Without Edward Snowden’s Leaks — We Would Not Know that Our Habitually Lying President and the National Security Agency Had Routinely Violated US Law — so Who Is the Real Bad Guy? — And an Ironic Comment about President Obama’s Genius for Politics

© 2013 Peter Free

 

19 August 2013

 

 

The Washington Post’s revelation that the NSA was violating US law on a regular basis came from an internal audit leaked by Edward Snowden

 

The alleged “criminal” Mr. Snowden had actually revealed extensive criminal activity by the United States government itself:

 

 

[O]ur colleague Barton Gellman . . . . obtained an audit [see here] of the NSA’s compliance record from NSA leaker Snowden earlier this summer.

 

The audit, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months where the agency engaged in “unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.” The audit only covered issues at NSA facilities in the D.C. and Fort Meade areas.

 

In another story broken by The Post today, the chief of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court admits he doesn’t actually have the capability to investigate the compliance record of NSA surveillance programs:

 

The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court [...] The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders.

 

© 2013 Andrea Peterson, Remember when Obama said the NSA wasn’t “actually abusing” its powers? He was wrong, Washington Post (15 August 2013) (paragraph split, reformatted)

 

 

If we put this into historical context — the scope of the President’s narcissistic political genius becomes apparent

 

In December 1998, the Republican House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton, essentially for his sexual behavior in the White House — not for the substantive high crimes and misdemeanors that Article 2 of the Constitution actually requires.

 

In 2013, the Republican House has not impeached President Obama, despite voluminous evidence that he and his administration have been trashing the Constitution on a regular basis.

 

The difference between the two historical situations reveals the President’s political acumen.  By edging himself to the widely approved illegal right of his Republican adversaries on security matters, he has made himself politically unassailable.

 

The fact that more than two centuries of American freedoms and privacy are rapidly being flushed appears to bother no one.

 

 

The moral? — Could it be that Americans do not deserve to be free?

 

I am beginning to think so.

 

Our cowardice has us acting like willing slaves to whatever intrusions and excesses that those in power tell us are necessary to protect our trips to the mall.