allowed a political culture to give agencies the green light to run amok.

[cali]

12. that's an excellent comparison, Douglas

and all of them are so fearful of an attack on U.S. soil by A-Q or its associates that they'll do anything to prevent it. sigh.