Obama's Civil-Liberties Record Questioned. The disclosure of a broad government effort to collect phone records of millions of U.S. consumers has rekindled a debate about President Barack Obama's commitment to civil liberties, with some lawmakers and advocacy groups saying he has broken a campaign pledge to combat terrorism in ways that protect basic freedoms. Mr. Obama's record on civil liberties was already drawing renewed scrutiny over reports that his administration has investigated journalists as part of criminal leak cases, his increased use of drones and other matters. As a candidate in 2008, Mr. Obama took aim at then-President George W. In certain respects, the counterterrorism tactics of the two presidents seem indistinguishable, some civil-liberties advocates say. "Guantanamo is still open for business.
The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday revealed a classified court order requiring Verizon Business Network Services to turn over phone records to the National Security Agency, a government security agency. Sen. Mr. Mr. Obama Silent on Surveillance Controversy. Updated at 12:30 pm ET President Obama said nothing Thursday as the nation was gripped by news that the National Security Agency has been tracking the telephone calls and Internet behavior of millions of Americans. Obama, who is traveling, had ample opportunity to say something before departing the White House around midday.
He made three different speeches – at an education event in North Carolina and two fundraisers in California – but never once alluded to the controversy. Instead, he left it to a deputy press secretary to issue a carefully worded statement. Here’s part of it: The intelligence community is conducting court-authorized intelligence activities pursuant to a public statute with the knowledge and oversight of Congress and the intelligence community in both houses of Congress. Obama will have many opportunities to correct the situation today, starting with a speech he is delivering on Obamacare in San Jose, California at 8:50 am Pacific time.
Tagged as: NSA surveillance , Obama. US Press Blames George W. Bush for Obama's Unprecedented Eavesdropping. RUSH: Have you seen the big news according to the mainstream press? What do you think the big news is in the mainstream press? No, it's not Verizon. This Verizon story, which we're gonna get into, by the way, folks, sit tight. I can't do it all in the opening monologue. This Verizon story -- and I don't think it's just Verizon. I think that's just what we know. Glenn Greenwald is the guy who wrote the story for the UK Guardian, and he got a leak from somewhere in the Justice Department. We have in the Obama administration -- there's nobody even close to the violation of privacy and civil liberties, nobody even close. They have bought the myth. It's not monitoring. Then if there is anything suspicious, the contents might be subpoenaed or requested.
Welcome to "the Bush-Obama Era... " "On the war against a tactic -- terrorism -- and its insidious fallout, the United States could have skipped the 2008 election. " It just can't be! They think they are Obama. They are not going to do it. New Xbox by NSA partner Microsoft will watch you 24/7. Possible privacy violations by Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One have come under new scrutiny since it was revealed Thursday that the tech giant was a crucial partner in an expansive Internet surveillance program conducted by the National Security Agency and involving Silicon Valley’s biggest players. One of the console’s key features is the full integration of the Kinect, a motion sensing camera that allows users to play games, scroll through menus, and generally operate the Xbox just using hand gestures. Microsoft has touted the camera as the hallmark of a new era of interactivity in gaming. What Microsoft has not promoted, however, is the fact that you will not be able to power on the console without first enabling the Kinect, designed to detect both heartbeats and eye movement. and positioning yourself in front of it.
Perhaps the feature most worryisome to privacy advocates is the requirement that the Xbox connect to the Internet at least once every 24 hours. Mounting concern over NSA in Congress - Burgess Everett. Concern in Congress is mounting over broad surveillance by the Obama administration as new revelations surfaced that the National Security Administration is monitoring Internet usage. Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is shopping bills that would address some portions of the government monitoring, an aide said, particularly the NSA collection of Verizon phone records. His legislation would likely be similar to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments that he pushed last year with fellow senators like Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Story Continued Below The measures, both of which failed last December, would require the declassification of certain FISA court opinions and require reports on the impact of FISA surveillance on Americans. The Lee aide said that with government surveillance so prominent in the news, the legislation may find itself some new supporters. ( PHOTOS: Pols, pundits weigh in on NSA report) ( WATCH: Feinstein, Chambliss defend NSA) Sen. Glenn Greenwald: U.S. wants to destroy privacy worldwide - Katie Glueck.
The journalist who broke the news that the government is monitoring vast quantities of American phone records is claiming the U.S. is building a “massive” snooping apparatus committed to destroying privacy worldwide. “There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world,” charged Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper “The Guardian,” speaking on CNN.
“That is not hyperbole. That is their objective.” Continue Reading NSA reaction in under 60 seconds Greenwald, speaking with CNN’s Piers Morgan, appeared during a week in which Americans learned that according to reports, the National Security Agency and other parts of the government have been monitoring the phone records of Verizon users and accessing Internet information as part of intelligence-gathering procedures.
