Tag Archives: National Security Agency

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NSA changes welcome

Count me as one of the relatively few Americans who have become overly concerned about National Security Agency surveillance practices.

Perhaps it’s because I have nothing to hide or fear from the government. I behave myself, pay my taxes, don’t talk to terror organizations and am generally happy with my station in life.

Pretty boring stuff, actually.

Still, President Obama’s planned reforms of NSA surveillance tactics ought to be welcome news to those who have become anxious over recent revelations about what the government does to prevent terrorist attacks.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/16/22328345-obama-to-propose-key-changes-in-data-collection-program?lite

One change will be the requirement of judicial oversight of the release of any data collected. Republicans and Democrats seem to speak with one voice in Congress about the need to rein in the NSA, believing it operated with too much intelligence-gathering latitude.

Maybe so. Again, I have nothing to fear from it.

I get the concern, however, from those who worry about possible erosion of civil liberties, such as the right to privacy and the right to be protected against overzealous government intrusion.

Hasn’t the president told us that the NSA is not listening in on everyone’s phone calls? Hasn’t he assured us time and again that our privacy is being protected, that the NSA has been targeting only those suspected of engaging in potentially dangerous activity involving organizations bent on harming Americans?

Yes, I know: This is the same president who pledged we wouldn’t lose health coverage under the Affordable Care Act … and that pledge didn’t quite work out so well.

This is a different matter altogether.

Still, the changes ought to assuage some fears out there about NSA overreach.

Meantime, I’ll keep leading my boring life.

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Obama snubs Putin, gets cheers from both sides

President Obama’s decision to forgo a bilateral summit meeting with Russian President/strongman Vladimir Putin has drawn high praise from, get this, Republicans as well as Democrats.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/global-economy/316061-obamas-canceling-of-putin-meeting-draws-bipartisan-praise

Obama is going to Moscow to attend a meeting of the G-20 nations. He’d been scheduled to meet privately with Putin prior to the economic summit. Then something happened. Putin decided to grant temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who’s been on the lam as U.S. authorities have implored to answer for leaking national security secrets to the rest of the world.

Obama’s decision was the right one as it sticks it in the eye of Putin, who has shown little interest in cooperating with his so-called American “partners” in trying to resolve the Snowden matter.

In truth, Obama has few options to persuade the Russians to hand Snowden over to U.S. authorities. The United States has no extradition treaty with Russia, so the Russians are free to act as they see fit. That doesn’t mean the American president has to take it lying down.

Barack Obama’s canceling of the bilateral summit has embarrassed Putin on the world stage.

To which many of us would say: Putin had it coming.

As the link attached to this blog notes, U.S.-Russia relations are heading for the deep freeze, which of course is nothing new.

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Al-Qaida threat prompts needed response

The standing down of U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East provides an example of a lesson learned from a tragic event.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/05/politics/us-embassies-close/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I refer to Benghazi, which has become a sort of shorthand for the terrible Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in that Libyan city, which left four U.S. officials dead, including the nation’s ambassador to Libya. Benghazi also has become a prime target for right-wing conspiracy theorists who keep contending that the “scandal” is the result of gross negligence on the part of the Obama administration and the State Department.

I contend, however, that it was a tragedy brought on by the confusion of a fire fight that certainly was the result of some mistakes. Are senior administration officials to blame for purposely deceiving the public? I doubt that is the case.

But the standing down of embassy compounds shows that national security officials can learn from those mistakes and seek to prevent future tragedies.

Al-Qaida reportedly had been planning some kind of major attack on U.S. installations, which prompted the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Agency to order the closures of the embassies and the heightened alert of our military forces stationed near the trouble spots.

I, too, wish Benghazi never had happened and I wish we could bring those brave Americans back to life. What’s done is done and the nation mourns that tragedy. I am grateful, though, that our national security team can learn from — and act on — the mistakes it has made.