Obama 2007 meet Obama 2013
BREAKING UPDATE 6/7/13 >>>
Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks
Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.
The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) “can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging”.
• Read the secret presidential directive here
Mental exercise: Imagine the outcry if this was on George W. Bush’s watch!
President Obama tries to do damage control today, excerpt:
(UPDATE from POLITICO)
Why did a government source leak information of this program, dubbed “PRISM,” to the Post? What follows is perhaps the most chilling paragraph I’ve read to date about U.S. government surveillance:
Firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities, is what drove a career intelligence officer to provide PowerPoint slides about PRISM and supporting materials to The Washington Post in order to expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy. “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” the officer said.
The words of candidate Barack Obama from 2007:
I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.
That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists…
UPDATE: Compare these laudable words with an administration which would force Verizon, a privately held company, to release a statement like this to their employees today. This forced non-response essentially confirms the truth of government spying on innocent citizens.
Take a look at the Top Secret NSA slides designed to train special agents at the end of this post and ask yourself, “How does this jive with Barack Obama 2007?”
Senator Rand Paul writing in The Guardian:
Senator Obama in 2007 was rightly concerned that telecommunications companies might get away with sharing clients’ private information without legal scrutiny. This week, we learned that the president’s National Security Agency compelled Verizon to hand over all of its client data records…(Click above to read more–it’s fantastic.)
I know the evidence is clear that we are dealing with the natural consequences of centralized power–heck, it feels an awful lot like the corrupting power of Frodo’s Ring!–but we need to look this tyrannical Orwellian security state squarely in the face. We must make these concepts understandable to the average American; the man at McDonald’s and the lady at Starbucks. The decision for America is now…or it really is over. The republic is gone.
The following are the slides used to train special agents on their spying powers:
The slides reflect that nine companies participate in the program, starting with Microsoft in 2007. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple.
