Obama Warns the Senate to Pass Surveillance Law
Source: New York Times
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVISMAY 29, 2015
WASHINGTON President Obama suggested ominously on Friday that allowing domestic surveillance programs to expire at a Sunday deadline could lead to a terrorist attack on the United States.
Pushing the Senate to break a logjam on legislation, Mr. Obama warned in the Oval Office that, I dont want us to be in a situation in which, for a certain period of time, those authorities go away and suddenly were dark.
Heaven forbid weve got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity, but we didnt do so simply because of inaction in the Senate, Mr. Obama added.
The comments were the most explicit warning to date from the Obama administration about the consequences of allowing the surveillance powers to lapse. Administration officials have been pressing lawmakers for weeks to pass the legislation, called the USA Freedom Act, and in recent days have stepped up their efforts to portray it as a national security imperative.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/obama-warns-the-senate-to-pass-surveillance-law.html?_r=0
PSPS
(13,613 posts)"Home of the brave."
"The only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself."
Not anymore, it appears. Now we live in a country of bed wetters who, apparently, live in a constant state of fear.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)NSA has demonstrably failed every time. It's purpose is not the publicly stated "War against Terrorism".
NSA exists to blackmail and entrap and enslave all Americans, and kill as many of the rest of the world's population as will sit still for droning...
840high
(17,196 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)WTF happened to the Obama the crowds cheered in '08?
So the argument is a noun, a verb, and 9/11. That's all, folks!
Volaris
(10,274 posts)should have to be called the thing that they DO
In this case, the Freedom FROM Freedom Act.
The majority of the elected and appointed government of this country must just think were all as dumb as the Republican Base
Fearless
(18,421 posts)Makes you wonder who's lining his pockets.
Paka
(2,760 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)Who's pulling the strings.
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)some good things. I just had it wrong about who the good things would be for.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)That once free from elections things would be different...and right out of the box he proposed chained CPI and then the TPP...and I knew we had been fooled again.
That wooden horse looked so real I took it in.
Paka
(2,760 posts)ananda
(28,874 posts)..
Fearless
(18,421 posts)Seat at the big kids table when he leaves office.
msongs
(67,433 posts)xocet
(3,871 posts)By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS | MAY 29, 2015
...
In a statement issued shortly before Mr. Obama spoke, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said that intelligence professionals will lose important capabilities if the authorities expire.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/obama-warns-the-senate-to-pass-surveillance-law.html
Gosh! Director Clapper is a paragon of truthfulness. We must act posthaste to rally the Senate...
delrem
(9,688 posts)TM99
(8,352 posts)Have you no shame?
You are supposed to be the side of the constitution, the people, and not be fear-mongering in order to allow the surveillance state that started under Bush to grow and morph under your watch.
Quackers
(2,256 posts)That's twice you have disappointed me. First the TPP and now this? I still think you've done some great stuff and are a great president, but I am at a loss for your recent actions. Is it time for an intervention?
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)He needs to be put in a room with about two dozen people who worked their asses off getting him elected twice and given a talking to.
OnionPatch
(6,169 posts)From people a lot more powerful than those who got him elected.
Psephos
(8,032 posts)The remake is even worse than the original.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)But now they want to examine every word by every American citizen. I call bullshit on that noise.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)They can only look at the past data collected after an event happens. They simply don't have the capability to actually go over every piece of data especially since most of the common hits are probably people posting on message boards like this. Any real attacks are likely obfuscated even.
This is what happened in that attack on the Muslim drawing convention thing, those guys posted publicly and openly on social media about what they were fixing to do, and they simply did not catch it or do a damn thing about it.
The value of this data collection is likely near nil. (Yes, they might, after an attack, be able to figure out who was responsible and maybe catch some people higher up the ladder, but that is not worth spying on everyone in the world who uses the internet or any data channels.)
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)potential enemy, us and them. I do not trust them with the data, there are huge credibility gaps.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)villager
(26,001 posts)...that he is.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)tape and plastic sheeting.
salib
(2,116 posts)Time to raise the threat level.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)This is so absurd as to be preposterous.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)You're all just a bunch of haters! That's what you are!!
Paka
(2,760 posts)RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)And that's why we're here, isn't it?
If life isn't ultimately about increasing GDP, I can't even begin to imagine what its purpose would be!
bowens43
(16,064 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)KG
(28,752 posts)INdemo
(6,994 posts)A Democrat (except for a few Warren class Democrats) in Washington feeds us Democrats just enough crumbs to make us think they are on our side but then they turn their backs and stick out their hand and pick up their corporate check.
Yes this is way things happen and Obama is no different. He is a corporate puppet and his real patriotism is to the corporations and the Wall St warriors that writes his checks...
I'm curious just how much he has in donations from the corporate world for his library so far?
But I am like so many Democrats, this guy fooled me twice.
Paka
(2,760 posts)But not with the same enthusiasm the second time.
INdemo
(6,994 posts)When Obama appointed so many Republicans to his cabinet his first term I knew we were in trouble.
Angel Martin
(942 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)One is industrial, the other organic; one cheap, the other expensive; one marketed to blue-collar workers, the other to yuppies...
But they are both owned by the same parent company.
It's not rocket science, people.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)They got that intel 36 days before 9/11/01. The problem was not lack of intel -- it was what they did with the intel they got.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike_in_US
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)And can be trusted.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)the very real Obama...nothing progressive in this suit...
