President Obama Should Shut Down the NSA’s Mass Spying Before It’s Too Late

http://time.com/4565149/obama-trump-nsa-surveillance/

by rizzzo • 10 years ago

187 185 10 years ago

pfarnsworth4• 10 years ago

Why would he, when he authorized it? Not only did he strengthen Bush's anti-constitutional policies, he enacted new ones, like the NDAA which spits in the face of the constitution.

opt4altruism3• 10 years ago

Because he has a new perspective on what unbridled data collection can render, not only with the hindsight of the Snowden debacle, but also because I am around 100% sure he didn't posit Mr. Trump as the future Head of State.

Maybe we should remember the words written in the founding document that precluded our noble country's separation from the English State:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men/women (language added by me) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men/Women (same semantic addition), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

If one's right to privacy is being infringed upon, we are bound by this document to remind the powers that be that they are beyond their right to govern.

I think the initial thought is incredibly prescient, as Trump seems far more laissez-faire when it comes to moral governance than President Obama is and has been. Let's not put the cart before the horse, but let's also make sure the toys are all child proof before we hand them down, n'est-ce pas?

bsg753• 10 years ago

Hubris: Now that his term is over, mass surveillance is suddenly bad?

employee8000• 10 years ago

Congnitive dissonance at its finest. Thank you for this.

snowwrestler• 10 years ago

The NDAA is the bill that funds the military; it is passed every year.

I guess you might be referring to a particular provision from a particular year? You're going to have to be more specific.

dontelmewhatodo3• 10 years ago

Fascism was all over the country a long time before recent events. I'm not a Trump supporter but assuming that this problem is something that should be of people's concern only now is just childish.

idlewords5• 10 years ago

I've seen this comment in various guises over the last few days, and I struggle to understand what it's intended to accomplish.

If you think the problem is old news, that doesn't make it any less urgent to fix. It's like seeing firefighters arrive and tell them not to bother, because the house started burning hours ago.

dontelmewhatodo3• 10 years ago

It's all about how do you address the issue and how this very same issue would be handled if the other party took the presidency.

I'm all in when it comes to privacy and I always agreed with encryption and everything people are suggesting to do now.

It is just a pain to listen to how this is being advertised now.

And before anyone starts complaining: 1. I'm not from the US and I don't live in the US 2. I'm against Trump and against Hillary

dictum2• 10 years ago

It is a good a idea to reduce the damage surface now.

Conversely, that damage surface would be significantly smaller, and less of it would remain now that it can only be shut down in haste, had it been reduced back when the administration in charge was one that gave SV warm fuzzies.

njharman3• 10 years ago

It's intended to make people wake the fuck up and deal with problem(s) (next time) before it is too late, like it is now for this issue.

The saying goes "they went after group 'A' I didn't like, then after group 'B', now they're after me and I care. Well maybe if you 'A', and 'B' worked together against your common enemy instead of being selfish, short-sighted and stupid you wouldn't be fucked right now"

We are idiots and deserve everything that happens next 4 years.

mzw_mzw9• 10 years ago

Obama supporters were all for mass surveillance when it was their guy doing it. So it's more like the firefighters showed up hours ago and you told them not to put out the fire because it was only burning someone else's room.

revscat8• 10 years ago

People -- many, many people --- have been concerned about this for a very long time. The concerns are more urgent now, but they are far from new.

But even if what you say were true, it invalidates nothing.

beedogs• 10 years ago

Yeah. We should just leave everything intact. Great idea.

throwwit• 10 years ago

The word might be hypocracy... Hypocracy of power mongering.

rando444• 10 years ago

This has always been one of my biggest fears as well.

IMHO this was the one thing that allowed the Nazis to create the kind of power structure they had. They spied on themselves to no end, bugging their own officers, hitler youth teaching children to spy and report on their parents.. everyone was afraid to speak out or step out of line no matter how bad it got.

It would be terrible to see these systems used as a method of control.

matt40775• 10 years ago

The Nazis were allowed to gain as much power as they did because they had a charismatic leader exploiting partisanship and economic insecurity with a unifying message blaming all ills on minorities.

xorxornop• 10 years ago

Oh look, here we are again. Humans are so pathetically easy to manipulate.

hga12• 10 years ago

We're already getting a serious taste of this through social media outrage culture....

liber83• 10 years ago

It amazes me that journalists publish things like this with a straight face, then don't understand why nobody trusts the media.

"Well, sure, unconstitutional power grabs are tolerable when someone I like is in power, but this new guy is bad!" Yes, that's how it always works. That's explicitly the reason our government was designed the way it was. Why do educated people forget this every time "their guy" gets into power?

cheald• 10 years ago

It's amazing how many articles I've seen in the last week by people suddenly finding limited-government religion.

