Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#141

Post by mcantelon » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 7:19 PM UTC

kunai wrote: post #138

mcantelon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama's pretty obviously not steering the ship. He's a salesman for whoever is. As for motivation, since 9/11 the course has been set to gradually implement a robust domestic counter-insurgence apparatus. So either the state anticipates otherwise unmanageable instability in the face of climate change, de-inustrialization, etc. or undemocratic changes are planned that could invite domestic insurrection. The US is repo…

AFAIK this has been happening since way before 9/11, now it's just picked up more pace. If you remember (I don't because I wasn't alive then) during Truman's presidency and up until around the 1990s, the U.S. consistently, without failure, used Communism as a scapegoat for instilling fear into the masses and making an international statement. It was only oh-so-convenient that Communist regimes tended to be oppressive…

Yeah, your characterization of it as an acceleration is more accurate. Some of the folks around during 9/11, Rumsfeld and Cheney, were long-time cold warriors and projects like Main Core precede 9/11.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#142

Post by czr80 » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 7:39 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #91

venomsnake wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Le Pen focuses on immigration to France, the European Union, traditional culture, law and order and France's high rate of unemployment. He advocates immigration restrictions, the death penalty, raising incentives for homemakers,[1] and euroscepticism. He strongly opposes same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and abortion. As boilerplate modern republican as they come

A question of degree, no? I don't think any Republicans want to forcibly repatriate 3m immigrants.

I'm sorry - did you not see the recent election where the Republican candidate ran on a platform of forcing 12m people to "self-deport"?

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#143

Post by czr80 » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #96

But he speaks so well.... I wonder how many people would support another Obama term, despite existing term limits and his actions. My guess is a lot.

Depends what the alternative is, I guess.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#144

Post by diydsp » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 8:49 PM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #89

Systemic33 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is really the Roman Empire of our time. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

What's worrying is that it always strikes me as the Roman Empire in the last days of the Republic. Vast sums being spent to buy elections, a powerful few getting very rich off wars and the government grinding to a halt, unable to deal with the problems facing the nation. Just before Caesar came along and get into a fight with the Senate. Congress' approval ratings are so low it really wouldn't take much for a powerfu…

The other scary thing is how the Roman Empire ended... IIUC (and that's a capital I, btw), a group of Visigoths penetrated the capital, killed a bunch of powerful rulers and left... the rest of the country couldn't handle itself and it led to the Dark Ages for centuries... The scary thing is how close the events of 9/11/2001 are to those very circumstances...

...Although a part of me fantasizes about the freedom which existed in Dark Ages....

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#145

Post by bobwaycott » Fri, Jul 19, 2013, 4:10 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #81

derefr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sooner or later, my public announcement of this disgust is going to place me on a list of people that are seen as dissenters Are you sure? If half of the US citizenship also expresses public disgust at the same thing, there's not much use in making a list; that list may as well be the phone book.

There is always the IRS, but of course no one in the government, let alone the IRS, would ever use their position to stifle freedom of expression. Oh wait, Congress is having hearings today on that. They are already doing what your claiming they cannot possibly do. Its time to acknowledge that there is very little they cannot do, or worse are doing that we still haven't found out

The evidence and reports that have thus far been released and discussed regarding the IRS's actions leave very little room to suggest they used their position to stifle freedom of expression.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#146

Post by bobwaycott » Fri, Jul 19, 2013, 4:13 AM UTC

Legal standing strikes again.

While on the whole, legal standing is a good doctrine and litmus test, when it comes to laws and practices such as these, I cannot help but think we need to advocate for change to interpreting the validity of the case and the need to adjudicate on constitutional questions through legal standing alone.

This is off the cuff, but I find it very unhelpful when the Congress and President can enact and execute laws that cannot be questioned in the courts by concerned citizens unless they have been or can arguably prove legal standing. Challenging the constitutionality of laws should not require that one's rights and liberty be violated beforehand.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#147

Post by vor_ » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #130

vor_ wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is in the fact that, as today's conservatives would hate many of the founding fathers for being godless radical liberals, today's liberals would hate many of them for being anti-government Tea Party extremists.

