President Barack Obama - Term 1 and 2 Thread

[Don]

I didn't vote for Obama either time but he was democratically elected and he isn't going anywhere until his term is over. The NSA actions aren't going to bring him down.They have been in place since 2006. Both parties have members who have been in the know about it for a long time.

Of course, I understand that this thread being in a melodic rock forum with a very limited audience, that people are basically posting in it to hear themselves talk with all their tirades and links and graphs never even being verified or citations never being offered for validity but......to each his own.

My once in a blue moon appearance in here has now concluded so please, carry on.

[Boomchild]

I wish we had a poll back when BO was first elected and one now, to see how many people then and now think he's a good president. I'd bet that far less people today consider him a good president. The media will not give us accurate approval ratings. I just can't see how he could have high "real" approval ratings with all the shenanigans of late. Who knows how to make a poll here?

Actually, I think you may be surprised by such a poll. There is a vast majority out there that are either "brain dead" when it comes to what is happening with the government as well as those that just don't care to pay attention to it. I would still not be surprised that a poll among average voters would still show a favorable rating toward B.O.. Keep in mind that this administration has done a very good job of spinning things with the use of the media that there is really nothing to most of these "issues" and that most of it is coming from the right wing conservative Republicans who are only out to protect "the rich" blah, blah, blah.

[slucero]

I didn't vote for Obama either time but he was democratically elected and he isn't going anywhere until his term is over. The NSA actions aren't going to bring him down.They have been in place since 2006. Both parties have members who have been in the know about it for a long time.

Of course, I understand that this thread being in a melodic rock forum with a very limited audience, that people are basically posting in it to hear themselves talk with all their tirades and links and graphs never even being verified or citations never being offered for validity but......to each his own.

My once in a blue moon appearance in here has now concluded so please, carry on.

While I agree "O" ain't going anywhere... It surprises me that someone who is so good with Journey facts.. is so quick to flippantly call what is posted invalid... especially when, most of the info posted is sourced...

[The Sushi Hunter]

So who didn't sort of already suspect that the government was doing this with people's personal information already? I suspected it, didn't have cold hard evidence that it was really happening, but did figure it was. That's why I don't have fb or any other horse shit like that. I don't post pix of myself or my family, I don't tell people where I'll be at a specific time/date/location. I will after the fact, I then consider it "declassified" information. The government already has enough information on me such as where I live, who I'm married to, who my dependents are, how much I earn, how much I pay in taxes, where I was born, where I work, etc. That's all they need to know about my family and I. And it is for that reason our family computer with all the pix and personal data is kept on a computer that's not even plugged into the internet, and lastly, anything I don't want anyone to know I only talk about it face to face with whoever it is that I need to talk about it with.

I learned to do this like 14, 15 and 16 years ago when the institution I worked for at that time was caught saving all computer traffic in and out of the company from any and all employees who used the computers at work. But in that situation, the company was only confronting specifically straight white conservitive male workers with things they were doing on the computers at work and leaving all the other's outside that group alone. If a company you're working for is doing it, you fucking know the government is also doing it. And up until this latest bullshit BOzo flop hit the deck, it was only suspect. We know now it's in fact....a fact.

[Boomchild]

The government already has enough information on me such as where I live, who I'm married to, who my dependents are, how much I earn, how much I pay in taxes, where I was born, where I work, etc. That's all they need to know about my family and I. And it is for that reason our family computer with all the pix and personal data is kept on a computer that's not even plugged into the internet, and lastly, anything I don't want anyone to know I only talk about it face to face with whoever it is that I need to talk about it with.

Your right that is just about all the government needs to know about you as a citizen. In light of what is unfolding about government snooping, I think people are going rethink just how, what and where they share information.

I learned to do this like 14, 15 and 16 years ago when the institution I worked for at that time was caught saving all computer traffic in and out of the company from any and all employees who used the computers at work. But in that situation, the company was only confronting specifically straight white conservitive male workers with things they were doing on the computers at work and leaving all the other's outside that group alone. If a company you're working for is doing it, you fucking know the government is also doing it. And up until this latest bullshit BOzo flop hit the deck, it was only suspect. We know now it's in fact....a fact.

Personally, I feel a business has every right to monitor the use of their computers and networks. After all, it is their systems not the employees. They have the right to object to usage that is not in line with the companies policies. I also believe that they have an obligation to notify employees that they are doing so. Having said that they do not have the right to discriminate for any reason. The company I worked for monitored their computer systems and all employees were made aware of it. So, I did the logical thing and only used it for what it was intended to be used for. Others however did not. Like a subordinate of mine that was looking at porn on his company computer.

