“Retired general Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, called on President Obama Monday to show “some political courage” and reject many of the recommendations of the commission he appointed to rein in NSA surveillance operations,” Susan Page reports for USA Today. “‘President Obama now has the burden of simply doing the right thing,’ Hayden told USA TODAY‘s Capital Download. ‘And I think some of the right things with regard to the commission’s recommendations are not the popular things. They may not poll real well right now. They’ll poll damn well after the next attack, all right?'”
MacDailyNews Take:
The NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America. – Edward Snowden
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
“Obama, who received the report from the five-member advisory committee just before he left to vacation in Hawaii, has promised to make ‘a pretty definitive statement’ in January about its 46 recommendations,” Page reports. “He appointed the panel in the wake of a firestorm over disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about surveillance of all Americans’ telephone calls and spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other friendly foreign leaders.”
“The commission, led by former acting CIA director Michael Morell, said the recommendations were designed to increase transparency, accountability and oversight at the NSA,” Page reports. “Snowden’s revelations have fueled objections by civil liberties advocates that the NSA goes too far in collecting information about Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing. This month, a federal judge in Washington called the program ‘almost Orwellian,’ although a few days later, another federal judge in New York said it was legal. In the interview with USA TODAY’s weekly video newsmaker series, Hayden said the vast data on Americans’ phone records are ‘far safer and privacy is far more secured with NSA holding the data than some third party.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. – Thomas Jefferson
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. – Ronald Reagan
United States Constitution, Amendment IV:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”Visit the Apple-backed reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
Related articles:
How the U.S. NSA remotely bugs your Apple iPhone – December 30, 2013
Report: U.S. NSA intercepts computers during shipping to install surveillance malware – December 30, 2013
U.S. NSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking – December 11, 2013
Apple, Google, others call for government surveillance reform – December 9, 2013
U.S. NSA secretly infiltrated Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say – October 30, 2013
Obama administration decides NSA spying is ‘essential,’ but oversight of NSA is not – October 8, 2013
Apple’s iPhone 5s with Touch ID seen as protection against U.S. NSA – September 16, 2013
German government: Windows 8 contains U.S. NSA snooping back doors; too dangerous to use – August 23, 2013
Report: NSA can see 75% of U.S. Web traffic, can snare emails – August 21, 2013
NSA can read email, online chats, track Web browsing without warrant, documents leaked by Edward Snowden show – July 31, 2013
Momentum builds against U.S. government surveillance – July 29, 2013
U.S. House rejects effort to curb NSA surveillance powers, 205-217 – July 24, 2013
Obama administration scrambles to shut down imminent U.S. House vote to defund NSA spying – July 24, 2013
Obama administration demands master encryption keys from firms in order to conduct electronic surveillance against Internet users – July 24, 2013
Apple, Google, dozens of others push Obama administration to disclose U.S. surveillance requests – July 19, 2013
Secret court agrees to allow Yahoo to reveal its fight against U.S. government PRISM requests – July 16, 2013
How Microsoft handed U.S. NSA, FBI, CIA access to users’ encrypted video, audio, and text communications – July 11, 2013
DuckDuckGo search engine surges 33% in wake of PRISM scandal – June 20, 2013
Yahoo: Since December 2012, we have received up to 13,000 U.S. gov’t requests for customer data – June 18, 2013
Apple: Since December 2012, we have received U.S. gov’t requests for customer data for up to 10,000 accounts – June 17, 2013
Nine companies, including Apple, tied to PRISM, Obama to be smacked with class-action lawsuit – June 12, 2013
U.S. lawmakers urge review of ‘Prism’ domestic spying, Patriot Act – June 10, 2013
PRISM: Do Apple, Google, Facebook have an ethical obligation not to spy on users? – June 8, 2013
Plausible deniability: The strange and unbelievable similarities in the Apple, Google, and Facebook PRISM denials – June 7, 2013
Google’s Larry Page on government eavesdropping: ‘We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday’ – June 7, 2013
Seecrypt app lets iPhone, Android users keep voice calls, text messages away from carriers, government eyes and ears – June 7, 2013
Obama administration defends PRISM data-collection as legal anti-terrorism tool – June 7, 2013
Facebook, Google, Yahoo join Apple in sort-of denying PRISM involvement – June 7, 2013
Report: Intelligence program gives U.S. government direct access to customer data on Apple servers; Apple denies – June 6, 2013
The leftist NBC “News” reports:
Spying on Americans has increased 1000% during the Obama administration.
Republicans have made sure to keep attacking everything he even thinks of that he’s been diverted from the shenannigans Bush Cheney bolstered and expanded . Evil underhanded Cheney had much to do with spying, burn his soul in hell
…then why doesn’t The Messiah stop it, Sucker?
