It's Sunday

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) said this week that it was planning to sue the U.S. military after discovering that Marine Corps training documents teach suicide attempt warning signs include “lack or loss of spiritual faith.”

  Raw Story

I’m surprised that wasn’t one of the warning signs of being a terrorist in Obama’s turn in a friend program. Or was it?

Fortunately for You, Someone Is Willing to Read Those BS Speeches

WIIAI parses the colossal dick's NSA rah-rah piece of shame for your reading enjoyment.

NSA Triage

The National Security Agency, which currently employs up to 1,000 systems administrators, is planning to drastically cut back on the number of people holding this position, Gen. Keith Alexander said during a cyber-security conference in New York City.

“What we’re in the process of doing – not fast enough – is reducing our systems administrators by about 90 percent,” Alexander informed.

“We’ve put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing,” he added.

  RT

So what you’re saying is, your tax-payer budget has been seriously bloated by paying private contractors to put 6-figure employees on your payroll.

The Obama Administration released a seven-page document on Friday intended to justify the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and correct media “inaccuracies.” A memo included in the report alleges that the National Security Agency only “touches” 1.6 percent of the internet and of that figure only 0.025 gets analyzed by the organization.

"If a standard basketball court represented the global communications environment, NSA's total collection would be represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court," the memo says.

  RT

And what countries’ populations lie inside that dime? The US, we know. Brazil, we know. Germany, we know. Britain, we know. And surely some Middle Eastern countries. And I’m sure we can trust the NSA to employ the proper coinage. And what do they mean by “analyzed”? And “touch”?

In a move to placate public suspicion in the wake of former CIA employee’s leak of classified information, the document claims the Obama Administration has done everything possible to keep the public informed.

“The administration has provided enhanced transparency on, and engaged in robust public discussion about, key intelligence collection programs undertaken by the NSA,” the memo reads.

Oh, Jesus. What’s the point of commenting on that?

June 13: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, ruled Wednesday that it has no objection to the release of a 2011 opinion of the court, which found that some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs under the FISA Amendments Act, were unconstitutional.

  IBTimes

And we’re still waiting.

And Speaking of Chase Bank

Federal authorities plan to arrest two former JPMorgan Chase & Co employees on suspicion that they tried to conceal the size of the investment bank's $6bn trading loss last year, according to a published report.

  alJazeera

Oregon Occupy Victim Loses Her Case

A jury has cleared the city of Portland, Oregon and two police officers of using excessive force during an Occupy protest in November 2011, when a demonstrator was struck in the throat with a baton and sprayed with pepper spray into her open mouth.

  RT

What is excessive about that?

According to Kenneth Kreuscher, [one of defendant Elizabeth] Nichols' attorneys, officers went beyond their orders to secure a bank branch during the Occupy Portland protest.

David Landrum, the lead attorney for the city of Portland, countered that the protest was unruly and officers simply responded to a threat. In a court motion, city attorneys wrote that Nichols “actively, physically resisted lawful police instructions to move off the sidewalk” and “aggressively moved as if to attack” the police.

I’m sure.

Heavily armed riot police being paid by taxpayers to guard a private bank isn’t bad enough. They get to beat up on civilians exercising their right to peaceful protest.

And isn’t that a quaint law? You have the right to peaceful protest. Since there is zero chance of that ever changing anything, how gracious of your overlords to permit it. Only, then they bring out their goons to shoot you with rubber bullets, launch shock grenades at you, club you with batons, and spray you with capsicum.

Here, you Oregon weenies. Here you are doing your duty as private bank guards. Think there's enough of you?



And here are police actually being attacked by citizens. This is Northern Ireland. See the bricks on the ground? That riot shield looks like it won't be standing up to too many more hits.

Dozens of police officers have been injured in Belfast after clashes broke out during protests against a rally marking the anniversary of the introduction of imprisonment without trial in Northern Ireland.

About 26 police officers were injured, five requiring hospital treatment, when they were attacked with missiles by crowds in the city centre, police said.

  al Jaeera

We Welcome You With Open Arms

More than two million Syrians have fled their war-torn country, with many settling in nearby Lebanon and Jordan. Now, the US will open its doors to 2,000 of “the most vulnerable” Syrian refugees – as long as they pass a lengthy background screening.

[...]

The application process is expected to take months because of the State Department’s extensive background screenings. US officials will carefully select refugees who appear to have no ties to anyone with terrorist sympathies. Even though infants and young children are unlikely to be terrorists themselves, the concern is that they might have relatives in Al-Qaeda who would then have an easier chance of entering the US.

  RT

Why, in the name of Allah, would any Syrian want to live in the United States where they will be profiled and harassed, at the very least, just for the way they look? And the permission process is said to be estimated to take several months with no Syrian actually getting here "before well into 2014.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Seriously?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the fact that I said that the programs are operating in a way that prevents abuse, that continues to be true, without the reforms. The question is how do I make the American people more comfortable.

If I tell Michelle that I did the dishes -- now, granted, in the White House I don’t do the dishes that much -- (laughter) -- but back in the day -- and she’s a little skeptical, well, I’d like her to trust me, but maybe I need to bring her back and show her the dishes and not just have her take my word for it.

  Press Conference

I bet Michelle appreciates being dragged into it. But, really, isn’t that bit slightly inane? Childish? Silly? Or, perhaps, he really can’t even be trusted when he says he washed the dishes.

Colossal dick.

