Open Letter to President Obama In Regard Survelliance

By Chelsea J. Carter and Jessica Yellin, CNN

updated 9:07 PM EDT, Fri August 9, 2013

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama on Friday outlined steps to reform U.S. intelligence gathering measures after they came under scrutiny following their revelation by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, saying the classified leaks created a public distrust in programs meant to safeguard Americans.

Since Snowden leaked secret documents to the media, critics have called the NSA's domestic surveillance -- including a program that monitors the metadata of domestic phone calls -- a government overreach. Many of those same critics have asked the Obama administration and Congress to rein in the programs.

"Given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives," Obama said during a news conference in the East Room of the White House.

But the president slammed the release of the information that has "come out in dribs and drabs," saying a general impression has taken hold "that we are somehow out there willy-nilly sucking information from everybody."

At the same time, Obama sought to assure the public that there are safeguards in place, while acknowledging the need for transparency.  MUCH MORE

First of all President Obama, there are no safeguards in place to protect the American public from a surveillance program that has been fraught with misinterpretation of the law and fraud upon the American public in so many different ways that it defies a logical explanation, and while I wish that I had the legal and moral ability to hold your feet to the fire on this issue, I don't, therefore I don't expect an answer. I will say this; until you do answer these few questions, I have serious doubts if anyone in this nation that has the wherewithal to do their own research and gets their news from sources other than the Mainstream News Media will ever again trust you any further than they can throw you, and since you're a fairly tall, well-fed gentlemen, none of us can throw you any distance at all, so it boils down to providing credible answers to these questions and if you choose to ignore them, you credibility is completely and unequivocally a matter of history -- and historians will not look kindly upon your legacy and actions. Your legacy as America's first Black President will be one of fraud, suspicion, and making the mistake that the bulk of the American people were stupid. We aren't, and you're getting a quick lesson in understanding that some people may give you a "pass" because of hope and knowing that our livelihoods are being given-up like cheap Halloween Candy by the White House, something that you promised not to do as it pertained to Social Security, Medicare, and the Food Stamp Program. More lies and taking advantage of people who made the mistake of trusting you when we erroneously voted you into the Presidency.

First of all, your Surveillance Program was so well implemented that agencies, who you say were not reading American's emails and listening to our phone calls is an out and out fabrication. In short, you lied again when the truth would have served you far better. So much data and information about the American people was gathered and analyzed that the NSA and their sister organizations evidently believed that no ill-gotten evidence should go to waste so they began to share their intelligence with the DEA and other Law Enforcement organizations:

The DEA Is Spying on Us and Showing Other Agencies How to Cover It Up

In a secret intelligence project seen as "more troubling" than the NSA's far-reaching data-mining operations, the DEA has been passing along to other law-enforcement agencies "information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records"--and instructing the agencies to lie about where they got it .

Documents leaked to Reuters show DEA agents instructing other federal agents in "parallel" construction"--its term for recreating (and fabricating) an investigative trail to conceal the involvement of the DEA's intelligence operations. The intelligence gathered, and the investigations in which it's used, are rarely national-security cases. Experts interviewed by Reuters were shocked :

"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

"It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations."

The information comes from the DEA's Special Operations Division, a two-decade-old unit created in partnership with several other federal agencies to thwart South American drug cartels. SOD tips other agencies off--the example given by one federal agent who'd received tips was "You'd be told only, "Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it"--and then helps those agencies construct trial-ready investigative chains. MORE

Yep, another bald-faced lie by our Commander in Chief! Using the Patriot Act to authorize your Surveillance Program was not extremely bright. Congress now wants to make several changes and there is a grassroots movements to put the Patriot Act where it belonged a long time ago -- in the nearest garbage can! There are still terrorists abroad, but we do listen every once in a while when a government official speaks, and when we heard that Al Qaeda was so spread-out and without a viable command and control organization, plus they were effectively without any meaningful funds, we took note and hoped that it would make some small difference in our lives. Obviously it didn't; the nation took issue with your Administration for attempting to state that Al Qaeda was back in business and our Embassies throughout the world would have to be closed down "to protect American lives." You failed to mention the directive was issued to use that old tried and proven "The Terrorists Are Going To Attack Us" fear factor that our government has been using on the general population for years -- and no one believes it anymore except those who believe the Propaganda rather than News which is spit out by the Mainstream News Media non-stop to the point that smart Americans get their news from Alternative News Sources. I was speaking with a friend about this late this afternoon and saw the Headline on CNN that stated the Embassies would re-open on Sunday. It seems to me President Obama that you must have a new secret weapon you deployed; how in the world did you stop Al Qaeda's threat to American lives so fast? Don't feel too bad President Obama, Congress and none of the Alternative News Sites believed a word you stated and we all knew you were embellishing on the truth. (That means you lied to the public again.) You had hoped that a "Terror Alert" would help to diffuse the debate on NSA's illegal spying, and it was probably the only transparent thing that "we the people" could determine in Washington for an extremely long time.

In CNN's article you went on to state that the FISA Court would be revamped, and in that regard, it's an extremely long row to hoe, one that you may not be able to finish during your last term in office. Quite a few years ago I was in the process of filing a Federal Civil Rights Suit against the DEA in Pensacola, Florida. When I arrived at the Federal Court in Pensacola from my home, Federal Marshall's formed a human chain around the entrance to the Federal Court and told me that "they didn't want my kind in Pensacola."   The Senior District Judge at that time was Roger Vinson, and while his partisanship is legendary, his legal acumen isn't . When I finally got the Federal Civil Rights Action filed it was denied by Judge Vinson because of a four (4) year Statute of Limitations in Louisiana, which had no legal bearing on a Federal Civil Rights Action which does not have a Statute of Limitations. It was simply another misstep by a Federal Judge that has a history of such improper judgements. Anytime an individual is injured by Officers of the Law operating Under Color of State and Federal Law, the remedy for adjudication in these matters is with a Federal Civil Rights Action. BTW President Obama, guess who was on the FISA COURT when your illegal and unconstitutional Surveillance Program was approved? Yep, you guessed it, Roger Vinson: