I really wonder who is advising the Administration on this. This is truly a damned if you do and damned if you do not response. But I think it would be better to accept full responsibility for doing what every government does or wishes they could rather than giving the appearance that the President is out of touch and not in full control of the executive branch (you would think that there would need to be a Presidential finding for an activity such as this). And if it turns out he did know (in 2010 vice 2013) then it would be a cover-up and we know where that leads. And from a politics standpoint for someone to think that this line of strategic communications somehow protects the President must surely be misguided. To throw the NSA under the bus will not go over politically and I think not only the political opposition will jump on this, but it could very well further damage relations with our allies (worse than the spying itself) as they will perceive that the Administration is not in control of its security services and puts politics above national security. Perhaps ironically this could make the mistrust even greater – our allies are more likely to accept (privately) that they were monitored but will likely trust us less with this line of strategic communications because it appears that the Administration is 1) not in control and 2) has little to no loyalty to the US intelligence community and military which is a dangerous view from a national and international security perspective. And finally we should remember that the NSA is a military organization so there is likely to be increased civil-military friction.
I would have recommended to whomever is devising this strategic communications plan that the best course of action would have been for the Administration to accept full responsibility and then leave it at that without trying to make excuses that leave itself vulnerable to the inevitable lines of questioning that will persist for the remainder of the Administration of what did the President really know and when did he know it? I am sure we are going to see hearings on this and investigative journalists will not rest (Until Bob Woodward publishes his next book that will explain it all).
V/R
Dave
Report: Obama unaware NSA spied on world leaders
By Justin Sink - 10/27/13 09:51 PM ET
The White House was unaware of National Security Agency surveillance targeting world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and ordered the spy agency to cease some monitoring programs after learning of them, according to a report Sunday in The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal report contradicts a story in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that suggests that the president was personally briefed on the operation to monitor Merkel’s phone three years ago.
But according to the Journal’s reporting, President Obama only authorized broad intelligence-gathering priorities. Senior administration officials told the newspaper that individual surveillance levels were made on the agency level.
The report comes as top German intelligence officials were set to travel to Washington this week to ask questions about the alleged surveillance of Merkel.
On Friday, NBC News reported the White House might be open to no-spy agreements with Germany and other close allies outraged over the alleged surveillance of their leaders’ phone and digital communications.
“We are already in diplomatic and intelligence channels talking to the Germans, French, countries around the world — Brazil and Mexico, as well,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told the network. “I think we’ll have a series of bilateral discussions with these countries and look at multilateral discussions as well.”
The U.S. has preexisting no-spy agreements with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain.
(Continued at the link below)
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