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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExcerpt: Obama talks NSA in Charlie Rose interview.
Barack Obama: Bigger and better than everybody else, and we should take pride in that because theyre extraordinary professionals; they are dedicated to keeping the American people safe. What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they and usually it wouldnt be they, itd be the FBI go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way its always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause .
So point number one, if youre a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and its not targeting your emails unless its getting an individualized court order. Thats the existing rule. There are two programs that were revealed by Mr. Snowden, allegedly, since theres a criminal investigation taking place, and they caused all the ruckus. Program number one, called the 2015 Program, what that does is it gets data from the service providers like a Verizon in bulk, and basically you have call pairs. You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database. All it is, is the number pairs, when those calls took place, how long they took place. So that database is sitting there. Now, if the NSA through some other sources, maybe through the FBI, maybe through a tip that went to the CIA, maybe through the NYPD. Get a number that where theres a reasonable, articulable suspicion that this might involve foreign terrorist activity related to Al-Qaeda and some other international terrorist actors. Then, what the NSA can do is it can query that database to see did any of the did this number pop up? Did they make any other calls? And if they did, those calls will be spit out. A report will be produced. It will be turned over to the FBI. At no point is any content revealed because theres no content that
Charlie Rose: So I hear you saying, I have no problem with what NSA has been doing.
Barack Obama: Well, let me let me finish, because I dont. So, what happens is that the FBI if, in fact, it now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone its got to go to the FISA court with probable cause and ask for a warrant.
Charlie Rose: But has FISA court turned down any request?
Barack Obama: The because the first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small number one. Number two, folks dont go with a query unless theyve got a pretty good suspicion.
Charlie Rose: Should this be transparent in some way?
Barack Obama: It is transparent. Thats why we set up the FISA court . The whole point of my concern, before I was president because some people say, Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now hes, you know, Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney sometimes says, Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel. My concern has always been not that we shouldnt do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances? So, on this telephone program, youve got a federal court with independent federal judges overseeing the entire program. And youve got Congress overseeing the program, not just the intelligence committee and not just the judiciary committee but all of Congress had available to it before the last reauthorization exactly how this program works.
Now, one last point I want to make, because what youll hear is people say, Okay, we have no evidence that it has been abused so far. And they say, Lets even grant that Obamas not abusing it, that all these processes DOJ is examining it. Its being renewed periodically, et cetera the very fact that there is all this data in bulk, it has the enormous potential for abuse, because theyll say, you know, You can when you start looking at metadata, even if you dont know the names, you can match it up, if theres a call to an oncologist, and theres a call to a lawyer, and you can pair that up and figure out maybe this persons dying, and theyre writing their will, and you can yield all this information. All of that is true. Except for the fact that for the government, under the program right now, to do that, it would be illegal. We would not be allowed to do that.
Charlie Rose: So, what are you going to change? Are you going to issue any kind of instructions to the Director of National Intelligence, Mr. Clapper, and say, I want you to change it at least in this way?
Barack Obama: Heres what we need to do. But before I say that and I know that were running out of time, but I want to make sure I get very clear on this. Because there has been a lot of mis-information out there. There is a second program called the 702 program. And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity. It can only be narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks, and a select number of identifiers phone numbers, emails, et cetera. Those and the process has all been approved by the courts you can send to providers the Yahoos or the Googles, what have you. And in the same way that you present essentially a warrant. And what will happen then is that you there can obtain content. But again, that does not apply to U.S. persons. And its only in these very narrow bands. So, you asked, what should we do? What Ive said is is that what is a legitimate concern a legitimate critique is that because these are classified programs even though we have all these systems of checks and balances, Congress is overseeing it, federal courts are overseeing it despite all that, the public may not fully know. And that can make the public kind of nervous, right? Because they say, Well, Obama says its okay or Congress says its okay. I dont know who this judge is. Im nervous about it. What Ive asked the intelligence community to do is see how much of this we can declassify without further compromising the program, number one. And they are in that process of doing so now so that everything that Im describing to you today, people, the public, newspapers, etc., can look at because frankly, if people are making judgments just based on these slides that have been leaked, theyre not getting the complete story.
- more -
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/president-obama-defends-nsa-spying
BenzoDia
(1,010 posts)Response to ProSense (Original post)
Post removed
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Listen, you've got a problem here--the FISA warrant that we saw, that we FINALLY saw, was for ALL of the communications on Verizon for a period of time. ALL OF THEM.
How can that NOT be targeting Americans? Huh?
And, get this: the FISA court is a FOREIGN intelligence court. FOREIGN. It's not supposed to have jurisdiction over Americans. And, yet, they granted that request for those communications. And they were on Americans.
I don't think that this is about Obama. Apparently, you do. I think that Obama is as trapped in this thing as the American people are. But I'm not going to carry his water for him. He is lying, or at the very least, very badly mistaken.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Too late for WHAT?
If you want to call people clowns, Prosense, that's fine, but it doesn't further your argument.
Is there some reason that you can't reply to the FACT that they are using a FISA court, which has no jurisdiction, to implement spying on Americans?
"If you want to call people clowns, Prosense, that's fine, but it doesn't further your argument. "
...can't be serious?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3039196
Clown was appropriate.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)And it's beginning to look like they might be correct.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)Because the President said that they use the FISA court.
Either you believe him or you don't.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)How is that transparent?
AND, if that FISA court is issuing warrants to spy on Americans, it has NO JURISDICTION. What is it about that simple concept that you don't get?
They can use a sledgehammer, or Elmo, for all we care. But they are NOT supposed to be spying on Americans. It's that simple.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)Either you believe the President, or you don't.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)Corporate dems can send their paid shills to post propaganda on DU but the truth always comes out.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)What the fuck does that even mean?
