IN 2010, MATT DAMON'S LACK OF BOX OFFICE APPEAL WAS ANALYZED.
DESPITE HIS FAILURE TO PUT VIEWERS IN THEATER SEATS, HE WAS CAST IN THE LEAD OF A SCI-FY ATTEMPT TO TRANSLATE THE OCCUPY MESSAGE. FRIDAY NIGHT, THE FILM ELYSIUM, WITH THE $120,000,000 BUDGET, UNDERWHELMED WITH AN $11.2 MILLION OPENING NIGHT.
WITH COMPARISONS TO BATTLEFIELD EARTH ALREADY BEING MADE, IT APPEARS BARACK'S LITTLE LADDY MATTY DAMON MAY NEED TO CONSIDER OTHER EMPLOYMENT.
WE'RE THE MILLERS REMAINS THE FILM TO SEE THIS WEEK, JENNIFER ANISTON AND JASON SUDEIKIS ARE HILARIOUS!
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
"No, I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot," huffed a snippy and petulant Barack Obama this afternoon as he was finally forced to hold a (brief) press conference. "As I said in my opening remarks, 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."
Oh, poor, little pink thong-clad president, pantsed in front of the whole world, caught by surprise by that mean bully Ed Snowden and that trickey NSA!
Oh, wait, that's not how it happened at all but don't expect the cowardly press to point out that fact -- they're too busy cleaning up Barack's words in "No, I don't think Mr. Snowden was a patriot."
Barack did call for a review . . . in his first term as president. It was done. He was pleased with the results. And thought he could continue to keep the results and the illegal spying from the knowledge of the American people. As James Bamford notes in "They Know Much More Than You Think" (current issue of The New York Review of Books):
With the arrival of the Obama administration, the NSA’s powers continued to expand at the same time that administration officials and the NSA continued to deceive the American public on the extent of the spying. In addition to the denial I have mentioned by James Clapper, General Keith Alexander, the NSA director, also blatantly denied that his agency was keeping records on millions of Americans. In March 2012, Wired magazine published a cover story I wrote on the new one-million-square-foot NSA data center being built in Bluffdale, Utah. In the article, I interviewed William Binney, a former high-ranking NSA official who was largely responsible for automating the agency’s worldwide eavesdropping network. He quit the agency in 2001 in protest after he saw the system designed mainly for intelligence about foreign threats turned inward on the American public. In the interview, he told how the agency was tapping into the country’s communications and Internet networks. He revealed that it also was secretly obtaining warrantless access to billions of phone records of Americans, including those of both AT&T and Verizon. “They’re storing everything they gather,” he said.
In the months afterward, General Alexander repeatedly denied Binney’s charges. “No…we don’t hold data on US citizens,” he told Fox News, and at an Aspen Institute conference he said, “To think we’re collecting on every US person…that would be against the law.” He added, “The fact is we’re a foreign intelligence agency.”
But the documents released by Edward Snowden show that the NSA does have a large-scale program to gather the telephone records of every Verizon customer, including local calls, and presumably a similar agreement with AT&T and other companies. These are records of who called whom and when, not of the content of the conversations, although the NSA has, by other methods, access to the content of conversations as well. But the NSA has, on a daily basis, access to virtually everyone’s phone records, whether cell or landline, and can store, data-mine, and keep them indefinitely. Snowden’s documents describing the PRISM program show that the agency is also accessing the Internet data of the nine major Internet companies in the US, including Google and Yahoo.
Snowden’s documents and statements add greatly to an understanding of just how the NSA goes about conducting its eavesdropping and data-mining programs, and just how deceptive the NSA and the Obama administration have been in describing the agency’s activities to the American public.
And the deceptions continued today. Barack was sworn in for his second term back in January. Throughout his first term, the liar refused to inform the American people what was happening.
As I said in my opening remarks, 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.
He didn't go public in his first term and wouldn't have in his second if not for the brave actions of NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden. The examination would not have included the American people were it not for Snowden.
The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald broke many of the recent spying stories and he Tweets:
- Obama: we were right on the verge of launching a really great, open debate on secret surveillance when Snowden went & did this
#StraightFace
Glenn Greenwald And before we go further, let's make one thing real damn clear: No one gave Barack the right to rule on who is or who is not a patriot. With his education in Indonesia, I doubt he can name and explain many patriots in American history to begin with but he abuses his office when he starts issuing decrees on which living citizen is or is not a patriot and he needs to be told to shut his mouth.
Should Ed return to the US (of his own accord or due to rendition), he would then go on trial. Barack's remarks are prejudicial and need to stop immediately. He needs to shut his mouth.
But leaving aside the legal impact, no president is given the right to judge American citizens. Barack, as usual, has overstepped the boundaries of the office and, as usual, it is out of gross ignorance of the American experience. The next time someone who was schooled abroad for any length of time tries to run for the presidency, debates should be turned into civics test. It'll prevent someone trying to learn the job and learn about the US at the same time.
The president of the United States is a public servant and it is not his role or job to question or affirm the patriotism of any American citizen. Shame on Barack Obama.
Chuck Todd, Kelly O'Donnell and Carrie Dann (NBC News) note, "NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s revelations have forced President Barack Obama’s hand, leading the president to announce new reforms of the government’s classified surveillance programs."
I'm confused. Are Todd, O'Donnell and Dann ignorant of the English language? Were they asleep during the conference? Or do they just want to lie? No reforms were announced. Chuck Todd was confused about this in the press conference as well.
