Posted on 06/06/2013 2:26:17 PM PDT by 6ft2inhighheelshoes
Edited on 06/06/2013 5:05:48 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.
snip
Well, sort of...
The NY Times editorial doesn’t acknowledge the obvious—the Obama is a mega-hypocrite.
As Richard Seymour writes in the ultra-left UK Guardian: “In opposition, Obama criticised Bush’s policy of spying on citizens’ phone calls – under the rubric of the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Programme – and threatened to filibuster a bill being pushed through the Senate in 2008 to retroactively legalise the practice. He voted for the bill, but protested that he was doing so reluctantly. He claimed to oppose the attempt to give legal cover to the previous administration and the companies colluding in its actions.
Yet, once in office, Obama continued the policy of intrusion on a vast and indiscriminate scale. The same can be said for his attorney general, Eric Holder, once a firm critic of the Bush administration’s spying, now a firm practitioner of the same. Perhaps most alarmingly, the Obama team has continued with the same legal doctrines.”
If you think that is significant .... check out the checkout-aisle potboiling yellow papers. The Globe jumped all over Obama the other day.
Of the two papers, I'd be willing to bet a couple of bottlecaps that Plouffe and Axelrod will lose more sleep over the Globe's diss than this New York Times piece.
Obama: “The buck ALWAYS ends at the desk of GWB!”
This is not hyperbole, as you're doubtless aware:
not selling my soul for a GS pension,
tomkat
You can’t oppose this regime and get away with it.
Holder, whose law firm represented more than a dozen Guantanamo detainees, launched a highly visible campaign to indict government employees and contractors connected to Bush era black detention sites, enhanced interrogations, and the rendition program. He leaked details of the programs and the identities of some personnel. What he got was backlash from the public and many quarters of government. A lot of people would be happy to see Holder get a 10-year vacation in some place like Lewisburg.
Rush is covering this story presently on his radio program.
I wonder how many more times I’m going to have to see that image before it stops making me laugh out loud.
On this issue! How bout his entire Admin!!!!!
“President Obama’s Dragnet - The Administration Has lost all Credibility.”
They added..on this issue later after it was already on line.
I am sure that change was the result of a very angry phone call from someone in the Obamanation regime.
BOL! We saw the Globe’s front page yesterday at our grocery store’s check outstand.
My wife joke, that the Globe must be owned by Freepers, now.
BTTT!
One agency at a time you can see that the White house has turned the government against the American people: IRS, Justice, NSA, TSA, Federal Elections Commission, Labor Dept, State Department, Homeland Security, surveillance systems, phones, e-mail and even the economy itself. Congress needs to act FAST because the people are close to acting on their own. Out here it looks like a coup-de-tat against the good Americans. THIS CANNOT BE COINCIDENCE!
This is not coincidence.
The Obama administration is gathering all of this data for the same reason they want to have massive voter registration (regardless of whether the “registered” will actually vote or not).
Where true Voter ID is not practiced, each and every registration presents the opportunity for someone to go in and vote as that registered name. And that somebody doing the voting can run around to different precincts as much as they can on election day and vote under however many names that they have time for. It just takes a moment before going in to review the “target” name and address (which is typically all that is needed to be given a ballot.
In the same fashion, corrupt federal employees can query the massive database of telephone, credit card and internet queries/communication “metadata” to pick up targeted information on a given “targeted” individual.
The NYT is probably only jumping in with a little criticism after the British papers published information from the leaked documents.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.