Author Topic: By the way, Obama secretly reversed Bush-era limitations on NSA powers  (Read 1047 times)

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Offline Rapunzel

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http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/09/10/by-the-way-obama-secretly-reversed-bush-era-limitations-on-nsa-powers/

By the way, Obama secretly reversed Bush-era limitations on NSA powers
posted at 11:34 am on September 10, 2013 by Guy Benson

So, this happened — via the Washington Post:


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    The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.  In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents…

There’s more:

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    What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used. Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.

One can argue whether the NSA’s surveillance authority and tools are appropriate, over-broad, or dangerously over-broad.  One cannot argue that this president is anything other than a flaming hypocrite on transparency and civil liberties issues.  I’ll leave you this flashback from, er, last month:
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    “A lot of these programs were put in place before I came in…We don’t have a domestic spying program.”

By all means, Mr. President, blame Bush — whose safeguards and more stringent protocols you rolled back in 2011.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Oceander

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Re: By the way, Obama secretly reversed Bush-era limitations on NSA powers
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2013, 04:06:41 am »
This'll never get any traction in the MSM.

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: By the way, Obama secretly reversed Bush-era limitations on NSA powers
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2013, 04:24:24 am »
This'll never get any traction in the MSM.

Obama would rather look like Putin's bitch than have the media start discussing all his domestic machinations.
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776