What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread, so don’t be shy.
If you thought the Obama admin and some kangaroo court giving the OK to snoop in 100 million people’s phone records was bad, you’ll love this one. This one involves internet snooping rather than phones. They say it’s only used on foreigners, but I’d hardly trust them since they seem to have constantly changing stories. We’ll see.
But the scandals just keep coming. Next up, the Prism scandal. From TheGuardian
“Two different versions of the PRISM scandal were emerging on Thursday with Silicon Valley executives denying all knowledge of the top secret program that gives the National Security Agency direct access to the internet giants’ servers.
The eavesdropping program is detailed in the form of PowerPoint slides in a leaked NSA document, seen and authenticated by the Guardian, which states that it is based on “legally-compelled collection” but operates with the “assistance of communications providers in the US.”
Each of the 41 slides in the document displays prominently the corporate logos of the tech companies claimed to be taking part in PRISM. However, senior executives from the internet companies expressed surprise and shock and insisted that no direct access to servers had been offered to any government agency.
The top-secret NSA briefing presentation set out details of the PRISM program, which it said granted access to records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more. The presentation the listed dates when document collection began for each company, and said PRISM enabled “direct access from the servers of these US service providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple”.
Executives at the companies are saying if it took place, it was without their knowledge.
More here, from the WallStJournal
And TheWashingtonPost has the leaker saying why he leaked it.
“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.”
When it comes to the phone scandal, Obama has even lost the NYTimes
“Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.”
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Another factually challenged member of Team Obama is in trouble. Looks like perjury again. From NationalJournal
“But one person who doesn’t like the idea of the NSA spying on Americans is Oregon senator Ron Wyden. And at a hearing in March, he asked James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, a straightforward question: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper’s answer? “No, sir … not wittingly.”
Update, 5:13 p.m.: Clapper tells the National Journal, “What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails. I stand by that.” Except … that’s not what he said. ”
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We also have a new player in the IRS scandal. From TheDailyCaller
“A Washington IRS attorney named Carter Hull closely oversaw the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups and suggested questions that IRS employees could ask of conservative and Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt nonprofit status, according to interviews that two IRS employees gave with congressional investigators.
“I was essentially a front person, because I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull’s influence or input,” said Elizabeth Hofacre, an employee of the Cincinnati IRS office, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal.”
“IRS attorney Hull sent Hofacre additional information request letters [pdf] that he’d already sent to two tea party groups and instructed her to use them as a “foundation to prepare and review” cases and prepare her own letters to new applicants.”
Washington, not Cincinnati. But we already knew that, didn’t we?
Oh, and you’ll love this. Mr. Hull seems to be in the process of retiring. How convenient. 🙄
From NationalReview
“A tax law specialist and attorney who processed tea-party cases in the Internal Revenue Service’s Exempt Organization’s Technical Office is retiring, according to an IRS source. Reached over the phone, the lawyer, Carter Hull, would not confirm or deny the report, saying only, “I cannot verify anything about this entire matter.” Hull’s retirement comes after years of service in the Exempt Organization, where he has served ”for decades,” the source tells National Review Online.”
Another coincidence I’m sure. 🙄
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ObamaCare demands insurers cover Planned Parenthood clinics. That’s called payback. Thank you for the millions you gave me, now here’s yours. From TheWashingtonExaminer
“Most of Planned Parenthood’s 750 health and abortion clinics around the nation will be covered under Obamacare, imposing a new demand on insurers who want to participate in the health care exchanges that will provide insurance coverage to millions of Americans.
While insurers currently cover doctors and health facilities in their networks, Obamacare demands that they also cover at least 20 percent of “essential community providers” in their coverage area, including Planned Parenthood, AIDS clinics, pain management centers and even alternative medicine providers.
“We’ve never covered these sorts of things,” a Wisconsin insurance provider told Secrets. Insurers said that they were just figuring out the new requirement and haven’t decided if it will raise prices. Conservative providers, however, are wary of covering Planned Parenthood.”
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And it looks like the Obama admin finally has something other than pushing abortion to export to other countries. From NewsBusters
“The Agency for International Development was created to provide “economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States.” Under the Obama administration, that means spreading “gay rights” activism with our tax dollars. Now that’s really separating church and state.
