I just looked into this more and more than 2/3rds of the incidents (about 1,900 of the 2,700) involved cases where a foreign target being wiretapped went from being outside the US (no warrant required) to being inside the US (warrant required) without the NSA realizing it quickly enough. SUCH SCANDAL.
The issue here has been, and always has been, how horrible the scope of things that can be done LEGALLY is, not stupid crap like this.
Do you get paid to be a spokesperson for this administration?
And what of the data collection policy that was so egregious that the FISA court deemed it unconstitutional.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Until this program comes out of the darkness and into the light so that it can receive proper oversight it is a horrible abuse of power and a tremendous violation of every Americans rights.
The foxes are watching the henhouse and the door's barred so we can't even see in. We just have to believe the foxes when they tell us they're not eating the hens.
Nope, nothing wrong with that.
Yes, that's terrible but that actually makes me happy in the end. The point of the FISA court is to do EXACTLY THAT, tell the NSA, CIA, FBI, whoever that what they are doing or want to do isn't okay. That's the whole point.
My issue is how incredibly rarely that happens. I want the FISA court to do that a lot more. Like I said before, the real scandal is what we currently consider legal to do. This isn't about Obama, this is about what any president can do.
That's ridiculous. We will never put top secret surveillance programs up for public scrutiny, nor should we ever.
Obama is the man in charge currently. It's his program. Once he's out of office, we can start slamming the next guy.
The capabilities of this program are clearly unconstitutional.
Not according to our courts they aren't.
These programs are the result of bipartisan cooperation across administrations and across the aisle in Congress. The idea that they are somehow "Obama's programs" is clearly false. He has a large degree of responsibility for them but he is nowhere close to alone. Thinking of it as "Obama's program" misses the actual scope of the problem.
As all of these agencies fall under the executive branch, you understand that they can be shuttered via executive order correct?
So yes, his programs. Considering he is a constitutional law scholar, it's especially shameful.
And not according to A court they aren't. Now that they are officially acknowledged so that other groups may sue, a federal court in the light may not view these programs like FISA did.
While all courts may not think alike, the FISA court is most certainly a court, and they have most certainly ruled these activities by and large as constitutional. Sorry.
Really? Where can I read their rulings and interpretations of the law? Oh... riiiiight.
They most certainly can not be, nor should they be. When Congress funds an agency or activity through appropriations the President is not allowed to simply close it down. (Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act) If Congress has chosen to fund activities, even if Obama shut the NSA down he would have to immediately assign those activities to other intelligence services. We don't know exactly what Congress has appropriated however, as those budgets are classified.
Stop trying to absolve other people of their responsibility in this. I know it doesn't play as well politically for you, but if you actually care about this being changed you can't ignore people because it's politically inconvenient.
While all courts may not think alike, the FISA court is most certainly a court, and they have most certainly ruled these activities by and large as constitutional. Sorry.
Stop trying to absolve Obama. He has the most power of anyone in this situation to end this violation of our constitutional rights.
I would also like to see my party defund this program. I wonder how you would come down on that. Would they just be obstructionist republicans again?
I can't possibly see how you would have gotten the impression that I was absolving Obama. I'm just trying to get you to see past your partisanship and realize that these programs are a result of a pretty strong bipartisan consensus.
I want vastly stronger oversight, not the general programs defunded. I have no idea why you would try and tie this to the Republican Party's larger scheme of obstuctionism however.
I just looked into this more and more than 2/3rds of the incidents (about 1,900 of the 2,700) involved cases where a foreign target being wiretapped went from being outside the US (no warrant required) to being inside the US (warrant required) without the NSA realizing it quickly enough. SUCH SCANDAL.
The issue here has been, and always has been, how horrible the scope of things that can be done LEGALLY is, not stupid crap like this.
In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional.
Stupid crap like this? Apparently they abused the system close to 3000 times, without even trying. That's not "stupid crap", it's a quantitative data point of just how badly PRISM is put together and just how dangerous it is. It means that there are a number of ways some enterprising person could hide intentional abuse, and make it look like an honest accident.
I'm especially loving the part where they tried to conceal information from FISA.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...5ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html?hpid=z1
The fact that you are downplaying the significance of this is rather pathetic. What's your angle? You just determined to prove the forum wrong or something?
No, I don't consider the inadvertent collection of data when someone crosses a national border that is identified and corrected to be a sign of how badly something is put together and/or how dangerous it is. Your mileage may vary, but since you have no idea how these programs are structured you're basically talking out of your ass.
I'm not downplaying the significance of hiding things from the FISA court, that's wrong. My position on this is absolutely crystal clear. These abuses are not nearly as significant to me as what can be done that is not considered an abuse.
But they are abuses, and however minor they may be there are thousands of them, and the NSA has yet to reveal even a single detail of the 50-some-odd plots PRISM has supposedly prevented, not even the most vague generalities. Honestly the NSA's "need" for PRISM appears to be like many law enforcement agencies apparent "need" for drones and the "need" for SWAT teams to serve no-knock warrants for drug possession.
So in my mind we have thousands of accidental intrusions and the potential for massive abuse, for no tangible benefit. That sounds like a pretty badly put together system to me.
Also, we have no way of confirming the NSA "corrected" anything. I sincerely doubt they deleted the information they got from tracking area code 202 after they discovered the typo.
I don't think that you are in a position to judge what our intelligence agencies need or what tangible benefits come from them. As I've said many times, I think that oversight on these activities is woefully inadequate, but even if it were improved to my standards you would still not have this information. You simply can't operate intelligence services that way.
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I'm just trying to get you to see past your partisanship and realize that these programs are a result of a pretty strong bipartisan consensus.
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Funny thing is that conservatives only started having a problem with it around January, 2009.
Not according to our courts they aren't.
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I just looked into this more and more than 2/3rds of the incidents (about 1,900 of the 2,700) involved cases where a foreign target being wiretapped went from being outside the US (no warrant required) to being inside the US (warrant required) without the NSA realizing it quickly enough. SUCH SCANDAL.
The issue here has been, and always has been, how horrible the scope of things that can be done LEGALLY is, not stupid crap like this.
The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders,"