Can president Obama control the NSA is the headline, but it could just as easily read; Can anybody control the NSA?
Germany, France, Brazil and Mexico are only the latest to express outrage over NSA spying allegations. And no matter how many promises and denials President Obama makes, the allegations just keep on coming. One would thing the President would be afraid to take a call from any world leader for fear of being chewed out over the actions of his National Security Agency.
As assurances of investigations, reviews, and changes where appropriate and possible without jeopardizing national security begin to ring hollow now, the Obama administration needs to get in front of the constant flow of new and damaging snooping revelations. Simply admitting excesses may have been committed and vowing to never allow those lines to be crossed again might do the trick.
Letting the world know, while the United States surveillance apparatus may have morphed into something unintended, steps have been taken to closed the chapter on how U.S. intelligence is gathered. Any further embarrassing disclosure heretofore can be predetermined to be dated data. Of course, that will only work if the President really has the juice, the independence and authority to make the significant changes to how business is done within America's intelligence and defense structure.
By failing to put the NSA scandal to rest once and for all, its time to ask if the President actually has the power to reign in the agency. One needn't engage in conspiracy theories to entertain the probability of powerful special interest so insidiously integrated into the political process, they've grown immune to any real oversight and or control.
Its not beyond the realm of possibility that even the president of the United States can find himself powerless against well connected defense contractors and the flunkies they control in Congress. Perhaps President Obama is no more capable of stopping things from happening than he is capable of making things happen. At this point its difficult to determine if President Obama is getting bad advice from his National Security Advisors on precisely how to handle this scandal, or he's just as captive as the rest of us.
These questions and more in today's podcast.
The Podcast:
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