[Don]

This will drive Don nuts.


Jun 9th, 2013

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere


London, 1772.

I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of “metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this “metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.

The analysis in this report is based on information gathered by our field agent Mr David Hackett Fischer and published in an Appendix to his lengthy report to the government. As you may be aware, Mr Fischer is an expert and respected field Agent with a broad and deep knowledge of the colonies. I, on the other hand, have made my way from Ireland with just a little quantitative training—I placed several hundred rungs below the Senior Wrangler during my time at Cambridge—and I am presently employed as a junior analytical scribe at ye olde National Security Administration. Sorry, I mean the Royal Security Administration. And I should emphasize again that I know nothing of current affairs in the colonies. However, our current Eighteenth Century beta of PRISM has been used to collect and analyze information on more than two hundred and sixty persons (of varying degrees of suspicion) belonging variously to seven different organizations in the Boston area.

Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the Colonies to work with. It seems an unlikely task.

If you want to follow along yourself, there is a secret repository containing the data and the appropriate commands for your portable analytical engine.

Here is what the data look like.

read on..

http://kieranhealy.org//blog/archives/2 ... ul-revere/

Sorry, I've reached my political thread quota already for the month. And now, back to the baseball game.

[slucero]

interesting vid.. Shai Lebouf talking about government snooping in 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux1hpLv ... r_embedded

[slucero]

now this is interesting.. I remember everyone from my school years..

Barack Obama Never Attended Columbia University Says “His” Graduating Class
http://freepatriot.org/2013/06/04/barac ... ing-class/

BARACK OBAMA: THE GHOST OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY – By Wayne Allyn Root

I just returned from New York, where I attended my 30th Columbia University reunion. I celebrated with my esteemed classmates. Everyone except Barack Obama. As usual- he wasn’t there. Not even a video greeting. Not a personalized letter to his classmates. Nothing. But worse, no one at our 30th reunion ever met him. The President of the United States is the ghost of Columbia University.

I’m certainly no “Johnny come lately.” For five years now (since 2007 when it became clear Barack Obama was running for President), I’ve been quoted in the media as saying that no one I’ve ever met at Columbia can remember ever meeting, or even seeing, our college classmate Barack Obama. Don’t you think the media should be asking questions? Isn’t this a very strange story?

I am a graduate of Columbia University, Class of 1983. That’s the same class Barack Obama claims to have graduated from. We shared the same exact major- Political Science. We were both Pre Law. It was a small class- about 700 students. The Political Science department was even smaller and closer-knit (maybe 150 students). I thought I knew, or met at least once, (or certainly saw in classes) every fellow Poly Sci classmate in my four years at Columbia.

But not Obama. No one ever met him. Even worse, no one even remembers seeing that unique memorable face. Think about this for a minute. Our classmate is President of the United States. Shouldn’t someone remember him? Or at least claim to remember him?

One of the speakers at the 30th reunion should have reminisced about “my days with the future President.” But no one did. You’d think Obama might have sent a video to tell us all how much he enjoyed his time at Columbia. You’d think he’d have sent at least a letter to be read aloud from one of his former college buddies. Right? But he didn’t. Because Obama has no former college buddies. No one that ever met Obama, let alone befriended him, was in attendence at our 30th class reunion.

Now you might argue this is all strange, but it’s possible. Afterall Columbia says he graduated. And I take my college’s word for it. Would one of the world’s greatest Ivy League institutions participate in a coverup, thereby risking their billion dollar reputation? And there is one single article written for the Columbia newspaper with Obama’s name on it. A single photo also exists of Obama in his Manhattan apartment with the man he claims was his college roommate- a Pakistani foreign student. And one single radical leftist Columbia professor who hates Israel also claims he remembers Obama.


That’s the sum total of Obama’s existence at Columbia University, Class of ’83.


So I asked every classmate I met at our 30th reunion, many of them Political Science majors, if they ever met, or saw, or heard of Obama. The answer was a resounding NO from every one of them. I asked if they found this strange, or worried how this was possible? They all answered YES. I asked if they thought it was possible to be a Political Science major and never meet a fellow major in our small classes? They all gave me a very strange look and answered NO. So I asked, “How could this be possible? Can you explain this?” No one had an answer.

Keep in mind these people I spoke to are all- to a man and woman- dedicated liberal Democrats who voted for Obama. I’m guessing 90% are major Democrat contributors. My Columbia classmates are the crème of the crop of American society. Lawyers, doctors, billionaire hedge fund members, stars of the media. They adore Obama. But they all admit they never met him in their four years at Columbia. I am proud of my classmates for their honesty and integrity.

