President Obama not only lying but trying to cover up spying scandal Wed Aug 7, 2013 10:48PM GMT 5 10 8 Download | Embed “The administration attempted to cover over the scandal by making vastly exaggerated claims about a massive al-Qaeda terrorist attack, tending to justify these spying mechanisms.” An American journalist says US President Barack Obama is not only lying about the country’s massive spying program but trying to cover it up by exaggerating an al-Qaeda threat against US nationals and its diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa. “I think that not only is the president not telling the truth but that the American people are well aware of the fact that he is lying,’ said Jeff Steinberg, a senior editor at Executive Intelligence Review. He made the remarks in an interview with Press TV’s US Desk on Wednesday a day after President Obama’s denied that his administration is carrying out a domestic surveillance program. “We don’t have a domestic spying program,” Obama said, according to the media pool report. “What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack...That information is useful.” Obama called the surveillance programs “a critical component to counterterrorism.” “There have been a series of mass surveillance programs that have been spying illegally against the American population,” said Steinberg. He described White House’s spying programs as clear violations of First and Fourth Amendments to US Constitution. “One of the core aspects of the American Revolution was that the American people rejected …the blanket right of the government to spy on the population.” He further blasted the Obama administration for attempting to prosecute former contractor to CIA and National Security Agency Edward Snowden who spilled the beans on the controversial spying programs. “Snowden who for the first time revealed the scope and extent of these programs is being prosecuted under the espionage act which has nothing to do with the fact that he blew the whistle on crimes that were being committed against the American people by the US government.” Steinberg said that the impact of the spying scandal on the Obama presidency is going to be “devastating and irreversible.” “People are drawing the comparison between this crisis and when (former) president George W Bush failed to respond to the needs of the American people when Hurricane Catarina hit the Gulf of Mexico area,” he explained. “The administration attempted to cover over the scandal by making vastly exaggerated claims about a massive al-Qaeda terrorist attack, tending to justify these spying mechanisms,” he concluded. US authorities have closed a number of American diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa due to alleged threats from al-Qaeda operatives. DT/DT
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 01:39:39 +0000
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