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Obama Promises Disappear from Web
- Buzaga 13y ago~Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.~ Ouch.
- mitchi 13y agoSo much for that
- Demiurge 13y agowow. ironically, that's the most eloquent political statement on whistleblowers I can recall reading.
- Vivtek 13y agoCan't deny the man can talk - and can identify a damn good speechwriter when he finds one.
- ekianjo 13y ago- save taxpayers dollars : looks like this was rejected just yesterday by the Congress. Who cares about taxpayers dollars anyway? - whistleblower laws : did Obama ever do anything in that regard apart from public speeches as a candidate? - abuse of authority : Obama himself clearly abused authority in the Snowden case in what he said and in the threats he placed on the guy. - full access to court and due process: yeah, isn't Obama the one who agrees to keep secret court secret in the first place, and protect them from monitoring ? "Yes We Can". Nothing more to say.
- jamesbritt 13y ago"Yes, we could."
- Demiurge 13y agohttp://farm3.staticflickr.com/2874/8988666085_0749d7fcea_b.jpg http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2874/8988666085_0749d7fcea_b.j...
- mr_spothawk 13y ago"No, you can't. Because you got duped!"
- fear91 13y agoA classic psychopathic behaviour. Blind your victim with carefully spun web of lies. Distort the reality and then when the time comes, abuse them. Psychopaths are so good at lying that they self-deceive themselves. They believe their own lies. That's why it's so easy to fall for what they say. They always fly to the top - be it at corporations, governments, crime organizations. The more psychopathic they are, the higher they get.
- kaonashi 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
- hnriot 13y agoArmchair psychology at its best
- foobarbazqux 13y agoFreud's ghost hates that expression. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/EPqt8An_Sj2ii9ulOnCr3w http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/EPqt8An_Sj2i...
- MDCore 13y agoWould you mind providing some citations for your idea that Psychopaths self-deceive? From what I've read the better Psychopaths are masterfully in control of their web of lies, that it's easy to believe what they say because they don't suffer the remorse of neuro-normals. And that it's more likely for the neuro-normal person who lies compulsively to believe their lies. I really don't think it's helpful to classify Obama's behaviour as psychopathic. It demonises him instead of taking a practical, accurate look at his behaviour. It seems as useful calling someone "evil" or "a nazi".
- pizza 13y agoOh look, a comment that can see through the lies we've been fed, and shows us the malice of those who are 'above' us! And no citations or examples, to boot!
- mortehu 13y agoWhat's the ouch? > Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws 2012: President Signs Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act[1] > Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process. 2013: Whistleblower Edward Snowden is charged by federal prosecutors[2] Has something happened to Snowden that I'm not aware of? As far as I understand, he fled to avoid a trial, not because there was some imminent threat to his life. 1. http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/42-2012/2380-president-signs-whistleblower-protection-enhancement-act-wpea- http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/42-2012/2380-president-sig... 2. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/us-vs-edward-j-snowden-criminal-complaint/496/ http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/us-vs-edwar...
- joering2 13y ago> As far as I understand, he fled to avoid a trial, not because there was some imminent threat to his life. Would you write your comment again after knowing this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15tue3.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15tue3.html?_r=0 http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/bradley-on-abuse http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/bradley-on-abuse http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/29/justice/manning-wikileaks http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/29/justice/manning-wikileaks Enough?
- prawn 13y agoAfter the leaks we've seen, wouldn't publicising protection of whistleblowers potentially motivate more leaks of state secrets? I can see how the government would be nervous about that. Clearly they think that some abuse of authority is justified to maintain global power.
- CWuestefeld 13y agoThis sounds, to me, similar to Mao's Anti-rightist Movement [1]. Basically, Mao encouraged all of the concerned citizens to come forward with their concerns, putatively so that any problems could be corrected. But in fact, Mao used this as an opportunity to identify those that could be viewed as political problems, imprisoning all of those who foolishly believed his rhetoric and who genuinely wanted to help the country. (My wife's uncle spent two decades in prison for this, and his wife was forced to denounce him.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Movement
- 6chars 13y agoI agree with the first commenter on the link. This is quite a reach. It's unlikely that the order to take down an old, unmaintained site would have come from someone who's in on some sinister agenda to revise history.
- vor_ 13y agoIt seems naive to consider it a coincidence that something so blatantly pro-whistleblower has quietly been removed within the last month. He obviously broke an election promise to protect and encourage whistleblowers who speak out against abuse of authority, making this text a political liability.
