Courtesy of Mish.
On Friday, president Obama announced a plan to reform NSA surveillance.
Don’t expect much of anything to come out of it. It’s a dog and pony show designed to make people feel better as opposed to any solid measures as to how much data government collects on everyone.
Here are excerpts from the above article with my comments interspersed.
Independent: President Obama told a packed room of journalists at the White House Friday afternoon that he will work to reform Section 215 of the Patriot Act – the provision which currently allows the federal government’s intelligence agencies to collect domestic phone data.
The President also said that he will work to increase oversight with regards to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court – the secretive judicial body that authorizes the government to collect data on communications coming in and out of the United States.
Obama said the reform will be accompanied with the roll-out of a new website which will provide Americans and people around the world the ability to learn more about the surveillance programs.
Obama: “The US will “make public as much information about these programs as possible.”
Mish: Expect to discover that the only thing “possible” is a bunch of government propaganda designed to purposely mislead the public about the extent of government data gathering activities.
Independent: Obama said he is forming an outside advisory panel to review the surveillance programs, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency and creating an independent attorney to challenge the government’s spy policies in court.
Mish: The NSA advisory panel will have as much say as an advisory panel of ants at an anteater convention.
Obama: “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” Obama said. “I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference, and I think the American people’s preference, would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws. A thoughtful, fact-based debate that would then lead us to a better place.”
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