Some news about the Barack Obama Police State!!!!

 

Obama flushes Constitution and Bill of Rights???

"Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues"

Sorry Mr. President, there already is an "outside task force" to balance civil liberties and security issues.

It's called the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Of course you probably flushed it down the toilet after you used the Bill of Rights to wipe your *ss!!!

Source

Obama unveils efforts to increase transparency on surveillance

By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News | Yahoo! News

President Barack Obama unveiled new efforts to increase transparency and “build greater confidence” about the government’s controversial surveillance efforts, acknowledging that the public’s trust has been shaken after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked operational details about the programs.

“It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs,” Obama declared at a White House news conference. “The American people have to have confidence as well.”

Among other things, Obama called for the creation of an outside task force to advise his administration on how to balance civil liberties and security issues. He also said he had directed the intelligence community to make as much information about the spying programs as possible and directed the NSA to create a website that would be a “hub” for that information.

“These steps are designed to make sure the American people can trust that our interests are aligned with our values,” Obama said.

Asked about his decision to cancel a September summit with Russian President Vladmir Putin, Obama admitted Moscow’s decision to grant Snowden asylum played a role in that decision, but insisted it wasn’t the only factor. He pointed to differences on Syria and human rights and said he believed it was more helpful to “take a pause, reassess where Russia’s going” and “calibrate the relationship” before meeting with the Russian leader.

“The latest episode is just one more in a number of emerging differences that we’ve seen over the last several months,” Obama said.


Obama announces NSA reforms

Source

Obama announces NSA reforms, takes questions at news conference

By Steven R. Hurst Associated Press Fri Aug 9, 2013 1:09 PM

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced a series of steps Friday meant to ease fears about the scope of secret domestic and foreign surveillance activities, saying he is confident the programs are “not being abused” but that they must be more transparent.

He gave no indication he was ready to end the massive collection of information about Americans’ telephone calls and email. [This is typical of our lying double talking politicians. They have one press conference to say they are FOR something and then another press conference to say they are AGAINST the same thing. I suspect it works and people believe the version that they wish was true. As opposed to hearing both conflicting stories and realizing that one way or another the politicians are lying to us.]

In his first press conference since April, Obama also explained his decision to cancel a summit meeting next month with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and said he had only “mixed” success in moving forward in resetting the relationship between the two countries.

Russia’s recent decision to grant asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was not the only reason for calling off the Putin meeting, Obama said.

He encouraged Putin to “think forward instead of backwards” on a long list of issues that will define currently strained relations in the future.

In wide-ranging comments lasting nearly an hour, Obama also said it would not be appropriate to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, despite Russian laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians.

The president also said he did not consider Snowden, who is charged in federal court with violations of the Espionage Act, as a whistleblower or “patriot.” He invited Snowden, if he feels what he did was legal and right, to return to the United States to defend his actions. [Yea, Obama will let Snowden defend his actions - from a prison cell to a kangaroo court]

Addressing the issues raised by Snowden’s leaks of secret government surveillance programs, Obama said the world needs to be convinced that U.S. espionage does not step on their rights. [In that case stop the spying and pardon Snowden and Manning]

One goal of Obama’s news conference was to try to calm anger over a spying program that has been kept secret for years and that the administration falsely denied ever existed. [Trust us, we haven't flushed the Bill of Rights down the toilet, and even if we did it's for your own benefit! Honest!!!]

The administration was releasing more information Friday about how it gathers intelligence at home and abroad, plus the legal rationale for the bulk collection of phone records without individual warrants. That program was authorized under the USA Patriot Act, which Congress hurriedly passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S. [And many legal scholars will tell you the Patriot Act is blatantly unconstitutional!!!!]

