New FBI Director James Comey Defends Obama’s Surveillance Program

[Purveyor]

By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, September 21, 2013 6:00 EDT

The FBI’s new director says he supports the government’s electronic surveillance program as a useful, “legal” tool, even though he opposed eavesdropping activities under ex-president George W. Bush.

Two weeks after taking over at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey said in an interview with AFP and several other news outlets that President Barack Obama’s controversial spying policies were needed to counter a “metastasizing” threat from Al-Qaeda.

With the network’s core leadership weakened in Pakistan, the threat posed by Al-Qaeda had evolved, he said, with affiliate groups cropping up around the world and “self-radicalized lonewolves” — homegrown extremists feeding off internet propaganda — posing a threat within the United States.

The former federal prosecutor and Republican, who towers at six feet eight inches (two meters) tall, comes to the job amid a firestorm over far-reaching surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) and concerns over privacy rights, following dramatic leaks by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

“It is both a useful tool and a tool that is circumscribed by all kinds of checks and balances,” Comey said.

“Its challenge is to find a space in the American public life to talk about how those things work.”

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/21/new-fbi-director-james-comey-defends-obamas-surveillance-program/

[grasswire]

1. oh, bother. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

2. His word is the word of a Republican. His Party just voted to defund Obamacare again

and to cut food assistance to the poor. His agency has been unable to stop bombings, mass shootings or anything else with all of their spying on us all. An ineffective member of a dishonorable Party.

[jsr]

3. And there was no Democrat qualified to be FBI director.

[Downwinder]

4. Perhaps none that wanted to own the surveillance programs.