Whoop... There It Is... 'White House Viewed Surveillance Report As 'Liberal'' - Politico

[WillyT]

Stone: White House viewed surveillance report as 'liberal'
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN | Politico
1/24/14 2:00 PM EST

<snip>

A member of President Barack Obama’s hand-picked surveillance review group said Friday the White House was swayed by U.S. intelligence officials sympathetic to the National Security Agency and ultimately viewed the group’s findings “as a liberal report.”

University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone said that, after receiving the surveillance group’s report, Obama spent a month meeting “with many of the same people we had met with at great length, members of the intelligence community, members of the intelligence committees from Congress largely on one side of the picture.”

“And instead of our report being truly understood as a middle ground, based upon taking into account all of those perspectives on both sides of the spectrum, I think the White House got moved by thinking of our report as a liberal report,” Stone said.

Stone, speaking during a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, said intelligence officials were “pushing <Obama> and the White House generally more to what we can call the right.”

<snip>

More: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/01/stone-white-house-viewed-surveillance-report-as-liberal-181849.html

[Cali_Democrat]

1. Whoop

It's a doop:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024397887

Without the Politico link.

[WillyT]

8. Well Dang It All... I Put In Four Key Words From The Politico Tltle...

Did a DU Search... That one did not come up.

[villager]

2. This White House!? An easy pushover .. to the right!?

Say it ain't so!

[RC]

4. "Say it ain't so!" Can't.

But once again...

[Rex]

3. Yeah us horrible liberals, nobody likes us.

I guess the country has to go to hell in a handbasket first before anyone will listen to the voice of reason.

[Octafish]

15. It's not like we were Right on Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, El Salvador, Iraq...

...ad human infinitum.

[Rex]

16. That is why we are so detested by both parties...we are the killjoy in the room

constantly reminding them of how fucked up the PTB have allowed this country to become a shell of it's former self. That income inequality is at an all time high, that we STILL need to prosecute SOMEONE for the illegal invasion of Iraq. We remind them of all their past failures and all we get for it is grief. Sometimes I think we SHOULD just shutup and let the country slide off into oblivion.

[indepat]

5. So the view that government should not perform unconstitutional acts under the guise

of national security is liberal, a dirty, slurring term used by conservatives to denigrate every opposing view held by their political enemies. Et to, Bruti?

[Oscarmonster13]

6. wait...what? I don't get it...

So the WH staff, etc...who are supposed to be "Democrats" and hand picked by our POTUS, and probably the Prez himself, thinks that a report on surveillance on citizens is "too liberal"

WTF did I just read? Does that mean that basically, nothing is going to be scrutinized, changed etc...because our POTUS believes differently than this report?

Heads up to all the people who say "It's okay, I trust Obama because he's on our side" (read:liberal, democrat, etc) and those who think we should not be worried at the data collection because it's "already done by corporations" or "if you aren't doing anything bad, you should have nothing to hide.."

THIS sets a horrific precedent, that ANY future leader can twist and use to his own ends. Just like we all were pretty upset at the original Patriot Act...THIS is where that led us....loss of civil liberties and then some.

[Le Taz Hot]

17. I've got to correct you here.

The people saying, "It's okay, I trust Obama because he's on our side" are NOT liberals, they're yellow-dog Democrats. Big BIG difference.

[Oscarmonster13]

19. semantics

I've never been that great with it... I guess I see things simply but that wasn't really my point, was it?

[Le Taz Hot]

20. Actually, it's an important distinction.

[bvar22]

7. Well, it WOULD appear "Liberal" to any Moderate Republican,

....wouldn't it?

[woo me with science]

9. K&R

[MisterP]

10. we've known this for years: They've always told us liburls gave us Bush and Iraq and Lebanon '06

and 9-11 (by being weak on the Commies and Mooslimes) and endanger gay rights and lose elections and Social Security

[Fumesucker]

11. Silly Willy, everyone knows conservatives are far better at national security

Fucking cognitively challenged liberals need not apply.

[Scuba]

12. And the curtain is pulled back a little farther.

[Octafish]

13. Liberal Etymology

Latin, "Liber," A Free Man.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=liberal

Guess they've forgotten what that means.

Something they probably never knew:

"Liber" in Latin also means "Book."

So...Knowledge means Freedom.

[Octafish]

14. Democracy misses Frank Church.

Your OP reminds me of an important article that Corporate McPravda let drop from their fixed Foxward radar...

Connections Between Michael Hastings, Edward Snowden And Barrett Brown—The War With The Security State

By Christian Stork
WhoWhatWhy.com on Aug 7, 2013

At the time of his death in a mysterious one-car crash and explosion, journalist Michael Hastings was researching a story that threatened to expose powerful entities and government-connected figures. That story intersected with the work of two controversial government critics—the hacktivist Barrett Brown and the on-the-run surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Any probe into Hastings’s untimely death needs to take into account this complex but essential background.

But First, the Raw Facts

A little over 12 hours before his car was incinerated on an LA straightaway on June 18, 2013, Hastings sent out a short email headed, “FBI Investigation, re: NSA.” In it, he said that the FBI had been interviewing his “close friends and associates,” and advised the recipients — including colleagues at the website Buzzfeed — “(It) may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.” He added, “I’m onto a big story, and need to go off the radat (sic) for a bit.”

The next day, Hastings went “off the radar” permanently.

SNIP...

After whistleblower Snowden’s bombshell revelations of dragnet surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), Hastings wrote an article on June 7 that referenced Brown for the first time since April 2012. Titled “Why Democrats Love To Spy On Americans,” it lambasted supposedly liberal Democrats for their Bush-like surveillance fixation and their unrelenting war on those who seek to expose the operations of the surveillance state:

“Transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters, especially those writers who have aggressively pursued the connections between the corporate defense industry and federal and local authorities involved in domestic surveillance, have been viciously attacked by the Obama administration and its allies in the FBI and DOJ.

(snip)

Barrett Brown, another investigative journalist who has written for Vanity Fair, among others [sic] publications, exposed the connections between the private contracting firm HB Gary (a government contracting firm that, incidentally, proposed a plan to spy on and ruin the reputation of the Guardian’s [Glenn] Greenwald) and who is currently sitting in a Texas prison on trumped up FBI charges regarding his legitimate reportorial inquiry into the political collective known sometimes as Anonymous.”

The article ended with “Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.”

CONTINUED...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state/

PS: So, civilians aren't in charge of the National Security State. What's that do to the Constitution, among other things, like the three parts of government?

[G_j]

18. they see it too, the liberal 'Kristallnacht'

they even infiltrated the hand picked review group!