Fog again this way-too-early Tuesday as we pound on through the week — we just getting started.
And how do I know? — spy in the sky, in the ground and all around.

Ironic reform — President Obama has ordered up a review panel of the NSA bullshit …but: The panel will be chosen by, and report to, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper famously answered “no sir” when Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked whether the NSA collects information about millions of Americans. Clapper has since conceded that this answer was “clearly erroneous.”

(Illustration found here).

During his NSA-snooping-centric press conference last Friday, Obama chided: “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.”
And then claimed:

I called for a thorough review of our surveillance operations before Mr. Snowden made these leaks,” Obama said.
“My preference, and I think the American people’s preference, would have been for a lawful, orderly examination of these laws; a thoughtful fact-based debate that would then lead us to a better place.”

Massive turds involved with that bullshit, leaving the toilet with an ugly stink.
Obama wanted the check for ‘abuses’ in the intelligence-gathering, but yet not so fast.
Accordingly, DNI Crapper, oops, sorry, DNI Clapper dished out a memo yesterday, describing in part what all the fuss is about, and the reality of this review panel: The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.

Maintain the public trust is as close to rooting out abuses as they want, and is ridiculous. Obama claims Snowden should have gone the whistleblowing route within the NSA.
Bruce Fein, attorney for Lon Snowden, Ed’s dad, says that whole reasoning is absurd:

“These were the committees that knew for seven years what was going on and refused to disclose it to the American people.
The best was some cryptic statements if the American people knew what was going on they would be stunned.
And Edward Snowden is supposed to go to them?
That seems rather implausible because they were the ones who were responsible for the secrecy.”

Anyone with any kind of walking around sense cannot trust the US government — Obama talks with forked tongue.
And the flak is not surprising. Snowden opened the doors to a way-dark room, which would not have seen any light if the former NSA IT guy had not made all those disclosures in June.
Even tired, crusty old John McCain knows:

“Right now there’s kind of a generational change.
Young Americans do not trust this government,” McCain said.
“Without trusting government you can’t do a lot of things.”

No shit sherlock.
Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post calls baloney:

The modest reforms Obama proposed do not begin to address the fundamental question of whether we want the National Security Agency to log all of our phone calls and read at least some of our e-mails, relying on secret judicial orders from a secret court for permission.
The president indicated he is willing to discuss how all this is done — but not whether.
“It’s not enough for me, as president, to have confidence in these programs. The American people need to have confidence in them as well,” Obama said.
But if this is truly what he believes, he should have kicked off this confidence-building debate years ago, long before former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden blew the whistle.
Snowden’s disclosures do look increasingly like whistle-blowing, by the way, rather than espionage or treason.
If administration officials really welcome the discussion we are now having, shouldn’t they thank Snowden rather than label him an enemy of the state?
…
I’ll believe Obama is serious about reforming the intelligence court when he calls for all its interpretations of the law — without details of specific orders that would tip off terrorists — to be made public.
And I’ll believe Congress is serious when it clarifies the Patriot Act and other laws to spell out that the Constitution still applies.
The NSA’s capability to obliterate privacy is rampaging ahead.
The law desperately needs to catch up.

Don’t hold your breath. This MO will not change, no matter what — that huge data complex the NSA is building in Utah, are they just going to tear it down, or make the facility a homeless shelter?
Shit no — just another data farm:

The gargantuan $1.2 billion complex…features 1.5 million square feet of top secret space.
High-performance NSA computers alone will fill up 100,000 square feet.
…
The NSA’s Utah Data Center will be able to handle and process five zettabytes of data, according to William Binney, a former NSA technical director.
…
An NSA spokeswoman says the actual data capacity of the center is classified [but] NSA does provide some measure of the computing power. … It requires 65 megawatts of power, enough for 65,000 homes.

No way jose — clap if you feel constitutionally nauseous.