ACLU Comment on President’s NSA Speech

[spin]

67. The question is if these restrictions will be enforced. ...

Years ago I worked for a company that made items for the government. This company had a good number of such contracts. Each had a "charge number" that you used when you worked on that program.

Some contracts were overrunning their budget and some were not. If your program was one of those which was overrunning, it was quite likely that the supervision would instruct you to charge your labor to a different contract that that was doing well. As an employee, you had no choice or you would be shown the door.

This offered my company a significant advantage in competition with much smaller government contractors who may have had only one or two contracts. We could easily underbid them and drive them out of business.

One day the government woke up to this fact and decided to correct it. The solution to this mischarging mess was simply to announce that if caught any supervisor who approved this mischarging could end up in prison and so could the VP who ran the entire show.

It was simply amazing how much things charged at work. The company suddenly decided to take mischarging seriously.

Obama can put all the words he wants on paper to protect our freedom but unless he is willing to ENFORCE these new rules, they will make little or no difference in the long run.

Time will tell if Obama is serious or not. Even if he is, it is quite possible that another future President may decide to not prosecute those who violate the privacy rights of our citizens.

I'm not sure that we will, or even can, protect the rights we were granted in the Bill of Rights in a world with the technology we have today.

I am also not sure that Obama and those we elect to Congress are actually running this nation right now. Perhaps a small cadre of people who work for the ultrasecret alphabet agencies and have access to all the mega-data are hiding behind a curtain and pulling strings that control our politicians. They would know all the personal secrets of everybody we elect and also where all the bodies are buried and could use that knowledge to pull the strings that control our elected representatives.

Now perhaps you will feel that I wear a tinfoil hat, but I will simply point out that J. Edgar Hoover was know as "the most powerful man in Washington" and the Congress and a good number of Presidents were unwilling to take him on as he knew all their secrets.

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at age 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.

Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive actions became known. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.[4]

According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him".[5]...emphasis added
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

Imagine how powerful J. Edgar Hoover would be today if he had access to the mega-data the NSA and other agencies are collecting.