Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/barack-obama-lawyer-in-chief-213342

by declan • 11 years ago

138 103 11 years ago

gozo• 11 years ago

The New Yorker wrote the "must read" article on the subject two years ago: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/state-of-decept...

I remember it being really good, you should read it if you have the time.

atmosx• 11 years ago

That's a book not an article, but it is really good. The NY has really high quality content.

steve19• 11 years ago

The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake.

The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs, is that he is just another politicians and the guaranteed political fallout from surveillance and drones was far less than the catastrophic career-ending political fallout from a major terrorist attack (after dismantling surveillance programs). He chose the option that he thought would give him a second term (and then a gold plated public speaking career after the White House).

I would say his gambit paid off. The right would never love him, the left had no one else and in any case they had fallen so deeply in love with the Idea of him.

mjevans• 11 years ago

A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter.

It's probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become.

I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at /random/ from the entire populace.

IIAOPSW• 11 years ago

Wouldn't be the first time historically speaking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

acqq2• 11 years ago

irrespective of what he might /want/ to do, he doesn't actually have sufficient power to do anything, assuming he's actually being accurately briefed on the matter.

He definitely had enough power, but as steve19 points, he could have estimated that such actions would have probably lowered his chances for reelection.

duncan_bayne2• 11 years ago

Don't knock that approach - it's known as Sortition ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition ) and I'm personally convinced that it's a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.

vlehto• 11 years ago

I think being willing to do the job increases chances of success a lot. Also some popular support seems to be indication of reasonable person.

But when you go beyond Dunbar number, seeking popularity turns into game. Then it is matter of playing the game well. Which doesn't necessarily correlate with anything else.

Random selection from people who gathered 100 endorsements should get somewhat good results.

forgetsusername4• 11 years ago

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 they can to save their jobs. Most of them are just ordinary people, after all.

The fact of the matter is, the story of surveillance was sold to us as, "We're protecting you from another 9/11!", and there are many people who really believe that. It might even be true, who knows. Outside of the technorati in SV and urban centers (who, ironically, created the surveillance system), most people really don't give a damn about their digital privacy. Yet. If or when a sensational story happens that involves the "common man" being boned by surveillance, the tide will shift. I'd put money on it.

Arnt• 11 years ago

Which raises a fascinating question: Why not say so?

This isn't a rhetorical way of saying that there aren't any. I expect that there are valid reasons to be silent in such a position. although I can't think of what they might be. Perhaps the chances of success in six months seems better if he's silent now than if he talks loudly now? But what could that assessment be based on?

cryoshon4• 11 years ago

Meh, as the president, he has control over the direction of the executive agencies, of which the surveillance state has several. The "democracy by lawyer" argument that the article suggests is completely hollow, as leadership that way can't undo past mistakes that were made illegally, such as the Bush dragnet / wars.

Random reps wouldn't work because the public is largely uneducated and malleable to propaganda. Maybe opt-in random with a series of civic examinations would work.

coldtea4• 11 years ago

I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at /random/ from the entire populace.

That was how democracy was initially conceived and practiced in ancient Athens too (at least for some public positions).

richardw• 11 years ago

the catastrophic career-ending political fallout from a major terrorist attack

Any rational person would consider preventing a major terrorist attack far more important than keeping their job for four years. People with the opposite motivation do exist, but generally I'd consider them pretty close to evil. Someone like that would probably have had a different 2 terms to Obama, in my opinion.

makomk• 11 years ago

It's not clear that these surveillance programs actually help stop terrorist attacks, just that if one did happen after Obama stopped them it'd be a career-ending move because it'd be perceived to be his fault.

irixusr6• 11 years ago

And if the system selects the non-rational power hungry by design?