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)What a disaster
Autumn
(45,120 posts)whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)niyad
(113,527 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)is so important. It helped stop those two idiots from bombing the Boston marathon in 2013.
Wait... no... it didn't.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)I honestly believed he would rein in the constitutional excesses of the Cheney administration and repair and restore our rights. I feel so
[font size="8"]BETRAYED[/font"]
Psephos
(8,032 posts)Which still doesn't absolve him of abuses against the Constitution.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Not sure what I really expected - but it certainly wasn't this. To find myself agreeing more with Rand Paul (on this particular issue - yes, he is still an asshole) than with Barrack Obama is... ridiculous. What the hell, man?
The USA Freedom Act? Man, trying to mask this shit as something that promotes or enables greater freedom is despicable. It assumes that we're ALL idiots glued to Fox news. There may be a significant portion of our populace that IS - but there are plenty of us who know a wolf in sheep's clothing.
The idea that they can't gather enough intelligence, that this would somehow prevent them from stopping a terrorist, or that "inaction" from the Senate now is more harmful than any other millions of times before (how often is the Senate actually "active"?) is vaguely amusing.
Those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither - and this is not going to improve our freedom. To pretend otherwise is fucking absurd.
Cha
(297,528 posts)speaking "ominously". But, everyone's just sucking it up.
If the President wants this then there's a good reason. I trust him. I don't care how many people are accusing him of "fear mongering".
Response to Cha (Reply #48)
Post removed
Cha
(297,528 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)I think they are wrong.
If we had the Ending Secrets Laws Act we could know what stuff these programs is actually stopping or preventing from happening. But thanks to Carter's FISA we're stuck just trusting that the system is working.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)silenttigersong
(957 posts)This means we can just for speaking out being dissedent be placed on blacklists,political eneimies lists,no.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And how long have they been in place?
The Republicans wouldn't mind a terrorist attack while Obama is POTUS. That's how vile they are.
So from the article:
But the controversy has centered on the National Security Agency program that collects bulk telephone records, which the bill would eliminate. Instead, under a bipartisan compromise backed by the Obama administration, telephone companies would retain the data, and the N.S.A. could gain access to it by obtaining an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
So no reason for hair on fire pronouncements.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)Apparently unaware that all of them come from the same handful of manufacturers.
The president had an award-winning marketing campaign (literally) and far too many of us bought it.
treestar
(82,383 posts)As an excuse to go Hair on Fire. Read the article, there is nothing new happening.
Response to Purveyor (Original post)
rjsquirrel This message was self-deleted by its author.
WDIM
(1,662 posts)Push the fear and strip the freedoms.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)renew NSA spying? See, I remember that Big Lie"
LiberalLovinLug
(14,176 posts)"...which, for a certain period of time, those authorities go away and suddenly were dark.
Does anyone honestly think, after years of snubbing their noses at the Constitution, both the last and the present administration, that those assigned to snoop and gather in the deepest Kafkaesk apparatchik would put down their headsets for one second just because some "law" wasn't renewed in time?
All passing and extending it does is make it all shiny and above board and iron clad. For political purposes. They never did or do need that to carry on their work on "the dark side".
What is disappointing is not that this aspect of mass data collection will be renewed, (I've given up all hope and change that Obama will ever try and shut it down) but that he did not even attempt to address the Constitutional faults, and Clappers lying to Congress last time, that he did not even propose any legal safeguards for abuse, where terrorism is not the focus. ie...Authorities, even a political party, wanting to silence a citizen so they comb through all the raw data from that person until they find some shred of a misdead, on their tax return or internet browsing, or email language, facebook...something to threaten and shut up dissent.
INdemo
(6,994 posts)Since Republicans stole the Majority in Congress Obama's Republican ideology is shining through.
Marblehead
(1,268 posts)OneCrazyDiamond
(2,032 posts)You can tell hes was truly angry then.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
rocktivity
(44,577 posts)If you have reason to suspect someone, there's no reason why you can't get a warrant.
Thank you and good night.
rocktivity
Beauregard
(376 posts)Kablooie
(18,638 posts)and suddenly he becomes a weak Republican.
It's really creepy.
Maybe Hillary would have been a better choice in 2008.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)To be able to get the Presidents to do their bidding. "Our Constitutional works. Our Bill of Rights works." I can't tell which was him or phony.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)As Rand Paul threatened to force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program, Barack Obama on Saturday made a last-ditch plea to Congress to pass a bill that limits some surveillance powers, saying it would be irresponsible and reckless to allow such authorities to expire at midnight on Sunday.
This is a matter of national security, Obama said in his weekly address. We shouldnt surrender the tools that help keep us safe. It would be irresponsible. It would be reckless.
Obama blamed a small group of senators [who are] standing in the way, understating the gridlock in Congress caused by several groups who support or oppose the reform-minded bill, the USA Freedom Act, over a status quo renewal of powers under the Patriot Act.
Republicans and Democrats are divided into three primary factions that do not necessarily fall in party lines. Surveillance hawks, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, want a clean, temporary reauthorization of NSA and FBI powers. Another faction, backed by the White House, supports the USA Freedom Act as a reasonable compromise between privacy and security.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/30/nsa-surveillance-obama-congress-usa-freedom-act