The gay Washington Blade newspaper carried the front-page headline “U.S. Promoting LGBT Rights Abroad.” Reporter Michael Lavers touted “The first training as part of a USAID-backed public-private partnership designed to promote LGBT rights around the world” would happen in Colombia May 30 to June 2.
The program, which was coordinated by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, was the first to take place as part of the USAID-backed “LGBT Global Development Partnership” that will contribute $11 million over the next four years to advocacy groups in neighboring Ecuador and other developing countries.”
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Wandering Views 
Some years ago, when the PATRIOT act was authorized, it was predicted by civil libertarians that the law was overly broad and would allow snooping on a fairly massive level. Congress tried to instill some check with the FISA amendment. Maybe now, Congress will act to amend or repeal the act and replace it with something that recognizes privacy issues in the digital age. It is a goal that I hope we all share.
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Yes, I hope it is too. But I find it strange that the left warned us about this under Bush, and yet he didn’t abuse it the way Obama has. And Obama was one of the ones complaining loudest under Bush. But he’s used that power way beyond what Bush did. And the critics from the left have mostly gone silent on it, just like the anti-war crowd. Hopefully that’s changing, and some are starting to speak up again.
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The behavior of our leaders after 9/11 contained many examples of overreaction: The Patriot Act, creation of the TSA, the invasion of Iraq, the sharp restriction on new immigration are examples. With the expenditure of a few hundred thousand dollars, Bin Laden killed 3,000 people and caused us to do trillions of dollars of damage to our own economy and destabilize the entire Middle East. It reminds me of the assassination of the Archduke in 1914. A single terrorist attack provoked an unbelievable outbreak of stupidity by the victim and other major powers.
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In other news, I see in the Times-News that a couple in New York that hosted a radio program called, “The Pursuit of Happiness” committed suicide together.
You never know.
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AJ
All of these programs began with the Bush Administration — once that veil is pierced it is only a matter of time before government gets out of hand — it would be true if it were an R not a D in the White House. This is space where the left and right in America actually agree on limited government. We should encourage politicians on both sides of the aisle to take advantage of a rare area where citizens agree with one another. Oh, and the phone program isn’t that much different from its beginning – President Bush signed orders every 45 days to do what the FISA courts are authorizing. The Jim Comey incident was all about instilling rule of law — hence the creation of the FISA courts. If you think it is all that different now from then, then I think you may be a little naive or less informed than you think you are.
Ricky
We agree 100 percent on the over reaction.
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If one thinks one side is better than another when it comes to abuse of power, one should think again. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely…
The left warned us about this under Bush, and they were right. They shouldn’t clam up just because their ox is now being gored…
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Pardon the cynicism, but I’ve got to be honest. I find it hard to be frightened by anything as incompetent as our federal government.
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I wonder if the Washington Post reporters will now become the targets of phone tapping as James Rosen was.
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Ricky, I believe your confidence in the incompetency of the government is misplaced.
FROM THE WASHINGTON GUARDIEN IN AN E-MAIL
UPDATED 7:16 AM EDT, JUNE 7, 2013 | STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Internal Revenue Service agents working in the agency’s Cincinnati office say higher-ups in Washington directed the targeting of conservative political groups when they applied for tax-exempt status, a contention that directly contradicts claims made by the agency since the scandal erupted last month.
The Cincinnati agents didn’t provide proof that senior IRS officials in Washington ordered the targeting. But one of the agents said her work processing the applications was closely supervised by a Washington lawyer in the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, according to a transcript of her interview with congressional investigators.
Her interview suggests a long trail of emails that could support her claim.
The revelation could prove to be significant if investigators are able to show that Washington officials were involved in singling out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny. IRS officials have said repeatedly that the targeting was initiated by front-line agents in the Cincinnati office and was stopped once senior officials in Washington found out.
http://www.washingtonguardian.com/irs-workers-say-supervisors-directed-targeting-0
When this came out, I said that it didn’t originate in Cincinnati. Some questioned
that, but I pointed out that it has to do with allocation of resources and nobody on the GS-14/15 level is going to take that decision. Someone with authority told them to do it.
