EFF Scoreboard for Obama’s NSA reform plan… An Americana roundup…

Earlier today, President Obama announced a series of reforms to address abuses by the National Security Agency. We were heartened to see Obama recognized that the NSA has gone too far in trampling the privacy rights of people worldwide. In his speech, the President ensured that National Security Letters would not come with perpetual gag orders, brought new levels of transparency and fairness to the FISA court, and ended bulk collection of telephone records by the NSA. However, there is still much more to be done.

 

When Barack Obama announced his reforms of National Security Agency surveillance programs today, few people were as interested as Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Marissa Mayer, and Steve Ballmer.

Obama Announces Surveillance Reforms

In a speech today, U.S. President Barack Obama announced changes for the operations of the country’s intelligence agencies. He says the current program will end “as it currently exists,

President Obama’s remarks on the NSA and surveillance

Here is a PDF transcript of the president’s speech on surveillance and national security today. Here’s plaintext. Here’s the New York Times’ take on the speech. Here’s a document of the Presidential Policy Directive on Surveillance.

Below, selected commentary from activists, journalists, and lawmakers on Twitter.

Obama’s speech outlining NSA reforms never would’ve happened without Edward Snowden. The Espionage Act charges should be dropped immediately

U.S. Intel: Osama Bin Laden Avatar Could Recruit Terrorists Online for Centuries

When American and British spies were infiltrating virtual-world games like Second Life and World of Warcraft in a bid to detect real-world terrorists, U.S. intelligence warned that jihadists might create an Osama bin Laden avatar that could “preach and issue new fatwas for hundreds of years to come,” according to a “confidential” report disclosed today.

53% More Book Banning Incidents In US Schools This Year

vikingpower writes “Isabel Allende’s The House of The Spirits. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. What do these titles have in common? They are banned at a school in the U.S. Yes, in 2013. A project named The Kids’ Right to Read Project

Getting your head around the Pentagon’s titanic, enormous, unauditably large budget

A long, infographic-laden Mother Jones explainer tries to make sense of the US’s insanely gigantic military budget,

 

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