Quote :

"The problem is less the surveillance and more the FISA courts."

So you're okay with granting the state unlimited access to your communications without a warrant and without probable cause provided that they have sufficient oversight? That doesn't make sense at all. If you are willing to grant them that much unfettered access to your communications, then why even bother requesting oversight? Either they should have a warrant and probable cause to monitor your communications, or they shouldn't.

Quote :

"I don't know much about them, but where do they fit in the judicial branch, and what basis are they making these decisions under?.... It would be good to know what specific basis, if any, the courts granted this authority under. "

Try reading the article. It's laid out in the open. The two classified documents are linked in the article as well. Look, the Fisa courts are a total sham, designed only to give the appearance of oversight to help everything appear to be above board. The decisions on who to monitor rest on the NSA analysts and are then rubber stamped by the Fisa courts on very flimsy evidence (not even evidence, just suspicion.....suspicion that is only really derived from information gathered from surveillance).



It's like your willing to sacrifice your 4th amendment rights to the state so that they may monitor your 1st amendment rights. I honestly don't understand how any "progressive," or "liberal" or anyone who pretends to give a damn about civil liberties could support this idea that your communications can be hoovered up and stored and potentially used against you without a warrant.

6/21/2013 12:19:29 PM

I've made this analogy before, but it bears repeating.

Would you be so casual about allowing the state to photocopy all of your postal mail and collect the "meta-data" as well as analyze the contents in order to determine whether or not you were communicating with a person of interest without a warrant or probable cause?

I mean, it's pretty bad when the German's are accusing your government of using methods of surveillance implemented by the Stasi.

Quote :

"And I'm gonna go ahead and go on the record and state that when more information comes out (and it will), you will be the first to move the goalposts yet again in order to defend your team."

-- Me, 6/14/2013.

Quote :

"Yawn. Are you guys still on this NSA thing? The rest of the Obama hater train has left that stop and moved on to how he's dealing with Russia. Please keep up at least."

Shrike, 6/21/2013.


First you said the story wasn't going to get bigger. And it did (and it could possibly continue to grow). So now you are dismissively ignoring it, and declaring it as unimportant (move along to Russia, everyone, that's the new talking point!)

The only thing that is yawn worthy is your pathetic and predictable partisan loyalty.

6/21/2013 12:39:26 PM

But it hasn't gotten any bigger anywhere else but your head. Greenwald attempting to remain relevant doesn't mean anything. The story died the moment the WaPo backed off it's initial assertion and it's been nothing but a circle jerk of confirmation bias from conspiracy theorists and Obama haters since then. Just like the Benghazi and IRS "scandals". But continue beating that drum if it makes you feel better.



See? Dead.

[Edited on June 21, 2013 at 1:00 PM. Reason : :]

6/21/2013 12:52:59 PM

I love how you can't possibly comprehend that there are people out there who oppose Obama from the left. The fact that you equate this scandal with the circus outrage of Benghazi really says a lot about you. One was a fabricated scandal involving using the wrong talking points, and another is a scandal that is bigger than any one president that involves domestic spying and mass surveillance of American citizens without their knowledge. The fact that you interpret this outrage as an attack on Obama rather than concerns of a growing surveillance state illuminates how empty your political positions really are.


But yeah, go ahead and assume that the Washington Post is the standard bearer for relevant stories. Apparently that's the only source people are allowed to get their news from, and if they stop reporting on it, then obviously the story has died! And that graph doesn't prove anything. Just because people aren't googling something doesn't mean they aren't reading about it from their respective outlets of choice. Even if it did, it should hardly be a surprise that people would search the NSA the most around the same time that the story broke. What a shitty rebuttle.

6/21/2013 1:09:48 PM

[Edited on June 21, 2013 at 2:31 PM. Reason : ]

6/21/2013 2:30:31 PM

Quote :

"The fact that you interpret this outrage as an attack on Obama rather than concerns of a growing surveillance state illuminates how empty your political positions really are."

i've seen way too much of this from the left.

