Obama Keeps Lying on NSA: Insists Violations ‘Inadvertent’

On Wednesday, President Obama insisted there was no NSA spying on Americans, just hours after the government was forced to release documents showing broad, systematic spying on Americans had been going on for years. Today, President Obama insisted that all the violations were “inadvertent and accidental” and, well you can probably see where this is headed.

Continuing the strategy of lying at the worst possible time, Obama’s claims were immediately followed by a report from the NSA Inspector General, which showed that there were several instances of “willful violations” in which the NSA deliberately broke rules so they could spy on Americans.

President Obama’s latest flat out lie came during a CNN interview in which he insisted he was determined to “do a better job” convincing Americans that the NSA programs are being carried out legally and aren’t being abused.

His efforts to sell the surveillance state to the American public have centered pretty much entirely on overt lying, which seems unlikely to be effective. At the same time, the truth about the surveillance program is so bad that leveling with the public is bound to fail just as badly.