One classmate told me he was present when one of the most honored professors in Columbia University history gave a speech to alumni a couple of years ago. The speech was followed by Q&A. This beloved professor was asked about Obama at Columbia. He said, “I have my doubts about the story.” The crowd was stunned. He immediately went onto the next question and never elaborated. So obviously I’m not the only one with doubts.

So here’s my take on this great mystery. I’ve never said Obama was not registered at Columbia. I’m sure he was. I’ve never said he didn’t graduate. If Columbia says he did, then I’m sure he did. But I’ve always said there is something wrong with the story. It’s rancid. It’s unbelievable. It’s impossible. It’s the story of a Manchurian candidate.

The question isn’t was he ever registered, or did he graduate. And it’s interesting that one photo, one professor, and one newspaper article exists- just enough to provide a thin cover. But the serious question the media should be asking is…What did Obama do for two full years in-between registration and graduation? Did he ever attend a class? Did he ever have a single friend other than a Pakistani national? Why is the only professor to ever come forward and claim he remembers him a radical leftist who hates Israel? What exactly was he doing when no one met him, saw him, or heard of him? Why are his college records sealed? What has he got to hide?

But my educated guess is he can’t, or won’t ever release those records. Because what we’d find would be shocking.

Now I know somewhere in America is an Obama defender that will accuse me of lying. But are all those classmates at our 30th reunion lying too? And if I wanted to lie, wouldn’t I better off saying I knew the future President well? If I wanted to malign the President, shouldn’t I be saying he was my close buddy and I witnessed all kinds of terrible things? But I can’t say that. Because I never witnessed anything. Neither did any of my classmates. We didn’t know him. Never met him. Never saw him. My story is simply the truth- and it’s the same consistent story I’ve told since 2007.

There is something wrong with Obama’s story- that much I know. He is either the ghost of Columbia, or the perfect Manchurian candidate. But something smells rotten at Columbia.

[steveo777]

Slucero, this one is strange. I reposted this article on my FB page. I'd like to see more evidence that actually "puts his ass in class" there. It makes you wonder if Obama is a made up character, put in place, by certain elites, who were hell bent determined to find the "proper" first black president....or fabricate him. Hell, you can print a gun these days, why would it be far reaching to fabricate a president?

[slucero]

actually you can't print a gun.. the Feds confiscated the plans and shut down that website.. and federal law prohibits the manufacture of a working upper without a serial number.

[steveo777]

actually you can't print a gun.. the Feds confiscated the plans and shut down that website.. and federal law prohibits the manufacture of a working upper without a serial number.

Do you think the fact the feds confiscated the plans means the plans died? Do you also think that whatever Fed Law dictates guarantees an absolute cessation of that agenda? If you believe that, can I sell ya some beautiful lake front property in Africa? I know machinists who can make a working upper. I doubt they'd put a serial number on it.

[slucero]

actually you can't print a gun.. the Feds confiscated the plans and shut down that website.. and federal law prohibits the manufacture of a working upper without a serial number.

Do you think the fact the feds confiscated the plans means the plans died? Do you also think that whatever Fed Law dictates guarantees an absolute cessation of that agenda? If you believe that, can I sell ya some beautiful lake front property in Africa? I know machinists who can make a working upper. I doubt they'd put a serial number on it.

uh.. what I did post did happen. And I never said the the plans disappeared.. just got confiscated.. lot's of folks DL'd them before that... you can get AK blank upper plans on the net too.. all you need is tools to make them.. but only a moron would risk a 10 year prison sentence to make an illegal upper.. at least right now.

[The Sushi Hunter]

Reading in the news today, James Clapper who is Director of National Intelligence is claiming he had no knowledge that his agency was "spying"/collecing data on American civilians. Hahaha.... BOzo claims the same thing like with the IRS, Libya, Holder related issues, etc. Funny stuff. BOzo & company = same shit different fuckup.

[The Sushi Hunter]

Verizon Allegedly Built A Fiber Optic Cable To Give The Feds Access To Communications

http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon- ... ent-2013-6

Question is, what did Verizon get in return?

[The Sushi Hunter]

But it's unclear what kind of changes the leaks will spur as the Obama administration has no plans to scrap the broad spying program.

In October the NSA will begin data-mining at a $2 billion Utah Data Center, with help in Tennessee from the Titan Supercomputer — reportedly the most powerful computer the world has ever known.