I don't think you understand where the irony comes from. Liberals don't view the founders the way conservatives do. Most of us have great respect for the founders in general, but we don't treat them as gods. There is no irony in disagreeing with someone you never viewed as infallible.

I do understand where that irony comes from, thank you. I was pointing out the irony that conservatives would hate half the founders for being radical liberals, while liberals would hate the other half for being radical conservatives. Honestly, if one classifies themselves as either a liberal or conservative, I don't trust their judgement because they've given into a form of modern tribalism and will nearly always begin espousing double standards to strike out at other side.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#148

Post by vor_ » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 9:55 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #131

vor_ wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand singling out conservatives here. Liberals have been at least as complicit in bloating the spectrum of government power. Even worse, the majority of the media expressed practically no skeptical interest until they found out the government was spying on them .

I'm singling out conservatives because they're hypocrites. Liberals don't trust police/military, and are ok with the welfare state. They're generally pretty consistent on this, Obama's signed off on this program, but it's been opposed by many more liberals than conservatives. Conservatives are the opposite, as evidenced by the reaction to this. When you combine their rhetoric about "Obama's Tyranny" when it comes to…

I'm telling you that singling out conservatives for being hypocrites while ignoring your "side" for being hypocrites is a form of modern tribalism. In other words, you're part of the problem of gridlock because you're too busy playing a gotcha game. This comes from spending too much time on blogs and forums specific to your team. Both sides do it, and I don't understand how one could consider themselves a member of either one and pretend that they know they chose correctly.

Liberal Democrats are hypocrites because they spent eight years bashing George W. Bush for his expanding surveillance state--and Obama specifically spoke out against it during his candidacy--yet many of those same liberal Democrats spend their time in Washington defending the current administration's policies. They hated Bush's wars and detainment policies yet say nothing about Obama's continuation of them, the drone strikes, and the general warmongering. This administration has been one long series of broken promises and defensive Democrats. Watching Nancy Pelosi attempt to differentiate between Obama's security state and Bush's security state was mind-boggling.

If you're going to respond that liberals are opposed to all this and don't consider Obama a true liberal because of it, conservatives did the same regarding George W. Bush when his poll numbers went down too. Every time there's a problem, the person in office suddenly doesn't represent you anymore, and you distance yourselves.

Bloating the spectrum of government power refers to desensitization to the growing power the government has to collect information on citizens for its own purposes, from the healthcare database to monitoring phone calls.

I can tell which "side" you're on just from the seething way you talk about the other team. If you took a step back and looked objectively, you'd see that you both come off the same way to independents and have the same transgressions and hypocrisies.

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#149

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 12:17 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #125

hef19898 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm not on HN for years now, but about 6 months ago, I assume it wouldn't have been dead that fast. I remember some articles during this hole SOPA / PIPA thing that went along similar lines. And this "goofy" comment was marked as "tin hat" by the author himslef, so I only took it half serious.

As the poster of the original comment, thanks for this. It was indeed supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. The scenario was intended to be completely fictional. It doesn't necesarily need to be the US and could just have likely to be somewhere like the UK. This could be 20 years down the line. It was intended to demonstrate an extreme, where the intimate knowledge of someone's entire personal life by the state is exploita…

You're welcome! But basically, there's no gauarantee that the data collected in advance on people, you know in case a name comes up later and you don't want to do a ton of investigations to uncover the dirty secrets, aren't used in these ways.

Maybe that's Hoover 2.0?

Re: Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

#150

Post by quattrofan » Tue, Jul 23, 2013, 7:44 AM UTC

medde wrote: post #140

quattrofan wrote: post #108

So Obama says he wont "abuse" it, but what about his successor, and the successor after that? I assume this law does not expire once he leaves office...

Also, Obama said that he won't abuse it but he didn't say when... maybe he won't abuse it yesterday. And I bet that his description of abuse is very different then ours.

True, "abuse" is a very different word from "violate"