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The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake. The les

• mjevans 11y ago
  A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become. I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at /random/ from the entire populace.
  • IIAOPSW 11y ago
    Wouldn't be the first time historically speaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
  • acqq 11y ago
    > irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter. He definitely had enough power, but as steve19 points, he could have estimated that such actions would have probably lowered his chances for reelection.
    • deadfish 11y ago
      Why definitely? If it was truly hidden from him... then who is to say he has the power to stop it?
      • acqq 11y ago
        Note: "assuming he's actually being accurately briefed" so here nobody discussed the "truly hidden" variant.
    • TeMPOraL 11y ago
      I disagree. In theory he has enough power, but if you look at how the whole system works, you don't get to become a president if you aren't a) owing a lot of people favours, and b) a kind of person that would be disruptive. If you're the uncontrollable type that would pose the risk to the status quo, you won't be allowed to rise high enough to become a president.
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      • cubancigar11 11y ago
        That is a very absurd argument, one I have heard several times in liberal circles. President of United States of America is the most powerful man in the world. He doesn't owe anyone anything. We elect him thinking he will do what he promised and the only retribution for him is that he will either be impeached or not get re-elected. That's it. That is democracy. Unless he had 'an offer he could not refuse', he is guilty of a lot of betrayal (apart from crimes he can commit from a presidential position). He is not there to do physics, he has been given power to explicitly do what cannot be done without power. Apologetic my ass.
        • knowaveragejoe 11y ago
          This is pretty much verbatim the "Green Lantern" theory of the presidency, fwiw. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/30/why-the-green-lantern-theory-of-presidential-power-persists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/30...
  • duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Don't knock that approach - it's known as Sortition ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition ) and I'm personally convinced that it's a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.
    • ionised 11y ago
      Yep. I've mentioned this a few times. It seems like a sensible approach to me. Much like having members of a jury selected, it should be considered a civic duty and not a career path.
    • irixusr 11y ago
      I've argued for it for a few years but most people are aghast at the suggestion...
      • JupiterMoon 11y ago
        And yet we decide who is guilty of major crimes by this method.
        • irixusr 11y ago
          You're lucky if your case gets that far. Usually an often elected professional will twist your arm to plead guilty.
      • duncan_bayne 11y ago
        I have seen the same thing. I now firmly believe that most people understand that voting for representatives is a sham, but go along with it either for unstated reasons like tribalism and hero worship, or out of a deep seated misanthropy common to both the left and right wing.
        • rayiner 11y ago
          Who is "most people"? Almost 2/3 of voters in midterm congressional elections are over 45--are you really considering a representative pool of people in forming your belief? The majority of voters have the representatives they want (approval rates for peoples' own Congresspeople are extremely high). If you keep in mind the demographics that bother to vote (my 65 year old mom, but not my 30 year old wife and I), they have the government they want too. My mom is super excited about Hilary and would vote for life imprisonment for drug dealing if anyone put it on a referendum.
  • vlehto 11y ago
    I think being willing to do the job increases chances of success a lot. Also some popular support seems to be indication of reasonable person. But when you go beyond Dunbar number, seeking popularity turns into game. Then it is matter of playing the game well. Which doesn't necessarily correlate with anything else. Random selection from people who gathered 100 endorsements should get somewhat good results.
  • forgetsusername 11y ago
    >It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective I truly don't believe this. Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. Sure, the corporate, moneyed interests will push their agenda as hard as possible to try to sway opinion (which isn't always misaligned with the public good, by the way). But at the end of the day politicians will do what they can to save their jobs. Most of them are just ordinary people, after all. The fact of the matter is, the story of surveillance was sold to us as, "We're protecting you from another 9/11!", and there are many people who really believe that. It might even be true, who knows. Outside of the technorati in SV and urban centers (who, ironically, created the surveillance system), most people really don't give a damn about their digital privacy. Yet. If or when a sensational story happens that involves the "common man" being boned by surveillance, the tide will shift. I'd put money on it.
    • Zigurd 11y ago
      > Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. But possibly not within what people call "the system." It's entirely plausible that some things are "kept safe" from the whims of the people.