I may have voted for Obama, but his administration has taken the worst of the Bush administration's erosion of civil liberties and doubled down on it. That said, I have no reason to think it would be any different in a McCain or Romney administration. The spook agencies have a blank check and no accountability. they do whatever the fuck they want.

[Edited on June 22, 2013 at 5:10 PM. Reason : .]

6/22/2013 5:10:20 PM

JHC and I are in perfect agreement on this

6/22/2013 6:10:22 PM

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/21/obamas-insider-threat-crackdown-on-leaks/

The Obama Administration has sought to instill a climate of 21st century McCarthyism among federal employees, and criminalizing employees that fail to report knowledge of potential whistleblowers.

Quote :

" Those non-intelligence agencies include the Department of Education, which cautions employees that “certain experiences,” such as “stress, divorce, [and] financial problems” could turn even a trusted co-worker “into an insider threat.” “It’s about people’s profiles, their approach to work, how they interact with management,” a senior Pentagon official told McClatchy. “Are they cheery? Are they looking at Salon.com or The Onion during their lunch break?”"

6/23/2013 5:29:58 PM

Snitches get stitches, yo.

6/23/2013 5:38:56 PM

It really is a shame that the gov't response to people showing all the illegal shit it is doing is to tell it's employees to watch out for people who will expose the illegal shit it is doing as opposed to, i dunno, not continuing to do illegal shit. For a supposed "Constitutional scholar," Obama sure doesn't know a damned thing about that document.

6/23/2013 7:14:29 PM

Quote :

"For a supposed "Constitutional scholar," Obama sure doesn't know a damned thing about that document."

I think he knows all he needs to know about it. Just because you're a "Constitutional scholar" doesn't mean you plan to uphold it.

6/23/2013 11:01:39 PM

damn, I messed up an its/it's >.<

6/23/2013 11:02:30 PM

Quote :

"Last month, nearly two-thirds of those in the 18-29 age group gave the president a thumbs up. His approval rating among that bracket fell 17 points in Monday's poll and now stands at 48%."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/17/politics/obama-poll-decline



Damn. His approval rating fell 17 points in one month. That's insane. But I'm sure there's a google search graph indicating that nobody cares about internet privacy.

6/25/2013 1:38:25 PM

Quote :

"another is a scandal that is bigger than any one president that involves domestic spying and mass surveillance of American citizens without their knowledge."

There is some fair criticism on this front. Doesn't matter who started it. If your administration keeps it going, then your administration has got to defend the security/privacy balance you're overseeing.

6/30/2013 8:23:00 PM

We had the opportunity to kill Snowden two weeks ago but this President was too weak and indecisive. Now he's leaking secrets to our enemy the Germans and Mr. Obama can't even manage to assassinate a simple government employee.

Also he failed to live up to his campaign promise of promoting gay rights. The supreme court had to do it for him.

6/30/2013 9:59:03 PM

Pledging 7 Billion to help upgrade Africa's power grid, while ours continues to age.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/30/world/africa/south-africa-obama-pledge/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

6/30/2013 10:36:28 PM

This is good. It will allow for the installation of plenty of NSA surveillance equipment in Africa.

[Edited on June 30, 2013 at 10:47 PM. Reason : .]

6/30/2013 10:46:38 PM

Quote :

"We had the opportunity to kill Snowden two weeks ago but this President was too weak and indecisive. Now he's leaking secrets to our enemy the Germans and Mr. Obama can't even manage to assassinate a simple government employee."

LMAO

7/1/2013 10:25:55 AM

I will no longer support him, due to his exposed civil liberties record and continued support of the military industrial complex. But with the general public who doesn't keep up with these issues he still hasn't overplayed his hand yet, so he is rapidly convincing me of a political brilliance that I never noticed before. I'm still pissed off that I voted for a black and white candidacy and got a bunch of gray that gave the appearance of appeasing my politics while embracing many of the same hard-right power structures enabled in past candidacies.

