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I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I wish Snowden were a participant on HN so he could address the specific detail points. One recent historical point I'd

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I wish Snowden were a participant on HN so he could address the specific detail points. One recent historical point I'd mention based on your reasoning is that there was a period of time toward the end of Obama's presidency when there was immense political pressure on him to "do something" about Russia meddling in the US election to benefit Trump. It seems plausible that since Obama was willing to impose last-minute sanctions on Russia and expel diplomats only weeks before leaving office, his administration might have also been pressured into explicitly investigating allegations of improper association between Trump and Russia via surveillance. If such an investigation had been initiated and turned up any damning evidence, it is quite likely Trump would not have been sworn in as president. I interpret Obama's willingness to impose sanctions and expel diplomats as an indication of how much pressure he was under to use his power to intervene in what was viewed by many as the effective rigging of an election. I am not a Trump supporter, so I don't make this point in defense of Trump, merely as a possible indication of the amount of pressure Obama was under in his final days in office.

deleted 10y ago
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unclebucknasty 10y ago
I think the pressure operated in reverse. That is, under normal circumstances, the election meddling, the associate connections, the pro-Russia rhetoric, etc. naturally warranted an investigation/response as a matter of national security. No pressure would be required. Likewise, public revelations about some of this stuff (in particular, the attack on our democracy) clearly could not go unchecked, thus warranting the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions. However, Obama was under intense pressure not to appear to be acting politically.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > However, Obama was under intense pressure not to appear to be acting politically. Only to the extent that is typically the sitting president's responsibility to jump on board with the campaign rhetoric of his/her own party. The accusations about Russia put Obama in a delicate spot. If there had been evidence, his decision would have been easy, but in the absence of evidence he faced accusations of stoking fears about Russia to benefit his party. But I think the line was crossed in the other direction when he imposed sanctions and evicted diplomats. For a president to do that weeks before a new administration takes over is abundantly petty and ought only be done if the new administration approves of it. Doing so was far beneath Obama, and was akin to leaving an unflushed bowel movement in the oval office bathroom so Trump would find it on his first day. Obama did it only because he was under great pressure from his party to do so.
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    >Only to the extent that is typically the sitting president's responsibility to jump on board with the campaign rhetoric of his/her own party No. In this case, simply carrying out the normal duties of the president could have been seen as political, given the context. Obama himself later mentioned this and indicated it was why he hadn't acted sooner, especially with Trump already making the "rigged election" charges. >If there had been evidence There was evidence, as repeatedly and publicly corroborated by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. >For a president to do that weeks before a new administration takes over is abundantly petty He was still president and doing his job. Had we been attacked militarily, it's doubtful that anyone would advocate that he await Trump to respond. The attack on our electoral process was no less destructive in the eyes of those of us who value our democracy.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > There was evidence, as repeatedly and publicly corroborated by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. This is one of the false statements that gets repeated over and over. There was not evidence presented to the public, only an assessment in which the NSA felt it was only marginally probable that meddling had occurred, and it was only from a small number of agencies. The document was also an informal, unusual concoction that is not the typical product of intelligence analysis under any circumstances. I've critiqued that document before on HN, but the bottom line is that it was an extremely amateurish and embarrassing hodge podge of pasted-in boilerplate, wild speculation, and hand waving that intentionally blurred the line between all sorts of disconnected things and attempted to present a narrative of a Russian conspiracy. But it all rests on trusting the agencies who concocted such an embarrassing document. We're told that the proof was redacted for security reasons, but I think that such grandiose claims ought to be accompanied by at least the tiniest bit of non-circumstantial evidence. Note that HRC supporters (and McCain, as is often the case) were chest-pounding and calling for war. I think a bit of skepticism is in order considering that it wasn't long ago that we were misled into another very costly war.
      - willstrafach 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

unclebucknasty 10y ago

I think the pressure operated in reverse. That is, under normal circumstances, the election meddling, the associate connections, the pro-Russia rhetoric, etc. naturally warranted an investigation/response as a matter of national security. No pressure would be required. Likewise, public revelations about some of this stuff (in particular, the attack on our democracy) clearly could not go unchecked, thus warranting the sanctions and diplomatic expulsions. However, Obama was under intense pressure not to appear to be acting politically.

grandalf 10y ago
> However, Obama was under intense pressure not to appear to be acting politically. Only to the extent that is typically the sitting president's responsibility to jump on board with the campaign rhetoric of his/her own party. The accusations about Russia put Obama in a delicate spot. If there had been evidence, his decision would have been easy, but in the absence of evidence he faced accusations of stoking fears about Russia to benefit his party. But I think the line was crossed in the other direction when he imposed sanctions and evicted diplomats. For a president to do that weeks before a new administration takes over is abundantly petty and ought only be done if the new administration approves of it. Doing so was far beneath Obama, and was akin to leaving an unflushed bowel movement in the oval office bathroom so Trump would find it on his first day. Obama did it only because he was under great pressure from his party to do so.
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  >Only to the extent that is typically the sitting president's responsibility to jump on board with the campaign rhetoric of his/her own party No. In this case, simply carrying out the normal duties of the president could have been seen as political, given the context. Obama himself later mentioned this and indicated it was why he hadn't acted sooner, especially with Trump already making the "rigged election" charges. >If there had been evidence There was evidence, as repeatedly and publicly corroborated by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. >For a president to do that weeks before a new administration takes over is abundantly petty He was still president and doing his job. Had we been attacked militarily, it's doubtful that anyone would advocate that he await Trump to respond. The attack on our electoral process was no less destructive in the eyes of those of us who value our democracy.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > There was evidence, as repeatedly and publicly corroborated by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. This is one of the false statements that gets repeated over and over. There was not evidence presented to the public, only an assessment in which the NSA felt it was only marginally probable that meddling had occurred, and it was only from a small number of agencies. The document was also an informal, unusual concoction that is not the typical product of intelligence analysis under any circumstances. I've critiqued that document before on HN, but the bottom line is that it was an extremely amateurish and embarrassing hodge podge of pasted-in boilerplate, wild speculation, and hand waving that intentionally blurred the line between all sorts of disconnected things and attempted to present a narrative of a Russian conspiracy. But it all rests on trusting the agencies who concocted such an embarrassing document. We're told that the proof was redacted for security reasons, but I think that such grandiose claims ought to be accompanied by at least the tiniest bit of non-circumstantial evidence. Note that HRC supporters (and McCain, as is often the case) were chest-pounding and calling for war. I think a bit of skepticism is in order considering that it wasn't long ago that we were misled into another very costly war.
    - willstrafach 10y ago