Pull off election manipulation would take a lot of balls, a lot of secrecy, and a lot of collaboration... three things an organization as diverse as the governm

Pull off election manipulation would take a lot of balls, a lot of secrecy, and a lot of collaboration... three things an organization as diverse as the government does not have. There is strong evidence this has been done in the recent past on a massive scale, in the US, by the intelligence agencies and president - see Nixon's plumbers, and J Edgar Hoover, and that was before these capabilities were available. Your assumption about a conspiracy being required is completely unfounded [1]. That is not a theory, that is fact, and it is in no way tenuous, so it lends serious credibility to the idea that in the present new tools are being used in similar ways. The other point which lends this credibility is the evidence we have seen of use of these powers for all sorts of industrial and political espionage abroad - they are doing exactly this sort of activity abroad (e.g. bugging Merkel before she was leader, Petrobras, Belgacom) - I find it highly likely they are also using these powers at home, at the very least to stymie investigations into their power. Note how obedient to the wishes of the spying agencies almost every politician is. it wants to make sure that people in power aren't corrupt and aren't being manipulated You seem to trust the current admin, even though they have been shown to lie repeatedly (Clapper, Obama [2]). Why do you trust that if given power they would use it in your best interests and to clean up politics, doesn't that strike you as somewhat naive given the huge compromises every politician has to make just to get elected president? [1] http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Church_Committee http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Church_Committee [2] http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114276/obama-surveillance-comments-dishonesty-isnt-only-problem http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114276/obama-surveillance...