7/1/2013 12:31:43 PM

His "support of the military industrial complex" is laughable, unless you are looking at his support for drones. If nothing he's made our military weaker abroad, and now he wants to cut our nukes by another 1/3. And Putin is all like...."suuuuuuuuuure, we'll get rid of 1/3 of our nukes *sniggers*"

7/1/2013 2:39:10 PM

Quote :

"he's made our military weaker abroad"

How do you figure?

7/1/2013 2:47:15 PM

Quote :

"and now he wants to cut our nukes by another 1/3. And Putin is all like...."suuuuuuuuuure, we'll get rid of 1/3 of our nukes *sniggers*""

who cares if they don't? We are spending billions of dollars maintaining decades old equipment that has outlived its designed lifespan and the units responsible for them keep failing audits, regardless of any kind of agreement we should be drastically reducing the size of our nuclear arsenal because of safety and cost.

7/1/2013 2:57:58 PM

For anyone who still thinks that drones are a more efficient/humane form of warfare:

Quote :

"A study conducted by a US military adviser has found that drone strikes in Afghanistan during a year of the protracted conflict caused 10 times more civilian casualties than strikes by manned fighter aircraft... ..Drone strikes in Afghanistan, the study found, according to its unclassified executive summary, were "an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties per engagement." "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/02/us-drone-strikes-afghan-civilians

7/2/2013 12:34:33 PM

Quote :

"Lewis said he could not provide specific figures about the numbers of civilian casualties caused by drones and manned aircraft in Afghanistan, citing classified information."

Seems legit.

7/2/2013 1:12:29 PM

I took that to mean the numbers could not be provided because they were classified, which is why the unclassified summary is more nebulous with the numbers.

7/2/2013 1:20:06 PM

Quote :

"For anyone who still thinks that drones are a more efficient/humane form of warfare"

lol at humane warfare. Has anyone ever actually made that claim? The bombs and missiles they carry still blow people up...

7/2/2013 1:23:56 PM

Yes, people make that argument.

But its usually made by liberals who support Obama unconditionally.

7/2/2013 1:29:34 PM

I guess I'll have to take your word for it.

7/2/2013 1:31:27 PM

To me, humane warfare is an oxymoron, to me.

7/2/2013 2:33:28 PM

I like how the administration is still just not going to talk about the 10 year old we killed in June.

7/3/2013 4:05:22 AM

http://www.propublica.org/article/boys-death-in-drone-strike-tests-obamas-transparency-pledge

7/3/2013 6:21:43 AM

Quote :

"I like how the administration is still just not going to talk about the 10 year old we killed in June."

If Obama had a son, he'd look just like [REDACTED].

7/3/2013 8:18:46 AM

http://cdn.rollcall.com/news/obama_bypasses_congress_again_with_health_mandate_delay-226124-1.html?popular=true&cdn_load=true&zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

Quote :

"A constitutional law professor at George Washington University said that Obama “has been far more aggressive in circumventing Congress and far more successful in creating an imperial presidency” than Bush."

The entire (disturbing) article is worth a read.

7/5/2013 7:00:24 PM

^This is a massive, massive problem. I'd love to not have this go into effect because I think it's a shitty law, but that's not really an option. There is no provision in the law that allows for the president to just delay enforcement of something he just signed into law.

If he is successful with pulling this stunt it sets a horrific precedent going forward. Imagine a GOP president just deciding that he's not going to enforce the clean air act or not enforcing newly passed immigration reform, etc.

Congress writes laws, the president then signs or vetoes and then enforces. That's it, that's how our system works.

7/9/2013 8:23:21 PM

Quote :

"For anyone who still thinks that drones are a more efficient/humane form of warfare:"

they might not be more humane, but they're absolutely more efficient. those civilians were gonna get air striked one way or another. drones just get it done on the cheap.

