By now most of the readers of this blog know about the allegations which are being aimed at the NSA. As more and more of the documents leaked by Edward Snowden are coming to light, it looks worse and worse for the agency…and the president, especially as he tries to deny everything. His use of the the “I didn’t know” and the “I simply wasn’t informed” defense has been over used, to the point of epic proportions.
What we are talking about here are the new revelations in some of the Snowden leaked documents which show that the NSA has been secretly tapping and recording the private phone conversations of as many as 35 different world leaders. Earlier this week German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her concern, anger, and disgust with the US government for these unexplained actions, demanding that a stop be put to them.
Just yesterday Obama was in full denial mode about any of these revelations. Certainly the community organizer in chief knew nothing about any of this, right? Forget for a second that this type of monitoring and data collection has been going on for years (since at least 2002, according to some reports)…why would the leader of the free world be expected to be informed about this?
The problem with all of these denials is that is actually pisses off the people who know better, those in the intelligence community. In fact, a number of current and former US intelligence officials have now said that both the White House and the State Department had signed off on this surveillance which targeted friendly foreign leaders. Professional staff members located in the NSA and other intelligence outlets are very upset at this and feel that Obama is trying to distance himself from all this at their expense, avoiding another White House scandal.
Of course, there are different accounts and allegations about who knew what, how much was known, and when. If you believe the Washington Post, then Obama was first briefed about this program during the summer. The LA Times uses sources that say it would be almost inconceivable that Obama did not about this all along…unless he simply does not read his intelligence briefings (do I sense an interesting future Obama excuse?). There have also been some questions raised about how much Senator Diane Feinstein, chairwoman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, knew. Of course, she has proclaimed her ‘outrage’ over this, claiming that the committee was not informed and also that she felt Obama had no knowledge of this as well.
How convenient. What I am getting tired of is hearing how Obama knows nothing about major issues that appear to be going on right under his nose. He has used they ‘know nothing’ excuse far too many times in his presidency already…far more than any other in recent memory. As Jon Stewart has said, there do indeed appear to be very few loops that Obama is actually in!
Taking all this a step further, I suppose it fits perfectly with his quid pro quo. After all, Obama had no idea ObamaCare was not ready to launch, that the IRS was targeting his political opponents, that his Justice Department was spying on journalists, even Air Force one’s silly photo op over lower Manhattan…and this is just after a quick count. So, either this president is extraordinarily incompetent and ignorant, or he is lying.
What do YOU think about all this? Did Obama know about the spying? How about all his excuses? What should be done about this?
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