President Barack Obama wants to you know that you can trust the government not to break the rules it has made for itself for surveillance, even though they had refused to tell you what those rules are, refused to say that the surveillance was even going on, and have been going hard against anybody leaking any information about the administration.

Here’s what he said this morning in California, courtesy of the New York Times:

President Obama on Friday offered a robust defense of the government surveillance programs revealed this week, and sought to reassure the public that his administration has not become a Big Brother with eyes and ears throughout the world of online communications.

“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Mr. Obama said, delivering a 14-minute answer to two questions about the surveillance programs during a four-day trip to the West Coast at an event that was initially supposed to be devoted to the health care law. “That’s not what this program is about.”

Two immediate thoughts: Nobody said that the program was about listening to telephone calls, so good work setting that first straw man aflame. Second, why should anybody believe you? Bring on the next logical fallacy:

“You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” Mr. Obama said, repeatedly stressing that the lawmakers from both parties and federal judges were aware of the efforts. “You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”

Who out there has asked for 100 percent security and 100 percent privacy? A false choice embedded inside another straw man.

One final quote from the president from the full transcript:

That’s not to suggest that, you know, you just say, trust me, we’re doing the right thing, we know who the bad guys are. And the reason that’s not how it works is because we’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight. And if people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.

Mr. President, I think it’s safe to say: You have some problems here.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/07/obama-...-men-false-choi

This jerkweed has been knocking down strawmen from the time he first came on the scene. It's become his trademark.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Let me just emphasize, this is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this.

To my knowledge, we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information. It is simply what we call metadata that is never utilized by any governmental agency unless they go back to the FISA court and show that there’s real cause as to why something within the metadata should be looked at.

That’s been very clear all along through the years of this program. It is proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years.

Quote: Palinista wrote in post #3

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Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Let me just emphasize, this is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this.

To my knowledge, we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information. It is simply what we call metadata that is never utilized by any governmental agency unless they go back to the FISA court and show that there’s real cause as to why something within the metadata should be looked at.

That’s been very clear all along through the years of this program. It is proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years.

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #4

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Quote: Palinista wrote in post #3

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Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Let me just emphasize, this is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this.

To my knowledge, we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information. It is simply what we call metadata that is never utilized by any governmental agency unless they go back to the FISA court and show that there’s real cause as to why something within the metadata should be looked at.

That’s been very clear all along through the years of this program. It is proved meritorious, because we have gathered significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years.

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That seems to be the "party line" in all of this: 3 illegitimate branches know what the 4th illegitimate branch is doing so it's all "OK!"

(And, all these douche canoes have all learned a new word to use, "metadata!" Dollars to donuts none of them ever heard that word before the past couple of days!)

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