In final 2013 press conference, Obama promises NSA spying changes, says Snowden "under indictment"

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Given his record as the executive, I am ashamed that I voted for Obama a second time. I’m not saying that Mitt Romney would have been a better choice, but my vote for Obama only supported his unconscionable actions. On the fundamental right to privacy. On his decisions in unlawful wars. My vote was a vote for the status quo of the Washington establishment, and the military-industrial complex. His presidency will not go down in history as one of our finest.

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“It is possible that some of the same information . . . can be obtained by having private phone companies keep those records longer” and allowing the government to search them under tight guidelines, Obama said.

very much the words i would not have hoped for. it is sad to hear an educated man speak to a nation of his fellow citizens in such a manner.

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And the NSA has the nerve to whine about how Obama ‘doesn’t support them’?

Sure, he doesn’t have Bush’s Yeehaw! I am the law! affect; but for all his Looking Serious and Delivering Nuanced Statements, and whatnot, he sure ends up doing very similar things…

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Plus, we already have that program, it’s the one that the DEA pays AT&T for.

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the sad face picture didn’t load the last time. wow, bad photo op.

What I’d like to see: A change of leadership at the NSA - Snowden returned to the USA as an consultant on cyber security. Obama and the USA at large can’t both acknowledge that reform is needed, and simultaneously excoriate the whistleblower.

The USA is inconsistent - the ATF is specifically forbidden from amassing a computerised searchable database of firearms ownership, because it could become an Orwellian system to infringe the 2nd amendment.

Why is the NSA allowed to amass a large computerised database of telephone records and internet usage that could infringe the 4th amendment?

Either: a) destroy the database, or b) hand all domestic data collection to a separate agency under the Justice department. Require judge-issued warrants to search the database. Then, the data that’s searched has a chance to meet the ‘probable cause’ requirement.

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Yep, me too. I wasn’t one of the people that thought he was going to leave Iraq by the end of his first year, I actually read his policies. As it stands? He’s Reagan 2: Electric Boogaloo. I am not pleased.

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MoveOn has a petition to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Snowden: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/award-the-presidential

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Here’s what I don’t understand: Obama is a smart guy, he seems like a cool guy to hang out with, he loves his family, he’s read 1984, yet he seems not the least bit upset by what the NSA has been doing – and he has all the facts.

So this makes me wonder, is Obama just being more levelheaded and rational about this than the rest of us? Are we just overreacting? Let’s face it, the Internet has given rise to a culture where everyone’s favorite past time is expressing outrage and moral indignation.

I think the NSA has gone way overboard in their mission, but the fact that Obama isn’t really bothered by it kind of makes me wonder if maybe the situation isn’t as dire as we think it is. I don’t know. I’m just sayin.

The Internet has changed the world. Changed world discourse, changed intelligence, changed diplomacy.

I bet someone, somewhere within the intelligence complex convinced their boss that it was possible for the NSA to corner the market on the Internet, to tap all the things, and from there control the world. And to the people running the world’s remaining superpower, it might have seemed like a pretty safe bet to make a play for it all.

Except they had a defector half way into the execution the plan.

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you live in america today?

Dang! So close…

For a second there, I thought the headline said “…Obama promises NSA spying charges…”

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move on huh? move on. huh. move on. move where?

That did happen; but it wasn’t originally within the NSA.

The Program? “Total Information Awareness”.
The Perp? “John ‘Iran-Contra’ Poindexter”. (with an old SAIC buddy, naturally)
The Organization? DARPA’s “Information Awareness Office”.
The logo?

Amazingly, they managed to be so overtly creepy that congress actually defunded them in 2003. At that point, the program found a new home away from the unpleasant glare of public scrutiny.

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I remember when that was Echelon, and at the time all I remembered was a horrible C64 game of the same name.

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Move on from the mock outrage about President Clinton’s sex life: http://front.moveon.org/about/

MAY, in the political world, means? meh, fuck it.

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Here’s what I don’t understand: Obama is a smart guy, he seems like a cool guy to hang out with, he loves his family, he’s read 1984, yet he seems not the least bit upset by what the NSA has been doing – and he has all the facts.

Stop buying into image control.

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