7/9/2013 8:45:04 PM

I think you may have missed the entire point of the article....which is that we are more likely to pull the trigger with drones than with traditional means....which results in a higher casualty rate.

I mean, if your only goal is to get a high score in killing civilians, then yeah, it's effective.

If you're actually trying to minimize civilian casualties and reduce blowback while only targeting terrorists, then it's a colossal failure.

7/10/2013 1:00:48 AM

I haven't read the article, but why is that?

It's still a human controlling the drone, so why more likely to pull the trigger?

7/10/2013 1:38:12 PM

are you more likely to insult someone in person or on the internet? The more you seperate someone the easier it is. Also, because of what it says in the article.

7/10/2013 3:13:42 PM

^^^^^ If you knew anything about how government actually works, you wouldn't think this was unusual at all. The process of implementing new and existing legislation is highly dependent on who runs the executive branch. Reagan gutted the EPA. Obama gets criticized for choosing to prosecute marijuana cases in states where it is legal. Bush chose to run the shittiest SEC in history. But you don't know all this because you are ignorant of how politics actually work and instead choose to just get all uppity about the last chain email someone sent you.

7/10/2013 4:23:05 PM

i think he missed checks and balances day in middle school

7/10/2013 4:30:47 PM

I understand the analogy dtownral, and ill read the article, but im pretty likely to insult people no matter the circumstances.

As it relates to killing I understand how any disconnect that downplays the seriousness is bad.

At the same time though our servicemen are out of harms way... So...

7/10/2013 4:37:14 PM

its almost as if you didn't read the article

7/10/2013 6:18:22 PM

A problem with so many users on this site!

7/10/2013 6:22:52 PM

Quote :

"It's still a human controlling the drone, so why more likely to pull the trigger?"

Well, for starters, we have these things in countries that we aren't even at war with, like Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, etc. So that right there increases the body count.

The increase in usage also means that the training required to minimize civilian deaths is reduced. Fighter jet pilots have more training on average, per the article. It also stands to reason that you are far more likely to pull the trigger if the risk of being fired back on and killed/injured is reduced to zero.

Drones also fly about 10,000 ft in the air, so it's not like they're getting all that reliable data to begin with.

And, not mentioned in the article, but there's also the awful policy of "signature strikes" where we just shoot people willy-nilly based on behavioral patterns rather than reliable intel.

And, of course, there is the issue of allowing a civilian organization like the CIA to have access to its own paramilitary force.


All of these things should reasonably be expected to increase the body count of civilians.

I mean, it really takes a a gullible person to believe that we can increase our strikes while simultaneously lowering the standards of engagement without also increasing civilian casualties.

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ]

7/10/2013 7:54:17 PM

.

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 7:58 PM. Reason : .]

7/10/2013 7:57:44 PM

Quote :

"I think you may have missed the entire point of the article....which is that we are more likely to pull the trigger with drones than with traditional means....which results in a higher casualty rate. "

the article said that was the guy's opinion that it was happening more. its more likely that he just doesn't know about the normal civilian casualty rates in combat zones.

and even if we assume that it is more likely that they're killing more civilians, its still more efficient if you're removing the regular air/ground troops from the non-civilian killing missions.

Quote :

"It also stands to reason that you are far more likely to pull the trigger if the risk of being fired back on and killed/injured is reduced to zero. Drones also fly about 10,000 ft in the air, so it's not like they're getting all that reliable data to begin with."

neither of these statements are accurate. jet fighters are gonna be harder to shoot down than drones and they have the exact same intel that the drones have.


[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 9:34 PM. Reason : a]

7/10/2013 9:31:30 PM

I don't see how the first statement is "not accurate". You are certainly going to be more aggressive flying something where you, personally, are in no danger if your craft is shot down. That's just common sense... I guess that's not the whole part of "pulling the trigger," but I'd say it plays an integral part in getting you to the point where you can pull the trigger, so the distinction is semantic, at best.

