Intelligence Task Force To Recommend Cosmetic Changes... While The White House Pre-Rejects The Biggest One
from the that's-the-punchline,-right? dept
Remember the supposedly "independent, outside experts" that President Obama had invited to be on a task force to review the NSA's surveillance? The same task force that was actually set up by and reported to director of national intelligence James Clapper? The one that was actually made up of intelligence community insiders, who kicked things off by having two of its key members not bother to to show up for a meeting with civil libertarian groups?Right. So their report is "due" to be delivered this Sunday, and some of the details have leaked. While the Wall Street Journal suggested that the recommendations would "constitute a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Agency", almost everyone looking at the details suggests something completely different. Instead, it's looking a lot more like some stern language accompanied by cosmetic changes that "leave spying programs largely unchanged." For example, it appears to recommend that bulk collection of metadata continue, but potentially with that data residing at the telcos, instead of in the NSA's own databases.
If that sounds familiar, it's because this is exactly the "concession" that NSA boss Keith Alexander himself proposed. When the task force is directly pitching the same "solution" the NSA's own boss has proposed, that's hardly a "sweeping overhaul".
Oh, and what appears to be one somewhat substantive move suggested in the report -- definitively splitting the NSA and the US Cyber Command -- has already been pre-rejected by the White House. If you don't recall, these are supposedly two different organizations -- but they're currently both run by Keith Alexander and are housed in the same place. The NSA is supposed to just be obtaining "signals intelligence", not conducting offensive operations. US Cyber Command, on the other hand, does conduct offensive operations, launching numerous attacks on computing systems around the globe. Many, many people see significant problems with this, as the roles of the two can be merged in dangerous ways -- such as rather than having the groups protect the US from computer attacks, having them help to create new vulnerabilities for their own purposes (basically, exactly what's happening).
Many have argued that Cyber Command should have civilian rather than military leadership, and the task force is rumored to support this. But without the report officially being delivered, the White House has already flatly rejected the idea.
“Following a thorough interagency review, the administration has decided that keeping the positions of NSA Director and Cyber Command Commander together as one, dual-hatted position is the most effective approach to accomplishing both agencies’ missions,” White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in an e-mailSo, we end up with a task force report that has cosmetic changes to the surveillance program, and one big change they're going to recommend has already been dismissed out of hand before the recommendation was even made. In other words, this whole task force was as much of a farce as everyone expected.
Remember how, when President Obama set it up, the main purpose was to supposedly "restore the trust" of the American public in what the NSA is doing? That doesn't seem to be working.
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Filed Under: barack obama, intelligence task force, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance, surveillance, task force, us cyber command
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Was hoping all NSA agents had to dress in drag from now on.
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That "keeping the data with the telcos" proposal is such a joke, because they know they can already get all the data they want from them, so in effect it would be no improvement at all.
Impeach Obama! He's already much worse than Nixon ever was regarding this.
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he has made his mark by saying and doing the exact opposite things once elected to before. the things he said would be happening are not and vice versa. Bush probably went down as a security nut. Obama will go down, i suspect, as a total, two faced, liar!
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The NSA has clearly become bloated beyond its intended mission by a massive margin and needs to be constrained to extra-US intelligence gathering only.
Cyber Command should be tasked with the defense of the military's networks and digital infrastructure. They should NOT be responsible for civilian/municipal/etc networks or data ingress/egress mechanisms.
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As I suspected, Obama's purpose in stating he would be reigning in the NSA was merely a smoke screen to prevent worse damage coming out of congress.
Obama has sunk to the level of Nixon as far as believability, truthfulness, doing what is good for the public, and upholding the constitutional laws. Obama presses on those things he favors and ignores those laws he doesn't like. It's just now become so in your face you can no longer believe anything else.
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Bro's before hos, jack.
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Re:
Representative democracy doesn't mean that people can choose anyone. It means that the politicians represent different organisations and companies and those interests are what you vote for every four years. Don't like the companies behind the candidates? May god bless your innocent soul!
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Re: @ "apart from one day every four years,"
Are you beginning to understand now that, apart from one day every four years, when you decide who will sit in a particular office, you have absolutely no say in the policies and operations employed by your rulers?
Oh, you poor ignorant idealist! You don't even have a clue how BAD reality is! -- So here, I'll crush the last of your optimism: They have the elections sewn up too. Entirely. Not only is it limited to candidates acceptable to The Establishment, who are both raving fascists competing only in who'll sell out the public to corporations fastest and cheapest, but with electronic voting machines and no paper trail, there's zero actual auditing of votes even possible, the machines just repeat what's stored and accurately claim are working perfectly. But it's all computerized: what key was pressed has no necessary relation to the numbers output.
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The implications here are deeply disturbing. Not only do they agree with this but there are hardly any opposing this shit.
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You can trust us
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Just another clear indicaton that...
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Re:
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Re: Re: @ "apart from one day every four years,"
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The same old, same old
Not that it absolves Obama at all-merely that he's just enabling more of the same.
It won't change because it's none of our business what goes on in Washington, don't you know? It's far too profitable for some very well-placed contractors and agencies-plus if they were shut down, people would actually have to find real jobs in the real world.
From what I've seen, most government employees couldn't find their asses with both hands, and that's after they have their coffee.
Plus it pays better and has in-built job security. Who wouldn't want to have that?
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Re: The same old, same old
Which may be why they chose not to act on the plentiful intelligence they had prior to the attacks. They might have underestimated their scope, but they certainly were not interfering "prematurely" with what looked like it could lead to vastly increased funding.
And they are certainly are not ashamed of making the most of their 30 silver pieces.
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