It was disappointing, however, to see that many of the recommendations offered by Obama’s own Surveillance Review Group were either neglected or specifically rejected. While the unconstitutional permanent gag orders attached to National Security Letters will be time-limited, they will continue to be issued by FBI agents, not judges, for sensitive financial and communications records.
Nor did the president address NSA’s myopic efforts to degrade the security of the Internet by compromising the encryption systems relied on by millions of innocent users. And it is also important to realize that changing one controversial program doesn’t alter the broader section 215 authority, which can still be used to collect other types of records in bulk—and for all we know, may already be used for that purpose.
The Obama-true-believers are so doe-eyed with love that he could invade Czecheslovakia and they’d find a way to give him a pass. He could get away with pretty much anything, and he knows it.
THIS is the real major issue, not the meta-data. THIS is the issue that turns the USA into a global security threat that pretty much every other nation on earth need to realise they need to defend themselves against.
Again, a solution here would be for a worldwide movement (individual or governmental) to flood the Internet with random number string messages which might or might not contain actual code. If the NSA can’t be made to self-limit, it can at least be stuffed to bursting.