7/10/2013 9:44:15 PM

Quote :

"and even if we assume that it is more likely that they're killing more civilians, its still more efficient if you're removing the regular air/ground troops from the non-civilian killing missions."

Efficient at what?

Is your argument that it is more efficient to kill civilians with drones than via conventional means?

[Civilians killed] ÷ [American troops killed] = Efficiency?

Is that seriously the math you are using?

Do I really need to explain how psychotic that logic is? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your position, but this seriously is how your position is coming across.




Any "efficiency" argument that doesn't make the distinction between civilians and combatants is fucking insane, man.

Quote :

"neither of these statements are accurate. jet fighters are gonna be harder to shoot down than drones and they have the exact same intel that the drones have. "

Again, read the article. The standard of training required to avoid civilian deaths is lower with drone operators due to the increased demand.

[Edited on July 10, 2013 at 10:09 PM. Reason : ]

7/10/2013 10:06:37 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/20/obama-taps-top-fundraisers-bundlers-for-ambassadorships/

Quote :

"Obama taps top fundraisers, bundlers for ambassadorships Just six months into his second term, President Obama has nominated a slew of campaign donors and fundraisers for ambassadorships. These nominations include major bundlers Denise Bauer and a Los Angeles entertainment attorney Crystal Nix Hines. As of last month, Obama had given 32.2 percent of ambassadorships to political appointees -- almost identical to his first term rate and slightly higher than those of recent predecessors in the long-held tradition of presidents rewarding big-time financial supporters. The number compares to 30.02 percent under George W. Bush, 27.82 percent under Bill Clinton and 31.30 percent under George H.W. Bush, according to the American Foreign Service Association. The president has nominated 19 people for ambassadorships in the second term including at least eight bundlers, according to The Hill newspaper. The 2011-2012 amounts range from $2.36 million by Bauer, chairwoman of the Women for Obama Finance, who would go to Belgium, to $477,000 from Hines, who would represent the United States at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. Other bundlers have been named to serve in Austria, Germany, Singapore, Spain, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom. But much of the attention remains focused on who will get two of the remaining top posts -- France and Japan. According to The Hill, Democratic National Committee National Finance Chairwoman Jane Stetson, who raised $2.43 million for Obama, is in line for the coveted Paris post, which would knock out Vogue editor-in-chief Anne Wintour, who raised $2.68 million and purportedly wanted either the London or Paris diplomatic positions. Beyond Wintour, the most talked about potential ambassadorship is Caroline Kennedy to Japan. Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy, certainly has the political pedigree and ranks among the president’s biggest fundraisers and political supporters. However, critics argue that her lack of experience in elected office makes her a risky choice as Japan remains a crucial ally in trying to maintain stability in the Korean Peninsula. Still, Dartmouth government professor Jennifer Lind argues Kennedy’s stature give her extraordinary access to the president and that her father’s “unconventional ” decision in the 1960s to appoint Harvard professor Edwin O. Reischauer to the Tokyo post “helped knit … two countries once dismissed as impossible allies.” The Foreign Service union, while not directly criticizing Kennedy or Obama, told FoxNews.com this spring that it does not support such appointments and that the rate of political appointees to ambassadorships for Japan and major European countries is as high as 85 percent. “The sale of ambassadorships and rewards for political support basically suggests we really don’t value diplomacy,” said then-union President Susan Johnson. Other major Obama bundlers being considered by the president in his second term include retired JP Morgan executive Azita Raji, who reportedly raised $3.15 million and is Obama’s top pick for ambassador to Switzerland. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/20/obama-taps-top-fundraisers-bundlers-for-ambassadorships/#ixzz2ZeBQNqQL"

7/20/2013 11:28:20 PM

OMG!!! HE DOES THE SAME THING AS EVERY OTHER POLITICIAN!!!

7/20/2013 11:37:36 PM