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Apple, Google and AT&T Meet Obama to Discuss NSA Surveillance Concerns

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Photo Credit: APBarack Obama hosted a summit on government surveillance and digital privacy attended by Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Google vice-president Vint Cerf and the boss of US telecoms network AT&T on Thursday.

The US president attended in person, sources told the Politico blog, as did other technology company executives. Additional attendees included representatives of the Center for Democracy and Technology and Gigi Sohn, leader of internet campaign group Public Knowledge.

The meeting was apparently prompted by growing concerns among US technology companies that revelations from the Guardian and others about the extent and depth of surveillance by the National Security Agency, and the companies’ obligation to allow access to data under secret court rules, could be damaging their reputation and commercial interests abroad.

The gathering followed a closed-doors meeting earlier this week with Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough and general counsel Kathy Ruemmler at the White House.

On the agenda at Tuesday’s meeting were the surveillance activities of the NSA, commercial privacy issues and the online tracking of consumers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Obama’s Pledge to Boost Oversight of NSA Surveillance Draws Scrutiny

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsBy Fox News.

President Obama’s pledge to work with Congress on “appropriate reforms” for parts of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs came under scrutiny Friday from some Republicans and skeptical Democrats.

Surveillance programs that allow the government to collect basic information about phone calls and email communications have been under scrutiny since NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed classified programs in June. The government has defended these programs as necessary to prevent terror attacks.

Obama on Friday acknowledged the domestic spying has troubled Americans and hurt the country’s image abroad. But he called it a critical counterterrorism tool.

“I am comfortable that the program currently is not being abused,” Obama said. “I am comfortable that if the American people examined exactly what was taking place, how it was being used, what the safeguards were, that they would say, ‘You know what? These folks are following the law.'”

His most significant proposal would create an independent attorney to argue against the government during secret hearings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews requests for surveillance inside the U.S. As it stands now, prosecutors alone can go to the court and make their case unopposed.

Read more from this story HERE.

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NSA Debate a ‘Privileged Discussion’

Sequester Jester: Obama Warns Disabled Veterans Their Benefits Could Be In Jeopardy

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama took his case for ending the sequester to hundreds of disabled veterans Saturday, saying he protected their benefits from the “reckless” cuts to the federal budget but suggesting next year might be different.

“It’s hurting our military. I made it clear that your veteran’s benefits are exempt from this year’s sequester,” the president said to the applause of hundreds at the Disabled American Veterans’ convention in Orlando, Fla. “But I want to tell you going forward the best way to protect the VA care you have earned is to get rid of this sequester altogether.”

The president put the blame squarely on Congress, which returns in about four weeks to work on a new federal budget and increasing the federal debt limit.

“We’ve got these reckless, across-the-board budget cuts called the sequester that are hitting a lot of folks hard,” Obama said. “Congress needs to come together and agree on a responsible plan that reduces our deficit and keeps our promises to our veterans and keeps our promises to future generations.”

The cuts went into effect in March after Congress and the White House failed to agree on a more balanced plan to cut government spending.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Obama’s Epic U.S. Geography Fail

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Tuesday night, President Obama made headlines during his appearance on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” one of his numerous appearances over the years (back in 2009, he was the first sitting president to appear on the show). The President talked with Jay about a myriad of topics such as the NSA (he says that we don’t have a domestic spying program), the threat from Al Qaeda, and Trayvon Martin. However, it was when the discussion turned to infrastructure that the president failed on some fairly basic American geography — and it’s not getting much attention.

Photo Credit: Twitter @JoeTalkShow

How did he screw up? A clip from the official transcript of the interview — sent out by the White House* — says it all:

(watch the comments below starting at the 2:15 mark)

Read more:from this story HERE.

Obama Standing by Decision to Lift Moratorium on Releasing Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Back to Yemen

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In spite of the ongoing terror threat emanating from Yemen, the White House says it does not plan to rethink President Obama’s decision last May to lift a moratorium on releasing Guantanamo Bay prisoners back to that country.

“I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis,” Obama told an audience at the National Defense University during a major counterterrorism policy speech on May 23.

The president is standing by that announcement, even though Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen that U.S. intelligence officials say is now the greatest Al Qaeda threat to the U.S. homeland, was formed in part by several former Guantanamo Bay detainees who were released in 2006.

“A handful of former GITMO detainees, primarily Saudi citizens, made their way across the border into Yemen and they joined AQ in Yemen,” according to AQAP expert Gregory Johnsen, author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia.”

“It was that merger between people, former GITMO detainees from Saudi Arabia and the AQ escapees in Yemen, that really formed AQAP, the group that announced itself in January 2009, and that’s the group we know today as AQAP.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Political System Offers Choice Between Lesser of Two Evils, Results In Evil of Two Lessers

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Photo Credit: Irish Central As the country lurches from scandal to scandal, an unending budget impasse, a new norm of part time jobs and unemployment of over 7% …Many of us ask how did we get here?

The political forces in this country serve us up “choices” on the ballot for candidates that many of us feel are distasteful and unqualified. Yet we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils in order to cast a vote. Or worse, it estranges millions of voters from the system, who stay home and don’t vote at all.

Because of this, notoriously inept candidates can tell the voters to hold their nose and vote for them, because their opponent is even worse.

