AppleInsider Staff
According to a report from Politico, President Barack Obama met with a host of technology executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, and civil rights leaders on Thursday to discuss government surveillance activities, a hot button issue as of late.
The meeting was held behind closed doors, sources told POLITICO, and was the second such high-level talk regarding government surveillance issues this week. The White House declined to reveal topics discussed in the meeting, as did those who attended.
Cook was joined by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google's chief Internet evangelist and legendary computer scientist Vint Cerf, and Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. Also present were representatives from the Center for Democracy and Technology, the sources said.
According to an anonymous White House aide, the meetings are seen as part of a larger initiative that seeks to find balance between the government's counterterrorism policies and personal privacy.
“This is one of a number of discussions the administration is having with experts and stakeholders in response to the president’s directive to have a national dialogue about how to best protect privacy in a digital era, including how to respect privacy while defending our national security,†the person said.
Thursday's meeting wasn't the first time President Obama has reached out to industry leaders, or Cook specifically, for input on matters of policy. In 2012, the President called Cook, along with a few other top business executives, to discuss the so-called "fiscal cliff."
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47 Comments
I believe, surveillance is necessary to an extend to ensure people can enjoy better security. However its also important to be responsible with this and not misuse it.
If by national dialogue, he means secret meetings with corporate CEO's, then **** Obama. If I had known that he would view me as a possible threat, deserving to be spied upon, I would have voted for McCain. Goddammit there is no justice in this world.
[quote name="ImperialForces" url="/t/158969/president-obama-reportedly-talks-government-surveillance-with-apples-cook-tech-leaders#post_2376929"]If by national dialogue, he means secret meetings with corporate CEO's, then **** Obama. If I had known that he would view me as a possible threat, deserving to be spied upon, I would have voted for McCain. Goddammit there is no justice in this world. [/quote] Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but you would be spied on the same or more with McCain. All this stuff didn't just start with Obama, it just expanded on his watch. First, this stuff had started BEFORE FISA was changed to make it legal. Second, Congress and the Senate changed FISA in a backhanded way to make it legal [after a bunch of revisions with wording that would add more limitations on what the NSA could do, right before it was to be voted on, someone changed the final revision to use wording greatly expanding what they could do, something along the lines of changing "you can do X, if both Y and Z are true" to "you can do X, if either Y or Z are true"] Third, it's not like Obama is driving this stuff. People in the NSA come up with ideas, and may or may not get approval from the Executive branch before proceeding (in this case, they needed it, because do it requires large buckets of money). Simply put, the NSA has to be disbanded. It's basic culture has been one of violating the law for much of it's existence, without any consequences.
If you don't or can't trust national security services to do their job and put in place laws that restrict them, effectively rendering them useless, then who does the monitoring and analysis ? Should there none ? There has to be something or someone that can be trusted to do this job. Would the onus of monitoring and analysis be in the hands of private corporations, like Apple or Google ? Any flags then to be passed on to government agencies ? That scenario would breach any number of existing laws Id imagine. Plus it would place them in a direct conflict of interest. idk what answer is to this as it questions on an international scale many philosophies that differ between countries. Catch 22 ...
If it isn't spelled out in the Constitution, then it is up to the people, not the government. Violation of our constitutional rights needs to be more jealously defended and when those in government are found to be violating, people need to be fired and/or jailed immediately.