Barack Obama sought to once again use Dick Cheney as a whipping boy to create a distinction between his and the previous administration.

President Barack Obama used a television interview set to air Monday night to defend his administration’s use of far-reaching surveillance programs as carefully supervised and controlled.

Obama also appeared to reject comparisons between himself and Vice President Dick Cheney, who strongly backed similar surveillance efforts in the George W. Bush administration and has defended Obama’s continuation of national security-related programs similar in many respects to those pursued by the previous administration.

“Some people say, ‘Well, you know, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he’s, you know, Dick Cheney.’ Dick Cheney sometimes says, ‘Yeah, you know? He took it all lock, stock, and barrel,’” the president told interviewer Charlie Rose in the exchange recorded Sunday, according to excerpts of the transcript published by BuzzFeed. “My concern has always been not that we shouldn’t do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances?”

Hang on. We’re doing all this to set up a system of checks and balances instead of preventing terrorism?

Really?

In an interview that’s been heavily promoted by the White House and Obama aides, the president acknowledged that a program which collects massive amounts of data on telephone calls made in or through the U.S. could theoretically be used to invade individuals’ privacy, even potentially yielding conclusions about callers’ health conditions.

Dick Cheney didn’t do that.

Then Obama goes off the rails

“All of that is true. Except for the fact that for the government, under the program right now, to do that, it would be illegal. We would not be allowed to do that,” the president said, according to a transcript. “The number of requests are surprisingly small. ….Folks don’t go with a query unless they’ve got a pretty good suspicion.”

But, but, but, Barack, you said

“No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

And yet you are collecting everyone’s emails and phone calls.

Then Obama goes Orwellian with “Newspeak”

Newspeak is the fictional language in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written by George Orwell. It is a reduced language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit free thought, and concepts that pose a threat to the regime such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, peace, etc. Any form of thought alternative to the party’s construct is classified as “thoughtcrime.”

when he says “transparent” and “secret” are the same thing.

In the interview, Obama appears at one point to equate transparency of the surveillance programs with their oversight by the courts and Congress — even though the public was kept in the dark about the nature of the snooping until the leak of highly-classified documents by an National Security Agency contractor via Britain’s Guardian newspaper earlier this month.

“Should this be transparent in some way?” Rose asked.

“It is transparent,” Obama insisted. “That’s why we set up the FISA Court,” the president said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — which carries out its work almost entirely in secret.

And what’s this “We” thing?

WE set up the FISA court?

The FISA court was set up in 1978, somehow done without one Barack Obama. In 1978 Obama was a member of the choom gang, doing weed and later on, coke. Employing the royal “we” for the creation of the FISA Court is waterboarding the truth.

So let’s see how different Obama is from Cheney.

Spying on everyone?

Check

The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. “In other words,” Bush explained, “one end of the communication must be outside the United States.”

Congressional oversight?

Check

After the special program started, Congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in the White House. The leaders, who included the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, learned of the N.S.A. operation from Mr. Cheney, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, who was then the agency’s director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence, and George J. Tenet, then the director of the C.I.A., officials said.

And here’s how you know they were told everything:

It is not clear how much the members of Congress were told about the presidential order and the eavesdropping program. Some of them declined to comment about the matter, while others did not return phone calls.

Safeguards?

Check

A senior government official recalled that he was taken aback when he first learned of the operation. “My first reaction was, ‘We’re doing what?’ ” he said. While he said he eventually felt that adequate safeguards were put in place, he added that questions about the program’s legitimacy were understandable.

And why did Bush and Cheney do what they did? We were at war.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Cheney said, “We made the decision based on 9/11 that we no longer had a law enforcement problem, we are at war. And Congress, in fact, authorizes the president to use military force to deal with the crisis.”

As I have written repeatedly, our liberals friends have zero long term memory. They have what Bernie Keirik calls a “9/12 mentality.” They forget what it was in the aftermath of 9/11. They forget the insecurity, the fear.

Obama has declared the war on terror over. If it is over, why do we even need these programs?

Nina Totenberg suggests that the FISA Court has been largely neutered since 2008:

As a result, the FISA court became “less a court than an administrative entity or ministerial clerk,” says William Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University. “They weren’t reviewing law anymore; they were simply sort of stamping papers as approved or filed.”

After 2008, Banks adds, the FISA court didn’t “have a substantive review of these directives that come down the pike.”

Obama is doing pretty much exactly the same thing as Cheney and Bush. He really is Dick Cheney, like it or not. He can claim FISA Court this or FISA Court that, but he has diminished the power of the FISA Court. Additionally, the FISA Court seems appears to be rubber-stamping Obama demands:

But how “strict” is that oversight?

The court rarely, if ever, denies the government’s requests, according to annual reports issued to senior members of Congress by the Department of Justice and collected by the Federation of American Scientists.

In 2012, the government made 1,789 applications to the court — one was withdrawn by the government and 40 were modified by the court, but “the FISC did not deny any applications in whole or in part,” the report states. In 2011, there were 1,676 applications, of which two were withdrawn and 30 modified, but once again, “The FISC did not deny any applications in whole, or in part.” In 2010, there were 1,511 applications, of which five were withdrawn and 14 modified, but “The FISC did not deny any applications in whole, or in part.”

Wait- didn’t Obama say the number of requests were “surprising small”?

Congress is briefed but stymied from real oversight:

Meanwhile, the other body meant to provide oversight — Congress — is often briefed in meetings where “aides were barred and note-taking was prohibited.” This maks it almost impossible for lawmakers, who may not be experts on the topics, to provide proper oversight.

Still, the real issue is Obama and what a lousy hypocrite he is.

But the fact that these operations are operating under the rule of law is not the end of the story. For if we are not approaching the totalitarian nightmare of a novel like “1984,” the revelations provide a stunning example of how President Obama has come to resemble a character in Orwell’s other dystopian parable, “Animal Farm.”

That 1945 novella tells of a farm revolution led by pigs, who drive out their oppressive human master, only to move into his house, don his clothes, and wield his brutal whip to subjugate the other animals. At the story’s conclusion, the pigs’ victims gaze in on their new masters drinking and playing cards with half a dozen farmers. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

To anyone comparing the conduct of Barack Obama with that of George W. Bush, the sense of confusion should feel familiar. America’s 44th president ran against almost all of Bush’s national security policies. But once power was in his hands, he began to embrace them as avidly as the pigs wielded their whips.