The National Security Agency says phone records are the only things it collects in bulk under that law. [Trust us, we aren't keeping track of anything else you do. Honest! Swear to God!!! And no we didn't video tape the sex you had with that women who is your mistress] But officials have left open the possibility that it could create similar databases of people’s credit card transactions, hotel records and Internet searches. [Again trust the NSA. Don't think of them violation your Constitutional rights, they are protecting you from those terrorists that hide under your bed and only come out at night!!! Honest!!!]

The changes Obama endorsed Friday include the formation of an outside advisory panel to review U.S. surveillance powers, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency, and the creation of an independent attorney to argue against the government before the nation’s surveillance court. [Yea, an independent attorney that reports to Obama and the NSA!!!]

All those new positions would carry out most of their duties in secret. [And unless another guy like Snowden comes along and exposes us, we will pretend we are no longer keeping a dossier on you.]

The debate over national security and privacy began with the leaks by Snowden, a former government contract systems analyst, who revealed classified documents exposing NSA programs that store years of phone records on every American.

That revelation prompted the most significant reconsideration yet of the vast surveillance powers Congress granted the president after the 2001 attacks.

Obama has found Congress surprisingly hostile to those powers since they were made public, especially from an unusual coalition of libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats. [Rubbish!!! Congress is only hostile to those powers in the media because they want to get re-elected. Congress has done NOTHING to repeal the Patriot Act.]

The administration says it only looks at the phone records when investigating suspected terrorists. But testimony before Congress revealed how easy it is for Americans with no connection to terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the government.

When the NSA identifies a suspect, analysts can look not just at the suspect’s phone records but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people.

If the average person called 40 unique people, for example, analysis would allow the government to mine the records of 2.5 million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist.


Yemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes

Obama is a serial killer whose weapon of choice is drones???

President Barack Obama sounds like a sociopath who is a serial killer that uses drones as his murder weapon. Kind of like the Serial Shooters in Phoenix. You know, Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman. Except those creeps are amateur murderers compared to President Obama

Source

Yemen official: U.S. drones kill 12 in 3 airstrikes

Associated Press Thu Aug 8, 2013 8:36 PM

SANAA, Yemen — The U.S. has sharply escalated its drone war in Yemen, with military officials in the Arab country reporting 34 suspected al-Qaida militants killed in less than two weeks, including three strikes on Thursday alone in which a dozen died.

The action against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, comes amid a global terror alert issued by Washington. One Mideast official says the uptick is due to its leaders leaving themselves more vulnerable by moving from their normal hideouts toward areas where they could carry out attacks.

The U.S. and Britain evacuated diplomatic staff from the capital of Sanaa this week after learning of a threatened attack that prompted Washington to close temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa.

Thursday’s first reported drone attack hit a car carrying suspected militants in the district of Wadi Ubaidah, about 175 kilometers (109 miles) east of Sanaa, and killed six, a security official said.

Badly burned bodies lay beside their vehicle, according to the official. Five of the dead were Yemenis, while the sixth was believed to be of another Arab nationality, he said.

The second drone attack killed three alleged militants in the al-Ayoon area of Hadramawt province in the south, the official said. The third, also in Hadramawt province, killed three more suspected militants in the al-Qutn area, he added.

All the airstrikes targeted cars, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The drone strikes have become a near-daily routine since they began July 27. So far, they have been concentrated in remote, mountainous areas where al-Qaida’s top five leaders are believed to have taken refuge.

But drones also have been seen and heard buzzing for hours over Sanaa, worrying residents who fear getting caught in the crossfire.

While the United States acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not talk about individual strikes or release information on how many are carried out. The program is run by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA, with the military flying its drones out of Djibouti, and the CIA out of a base in Saudi Arabia.

Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale declined to comment Thursday and would not confirm the existence of a military drone program in Yemen. The CIA also declined to comment.

Since July 27, drone attacks have killed 34 suspected militants, according to an Associated Press count based on information provided by Yemeni security officials.

