Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Pretty Categorical


http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-defends-surveillance-we-should-take-pride-in?ref=fpb

"What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails."
“And have not," Rose wondered.
“And have not," Obama confirmed. "They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they -- and usually it wouldn't be ‘they,’ it'd be the FBI -- go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it's always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause...”

Obama asked for this interview with Charlie Rose.  Like all presidential interviews, he was prepped out the wazoo.

Unless he really is Nixonian - and I don't see any evidence of that in his past actions - then DOJ and NSA are telling him categorically that what he said above is the truth.

This still doesn't obviate the need for greater oversight, and the Wyden-Merkley Bill looks like a good idea.

But I still don't see any evidence of law breaking.

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