Anti-Neocons

Yes, we have a one party system.

John Byrne-Raw Story

Obama Wants case against NSA dismissed

President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed.

The move -- which holds that information surrounding the massive eavesdropping program should be kept from the public because of its sensitivity -- follows an earlier decision in March to block handover of documents relating to the Bush Administration's decision to spy on a charity. The arguments also mirror the Bush Administration's efforts to dismiss an earlier suit against AT&T.

The Friday brief involves a lawsuit filed by the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the NSA for the wiretapping program. The agency monitored the telephone calls and emails of thousands of people within the United States without a court's approval in an effort to thwart terrorist attacks.

In attempting to block a San Fransisco court from reviewing documents relating to the NSA program, the Obama Administration is also protecting other individuals named as defendants in the suit: Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington and former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Friday brief responded to the government agencies being sued; the individual defendants have asked for more time to prepare their response.

It also stands firmly behind the telecommunications giant AT&T. AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein revealed that the company allowed the agency to install network monitoring hardware to spy on American citizens.

The Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department says, "has set forth a more than reasonable basis to conclude that harm to national security would result from the disclosure of whether the NSA has worked with any telecommunications carrier." AT&T is specifically mentioned. Public reports have fingered AT&T, Verizon, MCI and Sprint as participating in the government's eavesdropping efforts.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Michael Hertz penned the brief on behalf of the Obama Justice Department.

"The grounds for this motion [to dismiss] are that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction with respect to plaintiffs' statutory claims against the United States because Congress has not waived sovereign immunity, and summary judgment for the Government on all of plaintiffs' remaining claims against all parties... is required because information necessary to litigate plantiffs' claims is property subject to and excluded from use in this case by the state secrets privilege and related statutory privileges," Hertz and other trial attorneys for the Justice Department wrote.

The Justice Department also holds that the lawsuit can't proceed because of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They assert that the US government has "sovereign immunity" against statutory claims that it illegally wiretapped or accessed communications data.

Congress expanded the wiretapping program in 2008 with passage of amendments to the Act, which gave telecom companies immunity for past and future participation in the program and expanded the legal use of warrantless wiretaps from 48 hours to seven days. The revised Act also allowed the government to destroy records of previous taps.

Obama voted for the revised Act while a senator last year.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation fired off a scathing press release Monday.

"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston in the release. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

Oh no sorry love, actually Obama supports Bush and Bush's admin in blocking court challenges against... the Bush Admin. I thought I had made that clear somehow. Yes we in the U.S . obviously have a one party system like Mexico. Good times.

Read and watch it again.

Just incredible. The Obama administration is going full steam ahead with Bush's and their agenda, which in reality is the same agenda. If liberals are paying any attention at all to what Obama is doing, they have to be honest and say that Obama is a fraud. He has betrayed them on almost all issues, and has deceived them into believing he is changing things with things like the ridiculously easy to see through scam of MAYBE closing Guantanamo in a year ( so I guess it's not ok to torture but we'll allow them to be tortured for another year), meanwhile allowing it to go on in the rest of the world through renditions. This idea of "make believe" wherein the masses are only interested in appearances and do not look at the reality of what is happening was talked about in the Protocols. For christs sake he has come out publicly and upheld that the US will continue these torture policies, talk about a disconnect in the minds of Obama supporters.

We need to talk to any Obama supporters we can lay our hands on and just talk and talk and talk until it starts to get through their thick heads that his ACTIONS are almost exactly the same as Bush, and in fact he has expanded on what Bush did with even more big government, calls for a larger military, expanded war in Afghanistan, and much more.

This is a big weakness in our enemies flank, the facts are so out of whack with the perception that people have of Obama that I believe most Obama supporters can begin to see the truth over time.

You sir have a point.

What is really sad is that Obama is not betraying anyone because he's always been another Bush. He never stood for the things that Obama supporters heaped on him. He just spoke vaguely and let people's imaginations fill in the blanks.

I put this in my book how false hope would trump reason and facts every time and that fear wins over anything. I used Hilary as the main an example I wish I had used Obama more but I only mentioned him as in "Obama and Hilary." At the time of the writing I just assumed more people knew who she was. I also used Kerry as an example because the same thing had just happened and I wrote most of it in 04. But Had Kerry won he would also have been just another Bush. He too was in full support of the war etc. And yet there were dumb asses out there who thought the opposite despite everything he said and did. That is the nature of tribalism.

Hate dictates truth to a tribe. Unity through a common enemy not a common goal.

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