Facebook denies aiding spy program. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Friday denied that his company gave the government direct access to its servers. "Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers," Zuckerberg wrote in a post to his Facebook account . "We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.
" The Washington Post reported Thursday that the government had been tapping the servers of nine technology companies to collect emails, videos, photographs, and other data in a classified program known as PRISM. The billionaire CEO went on to "strongly encourage" the government to be "much more transparent" about national security programs. He also said that Congress had authorized and was "fully apprised" of the program. President Obama’s Dragnet. Progressives, Democrats must stand with New York Times against Obama on NSA phone records collection. We have arrived at a defining moment for the progressive movement in this nation. The New York Times editorial board, which has generally given this president a lot of leeway throughout his career, wrote a scathing denunciation Friday of the Obama administration’s use of data mining, claiming that “the administration has now lost all credibility" on the issue of balancing civil rights with national security.
Every progressive with even a shred of moral consistency should side with the New York Times against the White House. The events of the past month – from the Associated Press subpoena to the James Rosen search warrant to the revelation that our government has been indiscriminately collecting phone records data – have forced liberals to make a choice between complacency and outrage, between keeping silent because one of our own is in the White House and calling him out on betraying the principles for which we have fought for so long. This is as ridiculous as it is false. Obama: Surveillance Debate A "Sign of Maturity" That Wouldn't Have Happend 5-6 Years Ago. Posted on June 7, 2013 OBAMA: Now, having said all that, you'll remember when I made that speech a couple of weeks ago about the need for us to shift out of a perpetual war mind-set, I specifically said that one of the things that we're going to have to discuss and debate is how are we striking this balance between the need to keep the American people safe and our concerns about privacy because there are some tradeoffs involved.
I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy. I think it's a sign of maturity because probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate. And I think it's interesting that there are some folks on the left but also some folks on the right who are now worried about it, who weren't very worried about it when it was a Republican president.
Obama Calls Reports On US Government Surveillance "Hype" UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation | Technology. The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.
The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK. The use of Prism raises ethical and legal issues about such direct access to potentially millions of internet users, as well as questions about which British ministers knew of the programme.
In a statement to the Guardian, GCHQ, insisted it "takes its obligations under the law very seriously". The existence of Prism, though, is not in doubt. Officials: NSA mistakenly intercepted emails, phone calls of innocent Americans. As President Obama defends government information mining programs, many questions rise to the surface about the nature of the program and the way the information is used. Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counter terror chief, discusses his experience with counter-terrorism efforts and how FISA was born and grew.
By Michael Isikoff National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News The National Security Agency has at times mistakenly intercepted the private email messages and phone calls of Americans who had no link to terrorism, requiring Justice Department officials to report the errors to a secret national security court and destroy the data, according to two former U.S. intelligence officials. At least some of the phone calls and emails were pulled from among the hundreds of millions stored by telecommunications companies as part of an NSA surveillance program. Ret. Adm. The judges “were really upset about this,” said the former official. Related story More from Open Channel: Data intelligence complex is the real story. Justice Department Fights Release of Secret Court Opinion Finding Unconstitutional Surveillance. In the midst of revelations that the government has conducted extensive top-secret surveillance operations to collect domestic phone records and internet communications , the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying.
This important case—all the more relevant in the wake of this week's disclosures—was triggered after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate intelligence committee, started crying foul in 2011 about US government snooping. As a member of the intelligence committee, he had learned about domestic surveillance activity affecting American citizens that he believed was improper. He and Sen. For those who follow the secret and often complex world of high-tech government spying, this was an aha moment. It took the Justice Department four months to reply.
NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others | World news. The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.
Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program. An Apple spokesman said it had "never heard" of Prism. U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program. The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind.
The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley. Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.” Sens. “Yahoo! U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program. America in the Midst of a Coup d'Etat. RUSH: Late yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the library at home, and I was just swamped.
It seemed like every 90 seconds somebody needed something, or somebody had a question or somebody had a comment, requiring my response. It was during the period of time that I generally devote to reading my tech blogs, you know, where I abandon all of this and get away from it and start spending time on, quote, unquote, my hobby. But it was one of those days. I'm sure you have them. They may happen every day, but if I had been watching a TV show I would have hit the pause button every minute to deal with something. It would have taken me two hours yesterday to watch a 40 minute program. But the intelligent people were saying, "Nothing to see here. I have to tell you when I'm listening to all the smart people tell me this, my mind is about to explode, and I'm saying, "Do these people not realize what we just learned in the last three weeks?
" Folks, here's the thing, I guess, that gets me.