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Obama and the NSA: Information is Power
Obama, the president of the United States, Commander-in-Chief and self-proclaimed leader of the free world, says he did not know about his own government’s spying on multiple allied world leaders until quite recently. This means that Obama learned of this amazing thing same as we did, basically via Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing.
We’ll take a moment on behalf of the president to say:
“Thanks” Edward for bringing this to my attention. It appears that not all of our allied world leaders have been pleased to learn that my government has been (maybe still is? I gotta check Buzzfeed) spying on them, right down to the level of sitting in on Chancellor Merkel’s personal cell phone chats. Since these revelations affect the foreign standing and policy of the United States globally, I guess Edward I have to say I am grateful you let me know about this all. Hope Moscow is treating you well. Say hi to Julian for me!
Well, well, about that Mr. President who-don’t-know-nuthin’, there are two possible ways this can go:
1) Obama really did not know the NSA was spying on world leaders he called friends. This would mean that the NSA and who knows who else inside the government has gone rogue, taking actions independently that threaten the very allied relations the US depends upon to facilitate trade and commerce, build coalitions to support American aims and otherwise deal with a complex, multi-polar world. As such, the NSA has committed the essential elements of treason, aiding foreign powers and damaging the credibility and security of the United States. Obama should thus immediately fire the top several layers of NSA leadership, and appoint an independent prosecutor to look into charges against them.
Oops– instead of firing anyone, Obama spokesperson Jay “Goebbels was an Amateur” Carney cheered the American public by saying that “the president has full confidence in General Keith Alexander and the leadership at the NSA.”
2) That leaves only the conclusion that Obama lied. He lied straight into the eyes of the American people, ever gullible, even as those spied-upon world leaders rolled their own eyes in disbelief that the self-proclaimed World’s Most Powerful Man could not come up with a better excuse than total and complete ignorance.
We Must Protect America (from Spiders!)
On the subject of lies, the only justification the White House has offered on why it is necessary to conduct all this espionage is that it is necessary to protect America from terrorists. This is indeed important– a recent poll showed that among Americans’ deepest fears, Number One is Death, Number Two is Spiders and Terrorism is Third. Roll them up into terrorist spiders that can kill you and it is one scary image. So Obama is right to want to protect Americans from terrorist spiders.
The problem is that it is quite unclear how listening in on Merkel’s cell phone might in any way contribute to the fight to protect Americans against terrorists. Is Merkel a terrorist herself, a super sleeper agent spending years working her way into the seat of power of Europe’s leading economy? Does Merkel butt dial terrorists? Does she reveal inside dope on terrorists only on her cell phone calls home asking what’s for dinner?
Information is Power
No, no, of course not. Spying on someone like Merkel (or the President of Mexico, et al) has only one purpose: to gather information that can be employed by the United States to coerce, blackmail, threaten or otherwise manipulate.
Oh sure, the NSA might pick up some tidbits about a negotiating position, or whatever, but that info can be gathered elsewhere at much lower risk and with much more ease. Indeed, the CIA and others are out there as we speak offering money and other sweet goodies to code clerks, systems administrators and foreign diplomats to gather that kind of stuff.
The NSA and Obama want to know who sleeps with whom. They want to know who has a mistress, who is in an unhappy marriage, who gossips too much. who drinks too much, who likes to gamble, who visits prostitutes, who takes drugs, who has some weakness or vulnerability that can be quietly, maybe cleverly, exploited. This is a very big thing. Nothing as crude as Obama ringing up the Minister of Silly Walks in France and threatening to send over some incriminating photos like in the old KGB/Stasi days. But how about a quiet word dropped in the right place about a powerful leader with some odd connections to a guy who knows a guy who moves dope across southern Europe?
Information is power, straight as that, and Obama used and will continue to use the NSA to achieve it.
Oh, by the way, all that NSA spying on Americans, maybe corporate leaders, journalists and other politicians? Yep, same thing.
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Lisa said...
1“Didn’t know”? Puh-leeze!
Has he no shame? If this ridiculous cop-out were true, he should resign tout de suite on the basis of incompetence.
It is the defense of a schoolchild reprimanded for doing what he oughtn’t … but these are men.
