This is the worst case scenario from the NSA mass-surveillance debacle.
I could plausibly justify it when the NSA (a department of the DoD) was solely focused on national security (assuming the NSA's self-imposed controls, protocols, procedures, etc were implemented and executed as the NSA Director claimed).
Now national security resources are being retasked to fight another failed prohibition. The US Federal Government's failed drug policies are as much a threat to US national security as foreign drug cartels are. Re-legalize narcotics, redirect enforcement and imprisonment funding to rehab, education, abd.
Do you have any proof he had decided to take this course of action before he took office when he was making campaign promises?
I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve.
In July, 2008, then Senator Barack Obama voted for telecom immunity from lawsuits for illegal wiretapping.
In October, 2007 he had promised to filibuster any attempt to give telecoms retroactive immunity.
So this counts in my book as his first broken campaign promise, and proof that he hoped to continue warrantless wiretapping before he became President.
Something about the classified reports changes people.
Most of IC guys are careerists. Presidents come and go, which makes me think the DoD has a lot of practice at scaring novice presidents into accomplishing their policy goals.
>Do you have any proof he had decided to take this course of action before he took office when he was making campaign promises?
Does it really matter when he decided to take this course of action? I think what matters is that he did.
>I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve.
That's no excuse, it doesn't justify his actions. Obama was selected from a country of 300 million people to lead the nation, it's perfectly justifiable to expect for him to be above being manipulated by "scary daily reports".
And here he is, step by step turning the US into an Orwellian police state (God, I wish this was hyperbole).
Also, I seriously doubt the NSA has been bugging Obama for permission to hand over their data to various LE agencies.
> Does it really matter when he decided to take this course of action? I think what matters is that he did.
I would hope a President (or any politician really) would feel free to change their mind as they're presented with evidence they weren't previously familiar with. Or maybe their own priorities have even changed 8 years later and that's influenced their change of heart. That sort of thing happens.
Just because I might disagree with their conclusion or interpretation doesn't mean they shouldn't be free to reevaluate.
One of the most hollow, worthless political insults is to call someone a "flip flopper" IMO. It panders to ignorance. I want politicians to be persuaded by the facts. To not be zealous idealogues.
Then I guess that every election promise that he choose not to keep should be brought back to a popular vote/referendum ... that would help people not feel betrayed.
The POTUS should not be considered a leader any more than the speaker of the house. He shouldn't be leading "the people" to do anything, according to the Constituional role. But in the movies, he's a standup guy every time so we get this weirdly quasi-religious idea that he's some special person by virtue of the vaulted position. A position which has been wildly perverted in an incestuous political feedback machination. Patriot Act still in place? Yeah, now imagine the other cancerous beginnings of the Federal Reserve, Social Security, the IRS, the FCC and on and on. The POTUS isn't a leader, it's a political tool that affects society when hardships (usually financial) arise and congress is too slow and inept to handle it, so the executive branch acts and 1/3 the legislative is too busy vying for the next election cycle to take a stand, leaving the acts in place the vast majority of the time. No matter how well or poorly conceived.
I find it utterly staggering how frequently US politics seems to be in "election mode"... 2 years away from the Presidential Election that race gears up meaning that the president is only really 'focused on the job' for half the time and campaigning the rest, then there's the senate, half term senate elections because what the hell do you need to alternate back and forth so frequently for, its the same term for each election you've just made it twice the political mess with this half term election nonsense...
I live on the other side of the world in Australia... and I am STILL getting BOMBARDED with this constant cycle of election crap going on in the USA due to how much the US media drives advertising.
Its just crazy... You guys have way bigger problems than the whole "the people think POTUS is in charge, but congress is actually meant to be in charge", it starts with the fact none of your politicians have enough time to do their fucking jobs due to all the campaigning.
House Rep terms are really kind of stupidly short. Two years means they are constantly on the hamster wheel of campaigning.
Now, there could be the argument that being a professional politician was never supposed to be a thing, but any hope for that is dead and gone, probably before Washington set the precedent of stepping down after two terms.
I think this is an interesting question: is it worse for him to have made promises he never intended to keep, or for him to have gone back on his promises after he was elected?
I think that the former would probably be a worse indictment of his character, but at the end of the day the result is the same from the outside.
Whilst many people would see your comments as tinfoil-hattery, the point is an interesting one. There is obviously no proof that the president has been blackmailed by the NSA. However it is not outside the reasons of their capabilities to have targeted and monitored him prior to him becoming president whilst he was unaware of their capabilities.
The point, and this is important, is that the NSA not only has the real technical capability to fully monitor any number of up-and-coming senators, but there are no checks and balances in order for us to know that they HAVEN'T targeted and subsequently blackmailed him.
Technology has made it easy to target and monitor anyone that has the possibility of making a noticeable impact on the system. The people that control the system at that point in time, are then able to embrace, extinguish or "redirect" any outside risk to their power base.
Total surveillance makes this process simple. Not only can you start to weed out the bad apples, but you can also start to automate the process. Slowly you can train the system to spot the risks. He who controls the surveillance, then controls everyone else.
With complete storage archives of all the data, you can also backtrack on flagged entities and see their entire history. Imagine being presented with a blackmail dossier that listed (with photographic / video evidence) your youthful escapades during your school and university years. "I did not inhale!". "Oh yes you did Mr President, and here's a HD video of it".
The NSA have taken the worst that the internet had to offer and weaponised it against all citizens - both foreign and domestic.
One NSA whistleblower claims they do indeed do blackmail (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk). He even implicates them doing it to Obama. Granted there's no accompanying top secret powerpoint so I'm sure no one will believe it.
Thank you for linking Russ Tice, I have watched most of his interviews and people should be more aware of what he says. More specifically, he says Obama was not even senator yet, he was simply the nominee, when wiretap papers came accross his desk... This has vast implications about their true targetting methods.
It's easy to pooh-pooh such a conspiracy theory. Yet if I ask myself whether a three letter agency would go this far to protect itself, the last five (or so) years has revealed an ambition (and lack of boundaries) that leads me to answer 'quite possibly'.
A general problem with conspiracy theories is that they require some number of people to keep quiet regarding the matter. However, in an environment where keeping quiet is a core, institutionalized requirement, conspiracies become much less hard to believe (or at least consider).
I don't have a problem seeing this one as a real possibility.
I wonder what they mean by "changing the rules". Are they talking about another Executive Order? How would they just "change the rules" without violating some law?
My fear is this will be done through CISA, as I expected it would be. That would give them the excuse to say it's legal.
