White House Picks Panel to Review NSA Programs (Hilarious and sad)

[Type Username Here]

A group of veteran security experts and former White House officials has been selected to conduct a full review of U.S. surveillance programs and other secret government efforts disclosed over recent months, ABC News has learned.

The recent acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell, will be among what President Obama called a “high-level group of outside experts” scrutinizing the controversial programs.

Joining Morell on the panel will be former White House officials Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire. An announcement is expected Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter told ABC News’ Jon Karl.

The group will “consider how we can maintain the trust of the people [and] how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse,” President Obama said two weeks ago when announcing the group’s formation, without identifying who would be on the panel.

The identities of the panelists have been a topic of speculation online, raising questions over whether the group would truly be independent in its review. The White House has insisted the group has full independence.

The president made clear that — in addition to looking at potential abuses by the program — the group will also assess whether the U.S. government “appropriately” accounts for “insider threats” and unauthorized disclosures.

“[Recent] technological advances have brought with them both great opportunities and significant risks for our intelligence community,” President Obama said.

In 60 days, the review panel will provide an interim report to the director of national intelligence, who will then brief the president on the panel’s findings.

A final report and subsequent recommendations will then be provided by the end of the year “so that we can move forward with a better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy and our foreign policy,” President Obama said two weeks ago.

Morell was acting director of the CIA until March, when John Brennan was sworn in as director.

Morell has worked at the CIA since 1980, holding a variety of senior positions, according to the CIA. In fact, he was serving as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer on the day of the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks.

Richard Clarke served the last three presidents as a senior White House adviser, including as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, according to his private security firm’s website. He became a vocal critic of the Bush administration, causing consternation in some Republican circles.

He has been an on-air consultant on terrorism for ABC News.

Swire recently became a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. At the start of the Obama administration, he served as a special assistant to the president for economic policy and, during the Clinton administration, he served as the chief counselor for privacy.

Sunstein left the White House a year ago as President Obama’s so-called “regulatory czar,” returning to Harvard Law School, according to the Center for American Progress, where Sunstein is also a senior fellow. As President Obama’s administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein’s post was considered one of the most powerful in Washington, given its ability to shape how laws were implemented.

Word of the group members came only hours after President Obama’s intelligence advisers mounted a new defense against what they see as a misperception that the NSA is engaged in an “intentional or a wholesale breach of the privacy of Americans.”

There is a system in place at NSA “to rat on ourselves when we don’t get it right and to fix it when we don’t get it right,” a senior intelligence official told reporters Wednesday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, revealed Wednesday that errors by the NSA meant that tens of thousands of emails from Americans not tied to terrorism were collected and archived for years.

Still, U.S. officials have insisted that the NSA program at issue collects phone numbers, email addresses and other “metadata” related to communications – but no content of those communications.

“We don’t even capture … any conversations, so there’s no ability – no possibility – of listening to conversations through what we get in this program,” a top Justice Department official recently told lawmakers.

Meanwhile, in announcing the review panel’s formation two weeks ago, President Obama continued to defend the NSA programs as a matter of national security.

“We need new thinking for a new era,” he said. “We now have to unravel terrorist plots by finding a needle in the haystack of global telecommunications.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/white-house-picks-panel-to-review-nsa-programs/

 

[No1]

Cass Sunstein is legit though. I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[Type Username Here]

Greenwald linked an article about Sunstein, who some might predict will be the next Supreme Court appointment. This article is absolutely chilling. This is who advises Obama on major issues:

In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.

Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.” Sunstein’s 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story‘s Daniel Tencer.

:Wtf: :Wtf: :Wtf:


http://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/

 

[the cac mamba]

"maintain the trust of the people". huh

u dont have it now mothafukker

 

[Type Username Here]

"maintain the trust of the people". huh

u dont have it now mothafukker

Exactly. And putting the wolves in charge of the hen house as Obama has done on several issues is laughable at best. Anyone that buys into this I will from now on refer to as tinfoil brigade. To believe such nonsense is equivalent to believing that we have machines that caused earthquakes in Haiti.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

This is by far the best government rich cacca money can buy.

At this point nikkaz gotta move to Pluto just to get away from the scope.

 

[No1]

Greenwald linked an article about Sunstein, who some might predict will be the next Supreme Court appointment. This article is absolutely chilling. This is who advises Obama on major issues:





:Wtf: :Wtf: :Wtf:


http://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/

I'd have to read this because Cass Sunstein's writings have never been framed this way. I've never met a liberal or progressive law student that didn't like this guy. Going back to con law. I'm sorry, but you have to read beyond just excerpts and quick google searches if this is your first time hearing about Cass Sunstein. I'd be more worried about the other people on the panel before him. So after reading this, I'm very surprised. I never knew he advocated anything like that. It is entirely out of wack with o many of his writings. It looks lke only Greenwald ever wrote about this. I have to research more. That's not a good look. It screams of "it's bad when Bush does it" because we hate him "but it's cool when Obama does it because we like him." He's on point on many other things, but this is egregious

 

[No1]

"maintain the trust of the people". huh

u dont have it now mothafukker

 

[Jello Biafra]

I'd have to read this because Cass Sunstein's writings have never been framed this way. I've never met a liberal or progressive law student that didn't like this guy. Going back to con law. I'm sorry, but you have to read beyond just excerpts and quick google searches if this is your first time hearing about Cass Sunstein. I'd be more worried about the other people on the panel before him. So after reading this, I'm very surprised. I never knew he advocated anything like that. It is entirely out of wack with o many of his writings. It looks lke only Greenwald ever wrote about this. I have to research more. That's not a good look. It screams of "it's bad when Bush does it" because we hate him "but it's cool when Obama does it because we like him." He's on point on many other things, but this is egregious

Sunstein's infiltration idea to basically control online speech is some pure Bush/Cheney/Rove type ish that I can't co-sign regardless of his other views that I may agree with. And placing him in a position of oversight in the area of government surveillance overreach seems to me like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

 

[No1]

Sunstein's infiltration idea to basically control online speech is some pure Bush/Cheney/Rove type ish that I can't co-sign regardless of his other views that I may agree with. And placing him in a position of oversight in the area of government surveillance overreach seems to me like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Yeah, I literally had never heard of this. Not one time in law school, and he's come up a lot. He was always more on the government control side but this is bad.

 

[Type Username Here]

Yeah, I literally had never heard of this. Not one time in law school, and he's come up a lot. He was always more on the government control side but this is bad.

You made a good point above. I took the article at face value. I just downloaded his paper from our school's system and I will read it tonight. I glanced at the Abstract and so far the article doesn't seem to be twisting anything.

 

[Type Username Here]

Sunstein's infiltration idea to basically control online speech is some pure Bush/Cheney/Rove type ish that I can't co-sign regardless of his other views that I may agree with. And placing him in a position of oversight in the area of government surveillance overreach seems to me like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

This is some Joseph McCarthy type of shyt.