The Audacity of Snoop?

After public hue and outcry about the NSA collecting metadata of Americans without warrants, now President Barack Obama will now demand that private communications companies hold the information for six months (at whose expense? ) and the government will then use secret courts to access the information.  But wait, there will be an independent board to rubber stamp the rubber stamps of the FISA court.

What about the $2 billion 100,000 square foot  NSA data center that recently opened near Bluffton,  Utah (a.k.a.  Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center).  

NSA Data Center, Camp Williams, Bluffdale, Utah

Is that now a white elephant or will it continue as a black operation? Let me guess, the facility will supposedly be mothballed and the federal government will funnel communications companies money for the privately held data centers.  

Time will tell if Mr. Obama's long winded remarks on domestic spying pans out to any real reforms. The Obama Administration claims that the NSA program has saved lives, but no specifics were cited.  But we can point to egregious instances which the government dropped the ball (e.g. the Tsarnaev Brothers who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing).  Of course, Attorney General Eric Holder instructed the Department of Justice to expand the definition of "racial profiling" to include religion, even in national security cases.  So GIGO--Garbage In, Garbage Out.

It seems like it is just the Audacity of Snoop.

Chewing on NSA Graham Crackers

When it came out that the NSA had been sweeping up the phone records of all of Verizon Wireless' customers meta data, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made an interesting statement on FNC's Fox and Friends.




Graham is sure that the Government is just trying to track terrorists, so he doesn't mind if the Government monitors his meta-data on a general warrant, as he is not talking with terrorists.

Freedomworks wants to bolster Americans Constitutional rights, so they put up a challenge to Lindsey's open invitation to the NSA.

Obviously, the senior Senator from South Carolina does not care about the 4th Amendment, which was inspired by British General Warrants during colonial times.  Graham's belief that NSA was doing discreet checks through FISA courts, was mistaken. 

Of course the likelihood of Senator Graham having transparency with his e-mail password is about as likely as Graham running unopposed in the Republican Senatorial Primary in 2014. Until them, we can feast on other Lindsey Graham crackers, like questioning if bloggers have 1st Amendment rights.