Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones

No, you don't have to be notified. Have you never heard of a wiretap? They've been doing wiretaps for as long as telephones have been around (about a century now, I think). Obviously you don't have to notify a suspect that they're being tapped.

As for your link, that's completely irrelevant: that only talks about when officers are allowed to enter your home when you're there. It doesn't even mention what the law is if no one's home. It does say they're allowed to enter if they announce their presence and no one answers after some time. It does not mention whether they have to notify you, and the reasons they'd be busting down your door after announcing themselves are totally different from the reasons they'd be spying on you, so these aren't even comparable scenarios.

Jeesh, all you have to do is watch TV for the last 50 years or so: police (or other law enforcement investigators, more likely FBI) absolutely can and do spy on people with warrants, including using "bugs". They've been doing this for ages, it's nothing new. And until recently, there was a legal process for this, requiring a proper warrant.

I don't think a "near majority" needs to think that for this to be a useful approach.

When people can't engage on the substance, they fall back on human heuristics. E.g., bedside manner is important in doctors because people will generally stop listening to doctors they don't find trustworthy.

You're welcome to try to educate the populace on the subtleties of crypto. My guess is that the number of people who will sit still for that is pretty small, but maybe I'm wrong. In case I'm right, though, I think a useful backup would be displaying empathy for the (reasonable) societal goals that are driving this push for back doors.

I think Sanders is more ideological than most credible candidates in history (which is a lot of the appeal); same as Ted Cruz. (just polar opposites on ideology)

They're both pretty exceptional as top-2 candidates for their party nomination for that reason, compared to historical trends.

To me Obama is a subject I wish I'd never heard about. I don't want to know about Obama. But I am a US citizen and, thus, basically need to try to understand him. To understand him is, as usual for people, not an exact science, but I have to try.

My first conclusion is that no way before he leaves office will he really say what or who he is. Not a chance. So, instead, he is putting on an act, much more than nearly anyone else. I do believe that he enjoys his acting and coming close to the line of revealing enough to let people draw conclusions but still leaving some ambiguity. He enjoys toying with the public perception of him without having the public draw serious, actual conclusions much like a cat can enjoy toying with a mouse without actually killing it.

IMHO, he gets away with his acting because the mainstream media (MSM) and nearly everyone in US public life want the Obama presidency to look successful, care about that even more than Obama does.

For most of the more important policy actions of the US in the last year or so, I have to conclude that they are very different from everything about Obama before a year ago, e.g., in the last year, what the US is finally actually doing against ISIS, the Chinese activity in the South China Sea, what North Korea is doing, and some US military advanced weapons programs. And I would include US diplomatic interactions with Netanyahu and Israel.

So, my guess is that Obama didn't direct or even approve of those policy changes. Then, meanwhile, Obama talks about letting 100,000+ Syrians into the US (I'll bet it won't happen), flies off to Hawaii for a long golf vacation, says that ISIS is "contained", shows up in Paris to claim that climate change is the most serious problem, or some such, and gave his recent call for essentially back doors on everything with an electron -- point, none of those are activities of a serious POTUS. So, for the past year, Obama has not been a serious POTUS. So, a guess is that in effect he is no longer the POTUS and that about a year ago a committee of leaders had a chat with Obama and told him the good news, he gets to stay in office and work on his golf game and jump shot, have bro dinners in the White House, etc. And more good news: He doesn't have to bother himself or lose sleep or interrupt his golf game to think about the work of POTUS. And the alternative? He leaves office right away. More evidence is the Ryan budget -- it was totally bipartisan and in other ways outrageous. So, in getting that budget passed something was up, and I can't believe that Obama had anything to do with it.

But the above is just the simple, superficial, easy to observe stuff about Obama.

For a real answer to your question, I should not answer dishonestly or answer honestly in public. Ask me again this time next year. I do suspect that at about this time next year will come out some tell all books from some Administration insiders, Congressional staffers, etc. that will be well beyond anything commonly discussed now. The US will have been seen to have "dodged a bullet", that some patriots came together and saved the country from a serious threat.

It's a free country. You can have your opinion. You asked for mine, and I gave a little. You can continue for yourself from there.

Building a border? Forcing existing immigration laws to be upheld?