Though at this point it shouldn’t come as any surprise, the early word out of President Obama’s planned “reforms” to the NSA surveillance state are not good, and seem to amount to very little concrete change.
Those privy to recent briefing on the impending announcement say Obama is going to stop well short even of the modest reforms called for by his own review panel, which was nominally supposed to be advising him on the matter.
The NSA will keep its meta-data, and the FISA court system will go on more or less unchanged, with the exception of a possible appointment of a single “public advocate” with no real power who could express “privacy concerns” to the secret courts.
The FISA “reform,” despite being a virtual non-change, is already drawing heavy fire from the courts, which say they like the cover of darkness very much as it already is, and think a public advocate would either waste their time or, on the off chance he was given real power, would bring the system to a screeching halt.
Now, really, did anyone seriously think that anything was going to change? This President is scared shirtless to actually do anything anymore. He's actually done what he got elected to do…get his name into the history books. Some point to his "signature accomplishment" (ACA) but it did little to change the foundation precepts the US healthcare (insurance care is more apt) system operates under. His foreign policy is toothless and backboneless and getting worse minute by minute. The insurgency by his own party in the Senate is proof they don't respect him – or the office. He's been hamstrung by the Pentagon's military and civilian senior staff, from the beginning. So, picking a fight with the Courts will go as everything else has gone since 2009…nowhere.
I peruse many political-type sites, trying to keep up on the wackos, and I've found that regardless of ideology, left, right, and middle, the American people are seriously pissed. If there are serious THINKING people out there who might be considering a new political focus, now would be an opportune time to get their feet wet. The masses are ready. Well, some people say that there is already an alternative choice…the Tea Party. Their problem is that despite some good ideas, they brought with them failed ideologies or succumbed to pressure from ideologies with motives that were not in line with the original concepts…I was going to say "goals" but there were never really any stated serious goals.
Time to change the bathwater and clean the ring around the tub.
Trying to reform the NSA is about as useful as trying to salvage the nuclear reactor at Fukushima.