Bamford, the Wired writer who wrote the 2006 article about NSA surveillance, published the following details about the new facility in Reuters today:

Designed to run at exaflop speed, executing a million trillion operations per second, it will be able to sift through enormous quantities of data - for example, all the phone numbers dialed in the United States every day.

So as Snowden hides, the NSA continues to intercept and analyze an estimated 1.7 billion U.S. electronic communications each day.

Wow, that must be some super computer. NASA's super computer (Electronic Rapid Input Computer) or "Eric" used to be the most powerful.

[slucero]

Verizon Allegedly Built A Fiber Optic Cable To Give The Feds Access To Communications

http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon- ... ent-2013-6

Question is, what did Verizon get in return?

Verizon is the largest provider of cellular service to the Federal Govt.

[slucero]

"....History never repeats.. "...

This would be funny if it wasn't true..

[Don]

The problem is, the common man has to show harm in the law for the court to do anything about this.
Amnesty International tried this in 2009 but couldn't prove that the NSA’s surveillance hurt anyone, so therefore, in the eyes of SCOTUS, the complaint lacked standing. What will make that any different today?

[Memorex]

The worlds largest/fastest/most powerful computers should not be used to spy on innocent Americans. Really a waste of technology and money.

[The Sushi Hunter]

Breaking: NSA Eavesdropped on People With Whom They Had Personal Grudges (Audio)

Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, June 7, 2013, 12:23 PM

Renee Montagne from NPR spoke with liberal columnist and author Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who co-wrote the stories for the British newspaper The Guardian, today on the massive data-mining scandal.

Greenwald dropped this bomb during the interview.

“There are reported examples of the NSA, analysts at the NSA, using mechanisms they have access to. ABC reported several years ago through whistle blowers that they have used it to eavesdrop on people on whom they have personal grudges. There are isolated examples of the Patriot Act being abused. The problem is that the entire system operates behind a wall of extreme secrecy.”

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/06 ... ges-audio/

None of this really surprises me, except for the fact it's taken this long to be made public. I remember almost ten years ago now when Scott Petterson was busted for killing his wife and unborn baby. In that situation, authorities had audio tape of him talking to himself while listening to messages left on his cell phone, specifically a female detective/agent had left him a message and while he was listening to it, he was calling her a bitch. Maybe he was using Verizon also.

[Don]

Wow, common ground between these two, who would have thought it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22857062


Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the American authorities were "aggressively" pursuing him.
The California Democrat also accused Mr Snowden of "an act of treason".


"The top Republican in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, labelled Mr Snowden a "traitor".

[slucero]

ya just can't make this shit up... or in other words "up" is now "down".

Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/ ... T820130611


BERLIN (Reuters) - German outrage over a U.S. Internet spying program has broken out ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, with ministers demanding the president provide a full explanation when he lands in Berlin next week and one official likening the tactics to those of the East German Stasi.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman has said she will raise the issue with Obama in talks next Wednesday, potentially casting a cloud over a visit that was designed to celebrate U.S.-German ties on the 50th anniversary John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

Government surveillance is an extremely sensitive topic in Germany, where memories of the dreaded Stasi secret police and its extensive network of informants are still fresh in the minds of many citizens.

In a guest editorial for Spiegel Online on Tuesday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said reports that the United States could access and track virtually all forms of Internet communication were "deeply disconcerting" and potentially dangerous.

"The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," she said.

"The suspicion of excessive surveillance of communication is so alarming that it cannot be ignored. For that reason, openness and clarification by the U.S. administration itself is paramount at this point. All facts must be put on the table."

Markus Ferber, a member of Merkel's Bavarian sister party who sits in the European Parliament, went further, accusing Washington of using "American-style Stasi methods".

"I thought this era had ended when the DDR fell," he said, using the German initials for the failed German Democratic Republic.

Opposition parties have jumped on the issue, keen to put a dampener on the Merkel-Obama talks and prevent them from boosting the chancellor as she gears up for a September parliamentary election in which she is seeking a third term.

"This looks to me like it could become one of the biggest data privacy scandals ever," Greens leader Renate Kuenast told Reuters.

TEMPERED ENTHUSIASM

Obama is due to land in Berlin on Tuesday night, hold talks and a news conference with Merkel on Wednesday and then give a speech in front of thousands at the Brandenburg Gate.

It is his first trip to the German capital since he passed through in 2008 during his first campaign for the presidency, giving a speech at the Victory Column in the Tiergarten park that attracted 200,000 adoring fans.

Five years on, Germans are still enamored of Obama: a poll last week showed 82 percent view him favorably.