Senator Obama had voted against renewal of the Patriot Act in 2005 because he said it allowed the government “to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document — through library books they’ve read and phone calls they’ve made.” But in 2011, President Obama signed the renewal of the same law and defended its roving wiretaps and searches of business records as vital to America’s counterterrorism efforts.

Presidential candidate Obama ran against the very ethos of Bush’s national security program, saying it put forward “a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” But just last week in California, President Obama told Americans they “have to make some choices as a society” because “you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.”

The real effect of the NSA stories is to cement a narrative about Obama that will likely become part of his legacy: the liberal senator and constitutional law professor who, like the pigs in “Animal Farm,” metamorphosed into what he had so notoriously opposed. Guantanamo remains open. Drones still rain down on Pakistan, Yemen, and anywhere else the president sees fit. Leaks are prosecuted vigorously and reporters are investigated to uncover their sources. And now, the president is affirming the surveillance practices he once mused could be unconstitutional. In light of these actions alone, it seems that Barack Obama has learned that George W. Bush got a lot of things right.

The point of noting the president’s porcine transformation is not to criticize his current policies, but rather to serve as an instructive example for future White House aspirants: The responsibilities of power are difficult to reconcile with lazy criticism that is so easy to dispense from the sidelines. As long as he fails to recognize the debt that he, and the nation, owe to his predecessor, he will be practicing a vice that Orwell was a master of depicting: hypocrisy.

And then there’s the issue of charity:

According to their tax returns [notes Coulter], in 2006 and 2007, the Obamas gave 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent of their income to charity. I guess Michelle Obama has to draw the line someplace with all this ‘giving back’ stuff. The Bidens gave 0.15 percent and 0.31 percent of the income to charity.

Meanwhile, in 1991, 1992 and 1993, George W. Bush had incomes of $179,591, $212,313 and $610,772. His charitable contributions those years were $28,236, $31,914 and $31,292. During his presidency, Bush gave away more than 10 percent of his income each year.

For purposes of comparison, in 2005, Barack Obama made $1.7 million — more than twice President Bush’s 2005 income of $735,180 — but they both gave about the same amount to charity.

That same year, the heartless Halliburton employee Vice President Dick Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. The following year, in 2006, Bush gave more to charity than Obama on an income one-third smaller than Obama’s.

Cheney was honest, generous and not a lousy hypocrite. So despite Barack Obama doing exactly as Bush and Cheney did on a national security basis, in the end we come to the conclusion that Barack Obama is correct- he is no Dick Cheney.

I remember once when I was in college I took a trip home to the DC metro area with my girlfriend. She and I went to the movies not far from where my mother lived in a rather rough part of town called Capitol Heights, MD. I have no idea what we saw. I do however remember that we had a terrible time, and it had nothing to do with what was on the screen and everything to do with what was going on in the theater.

Not long before this at a different theater a few miles away in Oxen Hills, MD. I was standing in line with a friend and I saw two teenage girls fighting not 10 feet away. I grabbed one of the girls and someone else grabbed the other. That’s when I noticed that the other girl was bleeding profusely and the girl I grabbed had a 12 inch steak knife in her hand. It was something about a baby’s daddy is all I knew. Needless to say we didn’t see a movie that night.

So at this different theater we were hoping for better results. As soon as we sat down I wasn’t so sure. People were talking to the screen, smoking in the seats and being rather raucous. My girlfriend mentioned the smoking and I said that if that was the only problem we encountered that night we would count ourselves lucky.

I mention all of this because when you think your life may be in jeopardy, it’s hard to enjoy entertainment… and that’s the whole point of movies. Movies require your buy in for success. They require you to turn off reality. They require you to become connected with the characters. They require the suspension of disbelief and much more if you are to get everything out of the movie and enjoy two hours of entertainment.

If you can’t do any of those things you can’t become engaged in the movie. If you’re worried that someone’s going to pull a knife, a gun or set the place on fire, you’re going to be busy looking around to scan the theater, listening for commotion or trouble and generally paying attention to everything but what’s on the screen. As a result you’d probably miss much of the storyline and likely would end up doing little more than wasting your time and money.

Just as movies require your buy in for success, so too does life. And that’s the problem with all of this seemingly ubiquitous government surveillance. The danger is not so much that Big Brother is watching and trying to control our every move. They don’t have to. Our knowing they could be is enough. Somewhat like the Observer Effect in physics, the observing itself impacts the people being observed.

Think about it this way, if you think it’s tough to enjoy a movie when you’re worried about what’s going on in the theater… imagine how difficult it would be to write a compelling, engaging movie while the whole time a government agent is standing over your shoulder. Whether you realize it or not, you’re writing that movie… it’s your life story.

How much different would your story be if you knew your every word and action might end up as part of some government dossier on you? How much could you embrace freedom and focus on having fun, sowing your wild oats, finding your passion, or risking failure to pursue some crazy dream if you were constantly wondering what some government bureaucrat with the power to throw you in prison or take your kids away might think of it?

And that’s the problem. Knowing our government is actively looking at emails, phone calls (or “just” meta data in some cases) as well as our online surfing and purchasing habits sends a chill down your back. With 315 million people in the country they’re probably not looking at you… but they might be. Imagine you’re a journalist pursuing a story on the undue influence a company or union is having on a piece of legislation. How hard are you going to dig knowing officials could be watching? Or maybe you’re staying in a loveless marriage for the sake of your children but you have a mistress who makes you happy. Maybe you’re visiting a website of a fringe candidate who has some ideas you agree with but others you don’t. Maybe you’re unhappy with your job and are spending a lot of time on Monster.com.  Maybe you’re researching erectile dysfunction.  Or perhaps you’re inventing a technology that will put a big government contractor out of business. How many of these things or others would you think twice about doing because you’d be worried about government snoops twisting your motives into some sham case or sharing your info with your family or neighbors or employer or anyone else?

We already know that government regulations touch virtually every aspect of our lives, but most of us apparently believed the fiction that we had a 4th Amendment right against unlawful searches and could therefore mitigate our exposure to government control. As the IRS scandal showed, there are instances where we have no choice but to interact with government, and the more they know about you the more force they can bring to bear on that engagement. The combination of a heavily regulated society and an all knowing government make for an oppressive mix.

Living a successful life and finding happiness are difficult enough in the best of times, when we spend our days trying to focus on making the best decisions for ourselves and for our families. How much less successful will we be if we now have to worry about what some faceless government officials think about our activities and what the consequences of their opinions will be? Is that really a recipe for a successful and fulfilling life?

