Obama’s NSA Speech: ‘The Costume of Constitutionality’. Window Dressing Reforms Constitute Presidential Endorsement of Illegal Spying
By Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo
January 17, 2014
Rather than dismantling the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance programs, or even substantially restraining them, President Obama today has issued his endorsement of them. What are billed as ‘reforms’ are mere window dressing, cosmetic changes that leave this unconstitutional system intact and, in fact, provide presidential ratification.
Today’s speech full of minimization and outright denial regarding the now-documented massive scope of NSA spying on the population served as the presidential announcement of an intention to permanently implement a national surveillance grid and indiscriminate mass data collection. Every keystroke will still be captured, every phone call will still be logged.