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Obama has been in favour of the USA PATRIOT Act, and all the spying that follows from that, since 2006 [1]. He has voted for it multiple times as it comes up fo

by cryptoz 13y ago

Obama has been in favour of the USA PATRIOT Act, and all the spying that follows from that, since 2006 [1]. He has voted for it multiple times as it comes up for expansion and re-authorization. Anyone who voted for him in the 2008 primaries was either not paying any attention at all, liked the USA PATRIOT Act too, or didn't care about this issue. Obama has been very clear about this issue. He has always been a proponent of domestic spying and indefinite detention for Americans. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that people are only discovering this now, but it's odd to me that his approval rating has dropped. The only news right now is: "remember all that spying Obama promised? He delivered!" [1]: http://votesmart.org/bill/3298/8450/9490/patriot-act-reauthorization#.UcMRqPEif3x http://votesmart.org/bill/3298/8450/9490/patriot-act-reautho...

burntsushi 13y ago
He says one thing [1] and does another. For those not keen on his voting record (i.e., most people), it's not a surprise at all that this is coming as a shock to many. [1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVq6eZbJpA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVq6eZbJpA
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jdp23 13y ago
Obama has been clear about supporting the need for intelligence, but also repeatedly talked about the need to keep it constitutional and protect civil liberties -- highlighting the contrast with Bush. And the law is so obscure (and they're soooo good at confusing the issue) that it's very hard to explain. Until this recent high-profile coverage, I don't think most Millennials (or older people for that matter) understood the scale of NSA tracking -- or how FISA's section 702's extremely broad orders, and the lack of meaningful oversight, means that particularized court orders aren't required to eavesdrop on Americans. And so on. Now it's a lot more concrete and visceral. The NSA is tracking all your phone calls. They lied about it to Congress. They have access to all the internet metadata and content -- and if you encrypt, your communications are treated as suspicious. So yeah, people could have known this before. Clearly they didn't -- remember this is a country where [insert favorite statistics here about the uninformed population]. But they do now, and they don't like it.

by cryptoz 13y ago

burntsushi 13y ago

He says one thing [1] and does another. For those not keen on his voting record (i.e., most people), it's not a surprise at all that this is coming as a shock to many. [1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVq6eZbJpA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVq6eZbJpA

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jdp23 13y ago

Obama has been clear about supporting the need for intelligence, but also repeatedly talked about the need to keep it constitutional and protect civil liberties -- highlighting the contrast with Bush. And the law is so obscure (and they're soooo good at confusing the issue) that it's very hard to explain. Until this recent high-profile coverage, I don't think most Millennials (or older people for that matter) understood the scale of NSA tracking -- or how FISA's section 702's extremely broad orders, and the lack of meaningful oversight, means that particularized court orders aren't required to eavesdrop on Americans. And so on. Now it's a lot more concrete and visceral. The NSA is tracking all your phone calls. They lied about it to Congress. They have access to all the internet metadata and content -- and if you encrypt, your communications are treated as suspicious. So yeah, people could have known this before. Clearly they didn't -- remember this is a country where [insert favorite statistics here about the uninformed population]. But they do now, and they don't like it.