Barack Obama addresses the NSA spying scandal and proposes changes which amount to nothing

 Earlier today Barack Obama addressed the NSA spying scandal. As I am one of the ever-shrinking number of Americans who still have a job I was not able to listen to his speech, but I have been reading what he said and it appears to have gone something like this: The NSA is not doing anything technically wrong because they are not abusing the information it gathers but he is going to change the program anyway to make Americans feel better, he is asking Eric Holder and the Congress to review the case in order to see what changes should be made, and while the NSA will still gather the metadata of virtually all Americans he will farm out the storage aspect to a private company rather than having the government store it, but the government will still be able to access it when they want to by getting a warrant.

    What Barack Obama seems to be missing, as Rand Paul pointed out, is that the collection of the data without a warrant is a violation of the fourth amendment and an abuse of power in and of itself, it matters not where the data is stored because the data shouldn’t be collected in the first place without a warrant specifically directed at an individual  person. The fourth amendment is clear on this issue:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

  The fourth amendment states that no warrants shall be issued without probable cause and the warrant must name the person and place to be searched and that is clearly not happening under the NSA’s spying program.

  The unconstitutional program will continue with a little tweaking, if the changes are implemented at all and of that I am doubtful, but the solution he has proposed does nothing to address the constitutional concerns of millions of Americans. The more things change the more they stay the same…..