All Entries Tagged With: "administration"
Obama seeks to track visits to .gov websites
Posted: August 17, 2009 1:10 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites.
A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a "compelling need."
In fact, according to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, federal agencies have already negotiated agreements and contracts with social networking sites like Google, YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook, AddThis, Blist, Flickr and VIMEO to collect information on visitors for federal web sites. All of these private companies are known to have agreements with federal agencies, but the public has never seen them.
In public comments submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, EPIC notes it has obtained documents that show federal agencies have negotiated these contracts with the private sector in violation of "existing statutory privacy rights." Those agencies include: Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and the National Security Agency.
There are suspicions the White House is already involved.
It’s time to put up or shut up, America. Literally. Get the book that shows how to fight the assault on your freedom of speech!
When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was recently asked by Fox News reporter Major Garrett why Americans who had not signed up to receive any e-mails from the White House, were now receiving e-mails from White House adviser David Axelrod promoting President Obama’s health care plan, Gibbs refused to answer the question.
"The Obama administration’s favorite book seems to be ‘1984′ by George Orwell," said Brad O’Leary, publisher of The O’Leary Report monthly newsletter and author of "Shut Up, America: The End of Free Speech." "Only they don’t see ‘1984′ as a warning, but rather a blueprint for spying on every American who visits a government website – something that has been banned for nearly a decade."
According to Obama "technology czar" Vivek Kundra, the "compelling need" driving this major policy reversal is the administration’s desire to create "more open" government and to "enhance citizen participation in government."
O’Leary finds serious fault with Kundra’s rationale.
"According to the new technology czar, there is a ‘compelling need’ to do this," said O’Leary. "The only compelling need I can think of is for a failing Obama administration to compile an enemy list of gun owners, pro-lifers, tea-party participants, those opposed to illegal immigration, and anyone opposed to the Obama-Pelosi agenda of government control over Americans’ lives."
Spy cookies can do more than merely recall the user names and passwords of visitors who return to their favorite web sites. They can also track, retrieve and report selected movements someone makes on the Internet. Through the use of cookies, the federal government could have the power to create an individual profile of anyone who visits a government website – right down to a person’s recent online purchases, or even race, gender and income level.
"No matter what the Obama administration says, a ‘cookie’ is a spy device," said O’Leary. "No matter how inoffensive the administration says their spy devices will be, once you open the door to the federal government spying on every American who visits a government website, it can’t be closed – it can only be expanded."
According to O’Leary, if the Obama administration is successful in lifting this ban on federal privacy invasion, the lives of many Americans could become open books for bureaucrats.
"What if a harmless trip to the State Department’s travel website or the White House’s health care site, the Census Bureau’s web site results in the Obama administration’s discovery that you are someone who recently visited Cabela’s, Smith and Wesson, or a tea party or pro-life web site?" asked O’Leary. "Is this all mundane information that political animals in government don’t care about? Of course not. You might sooner expect a visit from Obama’s IRS or Homeland Security than a pat on the back for ‘participating’ in government."
O’Leary says that it is time for Congress to step in and pass legislation to protect the privacy rights of Americans who could fall victim to White House spy cookies.
"Because of the lack of transparency from the Obama White House, we are filing FOIA requests to determine exactly how these agencies are using spy cookies," said O’Leary.
If you are a member of the media and would like to interview Brad O’Leary, email press@wnd.com
Cheney: Execute Terrorists If Cuba Prison Must Close
(c) newsmax Monday, June 1, 2009 8:59 PM
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that the only alternative to holding some suspected terrorists indefinitely would be to execute them, arguing against the Obama administration’s plans to close the Guantanamo detainee prison.
"If you’re going to be engaged in a world conflict such as we are, such as the global war on terrorism, if you don’t have a place where you can hold these people, your only other option is to kill them," Mr. Cheney said.
"And we don’t operate that way."