10/29/13 3:44 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
2Sorry to correct you, but they are not “men” under any definition I use.
10/29/13 3:46 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
3wemeantwell said…
quote”Sorry to correct you, but they are not “men” under any definition I use.” unquote
Men? They barely qualify as pond scum. Hell, for that matter, they barely define “living”.
10/29/13 5:56 PM | Comment Link
roger springfield said...
4Well, I am not going to actually do anything about it. How about you?
10/29/13 6:47 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
51. I believe waterboarding is the only solution to get the truth from these pathological liars. I volunteer for the Clapper job.
2. You can’t blame the War Party – it’s hard to cold turkey since the American public won’t let them invade any country they want. So let them invade countries’ privacy instead.
10/29/13 6:47 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6“Asked on Monday by CNN’s Jake Tapper why the United States spies on its allies, Cheney said he would not acknowledge that any such spying happened – but “you never know what you’re going to need it.”
Funny, that’s what J. Edgar Hoover said, another “great” American.
PS: I volunteer for the Cheney waterboarding job too.
10/29/13 6:55 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
7I stand corrected, Peter. I used the phrase only in the chronological sense.
Mr Springfield:
Per what we can do … not much with the current crop. But we might use them as exemplars of how not to run a free and transparent democracy. Beyond that, examples of how not to be men.
Of course, we always have had a perverse respect for the coat-and-tie and titles (even though we ostensibly left that pomp behind when we left the mother country.) Men have already taken a hard blow from the woman’s movement; now the threat to their credibility comes from within.
What man can ask as Mr. Welch did,
“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Few, but thank god there are such men. Peter — you are one.
10/29/13 7:02 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
8quote:”Well, I am not going to actually do anything about it. How about you?” unquote
Actually..how nice of you to do nothing besides posting you’re not going to do anything about it. I’m sure the planet wide “debate” would have happened had Mr. Snowden decided your choice of path was a better one. That’s not to say everyone is in the position to do much but contribute to a world wide discussion via the net and linking to other relevant information. But hey…at least they decided to..ahem..do SOMETHING.. besides telling the world.. fuck you.
Although ya know, I’m really glad you posted here. This place really needed a shot of slime just to remind us this planet is also home to some really creepy slugs who do nothing but leave their trail behind them.
And btw…
fuck you too. How bout that?
10/29/13 7:10 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
9quote:”PS: I volunteer for the Cheney waterboarding job too.”unquote
Fuck waterboarding. I’d give up my SS for a chance to watch his head fall in the basket after “I” release the lunette. In fact, I’d give my left nut just to watch his face during the last 30 seconds of his miserable evil life while he gazes from the basket. youbetcha. After all..you didn’t think death by decapitation was instantaneous did you?
In his case..thank god. Waterboarding. sheeesh.
10/29/13 7:16 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
10quote:”Few, but thank god there are such men. Peter — you are one.”unquote
Hear hear!
10/29/13 7:20 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
11ps. Correction.
This place really needed a shot of slime just to remind us this planet is also home to some really creepy slugs who do nothing but leave their trail behind them, the USG notwithstanding.
10/29/13 7:26 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
12I think what Roger in Springfield meant to say was, “What you gonna do about it?” And he didn’t mean well.
PS – there are more spies in Springfield, VA than in Ft Meade.
10/29/13 7:32 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
13If Clapper’s admission – we have spied, we spy and we WILL continue to spy on the leaders of our allies – is official policy and not the musings of some old guy who should be running the shuttle bus at BWI, then closing some of those fortresses America has subjected those countries might get US to listen real good.
10/29/13 7:42 PM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
14“… a powerful leader with some odd connections to a guy who knows a guy who moves dope across southern Europe”.
That would be Poppy Bush’s CIA Company man Barack Hussein Obama.
10/30/13 12:08 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
15Clapper-trap:
Clapper: Everybody spies.
