"Dirty Wars" Filmmaker Jeremy Scahill on the "Drone President" & Obama's Whitewashing of NSA Spying, January 29, 2014

Source: democracynow.org



In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on the United States to "move off a permanent war footing," citing his recent limits on the use of drones, his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and his effort to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay. Obama also vowed to reform National Security Agency surveillance programs to ensure that "the privacy of ordinary people is not being violated."

Jeremy Scahill, whose Oscar-nominated film "Dirty Wars" tackles the U.S. drone war and targeted killings abroad, says Obama has been a "drone president" whose operations have killed large numbers of civilians. On NSA reform, Scahill says "the parameters of the debate in Washington are: should we figure out a way to streamline this and sell it to the American people, or should we do more surveillance?" -democracynow.org