Elections are cutthroat, and to become president you have to have won many of them. It could be argued that an evil person has slightly better of odds of getting through. Raise that to the power of the half dozen elections needed to become president and you end up with Cheneys, Hilarys, and the like...

bwindels3• 11 years ago

The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs

Why do you say it's hard to believe he doesn't agree with these programs?

robin_reala• 11 years ago

‘left’ is a bit of a misnomer. With US politics it’s ‘extreme right’ and ‘a bit right of centre’.

purpled_haze• 11 years ago

He chose the option that he thought would give him a second term (and then a gold plated public speaking career after the White House).

Isn't it also possible that he chose the option he thought was right for the country?

Of course, it isn't that clear cut and there were probably many other things weighing in, but I wouldn't discount it.

irq-1• 11 years ago

Obama publicly agreed with the data collection and voted to expand it before the election.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/...

But recently the Senate again took up legislation that would let the phone companies off the hook. It would also expand the government's domestic spying powers.
Obama supported an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the measure. But after that amendment failed, Obama declined to filibuster the bill. In fact, he voted for it. It passed the Senate, 69-28, on July 9.

knowaveragejoe3• 11 years ago

I think the simple explanation here is this: Governments rely on information to function. When you get into a position of power and see the breadth and quality of information provided by digital means, you aren't going to be the one to push to turn that off. I'm talking about all data here of course, not just the NSA et. al. - weather, financial, trade data, so on. However, I think this is even closer to the truth when it comes to clandestine sources of data, since those are more often than not tightly coupled with security.

The point being that all of this just makes logical sense given their (essentially impossible) mission of preventing all future terrorist attacks, whether or not you agree with it from an ethical perspective. It makes an argument against the NSA's methods difficult without hard evidence that threats to the country are either overinflated or could not possibly be stopped without surreptitious methods.

canjobear• 11 years ago

The less charitable explanation, since it's hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs,

I thought the article was arguing that he in fact did agree with those programs so long as they had a sound legal basis. In criticizing the Bush surveillance programs, people complained that they were (i) bad and (ii) illegal. The article argues that Obama thought that once (ii) was fixed, his work was done.

tsunamifury2• 11 years ago

There seems to be a massive flaw in this logic in that it could be used to justify almost anything.

For example, it would be more important for President Obama to forcibly make a large portion of private industry to work on a super laser to defend against alien invasions, because alien invasions would cause more political fallout than not defending against them.

This is the mental problem with forecasting black-swan events, then basing your strategy on the outsized risk of those events. You can end up justifying insane behavior due to an event you have convinced yourself will happen, even if the odds are infinitesimal.

fasdf3asdf• 11 years ago

The NSA is part of the executive branch. Obama controls the executive branch. Reining in NSA powers is effectively giving up some of his own powers, something that people rarely do.

Most people do not walk away from power. George Washington and Cincinnatus were rare exceptions, and not at all the norm.

whoopdedo• 11 years ago

    This lawyerly approach to government had some surprising
    consequences for civil libertarians

To those who were unhappy with the overreach of the Bush administration, I would remind them that lawyers gave us the Dred Scott decision. It was an executive order that ended slavery in the United States.

yc1010• 11 years ago

There is another scary explanation, is that they have collected enough dirt on him and other politicians to become "untouchable"

tempodox• 11 years ago

Since the NSA increasingly knows everything about everyone, it is only a question of time until they will be able to blackmail just about anyone. How politicians, who are naturally especially vulnerable in that department, can let this cancer grow unchecked, is beyond me.

uptown• 11 years ago

Perhaps you've answered your own question. If the NSA knows everything about those that might oppose it, how could compromised politicians possibly hope to succeed in reducing those powers, unless they were willing to become potential martyrs?

junto• 11 years ago

This is basically how the "whip" system works in British politics.

There is an actual official post in the party called "Chief Whip". [1]

In the original series "The House of Cards" from the BBC in the 1990's [2], Ian Richarson plays the chief whip. Whilst his primary role is officially supposed to be the formal request of party members to attend votes, he is busy collating secret dossiers on the various party member's dubious personal lives that (when required) can be used as leverage against them.