This is not a joke.  Go back to Jay Leno with that schmuck-and-jive.  You're giving a press conference on arguably one of the most outrageous and important issues of your presidency.  Don't bother asking what your legacy will be, schmuck.  This is it.

But go on back up to that first paragraph.  He is actually, literally saying that the "reforms" he is proposing are only cosmetic to "make the American people more comfortable"  -- the programs are okay without the reforms. 

Colossal.

Gee, Let Me Think About That a Bit

Furthermore...

He doesn’t get to get away with this.

The president’s mission, as set out on Friday, is to take credit for all the reforms that sound the best, and to re-establish the government as a trusted actor without doing much that’s new. In that May speech at the National Defense University, Obama committed to “a strong Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to review those issues where our counterterrorism efforts and our values may come into tension.” On Friday, he said that he’d “asked the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to review where our counterterrorism efforts and our values come into tension.” Created in 2004, on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the board was effectively powerless until three months ago, when it finally got a chairman, and the president’s still bland when it comes to its goals.

  Slate

”That May speech” was given on May 23. Edward Snowden had already left Hawaii on May 1. Obama knew on May 23 that the shit was going to hit the fan. The NSA was already on Snowden’s trail.

I Take It Back. He's Not a Dick.

He’s a colossal dick.

"Everybody knows I love this president, but this is ridiculous," former-Special Adviser for Green Jobs Van Jones said Wednesday on CNN. "First of all, we do have a domestic spying program, and what we need to be able to do is figure out how to balance these things, not pretend like there’s no balancing to be done.”

[...]

Speaking to CNN, Jones challenged the president’s past behavior towards whistleblowers and suggested that Snowden, the 30-year-old leaker of classified National Security Agency documents, stands little chance of a fair trial in America.

“But much more important, he said something else that I thought that was really awful,” Jones continued. He said that if somebody like Snowden wanted to be a whistleblower, they could have gone ahead.

“Well, hold on a second, sir. That is — you are right now prosecuting more whistleblowers – not only than any American president, than every American president combined! So you can’t then come out on Leno and yuck it up and say, 'Well, whistleblowers, come on out and we’ll treat you right.' because you haven’t been doing that.”

  RT

US President Barack Obama has unveiled new NSA measures which he says will increase transparency and build public trust in government surveillance programs.

  RT

Oh, I’ll just bet they will.

President Obama told a packed room of journalists at the White House Friday afternoon that he will work to reform Section 215 of the Patriot Act - the provision which currently allows the federal government’s intelligence agencies to collect domestic phone data.

The President also said that he will work to increase oversight with regards to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - the secretive judicial body that authorizes the government to collect data on communications coming in and out of the United States.

Obama said the reform will be accompanied with the roll-out of a new website which will provide Americans and people around the world the ability to learn more about the surveillance programs.

And that will be absolutely transparent and truthful, I’m sure.

Additionally, Obama said he is forming an outside advisory panel to review the surveillance programs, assigning a privacy officer at the National Security Agency and creating an independent attorney to challenge the government’s spy policies in court.

A "privacy officer" at the NSA.  Were there any snickers in the audience?  Let’s see….who will he pick for these new and important roles?  Check this out if you feel like believing there might be some substance in this move.

“No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot,” Obama said. “I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks. My preference, and I think the American people’s preference, would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws. A thoughtful, fact-based debate that would then lead us to a better place.”

So, after calling for this thorough review, I guess it slipped by him to also call for a "lawful, orderly examination" and "thoughtful, fact-based debate."

Again, I say, what a colossal dick. Here he says he “called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks.” If so, then he must have been satisfied with the way things were, so why is he now saying he’s going to make some changes to make things better? And, as many have pointed out, if Edward Snowden hadn’t leaked this information, there would never have been “a lawful, orderly examination” of anything. No “thoughtful, fact-based debate.” Nada. Nothing. So, no matter what the American people’s preference, they would have gotten nothing but screwed even more.

“If in fact [Snowden] believes that what he did was right, then like every American citizen he can come here, appear before a court with a lawyer and make his case. If the concern was that somehow this was the only way to get this information out to the public, I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whistleblower protection to the intelligence community for the first time. So there were other avenues available for someone whose [conscience] was stirred.”

I refer you to Mr. Jones above:

“Well, hold on a second, sir. That is — you are right now prosecuting more whistleblowers – not only than any American president, than every American president combined! So you can’t then come out [...] and say, 'Well, whistleblowers, come on out and we’ll treat you right.' because you haven’t been doing that.”

Back to President Buggy Bear:

“If you are outside of the intelligence community, if you are the ordinary person, and you start seeing a bunch of headlines saying, ‘US, Big Brother looking down on you, collecting telephone records, etc.,’ well, understandably people would be concerned. I would be too if I wasn’t inside the government.”

  RT

Your POINT? Of course you’re not concerned if you’re “inside”.

“Drip-by-drip” leaks, said Obama, are being used by the media “to kind of maximize attention.”

And that is what is killing him. Watch out Glenn.

“I am comfortable that the program is currently not being abused,” said the President.

How very nice for you.

Now, what’s the latest drip? It’s also in the Guardian, by James Ball and Spencer Ackerman.

The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information.

[...]

The authority, approved in 2011, appears to contrast with repeated assurances from Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials to both Congress and the American public that the privacy of US citizens is protected from the NSA's dragnet surveillance programs.

  Guardian

My, my.