California Rep. Maxine Waters was caught on camera bragging during an interview about former President Barack Obama’s powerful database of information “on every individual” in the United States.
It’s the same kind of information system under investigation for illegally harvesting Facebook user data that caused the social media giant’s stock to crash Monday.
The shocking Waters interview connects these suspected illegal activities straight to Obama. In other words, Waters appears to confess that the Obama campaign broke international law in 2012… and we have the footage.
Will Attorney General Jeff Sessions act?
Speaking to TVOne.tv in 2013, Waters confirms that Obama’s 501(c)4 community organizing network called “Organizing for America” (it has since been renamed “Organizing for Action”) was built using data from Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
In the interview, Waters claimed Obama possessed the “kind of database that no-one has ever seen before” and had “information about everything, on every individual” in the United States.
You can see the interview for yourself here —
The California liberal’s statement ties directly to a confession by Obama’s former media analytics director, Carol Davidsen, who took to Twitter on Sunday to reveal she felt “dirty” about Obama’s alleged misuse of Facebook data in the 2012 presidential election.
So why is this important now?
It’s important because Britain’s information commissioner is using all their legal powers to investigate Facebook and political campaign consultants Cambridge Analytica over this same type of alleged crimes during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Facebook allowed Obama’s 2012 campaign to do the same thing… because they were “on our side,” Davidsen said.
And we have video of Waters bragging about it to go with Davidsen’s confession.
Carol Davidsen ✔ @cld276
Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.
They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.
Carol Davidsen ✔ @cld276
An example of how we used that data to append to our email lists. pic.twitter.com/VHhSukvXDY
Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.
According to The Associated Press, Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is pursuing a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s servers. The company allegedly used data mined from Facebook after being contracted by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election.
She told BBC on Tuesday she is also investigating Facebook and has asked the company not to pursue its own audit of Cambridge Analytica’s data use. She says Facebook has agreed.
“Our advice to Facebook is to back away and let us go in and do our work,” she said.
Cambridge Analytica said it is committed to helping the U.K. investigation and offered to share all the information it has asked for. It did not specify whether it would give access to its servers.
Denham said the prime allegation against Cambridge Analytica is that it acquired personal data in an unauthorized way, adding that the data provisions act requires platforms like Facebook to have strong safeguards against misuse of data.
The same exact thing the Obama administration did… and that Facebook knew about.
Chris Wylie, who once worked for Cambridge Analytica, was quoted as saying the company used the data to build psychological profiles so voters could be targeted with ads and stories.
Denham launched her investigation after weekend reports that Cambridge Analytica improperly used information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts. Facebook has suspended the company from the social network.
The data harvesting used by Cambridge Analytica has also triggered calls for further investigation from the European Union, as well as federal and state officials in the United States.
The investigation should start at the beginning — with Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
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