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CB,
Possibly. But again, Bush wasn’t bugging the press’ phones was he? Was he bugging the phones of “enemies” at the NYTimes like Obama had done to his at Fox? Was he using the IRS as his own personal pitbull? You can pretend it’s all the same and equally disturbing, but it’s not.
And as for the left and right agreeing and getting together on this….
That’s a bit hard when most of the left continue to give Obama a pass. And continue to blame Bush. Bush may have started it, but Obama put it on steroids and made it bigger and meaner. And Bush never did this stuff to punish his enemies like Obama has. Nixon would be impressed.
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And perhaps you can point out where Bush did this too, ‘cuz I seem to have missed it. I don’t recall Bush giving foreign countries access to use our system for their use. But perhaps I’m mistaken.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/07/uk-gathering-secret-intelligence-nsa-prism
“The UK’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world’s biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America’s top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.
The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.”
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The difference between what Bush did and Obama has done/is doing isn’t even close, and this isn’t just my opinion.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/jim-sensenbrenner-nsa-violated-law-92348.html
“Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the Republican author of the Patriot Act, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that says he is “extremely disturbed” by reports that the National Security Agency collected phone records from Verizon customers and insists it violates the law.”
““I do not believe the released FISA order is consistent with the requirement of the Patriot Act,” Sensenbrenner wrote. “How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the Act?””
This is a huge over reach beyond what the law allows.
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CB is correct that when government was given that power, more should have complained. Perhaps we should have done a reassessment of everything several years after 9/11?
Maybe we did and the government liked what it had in place and continued, I don’t know.
I’ve also wondered about the wisdom in exposing the Utah project–not that I approve of surveillance of a cookie recipe I just sent my daughter–because we’ve now told all the other “legitimate” spy targets what we’ve got.
Ironic the president is meeting with China to discuss China’s violation of some of these ideas today, isn’t it? 🙂
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And Oh Look! another breaking scandal. 🙄 Once again the Obama admin leaking confidential data to his friends on their enemies, just like with the IRS. Just like Bush, only not. 🙄
http://freebeacon.com/senators-question-epa-leak-of-private-farmer-info/
“A bipartisan group of 24 senators demanded answers Thursday from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on why it leaked the personal data of more than 80,000 farms and livestock facilities to environmental groups.
“We are writing today to express concern regarding the sensitivity of the data that was released,” the senators wrote in a letter to EPA acting administrator Bob Perciasepe. “Unlike most regulated facilities, farms and ranches are also homes and information regarding these facilities should be treated and released with that understanding.”
The letter follows an April report by Fox News revealing the agency had released the personal information on thousands of farmers, many of whom had only a few animals.”
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AJ, the Israeli’s and the Bedouins have a saying about all the recent criminal activity with the Chicago mob currently occupying the Oval Office. The saying is about the camel getting his nose under the tent. If you do not stop the camel at the beginning, pretty soon the whole camel will be inside the tent. Now the camel is inside your living room, monitoring your phone conversations, your e-mail and even your keystrokes as the government program Prism is supposed to do.
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Michelle,
That may be true, but again, what Bush gave us is not even close to what Obama turned it into. And Obama was one of the biggest critics of Bush’s plan, yet he’s done far worse than what he ever accused Bush of.
And I believe that Congress has re-evaluated, but I could be wrong on that. I do know they were given updates at a minimum. Yet very few from either side of the aisle spoke up before now. They all like it, until it works against them when the public catches on.
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The president has, on a number of occasions, made disparaging public remarks about Fox News, which has always bothered me (and now it’s rather telling in light of the scrutiny Rosen was given).
Again, a reminder of the Nixon era — I can’t say as I remember any other president so openly disdainful of a media outlet, making it essentially a public point of contention of call a network out like that.
It’s very unprofessional (and worrisome) in my view.
Media criticism, whether it’s fair or not, comes with the territory of being elected to the office. Those who bristle and make public remarks about how they’re “picked on” present a red flag. It reveals someone who is very thin-skinned, at best.
