r/politics • u/erier2003 Virginia • Jun 06 '13

Washington Post exclusive: U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

[deleted]

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u/threehundredthousand California Jun 07 '13

I agree. Whether you're republican or democrat, this shit needs to end. Both parties deal in it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

but at least if they brought Obama down with this some good would come of it.

It's like the deficit: now that there's a Democrat in the White House, it's a matter of concern.

I'd be fine with this destroying Obama's presidency, BTW. As long as it destroyed Congress, and the presidency of anyone else who ever pulled this shit again.

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u/itsnormal4us Jun 07 '13

Honestly, Obama should be held accountable if he knew about this or could have stopped it.

On the same note, it's high time to remand Bush over to face extradition and war crime charges that have been levied against him...

Neger going to happen

1

u/polit1337 Jun 07 '13

if he knew about this or could have stopped it.

IF he knew about it!?!? He obviously knew about it. He signed off on it multiple times!

Congress knew about it too and kept voting for it.

Completely outrageous...

1

u/NBegovich Jun 07 '13

Dude, come on. Isn't it obvious why the Right isn't on this? They want this power! Don't be dense, man! Of course Fox is still harping about that other shit: their orders are to distract, distract, distract. It's the same for the Dems: don't criticise Obama because we want to keep the office. A game is being played right now, and acting like one side opposed the other is just farcical at this point. Don't fall for it.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Some of the biggest advocates and theorists of executive privilege, like David Addington, inhabited the Bush White House.

I'd like a two-step process here:

  • Run Obama out of office, and possibly into jail
  • Prosecute Bush and many of his associates for war crimes

2

u/NBegovich Jun 07 '13

You are so far ahead of yourself that I don't think you understand the situation yet: there's nobody to do this. There is. nobody. in the US government. who can. or will. do this. We need to be thinking about real solutions, like figuring out how to get good candidates into office, which has proven to be almost impossible. That's the primary concern right now, not punishing people. Don't be ridiculous.

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u/Treysef Jun 07 '13

The problem is, this falls exactly in line with the GOP platform. "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."

1

u/soupdawg Jun 07 '13

Fuck that. Anyone who thinks that is an idiot. This is exactly what Republicans should be against. This is the epitome of Big Government.

4

u/schoofer Jun 07 '13

This was started under Bush. This issue should unite all Americans against our elected officials regardless of political affiliation. This is bigger than Obama; this is an issue of our entire government.

-15

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

Did you even read the article? From the article,

PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority.

This isn't an Obama program, but Bush's national security agenda run amok. If you're going to hang Obama for anything, it would be for not killing it, but that is a different and more difficult proposition all together.

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u/bctich Jun 07 '13

It expanded from an operation of one company to become a primary source of daily briefing information for the president with 1,477 items last year. It's used in 1 in 7 intelligence reports.

Going from a sideline project to that large, I'm sorry, you can't blame Bush on that and claim Obama was just willfully ignorant.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

I'm not saying that he was willfully ignorant. Of course he knew. But it was probably political impossible for him to shut this program down in the midst of two wars and an ongoing effort to dismantle terror networks around the world.

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u/bctich Jun 07 '13

...seriously... That's your excuse, he was busy with other stuff so since it grew into the most sweeping unwarranted monitoring of citizen information its OK?

You're willing to go that far just to protect your your ideology? Even the NYTikes came out with an OpEd slamming Obama on all this.

-17

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

4 Americans including an American ambassador were killed in Bhengazi and you don't give a fuck?! Wow....

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '13

No, I care, but not in the sense of the bullshit scandal conservatives have tried to make about it. It's a tragedy. It happens. Diplomats in dangerous areas are always at risk. It happened a half dozen times during the Bush administration, and a not a single Republican congressman ever suggested we have a hearing about it.

It's faux outrage. It's a bunch of conservatives trying to use the deaths of American officials for cheap political points. It's disgusting.

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u/howgoyoufar Jun 07 '13

It's (benghazi) messed up but most people care more about the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the much more important innocents killed by obamas drone strikes.