- DannyBee 13y agoIt's not really a reach when you realize how things like this really occur: It got emailed around or something, and someone who was close enough to a WH staffer or DNC person saw it, and send it along. They asked their boss what to do, and the answer was "just change the website". It's not like there was some ordered plan of "first we'll change this, then we'll change the transition site". It's clearly a reactive move to someone noticing, and they didn't expect it to blow up. The reason it blew up is equally simple. Somewhere in the forward chain, someone was close to sunlight, and sent it to them. The original story was going to be "obama promises things about whistleblowers, breaks his promise", but once it got removed from the website, the much juicier story of "obama revises historical promises" came along. This is how a lot of things in DC get noticed. There are hundreds of staffers and DNC people and what have you. They also likely have a fairly low degree of separation to someone who would notice this, ...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 13y agoWe have always been at war with whistleblowers.
- Demiurge 13y agoWhat about the "change we can believe in"?
- aegiso 13y agoI dunno. Pretty sure we've always been at war with Eastasia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
- ceol 13y agoI think we're passed the point where someone on the internet needs to clarify they made a 1984 reference.
- smsm42 13y agoIf you believed in it back then, you are gullible enough to keep believing in it now.
- Demiurge 13y agoWhat you're saying doesn't make any sense to me. Obama said different things than other people said in 2008, including Hillary. It didn't make anyone who believed that Obama meant it gullible, especially looking at his history. And it doesn't AT ALL mean that anyone who believed him then would continue to believe him after he went against his promises.
- smsm42 13y agoHe went against his promises many, many times. And he still was re-elected. Which drives me to the conclusion that his voters are gullible enough to still believe in "we're going to change Washington" - even though the person promising the change is has been in charge for years and the only change was to the worse. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that Obama is not a regular politician that would promise to change everything and change nothing. So I regard people that genuinely believed that would happen as gullible. Of course, some voted for him because of certain zero-sum agenda ("he'll take money/power from them and give to us") or because he's "our guy" and not "their guy" - those are not among the gullible ones, as both do not imply you actually believe whatever the politician says, only that he would deliver the good in terms of giving the power/money. For some people, that worked splendidly, they are not gullible at all.
- zdw 13y agoOne man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Whistleblowers are frequently viewed by people who disagree with them as whiners, complainers, disgruntled people with axes to grind, and frequently they are all those things, often with nothing more than circumstantial or spurious claims. Not everyone's a Snowden.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jasonlotito 13y ago> One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. That quote also means that the man is still a terrorist.
- pizza 13y agoonly as a function of the observer
- konklone 13y agoThis is a simple discovery, but an important one. Change.gov was the President's official transition website, and included a vision for his presidency. It's a central piece of the historical record of the US, and they yanked it from the Internet. It doesn't matter whether or not the Administration was trying to remove something specific: taking down the content at Change.gov is un-American and un-Internet.
- true_religion 13y agoI'm curious. What's un-American about it? I can see the whole "un-internet" aspect, becuase after all "cool urls don't change", but un-American?
- lukifer 13y agoIn theory, the shared narrative of America is rooted in Enlightenment values, including a respect for reason, education and history. The lack of a proactive attempt to preserve that history, let alone to erase it intentionally, goes against the principles of the Age of Reason. In practice, obviously, this story is at best an ideal we strive for, and that we only achieve partially or intermittently.
- true_religion 13y agoAh I see what you mean, though the argument could be made that people treat the internet like casual verbal communication. There's nothing to preserve because its supposed to be ephemeral.
- lostlogin 13y agoPartially, intermittently or accidentally.
- bobbydavid 13y agoSide note: does this mean xkcd's "Time" is un-internet?
- smithian 13y ago
- mtgx 13y agoYou know, ending the mass surveilling would be a huge achievement on its own (probably by repealing the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act) - but what I'd really like is to get so much support from the people and the Congress, to eventually impeach him. Now that would remain in history, and would teach future presidents a lesson about overextending themselves with the spying. Obviously people like Alexander, Clapper and Holder would be gone in the next second, too, and the FISA Court disbanded.
- jivatmanx 13y agoAlexander is an extremely powerful, dangerous man. His removal should first priority.
- lukifer 13y agoWhile I agree, is there any reason to expect different behavior from a replacement? Even scarier than a single corrupt tyrant, or even a cabal of "shadow government" figures, is the possibility that these institutions have taken on a life of their own, independent from any one actor. http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-soaking-in-it.html http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-...
- rdtsc 13y agoSo his supporters are right. He does keep his promises. ... By slowly removing the ones he hasn't kept from the list.
- ekianjo 13y agoToo bad people save pages offline. That does not go unnoticed nowadays.
- arcosdev 13y agoAnd that is why you fail.
