The New York Times took direct aim at President Barack Obama Thursday, after it was revealed that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, even if there is no connection to counterterrorism. The Obama administration has lost all credibility, whether it is on secret warrants to obtain a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill Americans suspects of terrorism, the Editorial Board said.
According to the NYT:
“The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.”
The Times noted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon to hand over data on every single call which passed through its system and that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years.
“We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”
The NYT added that, it rejected the administration’s response when it is caught overreaching in the use of its powers: Terrorists are real menace and you should just trust us – we have internal mechanisms and we will make sure we do not violate your rights.
Read more here on President Obama’s overreach.