The former vice president’s statements only raise the stakes in fierce debate with his critics, who believe Mr. Cheney presided over the formulation of interrogation techniques that they regard as torture and remains unapologetic for approving waterboarding and other harsh methods used.
Mr. Cheney bases his argument on the view that suspected terrorists should be considered prisoners of war and said such persons "ought to be held until the end of the conflict.
He also criticized the Obama administration for failing to think through its plans to shutter Guantanamo.
"The administration made a mistake of the president issuing an order that he wants it closed within a year, but didn’t have a clue as to how to proceed," Mr. Cheney said. "And now they’re having trouble because they’re having to come up with a plan of some kind."
Mr. Cheney, who has become the most prominent figure to defend the Bush administration’s record on terror and national security, spoke and took questions at a lunch honoring journalism award winners at the National Press Club.
The former vice president said that the Guantanamo Bay prison is "a fine facility" and that the White House will have a "very difficult" time closing it, because of the legal, political and diplomatic challenges associated with indefinite detention.
Mr. Obama has indicated that even after Guantanamo’s closure, the government will still hold some detainees in prolonged detention. He has also restarted the military commissions process to try some detainees there instead of in civilian courts, following a Bush-era policy.
In arguing for the continued use of Guantanamo, Mr. Cheney cited recent press reports that said about 14 percent of the more than 500 prisoners released from Guantanamo have returned to what he called that jihad business. However, more recent reporting has indicated that the recidivism rate among freed detainees is likely much lower.
Mr. Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo, however, was praised by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a visit to Washington.
For the psychological atmosphere the symbolic issues are important, Mr. Davutoglu said during an interview with a small group of journalists at his Washington hotel. Many things in our region are psychological.
But on the domestic political front, one of the leading contenders for the Republican nomination to run against Mr. Obama in 2012, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, took aim at the president’s foreign policy and defense budget cuts.
Mr. Romney characterized Mr. Obama’s last two trips abroad as a tour of apology and criticized signs from the White House that they might back off a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
"Arrogant, delusional tyrants can’t be stopped by earnest words and furrowed brows," Mr. Romney said. "Action, strong bold action coming from a position of strength and determination, is the only effective deterrent."
North Korea and Iran were two of the topics that Mr. Cheney admitted the Bush administration did fall short on.
We didn’t bat 1,000. No question about it. And Iran and North Korea are still out there, Mr. Cheney said in response to a question about the growth of nuclear programs in both regimes during the eight years that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were in office. I wish we could have done more, but those are problems that are passed on to the next administration.
But Mr. Cheney did assign responsibility to the CIA for both the pre-war intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq, and for proposing the enhanced interrogation techniques that have been the cause of so much controversy.
The former vice president also said that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is not the threat he once was.
I don’t think he can have much impact in terms of managing the organization, because that link between Obama and the people under him is pretty fragile, Mr. Cheney said, inserting the president’s first name for bin Laden’s, a gaffe committed in the past by numerous politicians.
I don’t think he has the capacity to do as much harm as he did at one point, but we ought to still continue to chase him, Mr. Cheney said of bin Laden.
Obama: No Prayer in the White House
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 6:58 PM (c) Newsmax
MADISON, Wis. — The White House is planning a muted observance of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer, a response that has disappointed both Christian conservatives and an atheist group that wants to end the tradition.
Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama would issue such a proclamation Thursday but not hold any public events with religious leaders as President George W. Bush did.
Obama’s decision drew a rebuke from the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a private group that promotes prayer events around the country. The task force estimates 2 million Americans attended more than 40,000 events marking the day last year.
"We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration," said task force chairwoman Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. "At this time in our country’s history, we would hope our President would recognize more fully the importance of prayer."
The debate over the day has landed in federal court in Wisconsin. The Obama administration has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claims the day violates the separation of church and state.
In a rare alliance, 31 mostly Republican members of Congress and a prominent Christian legal group are joining the administration to fight the lawsuit.
Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-Director Annie Laurie Gaylor welcomed Obama’s more scaled back observance but said she has been shocked by his administration’s strong defense of the day in court.
The Madison-based group of 12,000 atheists and agnostics filed the lawsuit near the end of Bush’s second term. It asks a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and to order presidents and governors to stop issuing prayer proclamations.
The Obama administration asked U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb to dismiss the case in March. The administration argued the group has no legal standing to sue, said the tradition’s roots date to 1775 and that most presidents have invoked faith in a higher power.
It also said the day does not promote religion and argued that preventing presidents from issuing a proclamation would unfairly restrict how they communicate with Americans.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Obama Wants to Disarm U.S. Pilots
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 12:19 PM By: David A. Patten
The Obama administration is taking steps quietly to shut down the program that qualifies commercial airline pilots to carry firearms in jetliner cockpits in order to ward off another 9/11-type attack.
The administration recently diverted $2 million from a program to train and certify pilots to carry firearms safely while on duty. Instead, it is using the money to hire additional field inspectors to help discipline pilots who step out of line, according to a report in Tuesday’s Washington Times.
A Times editorial condemned the Obama administration’s action, calling it “completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots.”
Since Obama took office, the approval process for certifying pilots to carry firearms has ground to a halt, the newspaper reports. Pilots are afraid to speak out about the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, for fear of retaliation, according to the newspaper. No cases have been reported in which pilots have brandished a weapon inappropriately or otherwise abused their eligibility to carry firearms.
About 12,000 pilots have been authorized to carry handguns while flying aircraft as part of the Federal Flight Deck Officers Program. Congress authorized the program in a 310-to-113 vote following the 9/11 attacks to help prevent terrorists from turning jetliners into flying bombs that could be used to attack key sites like the White House, the Pentagon, or Capitol Hill.
Paul Valone, a Second Amendment advocate who directs Grass Roots North Carolina (GRNC.org), is calling for citizens to contract their congressional representatives to protest the administration’s anti-gun priorities.
Pilots are already required to pay for their own room and board during training, and use paid leave for the time they’re off the job. Every six months, the program requires them to be requalified for firearm use.
Valone writes on Examiner.com: “While bureaucrats . . . may have attempted to hamstring the program with burdensome requirements, training instructors and the Federal Air Marshals who now oversee the program routinely thank the FFDOs for their professionalism and dedication in protecting the nation’s air commerce against terrorism.”
Valone says the Obama administration is “dismantling yet another layer of defense against terrorism and defying the will of the American people.”
Since coming to power, the Obama administration has undertaken a series of moves that signal a major de-emphasis of programs enacted to keep America’s homeland safe from terrorist attack:
# Obama’s choice for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, labeled enhanced interrogation techniques as outright “torture” during his Senate confirmation hearings.
# Obama banned waterboarding and ordered CIA interrogators to abide by U.S. Army Field Manual regulations.
# He selected Clinton-era political operative Leon Panetta to serve as his CIA director. Panetta’s qualifications to run the agency have been questioned widely.
# Obama announced that he would shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba within one year, raising the prospect of hardened terrorists entering the U.S. criminal justice system, or worse, being released to rejoin al-Qaida.
# He indicated the U.S. defense budget would be sharply reduced.
# He has sent a letter to Russian leaders, apparently offering to back off on the ballistic missile defense system that would protect Europe from Iran and North Korea.
These and other Obama administration moves recently prompted former vice president Dick Cheney to charge that Obama is returning to the Clinton-era view of terrorism as a law enforcement issue.
"Now he’s made some choices that in my mind raise the risk to the American people of another attack," Cheney said of Obama on CNN’s "State of the Union" program.
The Washington Times points out that about 70 percent of airline pilots have military backgrounds. With airport screening less than 100 percent effective, it states, armed pilots provide a second layer of defense.
“Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed pilots,” the newspaper editorial says.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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