- christiangenco 13y agoAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
- steve19 13y agoCan't someone just file a FOIA request to get a copy of the entire website? (Just in case archive.org or other archivers missed some of it)
- joering2 13y agoWatching US Government since Obama took over, I would rather imagine US gov going after archive.org, first nicely sending C&D, then with help of IRS thoroughly auditing all archive.org employees' files, then if that doesn't help, ask DHS and take over their site and plaster it with nice eagle logo with "DHS seizure" notice on it. Edit: oh yes we are still in country of freedom and democracy. Archive.org would be welcomed to sue the government; you guys just prepare yourself for couple years of tough fight and make sure you got couple mil in bank for legal fees; oh and of course you cannot operate your site until you get the judgment that you were right and we were wrong, but even then we will appeal and after another couple years, IF and IF supreme court decides on case against us, then we will still put the file under internal "review" (read: put it on hold for couple more years) and then what are you going to do?? Its not like Eric Holder will prosecute... Enric Holder to release your domain back to you.
- mark_integerdsv 13y agoYou may file to your hearts content but what is likely to come of it?
- ewoodrich 13y agoSo just to be clear, President Obama's staff took down a transition website that was primarily a link to whitehouse.gov, and this is somehow a scandal because of one of many campaign promises included on the site? Sure, I guess it could be some sort of conspiracy, but it's equally possible his staff wanted to consolidate web presence. The title on the other hand, implies some direct connection to the whistleblower segment, which has no supporting evidence.
- rhizome 13y agoWell, it did happen two days after the first Snowden revelations. What support for "web consolidation" have you found to continue to correlate them as "equally possible" in light of that timing?
- drawkbox 13y ago"When one knew that any document was due for destruction... it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away..."
- thetron 13y agoAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
- Vivtek 13y agoChange I'm forced to believe in.
- smsm42 13y agoNobody forces you to believe in it. Some people must bear the consequences of too many people choosing to believe in it, though.
- mr_spothawk 13y ago"In soviet amerika, Change reads your email"
- sehugg 13y agoThis section of the site has been removed and "revised" before, notably in 2008: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/changes-at-changegov-return-of-the-agenda/?_r=0 http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/changes-at-cha...
- joering2 13y agoI wrote about this 31 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933806 But is this news surprise to you?? We needs to focus on jobs and middle class and stop wasting time on phony scandals!! [1] http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/24/obama-repeats-carneys-phony-scandals-line-in-economy-speech/ http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/24/obama-repeats-carneys-phon... This comes after: - IRS scrutinizing and unconstitutionally profiling people while spending $5MM on "trainings", shutting down operators due to gov cuts while giving contractors 80MM in bonues? phony scandal!! - 4 US Officials dead in Benghazi almost 1 years ago, no answers, no credibility (people in charge promoted) phony scandal!! - 1 US Official dead, hundreds of people dead mostly on Mexico soil after DOJ's Fast And Furious mismanage? phony scandal!! - DOJ spending time on possible civil lawsuit against Zimmerman, while since the tragedy at least 600 murders done by one race on another in Chicago alone. phony scandal!! - NSA spying on all americans and foreginers intercepting all possible traffic illegally unlawfully and unconstitutionally? phony scandal!! - Salandra: hundreds of millions given without proper checks to Presidents friends? phony scandal!!
- pvnick 13y agoI see this as largely coincidental, and nothing nefarious. If you follow the link from the page to the archived version [1], look among the dozens of subjects, click on Ethics, scroll down to near the bottom of the page, you'll see the single paragraph he's referring to. It makes up for about 0.1% of the total content. It's unlikely the administration took down an entire website just to hide Obama's whistleblower promises. What's more likely is that that, since Hope/Change was the old slogan and "Forward" has replaced it as the new slogan, it's time to take down the old site because it's simply outdated. C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for conspiracies where they don't exist. It's bad for our credibility. Things are bad enough as it is with the stuff the NSA is actually doing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/agenda/ http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/...
- iwwr 13y agoIndeed, we should not think of 2007-Obama, 2008-Obama and 2012-Obama as the same people. What one said can't be held against the other.
- D_Alex 13y agoI hope you are being sarcastic...
- downandout 13y agoLet's take that one step further. The October 2012 Obama and the January 2013 Obama were apparently entirely different people. In fact he didn't just change - during the 2012 campaign, he actively lied. He made statements about how transparent his government is and how he is all about protecting our rights etc., while presiding over programs in direct conflict with those statements.
- samstave 13y agoI have a fool-proof way to test your retarded theory: (and I call it retarded only because its the best word in the modern human lexicon to discuss such topics of self-delusion) Why don't we make a non-stop replaying channel of all the ridiculous bullshit propaganda campaign promises that Obama (and all other campaigning politicians) tells us, for everyone to see. Make it time-stamped, tagged, listed, searchable and correlated to their current actions - let people vote comment and review all things said. After all - are we not for open-source code, which allows us to review for bugs and malicious code? We need open-source politics that allows for the same.