The NSA bulk surveillance programs are this system in automatic overdrive. The enable the powerful (who control these systems) to abuse and corrupt democracy. The only "safeguards" being a secret court, with secret judgements by judges that can also be corrupted.

I'll give the NSA and the US one thing. They appear to give (at least) lip service to the idea of privacy of American citizens. In the case of the UK, the government is desperate to monitor it's own citizens' internet activities first and foremost. What's sad is that the UK public have pretty much passed the point of no return.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Whip

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series)

azernik• 11 years ago

In the American version too, that's the protagonist's role - the Majority Whip. In practice, in both the American and British systems, the Whip's actual power springs not from blackmail but from the more prosaic threat to withhold party support for a candidate's reelection.

What makes the British Whips (and party discipline in general) so much more powerful is that in the UK, candidates are almost completely dependent on their party for campaign financing. By contrast, in the US a candidate usually gets campaign donations directly from supporters, so a competitor from the same party supported by the party establishment is less likely to win. This is why, for example, the Tea Party in the US took the form that it did (insurgent candidates competing in primaries against the establishment's choice), whereas in the British system equivalent grassroots insurgencies are all-or-nothing affairs that target the central decision-making bodies and leadership of the party (think Jeremy Corbyn).

irixusr6• 11 years ago

It's not an explanation, it's probably the truth.

John Edgar Hoover did this with the FBI almost 100 years ago. Why would it have stopped? There's no reason for them to have stopped blackmailing folks. In fact there are several buildings bearing his name in DC

cryoshon4• 11 years ago

This is probably the case, given whistleblower Russ Tice stating that the NSA had a file on Obama during his senatorial campaign and senate career. This was in the early 2000s.

The only question is whether they use this kind of information to get what they want. I'd say they probably do, via the axiom that power corrupts. This also explains why people like Clapper and (now ret.) Gen. Alexander can go into a congressional inquiry, lie to the panel's faces, be caught in the lie at the time or later, and still keep their jobs.

sneak• 11 years ago

There are two sets of laws for two different sets of people in the United States now.

mirimir• 11 years ago

This reads like historical fiction. I can't imagine that Charlie Savage attended the meeting. But he says nothing about his source(s). Maybe the book does. Nevertheless, the style strikes me as odd.

maguirre• 11 years ago

After reading the book: Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President. I truly believe that the president (and maybe more so this president) is simply a figure head. Being surrounded by people of strong character he's been unable to be a commander and instead became someone with nice rhetoric.

mkempe• 11 years ago

Or: Obama loves power. Total domestic surveillance at home and drone wars abroad are but two facets of the same Leviathan.

pinaceae• 11 years ago

which other elected leader of a western-style country has ended any kind of surveillance?

realpolitik is far more messier than lofty moralism, the US never had a clean slate, ever. just like any other country.

and for the posters bitching about the sham democracy in the US - right, but still people are dying in other countries to achieve just of a fraction of the freedom, safety and liberty present in the USofA.

if elections changed anything they would be banned, right?

which they ARE, in a lot of places on earth.

as long as a president here is limited to two terms the systems works. erdogan, putin, see for other places where this core principle gets violated and what it does to the system.

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

Glenn Greenwald did an interesting interview with Charlie Savage about the subject of this book: https://theintercept.com/2015/11/10/interview-with-charlie-s...

caseysoftware• 11 years ago

An important meeting with Obama was scheduled to begin in the Situation Room at half past noon on Friday, February 6, 2009. Officials who had been asked to participate gathered around the conference table waiting to brief the new president. He was late
The officials were there to tell Obama about secret surveillance programs—including the fact that the National Security Agency was collecting Americans’ domestic phone records in bulk.

Funny... that was about 3 years before he denied the Feds were collecting anything. And then corrected himself to admit they were collecting metadata.

jokoon• 11 years ago

I wonder if there are other similar "lawyerish" explanations for how obama dealt with wall street.

tn13• 11 years ago

When was the last time a politician said no to power ?

Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance

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