STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Obama Defends Mining Data: Why Should We Trust Him? 

By now,  most Americans are aware of the simple truth that for years if not decades,  the National Security Agency has been monitoring American’s phone calls.

  For many of us who have had the privilege to serve in the USG,   it’s not a complete surprise to know that the NSA,  often facetiously referred to as ‘No Such Agency’ because of it’s extreme level of secrecy and extensive intelligence activities has been rarely identified or even described in the media.  That is until recently.

  I had never worked at the NSA but I know its filled with very bright mathematicians and computer engineers.   They use all means of Signal Intelligence [SIGINT] and Electronic  Intelligence [ElINT] to monitor national security interests.

  As far as I know,  they have been quite responsible when I worked in the USG.   In fact,  when I requested an ‘electronic sweep’ of Americans overseas during the Jonestown Suicide Tragedy,  I was summarily warned by then Sec State Cyrus Vance  that ‘we don’t monitor Americans’.

  That was pretty much the whole story throughout my tenure with five Presidents.

 

However since 9/11,  the Patriot Act was instituted and all types of electronic data was ‘collected’.

  I was against the Patriot Act after 9/11 and now,  I am against the Patriot Act even more so.

  But my personal and professional belies a basic question.

  If POTUS Obama defended his steroidal use of the NSA as reported,  then certain questions must be asked of him.

Obama said the following:
“There are some trade-offs involved.   I came with a healthy skepticism about these programs.   My team evaluated them We scrubbed them thoroughly.   In the end, they help us prevent terrorist attacks.”

  So Mr POTUS,  we Americans also come with an extremely healthy skepticism  not only of the program called, “Prism Internet Surveillance” but also we approach the underlying assumption with even a greater dose of skepticism,  if not,  out-right disbelief,  that 9/11 was not ‘a false flag’ created by the Bush Jr Administration.

  It’s a simple answer that only you can make.   It requires a monosyllabic response—“yes” or “no”.

You see Mr President ,   if you want the American public to trust you,  then you have to trust us and tell us what you really do or do not know about 9/11.   This is not a conspiratorial issue or even a clever set-up. 

As an accomplished lawyer trained in Cartesian logic,  you would also have to ask the question,  was the “Patriot Act” really necessary for a ‘terrorist act’ that may have been created by the Bush Jr administration?

  Whatever your answer will be,  will determine the tenor and viability of the response of, we, Americans, of whom forty per cent now believe that 9/11 was a ‘false flag’.   If that is the case, then,  we see no need for instituted rigid,  if not suffocating, standards of monitoring the American populace.   This kind internal spying is akin to the habits of the East German Stasi of the now defunct Communist regime.

As you well know,  we have a Social Contract between the American people and it’s government.   That Social Contract depends on truth, transparency and accountability from both parties.

  As for me, I simply await your answer to us,  the American public.

  While we await your timely response,  let me remind you that 11 million of us,  served this country in countless wars and conflagrations around the world for two simple words emblazoned on my cap from Ft Bragg:

  “Veritas Et Libertas”

Don’t deny us that ethos,  Mr President!

“Truth And Liberty”!
  It’s just about all I have to say … for the moment.

May I remind you of very important sayings by one of your most famous predecessors---President Harry S Truman.

 

"Men make history and not the other way around."

  And then he added most presciently:
“I always consider statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.” 

And of course, you must know this axiom:
  “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”.
AMEN!!