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24 juni 2013 21:03 |
Citaat:
http://newamericatoday.com/na/2013/0...americans.html
With NSA Leaks, Government Has Compromised the Trust of Americans
Posted on June 24, 2013
USA TODAY
GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
It looked bad last week, but it looks much, much worse now. The federal government has been spying and lying. The only comfort is that, apparently, it's been largely incompetent at both: Nobody believes the lies, and the spying wasn't even able to catch the Tsarnaev brothers.
Not long ago, the Director of National Intelligence assured us that the federal government does not "wittingly" spy on Americans. That has turned out to be a lie. As Fred Kaplan writes in Slate, "We as a nation are being asked to let the National Security Agency continue doing the intrusive things it's been doing on the premise that congressional oversight will rein in abuses. But it's hard to have meaningful oversight when an official in charge of the program lies so blatantly in one of the rare open hearings on the subject. " And the spying turns out to go even further than we thought we knew last week.
Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that the spying goes well beyond the Prism program reported by whistleblower Edward Snowden. As AP notes, "while Prism has attracted the recent attention, the program actually is a relatively small part of a much more expansive and intrusive eavesdropping effort. . . . documents show it is one of the major sources for what ends up in the president's daily briefing." From the descriptions available, it appears that the NSA basically just copies everything going over the Internet, and can look at it either in real time or later.
Meanwhile, according to a report from CNET, the National Security Administration has admitted, despite earlier denials, that it's listening to American phone calls without warrants. The calls are stored, but there's no warrant application. Instead, it appears -- though as I write this there's enough back-and-forth that it isn't certain -- that all that is needed is a decision by an analyst. So, in essence, the NSA may be writing its own warrants.
Is this true? Who do we believe? Despite denials, security expert Bruce Schneier says that the best assumption is that government just collects everything. "Everyone is playing word games. No one is telling the truth." Meanwhile, CBS News reports that someone hacked CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson's computer while she was investigating the Benghazi mess. Who? Well, who would have had the ability and the interest?
This would be troubling, but maybe forgivable in time of all-out war -- and if we could trust the government not to abuse its powers. But President Obama has been telling us that the war on terror is practically over. In fact, maintaining that argument, pre-election, is why the administration falsely attributed the Benghazi attacks (which were by al-Qaeda) to a YouTube filmmaker who was then hustled off to prison for "probation violations." So if we're at war -- if it's still like the months post-9/11 -- then why has Obama been saying otherwise? Is he lying?
As for trusting the government not to abuse its powers, well, there are those lies just mentioned. And then there's the whole business of sending the IRS out to target President Obama's political opponents. As Peggy Noonan observes: "It is a great irony, and history will marvel at it, that the president most committed to expanding the centrality, power, prerogatives and controls of the federal government is also the president who, through lack of care, arrogance and an absence of any sense of prudential political boundaries, has done the most in our time to damage trust in government."
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Citaat:
I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don't believe anything the government tells me.
— George Carlin
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