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That seems like an interesting assumption, given than Snowden had to escape the country when Obama was the president.
by fooker 7y ago
That seems like an interesting assumption, given than Snowden had to escape the country when Obama was the president.
- epistasis 7y agoI'm not fololwing, what's connecting Obama's behavior to Warren's and Sanders's?
- cpursley 7y agoThey are Democrats (the political party espouses civil rights).
- willhslade 7y agoThey are assuming left leaning Presidents will do the right thing. It's, at best, a little naive.
- bityard 7y agoYou mean the left thing
- imglorp 7y agoThat was a disappointment. Obama ran on restoring the rights retracted by the Patriot act, on closing Guantanamo, etc. After taking office though, things went in the other direction. There were new abuses and more National Security Letters issued than ever before. It makes you wonder if new presidents get "read in" on what the "puppet masters" are expecting of them (/s) or is each simply more corrupt than the last, regardless of Party.
- nappy-doo 7y agoOr, it makes you wonder what Obama learned when he took office that were extenuating circumstances he didn't understand while running for office.
- behringer 7y agoHint: It's the first one.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoSource?
- dllthomas 7y ago> that were extenuating circumstances Or that seemed like extenuating circumstances. There was very interesting commentary on this I heard somewhere from someone who'd been through similar experience. If memory serves - and it very well may not - it was Henry Kissinger on the extras for the Doctor Strangelove DVD.
- Consultant32452 7y agoThere's no good reason to believe that people are honest with the President. Even if you give everyone the most generous assumptions, someone still determines what makes it into reports that reach the President and what doesn't. That takes things to a whole different dimension of impossible to unravel.
- goalieca 7y agoOr that power corrupts?
- pmiller2 7y agoThat was very disappointing. I voted for him partly because of that. I thought I was electing a constitutional scholar who would roll back these blatant oversteps. I was wrong. I voted for Obama the second time, but only as a lesser of 2 evils.
- nostrademons 7y agoIt depends how genuinely independent the next president is of the intelligence bureaucracy. This isn't really a partisan issue. The problem the president faces is that if you piss off the intelligence services, you a.) won't get much useful intelligence to do your job and b.) have powerful organizations with lots of dirt on you who want to see you gone. So from a strict power-play position, it's never wise to piss off the intelligence services. Those who do likely won't find themselves in power for long. (We've seen some of this with Trump, who did piss off the intelligence services and now sees a steady barrage of leaks designed to damage his reputation and undermine his power, as well as administration officials who keep critical information from him because they don't trust him with it. Personality-wise I would've expected Trump to be more likely to pardon Snowden, but Trump is philosophically an authoritarian and not terribly sympathetic to people who undermine authority.) I could see Sanders or Andrew Yang potentially pardoning Snowden, but I think Warren or Biden would be too cooperative with the government bureaucracy.
- cpursley 7y agoI really wish people would explain their down votes.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- fooker 7y agoA being independent of B and A pissing of B are not equivalent.
- nostrademons 7y agoWhen it comes to Snowden, though, there's no middle ground. A president pardoning Snowden will piss off the intelligence community - you don't call someone a traitor if you're okay with them being pardoned.
- opportune 7y agoObama was significantly further right than Sanders or Warren
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Obama was significantly further right than Sanders or Warren Sure, on the main economic left-right axis, which has very little to do with this issue.
- opportune 7y agoObama also kept open Guantanamo bay and got the US involved in Yemen, Syria, etc so not entirely sure what you’re thinking of as an example of him being further socially/foreign-policy-wise to the left of Warren or Sanders
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Obama also kept open Guantanamo bay Congress explicitly prohibited him from closing it, in response to his administration indicating it would fulfill his campaign promise to do so.
- ertian 7y agoUS involvement in Yemen and Syria was minimal. Obama was mostly criticized, at the time, for not getting more involved. Remember the fuss about the "red line"?
- tehjoker 7y agoHe was more libertarian than GWB but he only looked good by comparison. He left Bush's authoritarian programs in place, increased use of the espionage act against journalists (just like with Snowden), and killed civilians with terror bombing by drones. Just want to add in that Ed Snowden is an American hero and the mass media that harp on lawbreaking or call him a traitor are damaging to the country.
- OrgNet 7y agoObama was really bad against whistler blowers even previous to Snowden...