President Obama’s breathtaking hypocrisy on mass surveillance 2005 Flashback
As the nation prepares to hear from President Obama on his plans to bring modest reforms of the NSA, it’s a good time to see just how breathtakingly hypocritical he has been on issues of civil liberties. How did we get from the following statements from 2005 to claims like, “There had not been evidence and there continues not to be evidence that the particular (NSA) program had been abused in how it was used.”? From Dec. 20, 2013.
UPDATE: scroll down for the rest of this post. We post here the live video of Pres. Obama’s speech on the NSA. LIVE NOW:
—continue—
When National Security Letters are issued, they allow federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive or wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary. They simply need sign-off from a local FBI official. That’s all.
Once a business or a person receives notification that they will be searched, they are prohibited from telling anyone about it, and they are even prohibited from challenging this automatic gag order in court. Even though judges have already found that similar restrictions violate the First Amendment – this Conference Report disregards the case law and the right to challenge the gag order.
If you do decide to consult an attorney for legal advice – you have to tell the FBI that you have done so. This is unheard of – there is no such requirement in any other area of law, and I don’t see why it is justified here.
And if someone wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document – through library books they’ve read and phone calls they’ve made – this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear their plea, no jury will hear their case.
This is just plain wrong…
http://obamaspeeches.com/041-The-PATRIOT-Act-Obama-Speech.htm
What happened to this Barack Obama?