Maybe your name will never land on the desk of some partisan or self-serving rouge government official’s desk. But that’s not the point. When the fear that it might is enough to cause citizens to change their behavior, the damage is already done. It’s difficult to imagine a more effective way to throttle back the freedom and creativity that made the United States the most successful and prosperous nation in the history of the world. All of this is particularly troubling today as technology is changing the world at an unprecedented rate, and it’s only getting faster. If the United States seeks to maintain its primary position in the world, it will require its citizens to be as focused on creativity and success as they can. It’s hard for them to do that as they’re nervously worrying about Big Brother lurking around every computer monitor, phone line and street corner…

I’m pretty sure this is an old photo, as I think I saw it months ago on the WH Flickr page. But on Father’s Day, it was tweeted out:

The White House tweeted a Father’s Day photo of President Barack Obama holding a toy gun and playing with his daughter Sunday, but the image quickly became Twitter fodder as users voiced their outrage.

The toy gun picture angered many people who have complained that schools are too rigid in their disciplining of students nowadays. In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, a 6-year-old Maryland boy was suspended after making a gun hand gesture and saying “pow,” an Illinois teen was kicked out of class for wearing a Marines T-shirt that had a picture of a gun on the front, and a 7-year-old Maryland student was disciplined for chewing his Pop-Tart into the shape of a weapon.

Plenty more links of the ridiculous in the comments section of an earlier post. Also here.

It’s a perfectly fine, harmless photo- unless you’re president Obama, supposedly showing leadership since Sandy Hook for the anti-gun movement amongst his liberal supporters.

He’s leading by example, apparently….from behind?

German Government Brands Goods Made In Factories That Are Owned By Jews In Israel…

Hmmm, didn’t Germany do this before?

Via NY Sun:

” In a throwback to its darkest past, the German government recently decided to back an initiative which singles out Jewish-owned businesses and targets them for detrimental treatment. Joining 13 other European Union members, Berlin has reportedly agreed to support efforts aimed at applying special labels of origin to products manufactured by Jewish owned factories in Judea and Samaria.

The goal is to harm the livelihood of Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs as a way of undermining the settlement enterprise. Needless to say, goods made by Palestinian-run plants in the territories will not similarly be branded.

This is an absolute outrage, one that is both morally obscene and historically indefensible, and the government of Angela Merkel should be ashamed of itself for going along with such a discriminatory practice. Whatever one may think of the peace process and the two-state solution, it should be obvious that treating merchandise differently simply because the person who owns the factory where it was made is a follower of Moses rather than Muhammad is an act of pure bigotry.

In light of its own sordid record during the 20th century, Germany and its leaders have a special responsibility to be exceptionally sensitive to such issues, particularly when they relate to Jews. After all, it was 80 years ago, in April 1933, that the Nazis launched a nationwide assault on Jewish owned businesses throughout Germany, painting yellow-and-black Stars of David on storefronts and discouraging people from patronizing them.

This was carried out under the slogan, “Kauft nicht bei Juden!” (Don’t buy from Jews!). Hence, for any German government to stand up and declare: “Don’t buy from Jews,” even if the proposal is limited to the Jews of Judea and Samaria, is downright chilling and should send a shiver down everyone’s spine.”

I was actually rather shocked by this story. The German government boycotting Jews? Really? Seriously? You would think the German people would have learned their lesson somewhere along the way. Of all the countries in the world who ought to keep its mouth shut about the state of Israel and its claims to its historic lands, it is Germany. To “complain” about the state and policies of Israel when the past actions of Germany are basically directly to “blame” for the existence of Israel is idiotic beyond belief.

The singling out of any Jews by Germans for ‘special attention’ and economic persecution just leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth. By throwing in their lot with those who still wish to finish what Hitler started and “drive the Jews into the sea’ they really do once again put themselves on the wrong side of history, justice, and morality. Israel is the one beacon of civilization and true representative government in a region awash in barbarism and totalitarianism. They are not a perfect nation, but none are.

The fact that thirteen other European Union countries have also taken the side against Israel and specifically targeted Jews economically is a black mark on Western Civilization in general. To ally oneself with bloody genocidal maniacs, Islamic extremists, and the cult of the belly bombers is unconscionable. The Europeans are such idiots in nearly every policy they advocate. The two World Wars just seems to have sucked what little intellectual life and moral leadership they had out of them. They all went socialist and progressive right afterwards and have tried every failed ‘ism’ known to man with sometimes devastating consequences.

Fascism, multiculturalism, communism, socialism, progressivism, anarchism, and anti-Semitism have all flourished at one time or another in the fertile soil of Europe. And all have failed miserably. At least they can’t be blamed for the scourge of Islam. We’ll blame someone else for that.

Crossposted from The Constitution Club

The blatant application of political pressure applied through powerful government bureaucracies such as the IRS, is arrogant abuse of power in the extreme. Obviously. These proven abuses now provide us very fresh perspectives on other fraudulent manifestations of National import perpetrated by an immoral political machine whose genealogy is rooted in Chicago.

A major such event which the MSM has willfully refused to cover before, during and after its denouement, is the conviction of two Democratic political operatives convicted in a fraud which put Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Democratic officials and workers had been ordered to fake names and signatures that Obama and Clinton needed to qualify for the presidential race.  This significant story which began in 2008, well before the Presidential campaign, remained in the shadows and continues to remain there, but it has culminated in  April of this year with,

“Former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic party Chairman Butch Morgan Jr.  was found guilty of felony conspiracy counts to commit petition fraud and forgery, and former county Board of Elections worker Dustin Blythe was found guilty of felony forgery counts and falsely making a petition, after being accused of faking petitions that enabled Obama, then an Illinois Senator, to get on the presidential primary ballot for his first run for the White House.”

After only three hours of deliberation the political minions were found guilty on all counts.  Morgan has been called the ‘mastermind’ behind the operation.  Really? He and his crew risked their lives just because they believed Obama might be a great President? That is what we are  to swallow as motivation?  Given the recent IRS revelations, there is no credibility in the claim that Morgan did not get orders from much higher up the Democratic food chain.  We can no longer apply any specks of credence to investigations digging through the political gutters of the Democratic machine. None is deserved.

