PRISM scandal: Big Obama is watching you browse the web. Even Bush wasn't this power mad
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100220730/prism-scandal-big-obama-is-watching-you-browse-the-web-even-bush-wasnt-this-power-madBy Tim Stanley US politics Last updated: June 7th, 2013
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Internet companies deny helping the NSA to spy on customers
What next? We’ve had the IRS targeting conservative groups, journalists hounded by the state, the NSA collecting phone record data – and now it seems that the US government has been watching what you click on. According to The Guardian and the The Washington Post, the NSA is monitoring internet traffic through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, Yahoo etc. The programme even has a sci-fi sounding name that conjures up images of some 25th century dystopia: PRISM. Would it also surprise you to learn that the FBI, CIA and post office are controlled by a megalomaniac computer with the voice of Betty White? No, me neither.
There’s some dispute over the details. 1) Were the tech firms complicit in the data recording? The Post and the Guardian initially stated that they were, which all but two of the companies have subsequently denied. Nevertheless, some are pointing out that if they were involved they would be prevented by law from talking about it. 2) Did the US government effectively spy on people without a warrant? If it did, it would arguably be entitled to do so under the Protect America Act passed by Congress in 2007. 3) Director of National Intelligence James R Clapper insists that the press has misrepresented the programmes and that its reporting is effectively undermining anti-terrorism efforts. Although quite how the US government knowing that I’m addicted to watching videos of sneezing pandas on YouTube helps anti-terrorism efforts has yet to be explained.
No one is suggesting that this all began under Obama. Nixon had his dirty tricks, Teddy Kennedy was an enthusiast for wiretapping mobsters, and George W Bush’s administration created most of the apparatus currently being exploited by Obama’s. But we should reserve special anger for Big Barack for the following reasons:
1. He was for surveillance before he was against it. Obama opposed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the 2008 primaries when he was trying to look all civil libertarian. Once he had the nomination in the bag, he was suddenly for it.
2. He’s a liberal and liberals aren’t supposed to do this sort of thing. That’s presumably why the New York Times – the New York Times! – has produced such a hurt-sounding op-ed stating that he’s “lost all credibility” on civil liberties.
3. Obama has broadened the scope of the Bush plan. Take phone record surveillance. Bush used it to unearth phone calls overseas with the specific goal of tackling terrorism – and when his misdeeds were exposed he created a new programme with judicial oversight to appease liberals. By contrast, Obama’s administration has been monitoring all Verizon domestic calls with an indiscrimination that is an abuse even of the authoritarian Patriot Act.
Finally, Michelle Malkin raises a very good question. On the one hand, Obama recently declared that the War on Terror was basically over. On the other hand, he has stepped up efforts to carry out domestic surveillance. So, why the contradiction? Malkin concludes that while it’s possible that the NSA has a counter-terrorism motive, its moral cause is undermined by the attacks on political enemies and the crazy scope of the snooping. Big government likes power – and it wants more.