      • forgetsusername 11y ago
        >from the whims of the people. I don't really think that's possible, because there is no difference between "the people" and..."the not-people"? Every time there's any discussion about politics or power, there's the inevitable topic of "us" vs "them". It's always insightful to ask people where they draw the line between the categories of people. Is it all politicians? I mean, is there some secret indoctrination, like Scientology, whereby the minute you reach a certain level in your political career, the "real world" is explained to you? How is it that these secrets are kept? For many Americans it's the "1%ers" who receive the disdain. That is, until they realize that a significant number of themselves are global 1%ers. I have a personal friend who often rails about the "global elite", meanwhile he is a SMB owner with a multi-million dollar net worth who isn't -- how shall I say it -- especially "diligent" when it comes to offering his low-skill employees the best opportunities. All this is to say that, yes, often times the incentives of the capitalists and the workers are averse to each other. But "the system" maintains the balance, in that one party can't subjugate the other extremely without personal harm. In other words, "the rich" can't take all the money, because that leaves no demand for product, and eventually "the poor" say @#$% it, and start beheading the royals. At least that's what history tells me.
  • Arnt 11y ago
    Which raises a fascinating question: Why not say so? This isn't a rhetorical way of saying that there aren't any. I expect that there are valid reasons to be silent in such a position. although I can't think of what they might be. Perhaps the chances of success in six months seems better if he's silent now than if he talks loudly now? But what could that assessment be based on?
  • cryoshon 11y ago
    Meh, as the president, he has control over the direction of the executive agencies, of which the surveillance state has several. The "democracy by lawyer" argument that the article suggests is completely hollow, as leadership that way can't undo past mistakes that were made illegally, such as the Bush dragnet / wars. Random reps wouldn't work because the public is largely uneducated and malleable to propaganda. Maybe opt-in random with a series of civic examinations would work.
  • coldtea 11y ago
    >I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at /random/ from the entire populace. That was how democracy was initially conceived and practiced in ancient Athens too (at least for some public positions).
• richardw 11y ago
  > the catastrophic career-ending political fallout from a major terrorist attack Any rational person would consider preventing a major terrorist attack far more important than keeping their job for four years. People with the opposite motivation do exist, but generally I'd consider them pretty close to evil. Someone like that would probably have had a different 2 terms to Obama, in my opinion.
  • makomk 11y ago
    It's not clear that these surveillance programs actually help stop terrorist attacks, just that if one did happen after Obama stopped them it'd be a career-ending move because it'd be perceived to be his fault.
  • irixusr 11y ago
    And if the system selects the non-rational power hungry by design? Elections are cutthroat, and to become president you have to have won many of them. It could be argued that an evil person has slightly better of odds of getting through. Raise that to the power of the half dozen elections needed to become president and you end up with Cheneys, Hilarys, and the like...
• bwindels 11y ago
  > The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs Why do you say it's hard to believe he doesn't agree with these programs?
• robin_reala 11y ago
  ‘left’ is a bit of a misnomer. With US politics it’s ‘extreme right’ and ‘a bit right of centre’.
• purpled_haze 11y ago
  > He chose the option that he thought would give him a second term (and then a gold plated public speaking career after the White House). Isn't it also possible that he chose the option he thought was right for the country? Of course, it isn't that clear cut and there were probably many other things weighing in, but I wouldn't discount it.
• irq-1 11y ago
  Obama publicly agreed with the data collection and voted to expand it before the election. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/obamas-wiretapping-flip-flop-yes/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/... > But recently the Senate again took up legislation that would let the phone companies off the hook. It would also expand the government's domestic spying powers. > Obama supported an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the measure. But after that amendment failed, Obama declined to filibuster the bill. In fact, he voted for it. It passed the Senate, 69-28, on July 9.
  • knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    I think the simple explanation here is this: Governments rely on information to function. When you get into a position of power and see the breadth and quality of information provided by digital means, you aren't going to be the one to push to turn that off. I'm talking about all data here of course, not just the NSA et. al. - weather, financial, trade data, so on. However, I think this is even closer to the truth when it comes to clandestine sources of data, since those are more often than not tightly coupled with security. The point being that all of this just makes logical sense given their (essentially impossible) mission of preventing all future terrorist attacks, whether or not you agree with it from an ethical perspective. It makes an argument against the NSA's methods difficult without hard evidence that threats to the country are either overinflated or could not possibly be stopped without surreptitious methods.
• canjobear 11y ago
  > The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs, I thought the article was arguing that he in fact did agree with those programs so long as they had a sound legal basis. In criticizing the Bush surveillance programs, people complained that they were (i) bad and (ii) illegal. The article argues that Obama thought that once (ii) was fixed, his work was done.
• tsunamifury 11y ago
  There seems to be a massive flaw in this logic in that it could be used to justify almost anything. For example, it would be more important for President Obama to forcibly make a large portion of private industry to work on a super laser to defend against alien invasions, because alien invasions would cause more political fallout than not defending against them. This is the mental problem with forecasting black-swan events, then basing your strategy on the outsized risk of those events. You can end up justifying insane behavior due to an event you have convinced yourself will happen, even if the odds are infinitesimal.