Here’s the crux of the solemnity with which this fraud must be assessed:

Indiana State law required candidates to collect 500 signatures from each of nine congressional districts. Clinton had 704, and Obama had 534 (just 34 above the tread-water line).  9 of Obama’s petition pages were forged – each page had 10 names, therefore 90 names rendered worthless would have dropped him well below the 500 limit.  Clinton had 13 petitions forged (x 10 =130 fakes), but that would have left Clinton well above the 500 limit. Had this information surfaced in time, Obama would have been bounced from the ballot, so who knows what might have occurred to the Obama Chicago political machine.  Clinton would have received all 72 delegates, and would have had the wind at her back with a very dark cloud looming over the Obama campaign.  The details didn’t surface until 2011 when Board of Registration worker Lucas Burkett decided to put on a whistleblower coat.

The only humorous element in this dismal saga of fraud is that if we examine some of the pages of signatures, it is laughably obvious that the same ‘hand’ signed all the signatures on numerous pages, with the same pen.

The ramifications of this story in the aftermath of scandals swirling around the Oval Office and seething out its windows, will likely be, well, nothing.   You cannot find dishonourable mention of anything remotely connected to this proven fraud in any of the liberal progressive media.  The NYT seems never to have heard of this truly outrageous event in American political history, and neither have any of the other major news outlets, other than Fox News.

These convictions did more than put into question the 2008 nomination of Barack Obama, they shake the foundation of the 2008 Presidential election outcome.  Regardless how high in the Democratic Party this deception really began, it will not touch Obama. None of these scandals will, it seems.  He just doesn’t know anything about any of them. He was out for lunch that day, and that day, and that one.   The crickets are deafening.

Aside from fears of government intrusion into the private lives of ordinary citizens, what about intrusion from the private business sector of telecoms, internet apps companies, credit card services, and private data aggregators?

I finally took time out to watch the 2002 film “Minority Report“.

Within the movie, which takes place in something like 2056, iris-recognition technology is fully integrated into society:

Click here to view the embedded video.

….kinda like today in 2013. The technology is here.

Earlier this month was this story about a school conducting iris scans of its students:

Parents in Polk County, Florida were outraged after being informed that their children’s irises had been scanned without permission as part of a new security program.

Parents first heard about the scheme in a letter sent out on Friday May 24, four days after the compulsory iris scans program had already begun.

The scans were taken as part of a new security program being introduced by the Polk County School Board, called Eye-Swipe Nano, which impacts students at Daniel Jenkins Academy, a high school, Davenport School of the Arts, a middle school, and Bethune Academy, an elementary school.

The schools allowed officials from Stanley Convergent Security Solutions to take iris scans of students between May 20 and 22.

The scans are essentially optical fingerprints, which the school intended to collect to create a database of biometric information for school-bus security, much like the technology used in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report.

Certainly, technology such as this has positive benefits- it’s meant with the best of intentions. But it also makes most of us pretty uneasy and wary about the potential for abuse and misuse.

How many of you use your smartphone photos along with GPS location technology?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I tend not to use location finder/GPS settings on my phone. Nor do I feel the need to broadcast and advertise my current whereabouts onto Facebook. Such technology, of course, is not inherently nefarious. We no longer need to read maps when we have a GPS guidance system in our vehicles; OnStar lends peace of mind, security and safety to its customers.

A week or two ago, I saw on the news how mannequins are being equipped with facial recognition technology (as if mannequins aren’t creepy enough):

The EyeSee mannequins from Italian firm Almax SpA use facial recognition software to identify the age, gender, and race of shoppers who pass them by. The data allows retailers to tweak their marketing strategies, according to Bloomberg News.

This sounds similar to the internet marketing ads and changes that I’m sure everyone’s been experiencing in regards to such things as Facebook, YouTube, and Google.

In recent years, I’ve noticed more and more how Facebook, YouTube, and Google are integrating themselves into our lives. I’m sure many of you with YouTube accounts have experienced this:

Last night, I logged in to my YouTube account and was faced with a choice; do I still want to be me or do I want to change my name to match one of my Google+ pages. Good question. I was already having an online identity crisis before I saw this fork in the road and it truly, truly stumped me.

When I’m on YouTube now, the videos along the sidebar are no longer simply videos related to the one I may currently be viewing; along with those, are promoted videos that have to do with previously viewed videos and interests, specific only to me and my viewing habits.

I notice ads on Facebook and just about everywhere else I surf that are aimed at me, specifically.

I don’t like tagging myself in my own FB photos. Recently though, while uploading a few group photos that I was in, FB automatically tagged me, recognizing which person was in fact me.

In public, there is a high probability that you are being recorded by a surveillance camera, somewhere during the course of your day. There’s no escaping personal listening devices and camera phones. Public figures can no longer make off-the-cuff remarks, even in intimate settings, without potential repercussions.

In light of the recent NSA leak along with all the fear regarding government snooping and spying, 4th Amendment rights and privacy, what are people’s feelings regarding how much personal information is already surrendered up to credit card companies, phone companies, etc.? How often do you click the box accepting “terms of agreement” without actually reading what those terms are, just so you can use the Starbucks “free” complimentary wifi services?

Four ways your privacy is being invaded:

Americans’ personal privacy is being crushed by the rise of a four-headed corporate-state surveillance system. The four “heads” are: federal government agencies; state and local law enforcement entities; telecoms, web sites & Internet “apps” companies; and private data aggregators (sometimes referred to as commercial data warehouses).

Conventional analysis treats these four domains of data gathering as separate and distinct; government agencies focus on security issues and corporate entities are concerned with commerce. Some overlap can be expected as, for example, in case of a terrorist attack or an online banking fraud. In both cases, an actual crime occurred.

But what happens when the boundary separating or restricting corporate-state collaboration, e.g., an exceptional crime-fighting incident, erodes and becomes the taken-for-granted operating environment, the new normal? Perhaps most troubling, what happens when the traditional safeguards offered by “watchdog” courts or regulatory organizations no longer seem to matter? What does it say that the entities designed to protect personal privacy rights seem to have either been effectively “captured” or become toothless tigers?

The technology is not going away. How do we control, restrict, and place limitations on it, though?

As the technology advances, is it inevitable that we will live in a surveillance-state with little in the way of our personal information remaining private and personal?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bill Keller:

On many fronts, we are adjusting to life in a surveillance state, relinquishing bits of privacy in exchange for the promise of other rewards. We have a vague feeling of uneasiness about these transactions, but it rarely translates into serious thinking about where we set the limits.

