POLICE STATE AMERICA -- OBAMA TRIES TO JUSTIFY NSA SPYING

In a speech that was billed as an announcement of "reforms" to the NSA's mass spying practices, the president argued that the US has a long history of defending liberty by conducting surveillance. Obama even cited Paul Revere, in remarks clearly designed to justify government spying on its own citizens.



To virtually no one's surprise, the president's "reforms" will not stop NSA's mass spying, and this was immediately evident in the opening remarks of Obama's speech when he attempted to argue that in times of war, the US has always used surveillance to secure freedom.

Note how in the first sentence, using incredibly Orwellian tactics, Obama has twisted the facts to link spying to patriotism, and to suggest that the earliest American icons were engaged in the same sort of activity as today's NSA.

Anyone with any shred of intelligence knows that comparing the actions of Paul Revere, who famously alerted the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, is in no way comparable to NSA mass spying.

"Paul Revere was warning us that the British were coming. He wasn't warning us that the Americans were coming." Paul noted.

Writing for the Atlantic Council, a prominent think tank based in Washington DC, Harlan K. Ullman warns that an "extraordinary crisis" is needed to preserve the "new world order," which is under threat of being derailed by non-state actors like Edward Snowden.



The Atlantic Council is considered to be a highly influential organization with close ties to major policy makers across the world. It's headed up by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former United States National Security Advisor under U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Snowcroft has also advised President Barack Obama.

Harlan K. Ullman was the principal author of the "shock and awe" doctrine and is now Chairman of the Killowen Group which advises government leaders.

"Very few have taken note and fewer have acted on this realization," notes Ullman, lamenting that "information revolution and instantaneous global communications" are thwarting the "new world order" announced by U.S. President George H.W. Bush more than two decades ago.

Obama's aides claim he was surprised to learn about NSA surveillance. "Mr. Obama was surprised to learn after leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, just how far the surveillance had gone," the New York Times reported earlier this week.

Obama will announce "toothless reforms" and it will be business as usual at the NSA.

Obama's aides were also surprised. "Things seem to have grown at the N.S.A.," David Plouffe, Obama sidekick and trusty advisor, told the newspaper, citing the surveillance of foreign leaders' phones. "I think it was disturbing to most people, and I think he found it disturbing."

Despite his alleged ignorance of NSA snooping, the Times tells us that as an Illinois senator Obama "supported robust surveillance as long as it was legal and appropriate," whatever that means (normally it would mean respect for the Fourth Amendment and court-issued warrants), but once in the White House he changed his mind.

Aides said "his views have been shaped to a striking degree by the reality of waking up every day in the White House responsible for heading off the myriad threats he finds in his daily intelligence briefings," briefings presented by agencies most involved in surveillance -- the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, and other members of the intelligence community.