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"Further, I find it hard to believe that President Obama — a professor of Constitutional Law — doesn’t recognize that backdooring US technology is inconsistent

"Further, I find it hard to believe that President Obama — a professor of Constitutional Law — doesn’t recognize that backdooring US technology is inconsistent with his duty to protect our Constitution." He's had 7 years to change the behavior of the Executive Branch in regards to our rights versus how the departments operate and he hasn't done it. He either doesn't believe in his duty to protect the US Constitution or regard any of this as violating it.

justanother 11y ago
Another possibility that we are forced to consider is that the Executive is not as unitary as it looks; There is likely severe coalition-building and politics even within the Oval Office itself, such that even a Constitutional scholar with good intentions could not realistically and singlehandedly deliver on actions that would seem to be well within the scope of her powers.
- abawany 11y ago
  My insight into this was by reading (listening to) the very long book by Robert Gates called Duty. It described goings-on at the Department of Defense during his time there and showed that even for this slice of government, decisions were never clear cut, the factions many, and opinions numerous. Even for something as clear cut (in retrospect) as the mission to get Bin Laden was debated extensively.
mtgx 11y ago
So far Obama has only used his knowledge about the Constitution to twist interpretations of various laws in favor of giving the executive more power, whether it's for things you disagree with (mass surveillance) or things you agree with (climate change action). So from that perspective, I think he's been downright hostile to "protecting the Constitution".
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  I tell people his constitutional study is the equivalent of a theif who studies locks... So he can pick and disassemble them.
vinceguidry 11y ago
He's a lot closer to the larger geopolitical game being played. In the world that us techies live in, a government-controlled backdoor is an irredeemable assault on our civil liberties, not to mention useless at the actual task of national security. In his, a backdoor that US agencies can access would be an insanely useful espionage tool against Russia and China, and he has to, as a patriot, believe in our law enforcement personnel and trust them to not abuse their power. Lines in the sand have been drawn. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Apple is hell-bent on giving the world real, honest-to-god security. It's never existed before. Every technology so far had failure points that state-level actors could find and exploit. Encryption technology represents a brave new world where anybody can move and hide information outside the reach of governmental authority. The stakes are incredibly high here.

justanother 11y ago

Another possibility that we are forced to consider is that the Executive is not as unitary as it looks; There is likely severe coalition-building and politics even within the Oval Office itself, such that even a Constitutional scholar with good intentions could not realistically and singlehandedly deliver on actions that would seem to be well within the scope of her powers.

abawany 11y ago
My insight into this was by reading (listening to) the very long book by Robert Gates called Duty. It described goings-on at the Department of Defense during his time there and showed that even for this slice of government, decisions were never clear cut, the factions many, and opinions numerous. Even for something as clear cut (in retrospect) as the mission to get Bin Laden was debated extensively.

mtgx 11y ago

So far Obama has only used his knowledge about the Constitution to twist interpretations of various laws in favor of giving the executive more power, whether it's for things you disagree with (mass surveillance) or things you agree with (climate change action). So from that perspective, I think he's been downright hostile to "protecting the Constitution".

arca_vorago 11y ago
I tell people his constitutional study is the equivalent of a theif who studies locks... So he can pick and disassemble them.

vinceguidry 11y ago

He's a lot closer to the larger geopolitical game being played. In the world that us techies live in, a government-controlled backdoor is an irredeemable assault on our civil liberties, not to mention useless at the actual task of national security. In his, a backdoor that US agencies can access would be an insanely useful espionage tool against Russia and China, and he has to, as a patriot, believe in our law enforcement personnel and trust them to not abuse their power. Lines in the sand have been drawn. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Apple is hell-bent on giving the world real, honest-to-god security. It's never existed before. Every technology so far had failure points that state-level actors could find and exploit. Encryption technology represents a brave new world where anybody can move and hide information outside the reach of governmental authority. The stakes are incredibly high here.