

President Obama press conference on NSA reforms (live, starting around 3pm EST) - blatherard
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/president-obama-holds-press-conference-3

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venomsnake
The four points are:

1\. Vague stuff about 215 ... details - none

2\. Vague stuff about FISC ... details - none

3\. Transparency - some real stuff here. Seems like NSA infor will be
released. And a website.

4\. Vague stuff about audit from independent comitee ... details - none

Vague general purpose stuff.

Lets hope he delivers something concrete in the next few months.

Edit: Snowden is not a patriot according to Mr Obama.

Edit2: Putting full employment as priority and admitting inflation is not a
danger right now. Some "very serious people" got a stroke right now.

~~~
malandrew
Actually lets hope someone in Congress that actually wants real reform
delivers something concrete first instead of the transparency theatre that
Obama is likely to deliver to us.

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jetti
The executive order that Obama mentioned in this speech is a bit
misleading(from what I can tell). First, it doesn't protect those individuals
from being charged with a crime, it only protects their job. Here are a few
thoughts on this executive order[1] which are my own thoughts though I'm not a
lawyer and my interpretation could be wrong.

Here is the opening paragraph for Section A:

"Any officer or employee of a Covered Agency who has authority to take, direct
others to take, recommend, or approve any Personnel Action, shall not, with
respect to such authority, take or fail to take, or threaten to take or fail
to take, a Personnel Action with respect to any employee serving in an
Intelligence Community Element as a reprisal for a Protected Disclosure. "

And here is what a "Personnel Action" is defined as:

"The term "Personnel Action• means an appointment, promotion, detail,
transfer, reassignment, demotion, suspension, termination, reinstatement,
restoration, reemployment, or performance evaluation; a decision concerning
pay, benefits, or awards; a decision concerning education or training if the
education or training may reasonably be expected to lead to an appointment,
reassignment, promotion, or performance evaluation; a decision to order
psychiatric testing or examination; and any other significant change in
duties, responsibilities, or working conditions."

Which means, Snowden couldn't be fired, however, he could still be charged
with crimes, nothing about that. But the next sentence can really invalidate
all of that:

"The term "Personnel Action• does not include the termination of an employee
pursuant to section 1609 of title 10, United States Code."

There are more caveats to "Personnel Action" but this first one is what caught
my eye. Looking up 10 USC § 1609[2]:

"(a) Termination Authority.— Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the
Secretary of Defense may terminate the employment of any employee in a defense
intelligence position if the Secretary— (1) considers that action to be in the
interests of the United States; and (2) determines that the procedures
prescribed in other provisions of law that authorize the termination of the
employment of such employee cannot be invoked in a manner consistent with the
national security. "

The first section of § 1609 is what really gets me: this is basically a get
out of jail free card for terminating the person who blows the whistle.

Even then, the disclosure process is absolutely ridiculous and designed to
keep the public uninformed. Obama even said himself that if Snowden had gone
the "proper" route, then "we would most likely be in the same place now" but
he wouldn't have "put lives in danger". Except that the public wouldn't have
known about this invasion of privacy and it would have most likely been shot
down by higher ups instead of actually being fixed.

[1]
[https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/ppd-19.pdf](https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/ppd-19.pdf)

[2]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1609](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1609)

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nly
Time to play 'privacy theater‎'?

