A political commentator says President Barack Obama simply Å“canâ„¢t have his National Security (Agency) cake and eat it too”, and he needs to Å“make a stronger intellectual and political case for what his administration is doing.”
Å“He wants whatever alleged benefits from National Security (Agency) there may be from warrantless surveillance of Americansâ„¢ email and phone and Internet communications but he is unwilling that such a practice exists”, said Washington-based Patrick Basham, founding director of Democracy Institute.
That puts him on a fragile ground, Basham continued, adding that Obama needs to step up to what he is up to and argue why the NSA needs to spy on people instead of denying its existence.
“We don’t have a domestic spying program,” President Obama told Tonight Show host Jay Leno on Tuesday evening, describing the National Security Agencyâ„¢s surveillance programs as “mechanisms that can track a phone number or an e-mail address that is connected to a terrorist attack … That information is useful.”
Basham also said the latest revelations that external U.S. internet communications are Å“being tracked if they mention the names of those on parrot watch lists, is a further concern, because it demonstrates what president Obama saying and the spirit in which he was elected (…) are not to be believed.”
US intelligence officials say the NSA is searching the contents of Americansâ„¢ Internet communications that cross the border, looking for citizens who mention information about foreigners under surveillance.
The American officials say the surveillance was authorized by the FISA Amendments Act, in which Congress approved eavesdropping on domestic soil without warrants as long as the Å“target” was a noncitizen abroad.
The 2008 law, however, excluded eavesdropping on voice communications.
AN/MA
Republished from: Press TV