Exhibit A: In last Thursday’s Times Joseph Goldstein reported that local law enforcement agencies, “largely under the radar,” are amassing their own DNA databanks, and they often do not play by the rules laid down for the databases compiled by the F.B.I. and state crime labs. As a society, we have accepted DNA evidence as a reliable tool both for bringing the guilty to justice and for exonerating the wrongly accused. But do we want police agencies to have complete license — say, to sample our DNA surreptitiously, or to collect DNA from people not accused of any wrongdoing, or to share our most private biological information? Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project and a member of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science, says regulators have been slow to respond to what he calls rogue databanks. And a recent Supreme Court ruling that defined DNA-gathering as a legitimate police practice comparable to fingerprinting is likely to encourage more freelancing. Scheck says his fear is that misuse will arouse public fears of government overreach and discredit one of the most valuable tools in our justice system. “If you ask the American people, do you support using DNA to catch criminals and exonerate the innocent, everybody says yes,” Scheck told me. “If you ask, do you trust the government to have your DNA, everybody says no.”

Exhibit B: Nothing quite says Big Brother like closed-circuit TV. In Orwell’s Britain, which is probably the democratic world’s leading practitioner of CCTV monitoring, the omnipresent pole-mounted cameras are being supplemented in some jurisdictions by wearable, night-vision cop-cams that police use to record every drunken driver, domestic violence call and restive crowd they encounter. New York last year joined with Microsoft to introduce the eerily named Domain Awareness System, which connects 3,000 CCTV cameras (and license-plate scanners and radiation detectors) around the city and allows police to cross-reference databases of stolen cars, wanted criminals and suspected terrorists. Fans of TV thrillers like “Homeland,” “24” and the British series “MI-5” (guilty, guilty and guilty) have come to think of the omnipresent camera as a crime-fighting godsend. But who watches the watchers? Announcing the New York system, the city assured us that no one would be monitored because of race, religion, citizenship status, political affiliation, etc., to which one skeptic replied, “But we’ve heard that one before.”

Exhibit C: Congress has told the F.A.A. to set rules for the use of spy drones in American air space by 2015. It is easy to imagine the value of this next frontier in surveillance: monitoring forest fires, chasing armed fugitives, search-and-rescue operations. Predator drones already patrol our Southern border for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Indeed, border surveillance may be critical in persuading Congress to pass immigration reform that would extend our precious liberty to millions living in the shadows. I for one would count that a fair trade. But where does it stop? Scientific American editorialized in March: “Privacy advocates rightly worry that drones, equipped with high-resolution video cameras, infrared detectors and even facial-recognition software, will let snoops into realms that have long been considered private.” Like your backyard. Or, with the sort of thermal imaging used to catch the Boston bombing fugitive hiding under a boat tarp, your bedroom.

And then there is the Internet. We seem pretty much at peace, verging on complacent, about the exploitation of our data for commercial, medical and scientific purposes — as trivial as the advertising algorithm that pitches us camping gear because we searched the Web for wilderness travel, as valuable as the digital record-sharing that makes sure all our doctors know what meds we’re on.

In an online debate about the N.S.A. eavesdropping story the other day, Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, pointed out that we have grown comfortable with the Internal Revenue Service knowing our finances, employees of government hospitals knowing our medical histories, and public-school teachers knowing the abilities and personalities of our children.

“The information vacuumed up by the N.S.A. was already available to faceless bureaucrats in phone and Internet companies — not government employees but strangers just the same,” Posner added. “Many people write as though we make some great sacrifice by disclosing private information to others, but it is in fact simply the way that we obtain services we want — whether the market services of doctors, insurance companies, Internet service providers, employers, therapists and the rest or the nonmarket services of the government like welfare and security.”

Privacy advocates will retort that we surrender this information wittingly, but in reality most of us just let it slip away. We don’t pay much attention to privacy settings or the “terms of service” fine print. Our two most common passwords are “password” and “123456.”

From time to time we get worrisome evidence of data malfeasance, such as the last big revelation of N.S.A. eavesdropping, in 2005, which disclosed that the agency was tapping Americans without the legal nicety of a warrant, or the more recent I.R.S. targeting of right-wing political groups. But in most cases the advantages of intrusive technology are tangible and the abuses are largely potential. Edward Snowden’s leaks about N.S.A. data-mining have, so far, not included evidence of any specific abuse.

The danger, it seems to me, is not surveillance per se. We have already decided, most of us, that life on the grid entails a certain amount of intrusion. Nor is the danger secrecy, which, as Posner notes, “is ubiquitous in a range of uncontroversial settings,” a promise the government makes to protect “taxpayers, inventors, whistle-blowers, informers, hospital patients, foreign diplomats, entrepreneurs, contractors, data suppliers and many others.”

The danger is the absence of rigorous, independent regulation and vigilant oversight to keep potential abuses of power from becoming a real menace to our freedom. The founders created a system of checks and balances, but the safeguards have not kept up with technology. Instead, we have an executive branch in a leak-hunting frenzy, a Congress that treats oversight as a form of partisan combat, a political climate that has made “regulation” an expletive and a public that feels a generalized, impotent uneasiness. I don’t think we’re on a slippery slope to a police state, but I think if we are too complacent about our civil liberties we could wake up one day and find them gone — not in a flash of nuclear terror but in a gradual, incremental surrender.

Friday Jun 07 2013

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The White House today closed the gift shop and opened a Verizon store after it was revealed that the National Security Agency seized millions of Verizon phone records. How ironic is that? We wanted a president who listens to all Americans. Now we have one.

President Obama clarified the situation today. He said no one is listening to your phone calls. He said it’s not what the program is all about. You know, like the IRS targeting certain political groups. That’s not what it’s about.

The White House is looking through our phone records, checking our computers, monitoring our emails. When did the government suddenly become our psycho ex-girlfriend? When did that happen?

The IRS has taken some heat for reportedly spending $4 million on a conference in Anaheim last year, where employees took dancing lessons. One of the dances they learned? Tap dancing around the issues.

If Obama wants to put this snooping thing to good use, how about spying on the IRS the next time they throw a $4 million party? Why don’t you do that?

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife announced that they are getting a divorce after almost 30 years of marriage. When asked why, Putin said, “We tried to make it work, but you know what they say: Men are from Malgobek, women are from Kadnikov.”

Actually, Putin and his wife made their announcement after they attended the ballet. That’s weird because most guys would want to break up with you before they had to go to a ballet.