- rangibaby 13y agoWe've always been at war with whistleblowers
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 13y agoWell? He promised "change," didn't he? It changed.
- obtino 13y agoThroughout the years of my life I have learned of certain inalienable truths. The fact that politicians are not trust-worthy is one of them.
- crusso 13y agoAnd yet we continue to give them more authority to control our lives as though they were our "better angels". Politicians are no better than we are. Often, they are worse since a strong desire to control others is often what puts them on the political track. Obama said the other day, "The government is us, and we're doing things right" HUH?! If the government is us, then why are we spying on ourselves? Why can't we get any answers about the NSA spying, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, or even the Fast and Furious gun running scandal? If we are the government, then we're kind of masochistic.
- ibejoeb 13y agoI think this is sensational, but it got me looking around the archive[1], and it's a pretty good read. -- Improve Intelligence Capacity and Protect Civil Liberties * Improve Information Sharing and Analysis: Improve our intelligence system by creating a senior position to coordinate domestic intelligence gathering, establishing a grant program to support thousands more state and local level intelligence analysts, and increasing our capacity to share intelligence across all levels of government. * Give Real Authority to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board: Support efforts to strengthen the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board with subpoena powers and reporting responsibilities. Give the Board a robust mandate designed to protect American civil liberties and demand transparency from the Board to ensure accountability. * Strengthen Institutions to Fight Terrorism: Establish a Shared Security Partnership Program overseas to invest $5 billion over three years to improve cooperation between U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies. -- He f'ing nailed 2 of those. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20130425003939/http://change.gov/agenda/homeland_security_agenda/ http://web.archive.org/web/20130425003939/http://change.gov/...
- samweinberg 13y agoDon't forget this one: * New Capabilities to Aggressively Defeat Terrorists: Improve the American intelligence apparatus by investing in its capacity to collect and analyze information, share information with other agencies and carry out operations to disrupt terrorist networks.
- d23 13y agoThis is what blows my mind about some of these people. They act as though Obama said he was going to legalize weed, stop all wars, and turn America into an orgyistic utopia. When in fact he basically did what he said he was going to do: be a hawk on foreign policy in a more intelligent way. Rather than getting involved in long, drawn out ground wars he resorts to drones and things like stuxnet.
- AcessoNegado 13y agoShocking!
- zmic2 13y agoFunny how Mr. Hope & Change turned out to be just another politician.
- downandout 13y agoFrom NSA to prosecuting reporters for...well...reporting, it is quite clear that one Obama ran for office and a different one actually took office. They are trying to get rid of all the evidence of the many misrepresentations he made in order to get elected, probably so that the next round of Democrats running for office aren't also seen as liars and hypocrites.
- thret 13y agoThere's something seriously wrong with the entire political system when every single person here is like 'well yeah, he's a politician'. “Those who seek power are not worthy of that power.”
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Allower 13y agoIf this surprises you well then, you are as dumb as they come
- prawn 13y agoHow likely is it that the pre-pres Obama was as-advertised, but he's now operating with top-level knowledge about the US's place in the power struggles of the world? And that knowledge pushes him to act against some of the friendlier statements he's made in the past? Could the strength of the US WRT China (for example) be on a knife-edge that warrants the back-pedalling we're seeing?
- d23 13y agoNo no no, you see. He should spend 100% of his time caring about the issues I care about! Forget foreign policy, the economy, a woman's right to choose, equal pay for women, gay rights, gun control, medicare, social security, and immigration. These issues don't concern little old me. I can't be bothered to judge him on multiple issues to come up with a nuanced view of the job he is doing. Removed his transition election website? Corporate fascist political shill!
- gogobyte 13y agoObama is disgusting shit.
- mkr-hn 13y agoRegular civics reminder: the Executive is supposed to be the weakest of the three branches of government when it comes to domestic issues. If you want a president who's decent at his/her job (foreign affairs, proposing policy), but don't want him/her meddling with domestic affairs, elect a better congress. This means actually going out to vote in primaries and main elections at the city, county, state, and federal level. All of these determine how much influence and power the federal government has, and whether or not they're doing a good job. It's true that finding useful information on most candidates is impossible at the moment, but that's solvable.
- msgilligan 13y agoAbout this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was able to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing. -- George Orwell, Animal Farm
- informatimago 13y agoIn France we have a saying about politicians' promises: "Les promesses n'engagent que ceux qui les écoutent.", ie. " Promises are binding only to those who listen to them.". It must be a good thing they try to erase them from the web. LOL
- kolev 13y agoJust because you deleted your promise from the web, it does not annul it. A man who does not keep his word (regardless of price) is no man, but a [insert the C word here].