Chuck Todd: Given that you just announced a whole bunch of reforms based on essentially the leaks that Edward Snowden made on all of these surveillance programs, is that change -- is your mindset changed about him? Is he now more a whistle-blower than he is a hacker, as you called him at one point, or somebody that shouldn't be filed charges? And should he be provided more protection? Is he a patriot? You just used those words. And then just to follow up on the personal -- I want to follow up on a personal --
President Barack Obama: Okay, I want to make sure -- everybody is asking one question it would be helpful.
Barack, ever the school marm. Christi Parsons and Ken Dilanian (Los Angeles Times) handle the reporting that Team NBC apparently can't:
Obama said he is considering proposals to restrict the NSA from secretly collecting virtually all Americans’ telephone calling records, the most controversial of the programs Snowden exposed.
He said he also is considering proposals to create a permanent staff of lawyers to advocate for the public, or to allow outside groups to file “amicus briefs,” in cases before the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has approved the telephone surveillance effort.
Proposals are not reforms. Proposals are talk (Barack today: "We can take steps" -- frequently, they are empty talk. Reforms are measures activated and implemented, not words of 'maybe.' Can we get some ESL teachers for Team NBC?
Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) also grasps the difference between reforms and 'reforms:'
Or at least what passes for reforms in his mind. Obama insisted that he is entirely “comfortable” with the surveillance system as currently constituted and expressed anger that “rather than a lawful process” the public debate was a result of leaks.
The president promised four “reforms,” three of which amounted to talking with other officials about how to sell the American public on the idea that everything is going as well as he thinks it is, and the fourth of which offering a minor tweak to FISA courts.
Matt Berman and Brian Resnick (National Journal) terms the talk "goals" and go further by observing, "Don't necessarily bet on serious, quick reform though. Task forces like the one laid out today don't have a huge history of recent success. Just look at Vice President Joe Biden's gun task force, announced by Obama following the shooting in Newtown, Conn., last year. "This won't be some Washington commission" that goes nowhere, Obama said in December. The task force issued recommendations in January. And aside from a failed Senate amendment, it has not resulted in any tangible change."
Team NBC wants to 'inform' that Ed Snowden's "been charged with theft of government property and two offenses under U.S. espionage law." Where is the point made that the claim of "government property" includes American citizens' information and property? In other words the original thieves are charging others with stealing.
Proposals, again, are not reforms. They're words and apparently words used in an attempt to stop the current outrage from growing further. How else to explain both the long overdue (but brief) press conference and this from Senator Dianne Feinstein's office today:
Washington -- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today announced the committee will hold a series of comprehensive hearings to examine intelligence data-collection programs:
“The Senate Intelligence Committee will undertake a major review of all intelligence data-collection programs involving Americans. This will be the primary order of business for the committee this fall and will be used to develop proposals to increase transparency and improve privacy protections for these vital national security programs.
“As I have said before, if changes are necessary, whenever feasible, we will make them. To the extent possible, I hope these hearings will better delineate the purpose and scope of these programs and increase the public’s confidence in their effectiveness.
“For example, I have suggested changes to the NSA call-records program (Section 215) requiring that the number of database queries and the number of warrants obtained by the FBI be released annually; the retention period of phone records be reduced from five years to two or three years; and the ideological diversity of the FISA court be increased, among other changes.”
“Section 215 continues to be mischaracterized as a domestic surveillance program. It is not. The program collects only phone numbers and the duration and times that calls are made. In fact, the database was queried fewer than 300 times last year and produced 12 reports to the FBI for further investigation, which could include warrants upon probable cause if the government sought content of communications.
“I am pleased the president shares the committee’s commitment to improving the public’s confidence with more transparency and more privacy protections. This is the right thing to do. I look forward to working with the intelligence community to achieve these goals.”
“The Senate Intelligence Committee will undertake a major review of all intelligence data-collection programs involving Americans. This will be the primary order of business for the committee this fall and will be used to develop proposals to increase transparency and improve privacy protections for these vital national security programs.
“As I have said before, if changes are necessary, whenever feasible, we will make them. To the extent possible, I hope these hearings will better delineate the purpose and scope of these programs and increase the public’s confidence in their effectiveness.
“For example, I have suggested changes to the NSA call-records program (Section 215) requiring that the number of database queries and the number of warrants obtained by the FBI be released annually; the retention period of phone records be reduced from five years to two or three years; and the ideological diversity of the FISA court be increased, among other changes.”
“Section 215 continues to be mischaracterized as a domestic surveillance program. It is not. The program collects only phone numbers and the duration and times that calls are made. In fact, the database was queried fewer than 300 times last year and produced 12 reports to the FBI for further investigation, which could include warrants upon probable cause if the government sought content of communications.
“I am pleased the president shares the committee’s commitment to improving the public’s confidence with more transparency and more privacy protections. This is the right thing to do. I look forward to working with the intelligence community to achieve these goals.”
###
And will these be public hearings, Dianne?
Feinstein has no respect for the public or for an informed citizenry. If you doubt it, she last presided over (as Chair of the Senate's Intelligence Committee) an open hearing on March 12. Since then, she has chaired 30 closed hearings.
In DiFi's world, she knows best. Which, of course, would explain her corrupt and unethical steering of contracts to her husband. While the American people has grown increasingly outraged about the spying, Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Committee over US spying, has refused to hold one public hearing on the matter. To call her derelict in her duty is actually to supply her with far more gravitas than her weak actions merit.
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