President Obama was visiting a middle school yesterday, and while he was there he said that every school in the U.S. should have high-speed Internet. Then it got awkward when one kid said, “Why, so you can read our emails faster?”

As part of a senior prank, students at a high school in Washington spray-painted all over their school, but they actually misspelled the word “senior” twice. That probably explains why they didn’t get into “collage.”

Monday Jun 10 2013

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The new Superman movie opens on Friday. It’s a great story: When Superman’s dad realizes his son is gifted with X-ray vision and super hearing, he puts him in a rocket and sends him toward earth, because he knows with those powers he can get a job in the Obama administration.

A former technical assistant for the CIA named Edward Snowden leaked the story that the federal government was collecting phone records from Verizon customers. Snowden said, “You’re being watched.” To which NBC executives said, “Finally! We would love to be watched.”

People are asking how this Snowden guy could download all this classified information and give it to a British newspaper without the NSA knowing about it. I think I know the answer. If you don’t want the NSA spying on you, get a job working at the NSA. That’s how it works.

Snowden said today he was going to disclose all this information earlier, but he wanted to wait until after the election. To which Mitt Romney said, “Hey, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.”

Conan

Pope Francis said it is a sin for people to waste food. He made that proclamation and then he made Chris Christie a saint.

It’s been reported that Kanye West will not be in the delivery room when Kim Kardashian has her baby. This was at the request of the baby.

Scientists have discovered a 55-million-year-old fossil, which makes it the oldest primate fossil. Or as Larry King calls it, wife number two.

McDonald’s has started introducing breakfast items at night for what it calls an after-midnight menu. It’s all part of McDonald’s’ new slogan, “Welcome alcoholics.”

Late Show with David Letterman

The NSA has been listening in on phone calls. It’s people with cellphones — you hear these people walking down the street screaming into their cellphones. They’re the ones who are upset about people listening to their phone calls.

You know your phone is being tapped when you’re having a conversation and you hear the attorney general breathing.

This whistleblower is all over TV. His name is Edward Snowden, and he’s very pleased with himself. He says he doesn’t want to live in a society where the society monitors its people. And then he fled to China.

Happy birthday to the president’s daughter Sasha, who is 12 years old. For her birthday, her father gave her Justin Bieber’s phone records.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

This weekend, President Obama held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It went well, although it got awkward when Obama asked China to stop spying on America and Jinping said, “You first.”

Last week it was revealed that the National Security Agency has spied on Americans’ phone records and Internet history for years. Yesterday, the source of the leak said he’s hiding out in Hong Kong, marking the first time anyone has ever said, “I don’t want to be punished by the government — so I guess I’ll go to China.”

He went to China to avoid government persecution. That’s like going to Ireland to avoid getting drunk.

Over the weekend, a woman interrupted the finale of “Britain’s Got Talent” and actually started throwing eggs at Simon Cowell — at which point she won “Britain’s Got Talent.”

Tuesday Jun 11 2013

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Quarterback Tim Tebow has signed with the New England Patriots. So the good news is that Tebow got a job. The bad news: Now he’s associated with the word “patriot,” and he’s being audited by the IRS.

Nobody knew about this. It was a top-secret deal. The only people who knew were Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Tim Tebow, and of course, the NSA. They were listening in.

The guy who blew the whistle on the NSA scandal is a former security worker named Edward Snowden. He is a high school dropout. He was making $122,000 a year. He lived in Hawaii. He was engaged to a beautiful former ballerina. And he gave it all up. So not only is he a whistleblower. He’s also a moron.

President Obama said he welcomes a national debate over our surveillance policies. He said that’s a debate we wouldn’t have had five years ago. Five years ago? It’s a debate we wouldn’t have had two weeks ago if they all hadn’t gotten caught.

Conan

According to a poll, the majority of Americans are OK with the Obama administration listening in on our phone calls. Guys approve because they feel it increases security. And women approve of Obama’s policy because finally a man is listening to them.

House Speaker John Boehner called NSA’s Edward Snowden a traitor. But only because he leaked the name of his tanning bed.

Marco Rubio announced a new bill that would require immigrants to learn English to become citizens. Many Americans already say it’s the goodest news they have heard all year.

The new PlayStation 4 is going to allow gamers to record their gaming and share it with friends. All the gamers would need is an Internet connection and friends.

Late Show with David Letterman

The New England Patriots are giving Tim Tebow a job. So it looks like Tebow will be playing in New England. Let me rephrase that. It looks like Tim Tebow will BE in New England. The Patriots were able to lure him with a brand-new state-of-the-art bench.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on Twitter. A politician on Twitter — what could possibly go wrong?

I don’t know if you saw it last night but let me just apologize. We had a bad show last night. I will tell you how bad the show was last night. Halfway through, the White House stopped listening in.

Do you mind that the NSA is opening your mail and listening to your phone calls? I don’t care. It’s like the lady that tells you the directions in your car. At first I thought it was annoying, and then I realized it’s just like being married.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

Mel Gibson is in talks to play a bad guy in the next “Expendables” movie. He’s a fiendish villain with Nazi tendencies. I don’t know what he’ll play in the movie.

Here in Los Angeles, school’s out for summer. For thousands of school kids, this is the first week of summer vacation. And for thousands of parents, it’s the first week of hell.

With school out, teens are looking for jobs, things like lifeguards. But L.A. public pools do not have lifeguards. We have life coaches. If they see you struggling in the water, they say, “Are you happy with the decisions you’re making”? Then they give you a pamphlet for a yoga studio.

I hated the summer jobs I had when I was a teenager. They were so mundane and repetitious, they deadened my soul. On the bright side, it was good training for this job.

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The New England Patriots signed Tim Tebow. Apparently they needed a virgin to sacrifice to the football gods. Tim Tebow fit the bill perfectly.

In March, Forbes magazine put out their annual list of the world’s richest people, and one of the people was a Saudi Arabian prince, and he is furious about it. Forbes estimated his net worth at around $20 billion, and he claims he is worth $30 billion, so now he is suing Forbes. I love the premise: Say I’m more rich or I’ll sue you.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

It was announced that the New England Patriots have signed quarterback Tim Tebow, just weeks after he was released by the Jets. When asked how he’ll adjust to getting booed by Jets fans, Tebow said, “What do you mean ‘adjust to’?”

