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Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / President Obama Discusses Surveillance Reforms

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50Comments

  3. 3.

    Splitting Image

    Just words. If he were really concerned about the issue, he’d use the bully pulpit.

  4. 4.

    Arclite

    Snowden’s a traitor, and Greenwald is a dick, but without those two, we aren’t having this press conference.

  10. 10.

    The Moar You Know

    Snowden’s a traitor, and Greenwald is a dick, but without those two, we aren’t having this press conference.

    @Arclite: It’s like shitting a cinderblock for me to say this – but you’re 100% right.

  17. 17.

    Chickamin Slam

    Obama is good at giving pretty speeches, collecting donor dollars, promoting austerity-lite … your right to privacy? He’ll get back to you on that, he has your name, number, address, and knows much you made last month. Trust him.

  18. 18.

    kindness

    How about starting with requiring a warrant to search any of our stuff, including electronic communications?

  19. 19.

    Starfish

    @Liquid: Every person who gets a security clearance signs papers saying that they will not divulge secrets to people who are not authorized. They also say they will not seek out secrets that they do not need to do their work. Signing off on that and doing what does not give me confidence that he is a very reliable person.

  20. 20.

    Belafon

    @Chickamin Slam: Actually, I doubt Obama knows any of that. We’re not that important, and while Obama is pretty awesome, I doubt there’s a human brain capable of storing 300M pieces of personal information. And once you say that you’re talking about his administration, then you have to deal with all of this starting under the previous administration, Obama ending some parts and putting safeguards in for other parts, and the fact that he can’t control every Snowden at the NSA.

  23. 23.

    max

    “Nobody’s more offended than me by some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you’ve been seeing in Russia. But as I said just this week, I’ve spoken out against that, not just with respect to Russia, but a number of other countries where we continue to do work with them but we have a strong disagreement on this issue. And one of the things I’m really looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which I think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we’re seeing there.”

    Yes.

    “I don’t have a bad personal relationship with Putin,” Obama told reporters at a White House news conference, characterizing their conversations as “candid” and “blunt.”

    Good.

    House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) spokesman said Friday that President Obama’s plan to enhance oversight of the National Security Agency must not “compromise the operational integrity” of its spying program.

    ‘Change nothing because the terrorists might kill us in Congress! It’s supposed to be that dumb redneck kids die in foreign countries full of brown people, not here!’

    President Barack Obama said in a Friday press conference that the United States “can and must be more transparent” in gathering intelligence for national security.

    Beats nothing.

    [paraphrased] ‘I don’t believe surveillance powers are being abused.’

    Well, I do. The very surveillance is a form of abuse, like it or lump it.

    [roughly] ‘AQ Central is broken apart and weak but some elements have spun out into operations in weak countries.’

    Yep.

    max
    [‘Whee.’]

  24. 24.

    Liquid

    @Starfish: My very simple point is that if someone wants to throw around “Traitor” there are many many MANY more people much higher on the list than some jagoff who traded his life for babushkas and vodka refined through the engine of a T-72.

    Oh and I should get some sort of award for “Run-On Sentence of the Year.”

  25. 25.

    Betty Cracker

    Wow, Obama is teeing off on the GOP after a Fox Noise question. Says their agenda is keeping people from getting insurance, that they have dropped the pretense of replacing it with something better. Go Bamz!

  28. 28.

    jon

    @The Moar You Know:

    It was when white, middle- and upper-class people heard that THEIR info could be scrutinized that the freakout got feverish, as the leaked info so far seems like what most of us assumed. What Greenwald did was play sideshow barker, and Snowden seems like the True Believer who signed a stupid contract with Greenwald’s Traveling Show of Allegations and Promises. There’s lots promised behind the curtain, but it’s being sold by a man with an agenda of subterfuge and half-truth worthy of any silver-tongued King of the Carnies.

  31. 31.

    jl

    @Liquid: One more dumb and loaded ‘gotcha’ question, and I’m turning it off, and skim the transcript later.

    So the GOP goes batshit insane about ACA and shutting down government, and it’s Obama’s “choice” to shut down the government? Worthless (edit: and malicious) question.

  32. 32.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    All Obama needs to do is announce that he’s switched parties, and everything’s fine.

  33. 33.

    burnspbesq

    @Mike E:

    Leave Larry Summers aloooone!1

    I completely agree. Leave Larry Summers alone in an office in Cambridge with no phone or Internet connection. That will limit the amount of damage he can do.

