NSA Spying on American

 Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation

The US government, with assistance from major telecommunications carriers including AT&T, has engaged in a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.

News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications. Those news reports, combined with a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of American's telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the US Constitution.

The evidence also shows that the government did not act alone. EFF has obtained whistleblower evidence [PDF] from former AT&T technician Mark Klein showing that AT&T is cooperating with the illegal surveillance. The undisputed documents show that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails web browsing and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers and provides those copies to the NSA. This copying includes both domestic and international Internet activities of AT&T customers. As one expert observed “this isn’t a wiretap, it’s a country-tap.”

EFF is fighting these illegal activities in the courts. Currently, EFF is representing victims of the illegal surveillance program in Jewel v. NSA, a lawsuit filed in September 2008 seeking to stop the warrantless wiretapping and hold the government and government officials officials behind the program accountable.

Previously, in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF filed the first case against a cooperating telecom for violating its customers' privacy. After Congress expressly intervened in the FISA Amendments Act to allow the Executive to require dismissal of the case, the case was ultimately dismissed by the US Supreme Court.

Dick Cheney calls Obama worse than Jimmy Carter

 

It is amazing to me that Dick Cheney calls Obama worse than Jimmy Carter after what he and President J.W. Bush have done to our world and the economy.

We need to take a closer look at the Republican Party. Do they have the good of the American people in mind or only the good of the wealthiest people in the world?

No matter how you look at it, a politician should represent all people, not only the ones who give them the most money.   A politician should be a representative of the people in its country and always have the peace and happiness of all people around the world in mind.

Neither Dick Cheney nor J.W. Bush nor W. Mitt Romney are these kind of politician.They only have their own agenda. Their ideology is to let the banks and corporations do whatever they want as long as the make more money for them and to be a  long-term advocate of tax cuts but mostly for the wealthiest in the country!

President Obama - Gay Marriage: 'Gay Couples Should Be Able to Get Marriage" (Video/Transcript)

Transcript
"I have to tell you as I said, I have gone through an evolution on this issue, I have always been adamant that gay and lesbian American should be treated fairly and equally. And that's why in addition to everything we have done in this administration rolling back don't ask don't tell so that outstanding Americans can serve our country, whether it's no longer defending the defense against the marriage act which try to federalize uh what is historically state law. I have stood on the side of broader equality for the LGBG (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community and I hesitated, on  gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient, but that was something that would give people hospital visitation rights and other elements that we take for granted, uh  and I was sensitive to the fact, that for a lot of people the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful tradition, religious beliefs and so forth.
 But I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married. "