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Meet the outsiders Obama appointed to review the NSA

BobStackFan4Life

BobStackFan4Life

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At a press conference earlier this month, President Obama promised to form “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies.”

He said this group will “consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used, ask how surveillance impacts our foreign policy.”

This panel of “outside experts” would draft a report by the end of the year for “better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our foreign policy.”
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The first two outsiders are national security insider Richard Clarke and CIA insider Michael Morell.
Clark served on the National Security Council for President Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 – he was basically the counter-terror czar for the White House. Michael Morell spent 33 years working at the Central Intelligence Agency. He briefed Bush on 9/11. He was alongside Obama when Bin Laden was killed. And most recently, he was the former Director of the CIA, stepping down just in March of this year. So he’s been an outsider all of…five months.
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And the next “outside expert” on the panel is former White House insider Cass Sunstein. He was basically the information and regulatory czar – in charge of reviewing federal regulations and, according to WhiteHouse.gov, overseeing federal policies related to privacy and information quality.

Mr. Sunstein might be a good fit on this panel…except for this: a paper he co-authored in 2010 titled Conspiracy Theories in which he warned of the dangers of people who hold conspiracy theories – and calls on the government to engage in something called “cognitive infiltration” where “government agents might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories.”

In other words, using government to disrupt the free speech activities of innocent Americans. And he’s the guy who’s supposed to be caring about whether or not the NSA is abusing our civil liberties?

But at least the administration was generous enough to stick one guy on this review board who does actually give a damn about NSA abuse. The fourth member of the panel is Peter Swire, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Recently, Swire has supported two legal briefs arguing that the NSA’s mass collection of our metadata is unconstitutional. So, if there’s going to be someone on this NSA outsider independent review board who’s an outsider and actually cares about civil liberties, then it’s Peter Swire. Unfortunately, it’s ONLY Peter Swire.
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http://rt.com/op-edge/obama-nsa-high-level-group-064/
 
Mr. Sunstein might be a good fit on this panel…except for this: a paper he co-authored in 2010 titled Conspiracy Theories in which he warned of the dangers of people who hold conspiracy theories – and calls on the government to engage in something called “cognitive infiltration” where “government agents might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories.”
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Who's the plant?
 
If anyone is going to be put in charge of such an endeavor, it should be Richard Clarke. Of all people in the US, he understands what is necessary and what isn't. Hell, had W listened to him, we might have stopped 9/11 like we stopped the millennium bombing plan.

If you don't think there are government agents in chatrooms and message boards, you hopelessly naive. Plus if they weren't there, the biggest question would be why not?

Ever since identity theft has been a scourge, the FBI has had entire teams floating around the internet catching people selling credit cards and other personal data in chatrooms and on message boards.

Why wouldn't the NSA do the same thing for terrorism? Hell they should their own sites up to lure people in.
 
WFFaithful said:
This.
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While I know you dont and didn't and will never see Romney as a reasonable alternative to Obama this was the conclusion I came to a year ago and why I held my nose and voted for Romney.
 
Wrangor said:
While I know you dont and didn't and will never see Romney as a reasonable alternative to Obama this was the conclusion I came to a year ago and why I held my nose and voted for Romney.
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How do you think Romney would have handled this NSA program better?
 
Not sure. They never really dealt with that. I think Romney played his hand as close to his chest as he could. I think he would have been a moderate leader on everything except social issues. I think he could have possibly rallied the Republican base to fix ACA rather than trash it (there would be more incentive for them to come up with a fix if they have a sitting president). But I don't know how he would have handled this sort of issue. I just knew when I voted that Obama was not the leader that he claimed to be. He went back on pretty much everything except for ramming through healthcare. He changed his stance on gay marriage, he changed his stance in interventionism, he changed his stance on financial oversight.....

Obama was the character of change. His positions all changed once he got into office (other than healthcare).
 
Sunstein is all about subtle cognitive calibrations that impact public policy while maintaining personal liberty and choice. His popular book Nudge gave the easy example of placing healthy foods at the front of lunch lines, where psych studies have shown them more likely to be selected. He's a wickedly smart dude, and he basically forefathered this idea of "paternal libertarianism."

Anyway, just about every academic has said something radical at times. It's practically their job description. If we want these people involved in policy-making, we're going to have to live with their paper trail.
 
So the review panel met and the civil libertarians who were invited to attend didn't get a seat at the big boy table- the discussion was dominated by the interests of Google, Yahoo, etc.
A review panel created by President Obama to guide reforms to US government surveillance did not discuss any changes to the National Security Agency's controversial activities at its first meeting
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"My fear is it's a simulacrum of meaningful reform," said Sascha Meinrath, a vice president of the New America Foundation, an influential Washington think tank, and the director of the Open Technology Institute, who also attended. "Its function is to bleed off pressure, without getting to the meaningful reform."
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Former deputy CIA director Michael Morell and Richard Clarke didn't even bother to show up for the meeting that civil libertarians were invited to attend.
During its first round of meetings, the panel, known as the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, separated two groups of outside advisers. One group included civil libertarian organizations such as the ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It met in a conference room on K and 20th Streets. Morrell and Clarke did not attend.

The other, which met in the White House Conference Center, included technology companies that have participated – sometimes uneasily and at court behest – in NSA surveillance. All five panel members participated.
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Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House "should not be segregating the civil liberties groups and the tech industry." Rotenberg said: "We need to be on the same page when it comes to surveillance reform."
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/12/obama-nsa-review-surveillance-changes
 
Is the Bush--Obama back to back presidency the worst in history? Both of these guys are all time losers.
 
Imagine Gore and McCain.
 
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