Obama 'not told of Merkel phone bugging' | Hacker News Reader

Obama 'not told of Merkel phone bugging'

bbc.co.uk

25 pointsspikels29 comments

The title ("Obama 'not told..") doesn't match the contest of the article:

"NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines: '[General] Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel, news reports claiming otherwise are not true.'

BBC: The statement does not make it clear whether the president was informed of the bugging operation by other means."

Emphasis mine: the statement as published there involves only "Gen. Alexander's discussions." Well done, spokespersons' statement and media's titles.

It's too bad they can't issue a blanket denial. "The President did NOT have a conversation about this topic on this date in time with this specific person." Worst denial ever.

Reminds me of Bill Clinton trying to parse the word "is" to only mean present tense, not past tense.

When you're battling with semantics to skirt by underlying truths and morals, you should notice there's a problem. Maybe I'm alone in this sentiment however.

Apparently this isn't a surprise to most within the intelligence community [1].

"France spies on the US just as the US spies on France, the former head of France’s counter-espionage and counter-terrorism agency said Friday, commenting on reports that the US National Security Agency (NSA) recorded millions of French telephone calls.

Bernard Squarcini, head of the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI) intelligence service until last year, told French daily Le Figaro he was “astonished” when Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was "deeply shocked" by the claims.

“I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté,” he said in the interview. “You’d almost think our politicians don’t bother to read the reports they get from the intelligence services.”"

[1] http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc...

Some politicians probably are simply naive; those who aren't instead have to put up some theatre to pretend to the voters they didn't know what is going on.

May be. But we saw what Hoover running the FBI turned into. It certainly seems like it is time to take a close look at what "government agencies" are up to and start holding them accountable to the population at large.

Ms. Merkel can always give Snowden permanent asylum. Or, for that matter, any of the EU countries who are so upset about all this spying. What's stopping them?

Put your money where your mouth is: if you think Snowden's revelations are real and show egregious conduct on the part of the NSA, then give him asylum!

Even if that doesn't happen straight-away, Snowden will likely find that fairly easy to achieve once this scandal dies down a bit.

On what basis ? Snowden committed a crime and under existing extradition treaties would be sent back to the US.

Diplomatic incidents happen all the time. It doesn't affect the law.

Snowden is accused accused of crimes but has been convicted of nothing. Has he even been indicted yet?

Diplomatic incidents are resolved diplomatically. Numerous spies/traitors/whistle-blowers/revolutionaries for numerous countries are now living normal lives across the world despite having being exposed.

Snowden has no chance of living in the US ever again, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't have a life elsewhere.

The fact that heads of government are now effectively gathering on Snowden's side improves his chances that one or another of them will approve asylum status for him, although it won't happen in a hurry.

Typical argument. Obama knows nothing if there's any possibility that it could harm him. How many times will they use this argument.

Ultimately, he's commander in chief, and if we use the same approach as applied against Bush, then Obama is responsible.

Steve Jobs said it pretty well for corporate VPs, it probably should apply to the President:

One such lesson could be called the "Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President," and it's a sermon Jobs delivers every time an executive reaches the VP level. Jobs imagines his garbage regularly not being emptied in his office, and when he asks the janitor why, he gets an excuse: The locks have been changed, and the janitor doesn't have a key. This is an acceptable excuse coming from someone who empties trash bins for a living. The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. "When you're the janitor," Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, "reasons matter." He continues: "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering." That "Rubicon," he has said, "is crossed when you become a VP."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/25/how-apple-works-insid...

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm

> Ultimately, he's commander in chief

Wrong title. He's responsible as the chief executive, not as the commander-in-chief, which refers to his civilian authority over the military. And yes, Obama is responsible for this. He said as much during the 2012 debates.

NSA is part of the DOD

The military of the United States consists of five distinct branches: the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard. Neither the DOD nor the NSA actually belong as a subordinate of any of these individual branches. Indeed, the DOD's purpose is, in effect, to pull these disparate commands into a single point of control for civilian authority.

The NSA is subordinate to the DOD as part of the DOD's directive as a component of national defense, but it is separate from the military and Obama's derived responsibility for their actions comes from his leadership as a civilian over other civilians, not from his leadership as a civilian over military personnel.

Not sure what is worse: that Obama knew since 2010 that Merkel (and other allied countries leaders) was being spied, or that he had no clue of what the NSA were doing.

If he don't know what the government is doing, who is in charge then?

I suppose the NSA is in charge. Presidents change all the time. High NSA officials could stay for decades. What's more, when somebody becomes President, they probably have amassed enough confidential information on that person to make sure that the NSA institutional interests are protected. (Puts tin-foil-hat of again)

It's his job not to know and their job not to tell him. It's called plausible deniability.

So Obama is walking on the same path as India's PM Dr. Manmohan Singh who is not aware of anything worth knowing.

I was once caught in some ordinary crime. I plead not guilty saying I was not aware of the law. Judge told me that ignorance of law is not an argument court can accept. Well, it was about about justice, law and constitution. I guess all this surveillance business does not come under any of those.

Perhaps the rest of the world should take a cue from America -- direct diplomacy is dead. Cloak and dagger methods are now more consistent and accurate than engaging another nation directly through the departments of foreign affairs.

The American President and the American State Department are hopeless and useless now.

Plausible deniability in a nutshell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability

Just as in Casablanca - "I am shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is going on in here!"

A clip of the scene in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc

"believe nothing until it has been officially denied"

Let's assume Obama had no idea, nay, not even a clue that Merkel was being spied on. What should the actions of the US be?

Good Foreign Policy: Call for an investigation with a reputable committee, and actually change laws or procedures, that make this action, or the discovery of this action impossible to happen going forward.

Bad Foreign Policy: Apologize to the leader of the nation, offer no solutions, and attempt to sideline the dramatic news.

Now instead of what should be the actions of the US in this situation, what do you think they will actually do?

I don't buy it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/104...

Plus they have a frigging NSA base in Berlin:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-...

And if it were true, it may actually be worse. How can Obama still claim "relax people, no abuses have happened" with one corner of the mouth, and then with the other say "oh, well I didn't know about these!"

Same goes for their continuous claim that NSA is run like a very tight ship and it's audited thoroughly, yet they didn't know what Snowden took for months, and some of the internal abuses were found out years later, by the employees own confessions. Yeah, sounds like an air-tight auditing system to me, too.

Others are claiming that he did in fact know about it for years:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/104...

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