You have read enough posts here to understand the basics of how a phone call works. You mean the full CDR, a stripped version, or "everything" LOL
Did you even read the whole article? It's like you need a scandel to hang on to, and just like the FBI one, this is a big "snow" job...
adric mutelovic
(208 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Welcome to DU
Enjoy your stay.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)marions ghost
(19,841 posts)for monitoring your thread so diligently. At least you don't post & run. Thanks for the tip.
teh kool-aid
Excuse me while I wake up.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)dumbcat
(2,120 posts)Please elucidate.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Good 80th post!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Clowns with inferiority complexes.
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)I gave you something to chew on, and you continued with your calling people clowns. You didn't address the issues.
Is it because you don't HAVE any argument?
JI7
(89,251 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)tring to blur the lines to create the impression that warranless wiretapping is legal. From your link:
After 9/11, the Bush administration circumvented that law; President Bush authorized new surveillance programs without submitting them to the foreign intelligence court. After news reports blew the lid off the administration's dodge, Bush submitted to Congress proposed changes in the law, which were adopted in 2008. Those changes allowed the government to conduct the so-called PRISM program and monitor any and all conversations that take place between the U.S. and someone in a foreign country. No longer is there a requirement of individual targeting, observes Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU.
Another misleading media report implies that warrantless wiretapping is legal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023026724
http://web.archive.org/web/20081216011008/http://www.newsweek.com/id/174601/output/print
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023032225
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Adler said it best. Even those who have been 'briefed' cannot speak publicly about it so to say they approve, so everything is okay, is not true. Let them speak publicly, THEN we will know if they are 'overseeing' anything.
As for this: It is transparent. Thats why we set up the FISA court
How is a secret court 'transparent'? And that becomes clear with the follow up questions. 'How many times has the court turned down a request'?? Did we get an answer to that?
Also, Obama speaks only about the legal constraints on the NSA itself. He says nothing about the Security Contractors to whom Congress has passed on their responsibility to collect data.
It's like how we fight wars now. We hire proxy armies then we can say 'we have no boots on the ground' when in fact we do. 'We are just arming rebels' when in fact we are arming our proxie armies. Hillary was quite proud of this.
Get rid of the Security Contractors.. No one elected them and no one trusts them. Their main purpose is to make money from our tax dollars. Billions of dollars worth. They are NOT accountable under any of the laws Obama is talking about.
I am, however, like Adler happy to see the President acknowledge what we have all been saying, that this kind of intrusion into people's lives is illegal. That's what I always believed.
Another problem here. We SAW a warrant and in fact the excuse for the data collection was that it was all okay because 'they got a warrant'. WHO got a warrant and for what?
To refer to the FISA Court as transparent is a contradiction in itself.
And who provides a warrant, since the President has confirmed what we and Adler have been saying, for DOMESTIC surveillance. As he pointed out, the FISA Court cannot do that, so where did the warrant come from?
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)So far, no answers.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)He said that if they didn't know what was going on, it was their own damned fault.
The FISA court doesn't rely on the other Congressmen knowing what they are doing anyway.
And, this is not about Hillary.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)have just said the SOS.
Reid better be able to explain why so many members of Congress don't agree with him, most of them from his own party. So far, I have not seen him directly address Ron Wyden, who agrees with Nadler that to say that 'Congress is overseeing these programs' is not true. I'll go with those two Democrats who have been consistent on this issue since way back during the Bush years when it was all first exposed.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Congress must exercise its oversight function. That's why we're in this mess. Congress has been negligent and irresponsible in this are in other areas.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)'raving liberal'. I am. And that is who elected him btw.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)been elected without us voting for him speaks louder than words about how trustworthy he is on anything else.
DesMoinesDem
(1,569 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Poor Frank Church is spinning in his grave.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)War is peace?
DesMoinesDem
(1,569 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)How is this different from anything that law enforcement or police do:
So point number one, if youre a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and its not targeting your emails unless its getting an individualized court order. Thats the existing rule. There are two programs that were revealed by Mr. Snowden, allegedly, since theres a criminal investigation taking place, and they caused all the ruckus. Program number one, called the 2015 Program, what that does is it gets data from the service providers like a Verizon in bulk, and basically you have call pairs. You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There are no names. There is no content in that database. All it is, is the number pairs, when those calls took place, how long they took place. So that database is sitting there. Now, if the NSA through some other sources, maybe through the FBI, maybe through a tip that went to the CIA, maybe through the NYPD. Get a number that where theres a reasonable, articulable suspicion that this might involve foreign terrorist activity related to Al-Qaeda and some other international terrorist actors. Then, what the NSA can do is it can query that database to see did any of the did this number pop up? Did they make any other calls? And if they did, those calls will be spit out. A report will be produced. It will be turned over to the FBI. At no point is any content revealed because theres no content that
Charlie Rose: So I hear you saying, I have no problem with what NSA has been doing.
Barack Obama: Well, let me let me finish, because I dont. So, what happens is that the FBI if, in fact, it now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone its got to go to the FISA court with probable cause and ask for a warrant.
The bottom line: How can U.S. citizens' rights be threatened when the number of requests is so small...AND no American citizen calls are being monitored unless there is (1) probable cause and (2) approval by the FISA court?
I'm still not understanding what the controversy is about...
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"I'm still not understanding what the controversy is about... "
...the "controversy" is that the President in lying because he said in one program there is no content, but in the other program targeting foreignors there is content.
See?
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)or how he explains it, inevitably there will be people who refuse to believe him. They are so blinded by their hatred for this man that they refuse to even give him the benefit of the doubt.