Say what you will about George W, I can’t remember him doing that (and this in the face of what was a constant drumbeat of scathing & widespread media criticism, not just coming from one particular network).
Re the Patriot Act, it definitely went above and beyond what many of us were perhaps comfortable with — but it was, as we all remember, in response to what was an alarming event. It also was seen as something that was temporary, though there was no expiration attached to it (and it definitely bears revisiting, probably should have been revisited before now as it turns out). I’d also lost track of the status of those provisions.
But it is somewhat surprising to me that the current administration, who spoke so strongly against sacrificing liberties for security, seems to have taken it to new extremes in terms of implementation.
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Speaking of the president publicly targeting enemies, here’s a timeline lest we forget:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529571309012846.html?mod=trending_now_1
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Evidence of federal govt. incompetence:
1. NASA can’t build rockets.
2. SEC couldn’t prevent Madoff from stealing hundreds of millions.
3. Justice Dept. never blocks a proposed merger because it would create a monopoly.
4. Intelligence agencies thought (even for a brief time) that Benghazi was caused by a video.
5. Corps of Engineers can’t build new lakes.
6. FBI couldn’t figure out what 9/11 pilots were up to.
7. FBI couldn’t appropriately follow up on Boston bombers, even when tipped off by Russians.
8. FEMA
9. CIA told Little Bush Hussein definitely had WMDs.
10. The government was the primary cause of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
11. TSA
12. The Post Office
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13. We are now paying federal employees to do union activities:
http://www.worldmag.com/2013/06/signs_and_wonders_punished_for_upholding_the_law
I’m sorry, but the federal government is not frightening. I see what is happening at federal agencies as hilarious or ridiculous or very sad, but not frightening.
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Both sides need learn not to give the government any power you don’t want the other side to have.
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Ricky,
Peggy Noonan insists it can’t be incompetence at the IRS that caused the targeting. It was too purposeful and orchestrated.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323844804578529713576219412.html?mod=hp_opinion
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The Liar-in-Chief, in 2007
(1 minute…)
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And look at all these links–you can’t even keep up with all of this. It makes me wonder if they’re flooding because
1.Journalists finally got the pinch and now are doing the work they should have done earlier.
2.Whomever “they” is decided to release it all at once to overwhelm and take the light of scrutiny off the major events.
Anyone heard anything lately about Benghazi?
I just read this, and can’t decide what it’s trying to say:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/07/heres-why-the-obama-administration-wante
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Makeitman and Chas, You misunderstand me. I agree with you that the orders probably came from above. It was not incompetence that caused the targeting. My point is that the federal government is so incompetent that it doesn’t frighten me, sort of like if Obama sent Inspector Clouseau to arrest me or The Three Stooges to assassinate me.
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Michelle – exactly.
AJ, I point out a place where cooperation across te political spectrum is possible. You give me an Obamarant. Sigh. On intel sharing with the Brits – no idea what thhe Bushies did or did not share, but the closeness of thhe intel sharing relationship since WW2 is pretty well known.
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Be afraid Ricky, be very afraid.
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From the LA Times, May 27, 2011: “Acting with minutes to spare, President Obama approved a four-year extension of expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, after Congress overcame mounting opposition from both parties to narrowly avoid a lapse in the terrorist surveillance law.”
This is not Bush’s Patriot Act.
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Just because I am paranoid, does not mean the government is out to get me:
http://galleries.realclearpolitics.com/gallery/Secret_NSA_Data_Center_in_Utah/slideshow/An_aerial_view_of_the_NSA%27s_Utah_Data_Center_in_Bluffdale,_Utah,_Thursday,_June_6,_2013._The/04EJ6PrcxPfFZ
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I am afraid for my son. I can already see that if he sticks to his Christian convictions there will be a number of occupations closed to him by the time he grows up. These may include florist, photographer, baker, fertility doctor, adoption counselor, school counselor, marriage counselor, pharmacist, the military, matchmaker, college professor and journalist. I bet y’all can come up with more.
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kBells – I know what you mean. I pray for Forrest to be saved, & to have the courage to stand by godly convictions in this increasingly hostile-to-the-gospel world. I’ll pray that for The Kid, too.
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