  35. 35.

    Liquid

    @Xecky Gilchrist: I was perusing one of my old Bloom County books a few days ago and, IIRC, I think Milo said “The first black president will be a conservative.”

    How very prescient by Mr. Breathed.

  36. 36.

    Betty Cracker

    All you people who accuse me of being an Obot? You’re right. I love this guy. Doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says or support all of his policies. But he’s a smart, decent man, and if I could vote for him again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

    I’m damn glad he’s president — I’m just as proud that Obama is president as I was ashamed that Bush was during his time. So there.

  37. 37.

    jl

    I think Obama is implicitly disagreeing with and criticizing Rep Steven King on immigration.

    I will await question about whether Obama supports drug smuggling.

    Oh, that was last question. Good.

  38. 38.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @Betty Cracker: Same here. I only started following politics at all – let alone online – during Bush’s first term, so I got to watch as a lot of people who were anti-Bush turned right around and Reedy Nasal Whined about Obama. Useful for finding out who’s just in it for the anger.

  39. 39.

    gbear

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m damn glad he’s president — I’m just as proud that Obama is president as I was ashamed that Bush was during his time. So there

    Good thing you’re not a Dixie Chick.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    I know one drone strike of which Greenie would approve: a strike that blows up the power lines leading into Fort Meade.

  41. 41.

    gogol's wife

    @Betty Cracker:

    Cosign.

    I guess I’ve lived long enough to know that I’m not going to agree about everything with any president. And having lived through the great “liberal” savior Clinton, I can appreciate how hard Obama tries to make progress on the issues I care about. Clinton didn’t try so hard, as I recall (welfare reform, anyone?)

  43. 43.

    FlipYrWhig

    @srv: The “bully pulpit” is a solid strategy for communicating to the public and shaping public opinion. What has become clear over and over again is that these days shifts in public opinion produced by the president (i.e., bully pulpit-ing that works) do not induce lawmakers to change their votes to align with what the president and public want. Furthermore, lawmakers who don’t do what the public wants appear to be able to get reelected anyway. If you can be a politician who ignores public opinion on big issues with no repercussions, then the bully pulpit cannot work on you.

    This is why the answer to “what do you think would have made Obama Policy X better?” is never “better use of The Bully Pulpit.”

  45. 45.

    Soonergrunt

    @Xecky Gilchrist: Nope. Short of him announcing that he’s bleaching his skin and resigning the Presidency, everything won’t be fine vis a vis the Republicans.

  46. 46.

    Soonergrunt

    @burnspbesq: Maybe Greenie can hang with the guy who threatened the prosecution team in the Manning court-martial on his twitter account. And then whined about being barred from Fort Meade on the same account.

  47. 47.

    fuckwt

    @Betty Cracker: That pretty much sums it up for me. He’s a COMPETENT president, and a decent guy, and he cares about peace and justice and equality and the environment, and understands what’s wrong with the way things are. He is level-headed, and the only thing I’ve seen him get passionate or emotional about is young people (the young people who worked on his campaign, the kids murdered at Newtown, etc)– that seems to be his foremost priority, what keeps him going.

    What he isn’t, is a revolutionary. That’s been frustrating at times but overall it doesn’t make a lot of sense to expect one in any high office. The 1% own and run this country, and Obama knows there’s plenty he can do to help everyone’s lives while staying within the realm of accepting that reality, and knowing what is and isn’t acheivable within 8 years of work. As for changing those fundamental problems, that’s the job of activists, and needs to happen on the timescale of generations.

  48. 48.

    Splitting Image

    @Liquid:

    I was perusing one of my old Bloom County books a few days ago and, IIRC, I think Milo said “The first black president will be a conservative.”

    How very prescient by Mr. Breathed.

    I found the comic you were thinking of. It was actually Oliver’s dad.

    http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/04/25

    I agree with you, though. Berke made a very good prediction there.

  49. 49.

    burnspbesq

    @Soonergrunt:

    the guy who threatened the prosecution team in the Manning court-martial on his twitter account. And then whined about being barred from Fort Meade on the same account.

    Idjits will be idjits. Twas ever thus.

  50. 50.

    mclaren

    Barak Obama talking about regulating the NSA is like Jack the Ripper talking about regulating scalpels.

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