6 ms·

That was a disappointment. Obama ran on restoring the rights retracted by the Patriot act, on closing Guantanamo, etc. After taking office though, things went i

That 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 ago
Or, 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 ago
  Hint: It's the first one.
  - CompanionCuuube 7y ago
    Source?
- 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 ago
    There'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 ago
  Or that power corrupts?
pmiller2 7y ago
That 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.
NullPrefix 7y ago
There is a video of candidate Obama debating president Obama on government surveillance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8
shadowgovt 7y ago
I think Occam's razor can be applied to explain this without resorting to a secret government organization: 1) The "puppet masters" are just the American voters 2) The voters want to be secure (really, feel secure) 3) The damage any attack would do to that sense of security is high enough to justify extreme expenditures to minimize even low-risk scenarios 4) The President's classified clearance gives them a different perspective on the active threat risk model than the average citizen 5) Communicating the active threat risk model to the citizenry defeats the goals of (2)
- rtkwe 7y ago
  > 3) The damage any attack would do to that sense of security is high enough to justify extreme expenditures to minimize even low-risk scenarios Also every politician fears being the person who cancelled that program/reduced that sentence/restrained the police because there's a huge bias towards "doing something" even if it's the wrong thing.
- fooker 7y ago
  That's a relatively large list to explain away as Occam's Razor without supporting evidence.
- Can_Not 7y ago
  > The "puppet masters" are just the American voters If we're using Occam's Razor, I think "Defense Contractors" would make a closer shave.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rtkwe 7y ago
I think the specifics of Guantanamo is a larger failure of political will and ultimately there were a lot of forces fighting to keep it open [1]. Like a lot of clemency and efforts at prison reforms that would allow people to go freely during the day to return at night or on the weekends the fear of getting it wrong of releasing someone from Guantanamo and them going on to rejoin the fight was a huge barrier. The moral high ground of having closed it would be hard to defend against even just one or a handful of people released killing people. [1.5] It's the same with stuff like the Patriot act and the NSA programs. The government got spooked about letting it happen again and the FBI is able to keep just enough of a trickle of failed 'terrorist' [2] plots to make it seem like a reasonable threat. There's a big bias towards doing something in the world where the benefits of not doing something are hard to gauge. Fighting against all that is a lot of work politically and decisions have to be made about what's the priority for any administration. Obama chose healthcare and spent the years he had a majority focused on getting that through. Then after that he didn't control the house or the senate so he could only do so much via executive order and I think by that point he'd been steeped in the believers too long so didn't have the same zeal. > 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. I think it's principally a combination of two things 1) they learn a lot more about all the national security than when they're not in the executive (excluding members of the intelligence committees and even they only get a picture of what's actually going on) and 2) they're suddenly surrounded by and being briefed by people who principally believe in these operations. Everyday some of the few people guaranteed a slice of the presidents time are people from the intelligence community who give him/her (eventually) their daily briefing after all. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-... [1.5] Ultimately the whole thing was a giant mess because it was hastily done and once something is being done in the military it can be hard to change course unless there's a big push behind it. [2] For varying values of terrorist. Quite a few had no contact with anyone other than a government informant or agent for the length of their 'plot'!

nappy-doo 7y ago

Or, 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 ago
Hint: It's the first one.
- CompanionCuuube 7y ago
  Source?
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 ago
  There'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 ago
Or that power corrupts?

pmiller2 7y ago

That 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.

NullPrefix 7y ago

There is a video of candidate Obama debating president Obama on government surveillance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8

shadowgovt 7y ago

I think Occam's razor can be applied to explain this without resorting to a secret government organization: 1) The "puppet masters" are just the American voters 2) The voters want to be secure (really, feel secure) 3) The damage any attack would do to that sense of security is high enough to justify extreme expenditures to minimize even low-risk scenarios 4) The President's classified clearance gives them a different perspective on the active threat risk model than the average citizen 5) Communicating the active threat risk model to the citizenry defeats the goals of (2)

rtkwe 7y ago
> 3) The damage any attack would do to that sense of security is high enough to justify extreme expenditures to minimize even low-risk scenarios Also every politician fears being the person who cancelled that program/reduced that sentence/restrained the police because there's a huge bias towards "doing something" even if it's the wrong thing.
fooker 7y ago
That's a relatively large list to explain away as Occam's Razor without supporting evidence.
Can_Not 7y ago
> The "puppet masters" are just the American voters If we're using Occam's Razor, I think "Defense Contractors" would make a closer shave.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rtkwe 7y ago

I think the specifics of Guantanamo is a larger failure of political will and ultimately there were a lot of forces fighting to keep it open [1]. Like a lot of clemency and efforts at prison reforms that would allow people to go freely during the day to return at night or on the weekends the fear of getting it wrong of releasing someone from Guantanamo and them going on to rejoin the fight was a huge barrier. The moral high ground of having closed it would be hard to defend against even just one or a handful of people released killing people. [1.5] It's the same with stuff like the Patriot act and the NSA programs. The government got spooked about letting it happen again and the FBI is able to keep just enough of a trickle of failed 'terrorist' [2] plots to make it seem like a reasonable threat. There's a big bias towards doing something in the world where the benefits of not doing something are hard to gauge. Fighting against all that is a lot of work politically and decisions have to be made about what's the priority for any administration. Obama chose healthcare and spent the years he had a majority focused on getting that through. Then after that he didn't control the house or the senate so he could only do so much via executive order and I think by that point he'd been steeped in the believers too long so didn't have the same zeal. > 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. I think it's principally a combination of two things 1) they learn a lot more about all the national security than when they're not in the executive (excluding members of the intelligence committees and even they only get a picture of what's actually going on) and 2) they're suddenly surrounded by and being briefed by people who principally believe in these operations. Everyday some of the few people guaranteed a slice of the presidents time are people from the intelligence community who give him/her (eventually) their daily briefing after all. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-... [1.5] Ultimately the whole thing was a giant mess because it was hastily done and once something is being done in the military it can be hard to change course unless there's a big push behind it. [2] For varying values of terrorist. Quite a few had no contact with anyone other than a government informant or agent for the length of their 'plot'!