In case anyone had any remaining doubts, every day it seems there is another news story that comes out that completely validates something he said that seemed completely off the wall at the time and was denied vehemently by the White House (who are full of shit or ignorant boobs).
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration quietly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 for the National Security Agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its huge databases of intercepted phone calls and emails, according to a published report.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the ban on those kinds of searches, which the court imposed in 2008 at the government's request. The court also extended the length of time the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted communications from five to six years.
The search authority has been used, the Post reported, noting that the permission to search and keep data longer expanded the NSA's authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The newspaper cited interviews with government officials and documents that include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The court decision allowed the NSA "to query the vast majority" of its communications databases using the email addresses and phone numbers of Americans and legal residents without a warrant, according to Bates' opinion. The queries must be "reasonably likely to yield foreign intelligence information." And the results are subject to the NSA's privacy rules.
This is in reference to Snowden's "I could have read Obama's emails if I had his private email address" comment. Which turns out to be true, because the NSA has a 6 year database of all of our information.
I have been telling people for years that use GMail, etc. to just assume inside the government is a Google search screen that looks just like what you use, but searches all the user's accounts. It even has a button that says "I'm feeling nosey."
Yes they watch everything. Yes it will be used for political reasons. Yes the idea that the NSA has a privacy mandate is a joke. The government wrote the mandate and can change it whenever they want.
But don't worry because funding for these things is good for the economy. It's all stimulus and government spending never has negative consequences.
Last edited by craigr on Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
How do we know that it hasn't been used already? Possibly on Chief Justice Roberts (surprising Obamacare vote). Or perhaps General Petraeus (support for Obama's war effort). Or Governor Christie (being suddenly supportive of the Prez right before the last Presidential election). Who knows?
TennPaGa wrote:
Or maybe a neocon-friendly NSA employee got the goods on Obama, handed them off to Bill Kristol and his of gang pro-war crazies (Wolfowitz, Pearle, Kagan, etc.), and they've blackmailed Obama into calling for an invasion of Syria.
Do you think they needed to? That's like trying to blackmail the fat kid into eating chocolate cake.
TennPaGa wrote:
Or maybe a neocon-friendly NSA employee got the goods on Obama, handed them off to Bill Kristol and his of gang pro-war crazies (Wolfowitz, Pearle, Kagan, etc.), and they've blackmailed Obama into calling for an invasion of Syria.
Do you think they needed to? That's like trying to blackmail the fat kid into eating chocolate cake.
Only if the chocolate cake is a metaphor for a strange batter of socialism and Islamic extremism.
Last edited by Reub on Mon Sep 09, 2013 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reub wrote:
Possibly on Chief Justice Roberts (surprising Obamacare vote).
I'm not the slightest bit surprised that Snowden was right about the NSA's treasure trove. Why else would he have given up his cushy job and put himself in the US government's crosshairs? And, the vehemence of the government's response to him was telling also. I figure our best protection is that the more data they collect, the harder it will be to "discover" something to the disadvantage of any one individual (same # needles but bigger and bigger haystack).
Regarding the above though...I wasn't surprised by that at all. It's a little known fact that Chief Justice Roberts has epilepsy - it's been reported in the papers but not very well publicized. It's probably made him a bit more sympathetic to the plight of people with pre-existing conditions than your average conservative justice.
