Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

politico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 107 posts

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#91

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Zigurd wrote: post #32
forgetsusername wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective I truly don't believe this. Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. Sure, the corporate, moneyed interests will push their agenda as hard as possible to try to sway opinion (which isn't always misaligned with the public good, by the way). But at the end of the day politicians will do what t…

> Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. But possibly not within what people call "the system." It's entirely plausible that some things are "kept safe" from the whims of the people.

> It's entirely plausible that some things are "kept safe" from the whims of the people.

In fact, that's the reason that the US is a republic, not a democracy - to keep things (somewhat) safe from the whims of the people, and yet to create a system where, if the people want it enough, they'll get it.

And yes, if the people want it enough, they will in fact get it in the US. It's just that the media amplifies screaming. Those who scream are much more often in the minority than the media makes them appear.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#92

Post by Frondo »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #87
Frondo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, realistically, the whole "You suckers voted for CHANGE hur hur" thing is a strawman anyway. A little over half of the country voted for the guy who wasn't promising to bomb Iran and put Sarah Palin in line for the presidency. And four years later, a little over half of the country voted for the guy who wasn't calling 47% of us leeches and takers. I knew what I was getting when I voted for Obama, twice, because…

(Don't take this as the beginning of a political debate, that's not what I intend. Just at face value...) I knew what I was getting when I voted for Obama I've been wondering about people who felt this way. From my perspective, it appears that people in this situation should be very disappointed, because (it appears to me that) many of the promises weren't delivered. In particular, Obama was quite specific in his cri…

The things that mattered to me were, in Obama's favor: taking a stab at reforming our nation's ultra-shitty health care and winding down the two big disastrous middle east wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). Check and check.

What mattered to me, in opposition of the other guy: Mccain joked about bombing Iran and inflicted Palin on us. (There was probably more at the time, but that was 7 years ago!) Romney actually never seemed like a terrible candidate or politician to me, and in another time I don't think we'd have been so bad off under a Romney presidency, but I still think we were better off for voting in Obama for a second term.

I'm sure there were a lot of campaign promises I wasn't really paying attention to, and that stuff obviously wouldn't matter to me now.

I also think a lot more can be done at the local level, and to a lesser extent, the state level, in terms of dealing with policies that actually matter in our lives.

For all the talk about federal government intrusion in our day-to-day, I think it's probably 99% bullshit.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#93

Post by fweespeech »

coldtea wrote: post #82
fweespeech wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you can't really "abolish" the parties. Social cliques will form regardless.

If you pass a law forbidding them to have formal legal presence as an organization, you can. Social cliques are OK, it's the formalizing that makes it worse. I'd abolish lobbies as official entities if it was up to me too.

They existed as social cliques before they became official entities and were just as problematic at that point. Political parties didn't really become a bipolar construct we have today until ~1791.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#94

Post by ikeboy »

cmdkeen wrote: post #72
ikeboy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were there any smoking guns in the Congressional report? I don't recall any, but I didn't read the whole thing or look too much into it at the time. I also don't think we should retroactively punish behavior that they thought was legal and proper at the time. That seems like a bad precedent.

'The CIA "provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, the CIA inspector general, the media and the American public" about the "brutal" interrogation techniques it used on terrorism suspects, a long-held Senate intelligence committee report finds.' http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/09/369562383/... "I was just following orders" didn't cut it at Nuremberg either. T…

A Nazi comparison? Really? You think people who tortured terrorists because they believed (even if you don't) it would prevent more attacks are in the same reference class as people who tortured and killed innocent people for far less noble reasons?

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#95

Post by bwindels »

cubancigar11 wrote: post #89
bwindels wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He doesn't owe anyone anything Candidates can and almost all do take an unlimited amount of money from private donors to fund their campaigns, likely in exchange for favourable legislation. Obama gathered $1072.6m like this in 2012. Obama owes his donors big time I would say.

See, I get that. He got a lot of money. But still he doesn't owe them anything. What is going to happen to him if he doesn't deliver to people who paid him that much money? Is he going to get assassinated? Is he going to have legal troubles? As a president he has the option to bypass large chunks of constitution, which in fact is the actual problem here. He is literally above the law.

Well, if he starts the custom of not delivering upon his promises to donors, I could image that the next democratic candidate would have a very hard time finding donors. So I guess the pressure from the party would be very big not to go there.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#97

Post by cmdkeen »

ikeboy wrote: post #94
cmdkeen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The CIA "provided inaccurate information to the White House, Congress, the Justice Department, the CIA inspector general, the media and the American public" about the "brutal" interrogation techniques it used on terrorism suspects, a long-held Senate intelligence committee report finds.' http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/09/369562383/... "I was just following orders" didn't cut it at Nuremberg either. T…

A Nazi comparison? Really? You think people who tortured terrorists because they believed (even if you don't) it would prevent more attacks are in the same reference class as people who tortured and killed innocent people for far less noble reasons?

Yep - during a time of war people are torturing prisoners, sometimes to death. We executed people for that. People who said they thought what they were doing was justified and / or legal.

I'm sorry but the CIA torturers are war criminals, it doesn't matter about the relative aspect of it - there absolutes.

For the sake of a few thousand people, a fraction of those killed in gun violence for instance, the USA sacrificed any claim to moral superiority and probably created many more terrorists than were ever stopped. Home of the brave indeed. I'm British, in the military and a massive ally of the USA, but on this issue the lack of contrition exhibited is shameful.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#98

Post by cubancigar11 »

bwindels wrote: post #95
cubancigar11 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I get that. He got a lot of money. But still he doesn't owe them anything. What is going to happen to him if he doesn't deliver to people who paid him that much money? Is he going to get assassinated? Is he going to have legal troubles? As a president he has the option to bypass large chunks of constitution, which in fact is the actual problem here. He is literally above the law.

Well, if he starts the custom of not delivering upon his promises to donors, I could image that the next democratic candidate would have a very hard time finding donors. So I guess the pressure from the party would be very big not to go there.

Which means it will be up to the general populace to ensure the small guy wins. And Obama as a person doesn't believe that.

Now that is the real question here. We as people do not think surveillance is bad. We clap for Batman and worry about Jack Bauer. That is the real insight here.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#99

Post by coldtea »

fweespeech wrote: post #93
coldtea wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pass a law forbidding them to have formal legal presence as an organization, you can. Social cliques are OK, it's the formalizing that makes it worse. I'd abolish lobbies as official entities if it was up to me too.

They existed as social cliques before they became official entities and were just as problematic at that point. Political parties didn't really become a bipolar construct we have today until ~1791.

Well, I think they've reached a level of depravity and institutionalization since that that was unknown in 1791.

Re: Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

#100

Post by Retra »

finnh wrote: post #86
Retra wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to say that people's political affiliations are a consequence of how their votes are counted?

Not quite. rdancer's saying that the options people have to choose amongst/between are a consequence of how their votes are counted. Proportional representation tends toward a larger number of parties; first-past-the-post tends toward two. And "tends toward" can be read as "definitely leads to" in the case of fpp.

Just because the party can't win elections doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Post reply on HN