US President Barack Obama held a press conference, his first since the NSA. As in the past, he said he was open to further discussion, not that he believed more transparency was needed. He also said that Edward Snowden was not a patriot.
[col grid=”3-1 first”][quote]Obama argued that those who fight for greater transparency are patriots, but Snowden is not one of them.[/quote][/col]
Barack Obama, opening the interview, stated that he is certain that all this discussion about the NSA's abusive actions would have happened without Snowden's intervention. He added that his administration has been doing everything it can to address this issue for the past five years.
However, since his first words, as we understand, did not contain any responsibility, the commitments followed.
In short, Mr. Obama has proposed several measures that he believes will help bring about greater transparency. His first proposal is a reform of the Patriot Act, specifically the section that allows the NSA to conduct unlimited surveillance.
On the other hand, Obama’s second proposal states that in certain cases, the NSA’s applications to the FISA court for surveillance warrants should be heard by a public defender.
To date, there has been no one who could object to the NSA’s requests. The judges have approved the requests based on the NSA’s arguments. To date, for the record, only 0.03% of the applications filed have been rejected by the court.
Obama mentioned as a third measure the creation of a website that would list in detail what the NSA can monitor on Americans and foreigners.
Finally, Obama proposed the creation of an independent agency that would review the structure and operations of US intelligence agencies.
All of this was probably expected of Obama, or any Obama. Political fire-fighting statements are considered necessary to reassure public opinion and, by extension, future voters. The NSA and other intelligence agencies of the US and every other country have a job to do and you can be sure they will do it.
Proud of the president's statements, the White House uploaded his speech to Youtube
