Aug 10, 2013

President's Justifications For Discontining The Constitution

Below is a quote from the paper the NSA released yesterday to outline the role and authority of the agency regarding the dragnet surveillance of Americans.

According to figures published by a major tech provider, the Internet carries 1,826 Petabytes of information per day. In its foreign intelligence mission, NSA touches about 1.6% of that. However, of the 1.6% of the data, only 0.025% is actually selected for review. The net effect is that NSA part in a million. Put another way, if a standard basketball court represented the global collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court.
For the Obama administration to justify unconstitutional surveillance using the rational that it is microscopic in nature, goes in the face of the constitution itself as well as contradicts the administration previous statement that it wasn't occurring at all. On top of that The administration has refuted similar rational when put forward regulations such as Toxic Substances Control Act of 2009, which sought to regulate toxins that routinely showed up in fetuses and newborns that could not have been exposed to the toxins but from the bloodstream of their mothers-- only parts per billion within the bloodstream was beyond the pale, while parts per million of data (1,000 times larger) of unconstitutional searches should be acceptable to the American people?

Additional to the NSA paper explaining the extent of the surveillance, the Obama administration put out a 22 page unclassified 'white paper' in attempt to pacify citizens that have learned there government is spying on them, providing hokum justification that based upon the Patriot Act's Section 215's clear language that searches would need to a specific Foreign Intelligence investigation with a specific target-- not all denizens of the Internet and Americans that use phones within American borders. Glossing over those pertinent facts that, President presumes that this announcement will pacify the critics and that the reforms to the edges of the unconstitutional program is sufficient rather than uprooting and ending the illegal activities of the NSA. Senator Ron Wyden expectantly disagrees that the reforms go far enough to resolve his issues with the program. He goes as far as stating the following:
I have seen absolutely zero evidence that the bulk collection of Americans' phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act has provided any unique value to intelligence gathering or actually made Americans any safer, so I believe that these reforms should ensure that bulk collection is ended.
As there is no apparent end to bulk surveillance, and that the President's comments are to confirm to public the justifications of the mass surveillance, the President can no longer deny complicity in the unconstitutional activities that his administration is committing, leaving only one result: impeachment.

As someone that voted for Barack Obama in the New York State Democratic Primary, 2008 General Election and 2012 General Election, it is of great disappointment to me that he should now be removed from office.




http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-president-obamas-proposed-reforms-to-the-fisc-and-patriot-act