Remember when Obama pledged to "restore America's standing in the eyes of the world"

European officials lash out at NSA spying report

Sure doing a fine job in that department, eh Barry?

Remember, this is to stop those evil nasty terrorists!

Senators are questioning whether the National Security Agency collected bulk data on more than just Americans’ phone records, such as firearm and book purchases.
A bipartisan group of 26 senators, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to detail the scope and limits of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in a letter released Friday.

“We are concerned that by depending on secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act that differed from an intuitive reading of the statute, this program essentially relied for years on a secret body of law,” the senators wrote in the letter.

The NSA’s surveillance program has come under intense scrutiny following a leak revealing the agency harvested the phone metadata of millions of American citizens.
The senators noted that the federal government’s authority under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is broad and rife with potential for abuse. Among the senators’ concerns was whether the NSA’s bulk data harvesting program could be used to construct a gun registry or violate other privacy laws.

“It can be used to collect information on credit card purchases, pharmacy records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information, and a range of other sensitive subjects,” the senators wrote. “And the bulk collection authority could potentially be used to supersede bans on maintaining gun owner databases, or laws protecting the privacy of medical records, financial records, and records of book and movie purchases.”

The senators asked Clapper in the letter whether the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of other types of records, and whether there are any instances of the agency violating a court order in the process of such collections.

Civil libertarians say such surveillance is a violation of privacy. However, the government has defended the program, saying it helped thwart several terrorist attacks and is minimally invasive.
Second Amendment groups and Republican members of Congress have long warned against the creation of a national gun registry. Fears of such a registry bogged down several attempts to forge a bipartisan gun-control bill in the Senate earlier this year.

“In this country, the government can’t just monitor your constitutionally protected activities—like gun ownership—just because it wants to,” said Brian Phillips, a spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), who signed onto the letter.  “The justification that, ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have to worry about it,’ turns us into a police state very quickly. That’s why Congress is right to seek broad oversight of the NSA’s data collection programs.”

 http://freebeacon.com/senators-ask-if-nsa-collected-gun-data/

And people think they still live in a free society where their rights are protected. Goes double for people saying we have nothing to fear from the government.

Proles

The repeal of DOMA.

As of today, the Supreme Court has moved to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, labeling it as "Unconstitutional". As a libertarian, I believe anything that restricts the individual liberty of people, including defining who they can or cannot marry is wrong and it should be repealed, so I approve of this immensely.

The reaction from the SoCon (Southern Conservative) wing of the GOP is predictable, that it overturns "Five thousand years of tradition and jurisprudence". Obviously the answer is a very simple "So what". Give them time and they'll eventually realize this is probably a stupid thing to argue about and perhaps it can get the GOP to focus on more important issues like our skyrocketing debt and way-to-big for its own good government. Hell in my opinion, repealing DOMA is a victory for both marriage equality, and the proponents of smaller government as it proves in the end, the effectiveness of our Constitution to safeguard the rights of all.

Of course, expect the Dems to be smug as all hell as they parade themselves as the "Harbingers of social progress", never mind the fact of course that many of those same senators applauding the repeal of DOMA were the exact same people that voted the law into place, among them Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin and a whole host of other senators. If anyone believes the Dems supported the repeal of DOMA out of any sense of altruism, they are naive. Were it not for the fact they knew this would net them a few extra million votes for the next election, as is the case with their attempts at "Immigration reform", they wouldn't give a damn about whether gays are allowed to marry. Now we're supposed to believe they've turned a new leaf and that they are "Bringing us into the future". No, they did not. The American people were the ones that made gay marriage possible, it was our voice that finally repealed something that should have been repealed a long time ago, not the whims of a gang of opportunistic politicians whose concern extends only to how many votes they can extract in the next election.

So the lesson of the day, the repeal of DOMA is something to be celebrated, but be wary of those who will try to exploit this for their own gain and not out of the sincerity of their convictions. (And so my friend will know that I am not just targeting Dems on this, that extends to the GOP as well. And if people seriously believe this will "destroy marriage", get over it).