The terror network’s Yemeni offshoot bolstered its operations in Yemen more than a decade after key Saudi operatives fled here following a major crackdown in their homeland. The drone strikes and a U.S.-backed offensive that began in June 2012 have driven militants from towns and large swaths of land they had seized a year earlier, during Yemen’s political turmoil amid the Arab Spring.

The sudden drone barrage could further upset a population already angered by bombings that have killed civilians, said Gregory Johnsen, the author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaida and America’s War in Arabia.”

“It’s a really rapid increase when there was a long time where there were no drone strikes for weeks,” Johnsen said in an interview with the AP. “This has a lot of people in Yemen on edge.”

A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat have told the AP that the embassy closures were triggered by the interception of a secret message between al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of the Yemen-based offshoot, about plans for a major attack.

Authorities in Yemen said they had discovered al-Qaida plot to target foreign embassies in Sanaa and international shipping in the Red Sea.

Yemeni authorities said this week that a group of al-Qaida militants have entered Sanaa and other cities to carry attacks. It issued list of 25 al-Qaida wanted militants. The Yemeni statement said security forces will pay $23,000 to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the arrests of any of the wanted men.

The discovery of the al-Qaida plot prompted the Defense Ministry to step up security around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb waterway, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Officials banning speedboats or fishing vessels from the area.

Details of the plot were reminiscent of the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in Aden harbor that killed 17 American sailors.

One local political analyst suggests the latest plots were floated by the group to show it is still a formidable force.

“Al-Qaida has suffered losses and it is trying to make an impression,” said analyst Ali al-Sarari, who is close to the Yemeni government. “The mere talk about an upcoming attack gives the group a chance to restore its shattered image … as a group capable of exporting terrorism.”

A senior security official told AP that the al-Qaida leaders never meet together out of fear of a drone attack killing all of them at once. These include al-Wahishi, a onetime aide to Osama bin Laden; Qassem al-Raimi, believed to be the military commander; and Ibrahim al-Asiri.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to brief the media, said al-Wahishi is believed to be trying to recruit informants in the mountainous areas of Marib in central Yemen, especially in the Wadi Ubaidah valley, where tribal allies of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh are concentrated.

Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi became president in 2012 after a year of mass protests demanding Saleh’s ouster. Since then, Hadi has accused Saleh’s men, who are still in key positions in security agencies and municipalities, of trying to hinder his reforms.

Marib is one of the few places known to be al-Qaida strongholds, and the Yemeni military has not tried to carry out a large offensive there because of the strong presence of anti-government tribes.

The official said al-Raimi is believed to be moving in southern Yemen, while al-Asiri is believed to be in the north, close to the border with Saudi Arabia, his home.

Johnsen said the U.S. faces a major problem in Yemen when it comes to intelligence gathered on the ground. By relying solely on cellphone calls and other intercepts, chances are increased that a drone strike could merely target a tribesmen who once called an al-Qaida figure, rather than a militant, he said.

“The U.S. is firing missiles into a country, if not blindly, maybe just one-eyed.” he added.

Yemeni troops have stepped up security across Sanaa, with multiple checkpoints set up and tanks and other military vehicles guarding vital institutions. The army has surrounded foreign installations, government offices and the airport with tanks and troops.

In Sanaa’s cafes and on its public transportation, the drones were a popular topic of conversation, prompting fear and even some dark humor.

“These aircraft are really scaring people here,” said Mohammed al-Mohandis, a teacher, who added that he and his friends heard the drone while chewing leaves of qat, the mild stimulant plant that is addictively used in Yemen.

Al-Mohandis even joked with his buddies that someone could have planted an electronic chip on them. “Watch out, or you are finished!” he said, drawing laughter.

Another Sanaa resident, Ahmed Said, suggested the Americans should target those who cause power outages in the city, instead of al-Qaida.

Speaking to AP over the phone, Said shouted at a man crossing the street slowly: “Hurry up, the drone will hit you!”

———

Michael reported from Cairo. Associated Press Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.

 

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