But his failure to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, extensive use of drones to kill suspected al Qaeda militants and the latest revelations about the secret surveillance program, codenamed PRISM, have tempered enthusiasm.

According to documents leaked to the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, the program gave U.S. officials access to emails, web chats and other communications from companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

Obama has defended it as a "modest encroachment" on privacy and reassured Americans that no one is listening to their phone calls.

But U.S. law puts virtually no eavesdropping restrictions on the communications of foreigners, meaning in theory that Washington could be delving into the private Internet communications of Germans and other Europeans.

Peter Schaar, the German official with responsibility for data privacy, said this was grounds for "massive concern" in Europe.

"The problem is that we Europeans are not protected from what appears to be a very comprehensive surveillance program," he told the Handelsblatt newspaper. "Neither European nor German rules apply here, and American laws only protect Americans."

[The Sushi Hunter]

The State Department might have covered up damning incidents involving sexual assault and engaging with prostitutes, according to a report from CBS' John Miller.

Miller cited an internal State Department Inspector General's memo in which "several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off" to protect careers and avoid scandal.

The memo revealed eight specific incidents, including alleged sexual assaults and engagement with prostitutes by employees as low-ranked as security officers and as highly ranked as a U.S. ambassador.

The report claims that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's security detail engaged with prostitutes on official foreign trips.

In the case of the U.S. ambassador, State Department agents told the IG that they were told to stop investigating the ambassador, who was "suspected of patronizing prostitutes in a public park." The ambassador held a "sensitive diplomatic post," Miller reports.

The State Department told CBS that it would not comment on specific allegations, saying that "not all allegations are substantiated."

Among them: allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and the charge and that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries” — a problem the report says was “endemic.

http://www.businessinsider.com/state-de ... z2VqDKOUHj

This deal with the ambassador is now just getting started into the mainstream. But now they are adding that the perp is also involved in messing with minors. The scandals during this current administration just keeps getting worse and worse as days pass.

[Don]

Government employees, from Presidents to lance corporals have engaged in sexual hijinks, rapes, murders and what not while overseas since before the Roman Empire. Nothing new here.

[The Sushi Hunter]

Government employees, from Presidents to lance corporals have engaged in sexual hijinks, rapes, murders and what not while overseas since before the Roman Empire. Nothing new here.

I think what makes this different is the job level at which these people were. Sure the enlisted have been getting trim in places they've been. But we are talking high level jobs working close in with high level political figures. And then the coverup along with sending the perp back out on the field to do the job as if nothing happened. She definitely stands by her men.

Another interesting thing I've been hearing is this current CIA Whistleblower was a high school drop out, enlisted in the mil and then got out after a very short period of time and then got a job in Hawaii paying 122K per year. Are you kidding me! How the hell is a high school drop out ending up with a 122K job in of all places Hawaii? WTF!

[Don]

Obama, 9 PRISM Partners Targeted by Class-Action Lawsuit... Developing...

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/art ... -wednesday

The Supreme Court already shot down Amnesty International when they complained about this in 2009. Will be interesting to see if they rule different on this occasion.
What is different between then and now and what is the "harm" that the claimant will try to sell the judges on? That is the point where Amnesty's argument fell apart.

[Memorex]

Wow.

In a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday, former-President George W. Bush currently stands with a favorability rating of 49%, compared to 46% who see the 43rd president unfavorably. Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows President Obama with only a 47% approval rating, with 44% disapproving.

[Boomchild]

The only complaint I have, thus far, is the amount of money
spent on the inauguration events considering the state of our
economy....funds should've been cut, somewhere!!!

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inaugura ... 946&page=1

That's backwards thinking in Washington. They don't cut things that affect them. They cut things that effect you. On the subject of wasteful spending, how about all the vacations, trips etc. the President and the first family has been treating themselves to on the tax payers.

[steveo777]

Wow.

In a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday, former-President George W. Bush currently stands with a favorability rating of 49%, compared to 46% who see the 43rd president unfavorably. Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows President Obama with only a 47% approval rating, with 44% disapproving.

People who approve of Obama to that rate, simply ain't paying attention. I guess as long as the welfare checks keep rolling in and the crack pipe stays hot, no problem for them.

[G.I.Jim]

Wow.

In a Gallup tracking poll released Tuesday, former-President George W. Bush currently stands with a favorability rating of 49%, compared to 46% who see the 43rd president unfavorably. Meanwhile, another Gallup poll shows President Obama with only a 47% approval rating, with 44% disapproving.

People who approve of Obama to that rate, simply ain't paying attention. I guess as long as the welfare checks keep rolling in and the crack pipe stays hot, no problem for them.