Hillary Clinton finally joined Twitter yesterday and racked up more than 200,000 followers in only five hours. Yeah, they were like, “Hillary in 2016!” and “Washington needs Hillary!” and “Hillary for the White House!” That’s not her followers. Those were her tweets.

Hillary Clinton sent her first tweet yesterday. Or as one guy put it, “How do you block people on this thing?”

A new six-hour special about the ’90s is set to air on The Discovery Channel. Yep, a show with people who were big in the ’90s — or as that’s also called, “Dancing With the Stars.”

Wednesday Jun 12 2013

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

We live in what’s called an open society, which of course means they open our emails, open our phone records, and open our medical records.

There are reports that female terrorists are being fitted with exploding breast implants. How many guys are going to use this as an excuse? “Honey, I’m not looking at her breasts. I’m working for Homeland Security.”

Kevin Hart is on the program today. He has a new concert film called “Let Me Explain.” President Obama’s new slogan is also “Let Me Explain.”

In a recent interview, 68-year-old Mick Jagger revealed his secret to looking young. Do you know what it is? Stand next to Keith Richards.

Conan

Due to the government spy scandal, sales of the classic George Orwell book “1984″ have skyrocketed. So the fallout is worse than we thought. It’s making Americans read.

Hispanic Senator Ted Cruz, who is fighting the immigration bill, described himself as Obama-phobic. You know you have Obama phobia if you’ll deport immigrants even though your last name is Cruz.

It’s come out that the summer interns at Google make about $6,000 per month. The news was reported to me by the interns at this show.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck is suffering from paralyzed vocal cords that have made him unable to speak. But not to worry — doctors are working around the clock to make sure this condition continues.

Late Show with David Letterman

Evil Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his wife, Connie, have been married a long time, and everybody thought they were happily married. Well, last week Putin announced he was divorcing Connie. And when Chris Humphries heard that, he said, “You can do that, really?”

So far, it’s a very amicable divorce. So far, Connie is still alive.

You know who’s popular now? George W. Bush. According to recent polls George W. Bush is more popular than not popular. So there’s still hope for me.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

It’s a great day for Mick Jagger. But then, what day isn’t?

Mick Jagger says he’s been doing ballet for years to stay in shape. He says he has a 28-inch waist. He’s the only man in the world with a waist smaller than his mouth.

I said Mick Jagger has a big mouth. Heck, I think Ed Sullivan was doing that joke.

We shouldn’t be surprised Mick Jagger’s into ballet. Next we’ll find out that Bono is into Riverdance.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

We have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and chef Mario Batali on the show tonight. It’s great to have a guest who’s so passionate about food. And it’s an honor to have Mario Batali here as well.

In a recent interview, Kanye West compared himself to Steve Jobs. He called himself the “nucleus of culture,” and also said he was the Michael Jordan of music. I don’t know if he’s the Michael Jordan of music, but he’s definitely the Dennis Rodman of crazy talk.

This week, Apple introduced a new laptop that supposedly has an all-day battery. Yeah, here’s how it works — don’t turn on your laptop all day.

There’s talk that boy band One Direction is trying to win over Justin Bieber’s fans who aren’t happy with Bieber’s recent behavior. Those guys from One Direction better be careful, or this could result in the world’s most adorable fistfight.

Thursday Jun 13 2013

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The big story continues to be 29-year-old Edward Snowden, the man behind the leaking of the NSA spy scandal. Speculation is that Snowden is hiding in Hong Kong and could be working for China. Hey, let’s get real. Aren’t we all pretty much working for China?

Some experts believe the privacy scandal will hurt the NSA. Are they crazy? Do you know how many people want to join now that they’ve heard the guy who blew the whistle is a high school dropout, making almost $200,000 a year, with a poll dancer girlfriend, and he’s living in Hawaii? People are lining up to get this job.

According to a Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to 45 percent. Luckily for Obama, he has “impeachment insurance.” It’s called “Joe Biden.”

The world’s oldest human tumor has been found on the rib of a Neanderthal skeleton in Croatia. The tumor would have been discovered sooner, but they have government healthcare over there.

Conan

This Sunday is Father’s Day. Or as NBA players call it, “Don’t Answer the Phone Day.”

I’m excited that this Sunday is Father’s Day because I’m a dad. Yeah, I don’t know what I’m getting yet but I have a feeling the government knows.

A recent report finds that by the year 2043 white people will no longer be the majority in America. And by 2050 people will be saying, “I’m not racist. One of my best friends is white.”

A recent court case may have laid the groundwork for interns getting paid. It’s the landmark case “Conan vs. the College Students Who Wash His Car.”

Late Show with David Letterman

Edward Snowden shows up in a hotel in Hong Kong and announces to the world that he’s leaked confidential National Security Agency memos and documents. He’s now gone. Where is this guy? Gosh, if only there was a way to keep track of people.

Opening this weekend is “Man of Steel.” Superman. I’m so excited because a superhero movie hasn’t opened since Friday.

For my money, the best Superman was Sean Connery.

The whole movie, if you go to see it — this is a spoiler alert — is Superman complaining about having to fly friends to the airport.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

The Bonnaroo music festival starts today in Tennessee. They have a great lineup this year, including Paul McCartney and Mumford and Sons. My only problem with Mumford and Sons is the guy playing the banjo still has all of his teeth. That’s not authentic.

Every music festival says it’s all about love and music — until you refuse to pay 200 bucks for a ticket. Then they Taser your hippie rear end.

Bonnaroo is in Tennessee. The weather forecast says it’s going to be really hot in Tennessee this weekend. How hot is it going to be? Paul McCartney will be singing “Live and Let Fry.”

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Father’s Day is on Sunday. The first Father’s Day was celebrated in 1910. Before that, there were no fathers.

If you’re looking for a thoughtful and expensive gift for dad, here is an idea: Try not to roll your eyes when he says something.

The much-anticipated “Man of Steel” comes out tomorrow. Finally, a superhero movie.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Last night, the Bruins and the Blackhawks played three overtimes in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup, right here on NBC. It went on forever — but on the bright side, it gave NBC its longest-running drama in years.

This week a man was arrested for jumping over the White House fence and trying to spray paint a political message. If that guy really wanted to get a message to the president, he could have just written it in an email to literally anyone.

Kate Middleton made her final public appearance today before she goes on maternity leave. Of course, the public had a lot of questions for her, like, “Maternity leave from what?”