Some candidates don’t have to excel or have accomplished anything of note besides being slick talking politicians, or community organizers groomed for political office. They can bypass executive skills or real life accomplishments that should qualify a candidate for the office.

When was the last time a majority of American citizens enthusiastically went to the ballot box and voted for a presidential candidate of their choice? The last time was when Ronald Reagan swept 48 states to win in a landslide for his 2nd term.

Since that time we have been faced with a choice between carefully scripted, flawed candidates, who never live up to their glossy campaign brochures…And our country is suffering as a result.

From presidential candidates on down to the mayoral races, the scenario is repeated…..Really, in a city of 8.3 million the current crop of mayoral choices are the best and brightest New York can come up with?

Perhaps it’s time to grab hold of an idea that can completely change the political landscape in our country. An idea that would turn millions of apathetic voters into enthusiastic voters willing to get involved in the system again and force the political system give us candidates that we WANT to vote for, for a change.

It’s time to put a new choice on all of the ballots in America. This choice would be the 500 lb gorilla in the living room. The choice is called “NONE OF THE ABOVE”

With just the threat of “none of the above” hanging over their heads, political parties would have to be very careful about who they put on the ballot, because we have a new option: A morning after pill for the American voter.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

71 Percent Say Obama’s Offering Nothing New on Economy

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama has launched a series of speeches seen as a pivot back to the economy, but voters aren’t impressed. A just-released Fox News poll finds they think the president isn’t offering any new economic ideas, and he would help the country more by staying in the nation’s capital and working with Republicans.

In addition, 52 percent of voters disapprove of the job Obama is doing — matching his previous record high disapproval in September 2010. His approval rating also takes a hit this week: 42 percent approve, down from 46 percent at the end of last month (July 21-23, 2013).

Approval of Obama’s job performance has been below 50 percent since October 2012, when 51 percent approved and 46 percent disapproved.

The new poll finds 71 percent of voters say Obama’s recent economic speeches are full of the same things he’s been talking about for the last few years. That’s three and a half times the number who think he’s putting forward new ideas to boost the economy (20 percent).

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Cancels Meeting with Putin Over Snowden Asylum Tensions

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By Dan Roberts. Relations between the United States and Russia deteriorated further on Wednesday when Barack Obama abandoned a presidential summit with Vladimir Putin that was due to be held next month, amid fury in Washington over Moscow’s decision to grant asylum to the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The White House confirmed that it had decided to snub the Russian leader by pulling out of the planned bilateral meeting in Moscow, but is expected to take part in the broader G20 meeting of international leaders in St Petersburg.

Moscow reacted coolly to the decision, which had been widely expected after Putin infuriated the Obama administration by granting temporary sanctuary to Snowden, who fled to Moscow after the Chinese government allowed him to leave Hong Kong, rather than heed US calls for his arrest.

In a statement, the White House said that it had concluded there was “not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda” to hold a US-Russia summit. It cited a lack of progress on arms control, trade, missile defence and human rights, and added: “Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship. Our co-operation on these issues remains a priority for the United States.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the decision to abandon the summit was made after a unanimous decision by the White House national security council. A meeting between defence secretary Chuck Hagel, secretary of state John Kerry and their Russian counterparts will go ahead in Washington on Friday as planned. Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep. Steve King: Obama Too Weak for Putin Meeting

By Greg Richter. President Barack Obama doesn’t have a strong hand or the dominant personality needed to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that’s why the United States backed out of a September one-on-one meeting, says Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

“If they neither fear you nor respect you it’s going to be awfully hard to talk them into letting (NSA leaker Edward) Snowden come back into the United States in our custody,” King said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.”

Even a dominant personality with a weaker hand would allow Obama to walk away with something, he added. Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Hold Obama Accountable for Benghazi Cover-up

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Photo Credit: NewsmaxDid Hillary Clinton tell the truth? She appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January and testified that she had no knowledge of a CIA gun-running operation in Benghazi.

Clinton’s exact words were, “You’ll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex,” and then she claimed that she did not know whether a gun-running operation was taking place.

In March, The New York Times reported that the CIA has been involved with secret shipments of weapons to Syria for over a year: “The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi, and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.”

CNN now reports that at least 35 American agents were in Benghazi and the CIA is doing everything possible to prevent them from testifying to Congress.

Did Clinton lie because the CIA program was classified? Is it OK to lie to Congress about classified programs?

Read more:from this story HERE.

He Just Can’t Tell the Truth: Obama Tells Leno, “We Don’t Have a Domestic Spying Program” (+video)

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Making his sixth appearance on Leno — his fourth as president — Obama and his host stuck to serious subjects as the president promoted his economic and heath care policies, discussed terrorist threats in the Middle East, and defended National Security Agency surveillance programs.

“We don’t have a domestic spying program,” Obama said, describing the NSA efforts as “mechanisms that can track a phone number or an e-mail address that is connected to a terrorist attack … That information is useful.”

Obama also told Leno he’s disappointed that Russia granted temporary asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, but said the two nations can still work together on other issues.

“There are times when they slip back into Cold War thinking and Cold War mentality,” Obama said. “What I continually say to them and to President (Vladmir) Putin, that’s the past.”

Read more from this story HERE.