General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Dear Pres. Obama: Dissent isn’t Possible in a Surveillance State (By Juan Cole) [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)called the NSA. The deadly enemy opposition is closely allied with the NSA security state operations. The deadly enemy opposition is a conservative opposition. It is not only in the NSA and more conservative, paranoid divisions of our, as Juan Cole says, anti-government within the government but in Congress, in the media, everywhere that things like the NSA spying on American phone pen registers is advocated or tolerated (among other reprehensible policies).
Rread this. It was published when the Merkel revelations emerged:
The White House then leaked on Sunday that the Snowden revelations provoked a review of NSA programs and procedures, and the fact that the NSA had Merkels and 35 other world leaders personal phones under surveillance was revealed to the White House. Someone there then ordered this summer that the personal spying on Merkel and some other leaders be halted (the halt wasnt ordered on all 35?).
In attempting to repair Obamas reputation with his colleagues at the G-20, however, the White House counter-leakers have made an epochal and very serious revelation: The President wasnt in the know. (Even in the best case scenario that he was told in 2010, he wasnt in the know for the first 18 months of his presidency!)
http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/americas-branch-government.html
Theoretically, Obama is in charge of the NSA. It is, however, up to Congress to shut down the current overactive bunch we have in there now. Obama needs to work on that with Congress, but Obama would put himself at terrible risk were he to try to deal with it on his own.
Personally, I think the NSA and hyper-security-conscious bunch are a great danger to our country. My ancestors entered wild territories to settle and create farms in a time in which they were far more defenseless and subject to the terrors of famine, wild animals, criminals and all kinds of dangers. They were pioneers in this country who left everything safe and known behind usually due to horrible persecution in their home countries. And now Americans are frightened by relatively small threats that we have the luxury of facing together.
We do not need the excessive spying that the NSA is doing. We are either one nation or we will fall apart and no amount of spying will save us. That is my opinion.
Juan Cole, as I, admires and likes Obama very much. I think it is easy to take criticism of the NSA as criticism of Obama. But they are very different. The NSA is not Obama's friend. Some of its activities are necessary and warranted. But most that I know about are not.