Administration Argues NSA Domestic Surveillance is Lawful; President Supports FISA Court Adversary

[ProSense]

Administration Argues NSA Domestic Surveillance is Lawful; President Supports FISA Court Adversary

The administration released a white paper outlining its legal argument for why the Patriot Act Section 215 authorizes the NSA to collect all Americans' telephone records. The government also released a NSA memo discussing the agency's program. At a press conference on Friday, President Obama outlined proposals that would address some, but not all, problems with the domestic surveillance programs, such as appointing a special advocate to argue in favor of civil liberties before the FISA Court. EPIC has brought a lawsuit in the Supreme Court challenging the legal authority for the NSA telephone surveillance program. For more information, see In re EPIC.

http://epic.org/2013/08/administration-argues-nsa-dome.html

Blumenthal Applauds President Obama’s Support For Special Advocate In FISA Courts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023435963

EFF analysis of NSA announcements: Devil's in the details.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023439446

Wyden Statement on President Obama’s Proposed Reforms to the FISC and PATRIOT ACT
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023436039

[cantbeserious]

1. However - Clapper Is Leading Internal Review - No Transparency

eom

[ProSense]

2. That has nothing to do with the adversary and other FISA court reforms. n/t

[cantbeserious]

8. Believe What You Choose To Believe - I No Longer Trust This President - Obfuscation All Around

eom

[ProSense]

13. You evidently do.

"I No Longer Trust This President"

When did you "trust" him?

[cantbeserious]

17. Election One - Got Suckered With Transparency Hope And Change - Election Two - Lesser Of Two Evils

eom

[ProSense]

18. Actually,

"Election One - Got Suckered With Transparency Hope And Change - Election Two - Lesser Of Two Evils"

Election One - Hope - Election Two - Change

Perspective helps.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023372682
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023441345
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023461227
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023463135

[RC]

3. I wish we had a real Democrat for President.

Someone that does not keep appointing Republican and other bu$h retreads to various agency heads, while leaving bu$h hirelings in place.
Most of this shit would never be a problem in the first place, because it would not exist to be a problem.

[ProSense]

4. Actually,

"I wish we had a real Democrat for President."

...we have a "real" Democratic President.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023453489

In fact, he's one of the best.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023443707

[RC]

9. Maybe one of the best Republican Presidents.

Even Clinton has him bear in that category. At least Clinton got the economy back on track, even with a Republican Congress.
That (D) does not make him the genuine article. Not with his caving to the Republicans, appointing Republican Agency Heads, escalating the drone wars, and prosecuting more whistle blowers than any other president.
And he did not get us out of Iraq. Not only were we were kicked out, we left behind 10's of thousands of mercenaries. There is still a war goinging there.
And there is his being for the NSA and the illegal hoovering up the communications of US citizens in this country, in violation of the 4th Amendment. Just because it is "legal" does not necessarily make it constitutional. Real Democrat does not mean 3rd Way or DLC. Those are Republican Lite.

[ProSense]

11. "Even Clinton has him bear in that category."

"At least Clinton got the economy back on track, even with a Republican Congress. "

Yeah, enacting DADT was better than repealing it. Deregulating Wall Street was better than re-regulating it.

[RC]

14. And what has Obama done to re-regulate Wall Street?

Besides wanting to appoint Larry Summers to head the Fed, that is?

[ProSense]

16. I guess

"And what has Obama done to re-regulate Wall Street?"

...you missed Wall Street reform.

Report: Wall Street’s Opposition to Dodd-Frank Reforms Echoes Its Resistance to New Deal Financial Safeguards

Bedrock Consumer Protections Once Were Flogged as ‘Exceedingly Dangerous,’ ‘Monstrous Systems’ That Would ‘Cripple’ the Economy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the nation approaches the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, opponents are claiming that the new measure is extraordinarily damaging, especially to Main Street. But industry’s alarmist rhetoric bears striking resemblance to the last time it faced sweeping new safeguards: during the New Deal reforms. The parallels between the language used both then and now are detailed in a report released today by Public Citizen and the Cry Wolf Project.

In the decades since the Great Depression, Americans acknowledged the necessity of having safeguards in place to prevent another crash of the financial markets, including the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and laws requiring public companies to accurately disclose their financial affairs. Although these are now seen as bedrock protections when they were first introduced, Wall Street cried foul, the new report, “Industry Repeats Itself: The Financial Reform Fight,” found.

“The business community’s wildly inaccurate forecasts about the New Deal reforms devalue the credibility of the ominous predictions they are making today,” said Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division and author of the report. “If history comes close to repeating itself, industry is going to look very silly for its hand-wringing over Dodd-Frank when people look back.”


<...>

In fact, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is designed to prevent another Wall Street crash, which really made it tough on everyone by causing massive job loss and severely hurting corner butchers and bakers, as well as retirees, families with mortgages and others. The Dodd-Frank law increases transparency (particularly in derivatives markets); creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to ensure that consumers receive straightforward information about financial products and to police abusive practices; improves corporate governance; increases capital requirements for banks; deters particularly large financial institutions from providing incentives for employees to take undue risks; and gives the government the ability to take failed investment institutions into receivership, similar to the FDIC’s authority regarding commercial banks. Much of it has yet to be implemented.

- more -

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/07/12-0

[PowerToThePeople]

7. rec.

It amazes me how so many people here are standing up for Dick Cheney and crew's brainchild that is the Patriot act.

[RC]

10. Isn't it though?

And yet they claim to be Democrats in good standing. How can that logically work?

[leftstreet]

5. WHOA! Obama's admitting there IS spying on Americans?

President Obama outlined proposals that would address some, but not all, problems with the domestic surveillance programs,

Obama To Leno: 'There Is No Spying On Americans'

by Greg Henderson
August 07, 201312:44 AM


President Obama defended the US government's surveillance program, telling NBC's Jay Leno on Tuesday that: "There is no spying on Americans."

"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/06/209692380/obama-to-leno-there-is-no-spying-on-americans

Will he go back on Leno and change his tune?

[ProSense]

12. Problems do not equal "spying on Americans." n/t

Last edited Wed Aug 14, 2013, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. He's supporting the weakest of the proposals -- predicatably.

As to "lawful", it's technically lawful until a court rules that it isn't, but I wouldn't bet a lot on that lasting for long. Suits filed are pending, so we'll see.

The author of the law has already stated categorically that it isn't lawful. He (Sensenbrenner) should know.

So the bottom line of it is that this statement by the admin, and this OP are based entirely on very flimsy hairsplitting.

[ProSense]

15. How is Blumenthal's bill the "weakest of the proposals"? n/t