Tag Archives: FISC

A Detached President Could Be Just What the NSA Needs

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President Obama was described as "impatient" and "disengaged" during briefings on last year's Syria crisis. That sense of detachment lead him to a constructive resolution of the NSA snooping controversy. [Credit: Pumas Unleashed]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma was described as “impa­tient” and “dis­en­gaged” dur­ing brief­in­gs on last year’s Syr­ia cri­sis. That sense of detach­ment could lead him to a con­struc­tive res­o­lu­tion of the NSA snoop­ing con­tro­ver­sy. [Cred­it: Pumas Unleashed]

Even as the debate about arm­ing the [Syr­i­an] rebels took on a new urgency, Mr. Oba­ma rarely voiced strong opin­ions dur­ing senior staff meet­ings. But cur­rent and for­mer offi­cials said his body lan­guage was telling: he often appeared impa­tient or dis­en­gaged while lis­ten­ing to the debate, some­times scrolling through mes­sages on his Black­Ber­ry or slouch­ing and chew­ing gum.

New York Times, Octo­ber 22, 2013

A Pres­i­dent has enor­mous demands on his time and atten­tion. He can’t focus on every­thing. He must choose. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, if the New York Times account is to be believed, chose to be “impa­tient” and “dis­en­gaged” as his advis­ers last year pre­sent­ed him with options on Syr­ia, per­haps explain­ing why he fol­lowed what the Times termed “an uncer­tain path amid Syr­i­an bloodshed.”

The dis­en­gage­ment from mat­ters of nation­al secu­ri­ty that served him so poor­ly through­out the Syr­i­an affair might unique­ly suit him to resolve the con­tro­ver­sy over whether the gov­ern­ment should con­tin­ue to gath­er large vol­umes of data about US cit­i­zens. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The NSA And Government’s Gradual And Silent Encroachments

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Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Monday ruled that NSA monitoring of cellphone traffic is unconstitutional. [Credit: Minority Report Blog]

Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court Judge Richard J. Leon on Mon­day ruled that NSA mon­i­tor­ing of cell­phone traf­fic is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. [Cred­it: Minor­i­ty Report Blog]

On March 5, 1976, Patri­cia McDo­nough was robbed.  She report­ed the crime to the Bal­ti­more police. Soon after, McDo­nough began receiv­ing threat­en­ing and obscene phone calls from a man pur­port­ing to be the rob­ber.  At one point, the caller asked her to step onto her porch.  Short­ly after she did, she saw a 1975 Monte Car­lo dri­ving slow­ly past her home.  She recalled see­ing that same car near the crime scene. She report­ed the tag num­ber to the police, enabling them to iden­ti­fy the own­er as Michael Lee Smith.

The police asked the tele­phone com­pa­ny to install a pen reg­is­ter — an elec­tron­ic device that records all num­bers called from a par­tic­u­lar tele­phone line – to mon­i­tor Smith’s home phone.  The device helped police deter­mine that Smith had placed the offen­sive calls to McDo­nough, lead­ing to his arrest and con­vic­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Moral Hazard of Government

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Sting wrote the stalker's anthem, "Every Breath You Take," a song that takes on new meaning in light of newest NSA revelations. [Credit: Davids Zondy]

Sting wrote the stalk­er’s anthem, “Every Breath You Take,” a song that takes on new mean­ing in light of newest NSA rev­e­la­tions. [Cred­it: Davids Zondy]

The intel­li­gence community’s gild­ed rep­u­ta­tion, already tar­nished by months of unau­tho­rized dis­clo­sures, was dragged into the realm of the creepy last Fri­day when an NSA offi­cial told a reporter about an agency employ­ee who had tapped secret gov­ern­ment data to spy on his ex-wife. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

NSA Surveillance: Insulting Our Intelligence?

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Michael Corleone warned his brother-in-law not to insult his intelligence. Does the government insult ours when it defends its snooping activities? [Credit: Rotten Tomatoes]

Michael Cor­leone warned his broth­er-in-law not to insult his intel­li­gence. Does the gov­ern­ment insult ours when it defends its snoop­ing activ­i­ties? [Cred­it: Rot­ten Tomatoes]

“Improp­er pay­ments” by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment totaled an esti­mat­ed $115.3 bil­lion in 2011, accord­ing to a report pre­pared by the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get (OMB), but the government’s own watch­dog agency doesn’t believe those esti­mates.  The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office (GAO), which exam­ined the OMB analy­sis, thinks the num­ber of mis­spent fed­er­al dol­lars is much high­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Can You Hear Me Now? The Limits of Government Power

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The President assures us that no one is listening to our calls, but does that settle the debate?

The Pres­i­dent assures us that no one is lis­ten­ing to our calls, but does that set­tle the debate?

“Progress does not com­pel us to set­tle cen­turies-long debates about the role of gov­ern­ment for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. For now deci­sions are upon us and we can­not afford delay. We can­not mis­take abso­lutism for prin­ci­ple, or sub­sti­tute spec­ta­cle for pol­i­tics, or treat name-call­ing as rea­soned debate. We must act, know­ing that our work will be imper­fect. We must act.”

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Sec­ond Inau­gur­al Address, Jan­u­ary 21, 2013. Con­tin­ue read­ing →