A New York Times editorial says: Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers. [Continue reading…]
Perhaps, having “absolute power”, President Obama has been “corrupted absolutely”. On the other hand, it may be that fearing an assassination (he has a lovely wife and kids) on the JFK & MLK model, he goes along with others who have become “absolutely corrupted”. The military, the war industries, the CIA, even the oil companies and banks have showsn over and over again that they have power to compel American presidents. So does AIPAC.
It doesn’t matter much whose is the corruption. Obama’s or those sho threaten him, the result is the same. USA is headed for a police state, our freedoms going or gone.
I believe that this result is an end-result of the outsized power of big money in American politics. The bloated military and “intelligence”, free-ride banks, still-operrating oil companies (in the face of global warming’s dire promises and increasing certainties) all testify to the power of money to serve interests very contrary to those of the people “of”. “by”, and “for” the USA’s government is/was supposed to be operated.
This broad spying on Americans is serious, but is by no means the whole problem that the American people face in their project — should they recognize it — to reclaim their/our government.
Let’s see, the people in Turkey have demonstrated and the Government treats them the same way that OWS was/has been treated here in the U.S.A. I agree though, that just after the “O” was inaugurated the 1st time, that someone stuck a gun to his head and told him how he would act, though I’d venture to say it was his wife/children that were to be offed. Also points up that he was/is the 1st and probably the last too.