You tea party inbreds are weird about this whole messiah thing you dreamed up. Nobody looks at Obama that way and never has. Since everything you say about Obama is based in racism first and foremost I guess its not surprising you have these fantasies. Seek therapy.
Except Barbra Walters
Alinksy rules as taught by Obama: When you don’t have an argument based on facts, call them racists.
Do you know how many people are laughing at you for thinking NBC news is leftist? As if any corporate media is somehow leftist. What a fool. I’m embarrassed for you. Ugh.
Here are a few facts which i know you tea party tools don’t like. NBC is half owned by Comcast and half by General Electric. GE is one of the smog corrupt members of the military industrial complex and has been for a very long time.
Go back to Faux Newstainment for racists, idiots and blowhards.
If you don’t think NBC and MSNBC lean left of center you are out of your mind and in the meantime the other two guys above took you to school. Drink some more Kool-Aid, socialist. In the meantime we the people are leading Obama and company shred the Constitution and fourth amendment. This is the slippery slope why in the world is everyone so passive About giving away their liberty. ?
what a joke.
In other news, former Mafia boss Don Vitucci recommends that the FBI stop investigating mob murder rings.
Hayden is a fascist and is worried about his own ass for being deeply involved in illegal activities.
“They’ll poll damn well after the next attack, all right?” That worked after 9/11. People panicked and granted government new powers.
People now are telling government to back off. We won’t panic again. We no longer have a virginal sense of safety; the TSA never lets us forget it.
What we are, is sick of know-it-all former agency heads mucking up the governance process. You’re a private citizen now, Hayden, one vote just like the rest of us. Stop trying to leverage your celeb influence to undermine democracy.
“We won’t get fooled again!” – The Who
Because we won’t have to be.
It’s too late, now.
Here is what Obama will say. “I want to thank the Commission for their hard work. These recommendations are amazing. If I could, I would implement them all tomorrow. But the reality is that these things will take a little time. I can assure you that you will get the reforms you deserve, if you are patient with me.” And then only 4 of the 46 recommendations will be implemented as intended, within the President’s remaining term.
B… b… but I thought Obama was a Liberal? Real Liberals, like the ACLU, are always going on and on and on about people’s rights, fighting legal battles for poor and minorities, so how can this “Liberal” President possibly be violating the 4th Amendment to the Constitution? It’s almost like Obama is called a Liberal when someone wants to hit him for taking an ideological stand (Obamacare) but then accuse him of fascism when it fits their narrative (NSA spying).
“If you like your privacy, you can keep it!”
-jcr
I couldn’t agree more with MDN!
The President needs to pardon Snowden.
The President should pardon that guy who made the anti-Islam movie after slandering him with lies about causing the attack on the embassy in Benghazi.
B… b… Benghazi!!!!
Not so fast, cow-poke, it looks like a lot of that attack WAS in fact spurred by the anger from that idiotic movie.
you are a moron.
get it? More Ron.
Surely you have been convicted of something before you can be pardoned ?
Paranoia, Fear and Damn Lies. Par for the course for our government.
If the NSA knows so much why can’t they put a stop to the hackers like the ones who stole 40 million credit card numbers from Target.
That’s not their job, doofus.
Maybe it’s time for President Obama to show some moral courage and put some of those who have been violating Americans’s rights against unreasonable search and seizure behind bars .
This fight come along about every 50 years and the last time it did was during the McCarthy era when many innocent Americans were hurt for bogus associations and alleged political plots .
Merely alleging that the opposition does it is not sufficient justification .
If we accept this principle then we have lost the right to call ourselves free people.
pathological liars are incapable of “moral courage.”
http://benswann.com/nsa-has-complete-control-of-your-iphone-can-activate-your-microphone-and-camera-without-you-knowing/
Any Mac content?
I’m as anti-NSA as anybody else, but MDN really needs to put all the political stuff on another site … or change the name to reflect what you really want to offer. The percentage of Mac-related articles has gone steadily downhill.
Mike, normally I would agree with you. But with NSA burrowing into our computers, including Macs and iPhones, this really is relevant news to MDN readers.
Hayden is one of the main reasons part of GITMO will stay open. HE’LL BE IN IT !!!
Meanwhile, the rest of the world reads the posts above, and shakes it’s head, wondering just how Irrational a nation has come to be.
It’s hardly surprising that a former director of the CIA is kicking against this commission’s recommendations, after all, they were responsible for supplying support to the Mujahideen and the Taliban in Afghanistan to drive the Russians out, as well as the toppling of a democratically elected government in Chile, supporting a fascistic military Junta that then slaughtered countless thousands of its own people, including machine-gunning hundreds in a football stadium.
Good work, guys, good to see you’re still working for all that’s right and proper.
Retired general Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency:
Treasonous US Constitution Illiterate
Sick rubbish from #MyStupidGovernment