Source

Arron Burr Kills Alexander Hamilton In A Duel

Hero Or Traitor

Edward Snowden is on the run for his life. He was being asked to perform a job he considered illegal, immoral, and un-American. Supposedly, he lost faith in the leader for whom young people, Leftist Ideologues, and Useful Idiots have placed so much faith. Yet, he knew our Nobel Peace Prize winning president was spying on innocent Americans and people all over the world. Was the spying justified for America’s security or a political ploy for Democrats and possibly Obama to maintain power and control indefinitely?

If the spying was strictly for security and to keep America safe, why did our security forces concentrate on Christians, returning soldiers, anti-abortion groups, conservatives, TEA Party groups and ignore the Muslim Extremists responsible for the Boston Marathon Bombing, especially after two courtesy warnings by the Russians on the terrorist tendencies of the Tsarnaev brothers.

Is it possible, NSA agents are listening in on the conversations of congressmen and judges to catch them in compromising situations and use confidential information to influence votes and decisions.

Oh no, Skook, our intelligence agents would never use their positions to act in political partisan ways. The old days of naiveté are over for everyone but the most simple-minded, our federal bureaus are now overrun with political hacks and operatives who have put Leftist ideology ahead of the security of our country. The Boston Marathon bombings are a case in point and now the fact that we are arming the same enemy in Syria that we are fighting in Afghanistan only trumps the lunacy.

Our clueless Attorney General, using the same strategy for excusing the Benghazi Massacre, tried to blame the Boston attack on tax resistors immediately after the attack, and caused Americans to wonder if Obama’s intense domestic spying program is concentrated more on political objectives rather than security threats.

Did Snowden see the hypocrisy in his former hero? The same man who promised as a candidate to end domestic spying and after being elected, increased surveillance of the American people exponentially, a move that could be used against political opponents indefinitely, especially if the NSA, like the IRS and the EPA is riddled with Leftist operatives.

Some of us are so ideologically motivated, we will participate in deceit and lies to promote our party’s objectives, even to the point of compromising the country’s integrity and the Constitution itself. Some of us will watch Americans die for political reasons and participate in an ongoing cover-up rather than expose the immorality of the leaders involved, are these political operatives who refuse break the code of silence heroes or traitors.

It’s true, their political leaders will probably reward that silence with political advancement and they will be considered good loyal company men, but ethically and morally they are bankrupt, but oh, what heroes they are for not outing the corruptness of the regime. Some Americans applaud these despicable heroes of the Left, whose proprietary sense of forgetfulness seems to only benefit the administration and their own pathetic political careers; yes America, applaud them with the same enthusiasm you use to condemn young Snowden.

Would 9/11 have happened if we had data mining of our civilian population? Maybe not, but the second one did, because our government is worried about returning vets and gray haired TEA Party members instead of standing up and saying Radical Islam is our enemy, not the people who think Obama is a blithering idiot.

Spying on the domestic population will only work if America trusts its leadership, after the debacles with the IRS and Benghazi, with the ongoing clown show of Holder’s Justice Department investigating itself and the now political bureaus of the IRS, NSA, and FBI in what appears to be one of the most asinine circle jerks in all of history. The administration has blown all pretense of trust except by the most ideologically driven sycophants of the Left.

There will be more Snowdens, for while Obama concentrates on persecuting his political enemies and ignores the enemies of America; meanwhile, there are contractors being given access to our most top-secret programs. Some of these people will have integrity: some will be traitors. Obama built the climate of hypocrisy and he will reap responsibilities for the tragedies of the future as his legacy.

America waits desperately to determine whether Snowden is a hero or traitor, that question is a moot point, the more immediate question should be asked about the political hacks being questioned by congress, who make a mockery of the process by pleading the Fifth and conveniently forgetting all the facts that might imply wrongdoing by the administration.

Sincere apologies and promises to do better in the future can only excuse so many felonies and breaches of the public trust; America’s pulse is quickening and the temperature is rising as the manhunt of the traitor Snowden points to the inevitable conclusion, like hounds waiting to be unchained after the cougar’s print is sighted in the snow, but we have more treacherous traitors much closer to home. They appear in the docket nearly everyday, and like Lois Lerner, they honestly seem to believe they have done nothing wrong.

The idea of extreme political partisanship justifying the corruption of America’s bureaucracies has become part of the psyche of the Leftist politician. The formation of Obama’s Police State has become a lofty ideal of these morally corrupt traitors, but somehow, in a deep primordial type of reasoning, the destruction of the America we once knew and defended is only an incremental stage in building this new totalitarian state that exists in the minds of these quintessential Leftists.

Thus the hunt for traitors can begin here at home, they commit perjury with impunity, they laugh at the impotence and reluctance of the RINOs to prosecute an investigation, but these are America’s traitors, not as flamboyant as Snowden, but they are traitors.

Snowden apparently wanted to expose the duplicity and treachery of Obama and his regime, he accomplished his goal, and true Liberals around the world recognize the inherent evil of our Nobel Peace Prize winner. Snowden has sacrificed his freedom and the most powerful spying device the world has ever known to undermine the public’s misplaced faith and trust in Obama: the parade of political fools in the docket each week day, those who want to protect the reputation of their leader, their immediate superiors, and their own pathetic asses by committing perjury, in front of the nation and the world, on a daily basis.

Yes, these liars and those who conveniently forget incriminating facts are unsung heroes to those who are lost in the vagaries of Obama’s Statist Dystopia, to the rest of America they are traitors who have sold out America and their citizenships to be blind Leftist ideologues.

Snowden’s crimes are more obvious to the public; however, he had a pretense of noble cause, the exposure of the regime’s duplicity and our effective loss of the Fourth Amendment. Obama’s sycophants had no such vague claims of nobility or integrity, they serve one master, Leftist ideology as presented by Obama and his concept of totalitarian statism.

Is it any wonder Congress is less popular than traffic jams and head lice?

A recent briefing by senior intelligence officials on surveillance programs failed to attract even half of the Senate, showing the lack of enthusiasm in Congress for learning about classified security programs.

Many senators elected to leave Washington early Thursday afternoon instead of attending a briefing with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials.

The Senate held its last vote of the week a little after noon on Thursday, and many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father’s Day weekend.

Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity. The room on the lower level of the Capitol Visitor Center is large enough to fit the entire Senate membership, according to a Senate aide.

Listen, I can understand that they have lives and want to spend time with their families but you DO NOT skip a briefing like this.

It’s just plain ole’ common sense.

Something seriously lacking in our elected leaders.