Clapper: We never spied.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/politics/nsa-hearing/
10/30/13 12:29 AM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
16As the daily NSA Surveillance State Circus of Liars perform their tricks to keep America spellbound in the center ring of the Greatest Show on Earth, meanwhile, a small group of innocent Pakistani victims of our depraved War on “Terror”, travel to the US in order to BEG our wunnerful USG to stop vaporizing their fellow citizens and family members, during a US Congressional hearing whereby..only SIX of these detestable Congressional bastards had the nerve to show up and stand accountable to these poor human beings. ONLY SIX. And what does our fabulous US media do? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY..fucking… nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhSe6-mK8wk
The mere fact that these victims had to come to the US to BEG our depraved, murdering government to stop killing innocent people is enough to gag a maggot. Living proof King Obomber, the kill list overseer is a vindictive, psychopathic murderer. And then to see only 6 members of our pathetic, sick Congress appear to publicly atone for the depraved actions of our government is living testimony to their cowardice and apathy towards victims of those agency’s whom they fund. Shame on our worthless Congress. Shame on our sadistic, barbaric USG. Shame on the completely useless US media, and SHAME on the pathetic, soulless citizens of this degenerate nation for not rising up and removing these psychopaths from power. I submit, it’s only a matter of time until SOME people in this country decide ..enough is enough. And lord help those who decide the Constitution is not real.
10/30/13 2:16 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
17quote“… a powerful leader with some odd connections to a guy who knows a guy who moves dope across southern Europe”.
That would be Poppy Bush’s CIA Company man Barack Hussein Obama.”unquote
The way things are going, I suspect it’s only a matter of days, or even a few weeks before living proof emerges of the depth to which our government is involved in the world wide distribution of narcotics. After all, after decades upon decades of investigative journalists exposing tidbits here and there of CIA/DEA/DOD support and exploitation of the drug trade, it doesn’t take an Eienstein to add 2+2, especially after reading various long term investigations by various journalists, some of who have mysteriously died and disappeared by virtue of their close encounters and documentation, the Iran/Contra hearings notwithstanding. I’d even venture to submit..the nature of the NSA suggests they too are an important tool, as they can now “see” every financial transaction on the planet.
Nuff though. Before I go completely berserk. Knowing what I DO know though..(rolling eye smiley here) I’d bet TPTB heads are exploding exponentially at the thought some little piece of the puzzle is about to appear on the horizon whereby the whole charade is going to come tumbling down aka Twin Towers of biblical proportions. Hope springs eternal.
10/30/13 2:44 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
18Rich defines “Clapper-trap” for the clap-trap it is, the double-speak to which so many of his ilk expose us.
Well-done.
10/30/13 3:17 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
19The Plumbers have sprung a leak:
The Washington Post is reporting that the National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world. The Post cites documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials.
According to a secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s suburban Washington headquarters. In the last 30 days, the report Wednesday on the Post website said, field collectors had processed and sent back more than 180 million new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received emails and when, to CONTENT such as text, audio and video.”
So, in case there is any doubt- I’m talking to you, Obama – either the NSA is lying or Obama is.
10/30/13 6:19 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
20The German Minister of the Interior reports a preliminary criminal investigation is underway to determine if Americans listened in on cell phone conversations in Germany, which “violated German law on German soil” and that those responsible should be held accountable.
And the NSA says Snowden is the criminal.
10/30/13 8:20 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
21quote:”So, in case there is any doubt- I’m talking to you, Obama – either the NSA is lying or Obama is.”unquote
hey bartender. Did you get that? Here’s our chance.
Let’s start taking bets. We’ll make a killing…er..no pun intended. But yeah, I’m layin odds on NSA. 100/1(not)
10/31/13 1:49 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
22quote:”And the NSA says Snowden is the criminal.”unquote
Shades of Aaron Swartz. I’d give a million bucks to see Carmen Ortiz prosecuting Alexander for the EXACT same crime that Swartz was. After all, NSA is downloading stuff illegally too. Hopefully, Capt. Queeg would respond in the same way Mr Swartz did.
10/31/13 1:53 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
23The Keystone Cops Police State
“You can imagine what it would be like if the local police department said, ‘We’re just going to break into your house, steal everything out of your files and out of your records because someday we may need it.’ Everybody would be in an uproar. But they could do the same thing electronically.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/patrick-leahy-nsa-cant-keep-our-secrets-99322.html#ixzz2jmo0tR5J
11/5/13 3:42 PM | Comment Link