When people campaign against the expansion of government powers, it's not because we're afraid that the Good Guys are going to abuse them, it's because we know that eventually the Bad Guys will.

revscat8• 10 years ago

Could you point to one or more?

adamlett• 10 years ago

Please don't pretend that limited government is the same as checks and balances.

You can have a police state and limited government (a government that does little for its citizens) at the same time. And you can have an expansive welfare state with clear separation of powers (think Sweden).

kchoudhu2• 10 years ago

It's not just journalists. I've had multiple, extended conversation with Ivy League educated, highly compensated, otherwise rational people about how burning it all down now for sure is preferable to potentially burning part of it down later.

There is a sickness in this country, and it is called partisanship. Its destructive power is more frightening than anything Trump could hope to do.

generic_user4• 10 years ago

Its much more serious then partisanship. There is no real civilizational Ethose in America at this point.

Many of us tried to stop the growth of Neo consrvatism on the Right and now Identity politics on the Left because they are both reactionary civilizrtional poison.

But the hemlock was to sweet not to drink and everyone drunk.

bluetwo2• 10 years ago

Because "their guy" said exactly what he would do, and it is ugly.

csallen3• 10 years ago

So you're saying you'll blindly trust anyone with a weapon so long as they haven't explicitly told you they'll do something bad with it?

75j• 10 years ago

Whereas your guy didn't say what he was going to do, and it was ugly regardless.

tootie• 10 years ago

Did the media or Time in particular ever advocate mass surveillance? Pretty sure they've been railing against it for years. We wouldn't even know about it without the NY Times exposing Bush's Stellar Wind. They're just placing a new urgency on it now that our President-elect has promised to grossly abuse it.

Shivetya• 10 years ago

No, they are placing an urgency on it now that a candidate they do not approve of will be assuming power. If Hillary had won I seriously doubt you would see one article about it except from sources derided as right wing.

So the NY Times went after it under Bush, maybe this country just needs Republican Administrations just so the press will do their damn job. They certainly got silent for most of eight years.

matt40775• 10 years ago

This isn't a journalist. It's an opinion piece written by an activist.

Please show where this activist writes in support of the NSA programs in the past.

Even if there were such a thing as homogenous left: I believe the number of people from the left defending these programs has been pretty short for as long as I can remember.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

The decision about what to publish is journalistic.

It seems they have published thoughts about surveillance previously though.

http://nation.time.com/2013/10/04/what-happened-to-obamas-ns...

http://nation.time.com/surveillance-society/

liber83• 10 years ago

Please show where I said anything about "support of the NSA programs in the past."

Please show where I said anything about the "left".

This is a problem that both democrats and republicans suffer from. Remember when the PATRIOT Act was proposed and enacted? Most democrats thought it was an unbelievably unconstitutional overreach that would be the end of the world, and republicans mostly saw it as a necessary tool that didn't even really have any constitutional concerns worth mentioning. Magically these perspectives flipped when Obama got into power. This happens every single time.

*I would also note that journalists' "tolerance" for the NSA programs over the last 8 years is essentially tacit support. Nearly all of the network media's coverage of the NSA issues over the last few years has been centered on whether the effectiveness of the programs justify their existence. There has been virtually no network condemnation of these programs based on their illegality and unconstitutionality, whereas that was a major focus from 2001 to 2007.

smsm422• 10 years ago

It was long enough for the Democratic president to be comfortable to keep running them and for the Democratic candidate to make no mention I've heard of to change them.

And it won't change until the tune changes from "we need to keep all-powerful government from the hands of people who disagree with us" to "we need to have less of all-powerful government, no matter who runs it".

hga12• 10 years ago

One reason is that for a substantial subset of these people, they imagine they'll be one of the commissars, instead of one of the anonymous bodies in a ditch.

jdp23• 10 years ago

Evan and FFTF have been actively working against NSA spying under the Obama administration.

The EFF and EPIC, which have been around longer, has worked against NSA spying under the Obama, Bush II, Clinton, and Bush I organizations; the ACLU, all of the above and more.

What about you?

intended• 10 years ago

Im not even american, and I've constantly seen articles from mostly liberal sites complaining about the surveillance state, for the past decade+ now.

smsm422• 10 years ago

I love however how the left suddenly rediscovers the dangers of unlimited government power and benefits of limited government powers. Too bad it won't last.

eveningcoffee• 10 years ago

When it was possibly used against the people they did not like then it was acceptable. Now when it may become after them has it suddenly become a problem. How pathetic.

I also can not say that many have not warned against this scenario. Something, something about not standing up.

diyorgasms6• 10 years ago

It was never acceptable to many of us. But the threat of unbridled autocracy was less present under Obama than it will be under Trump, for the reasons stated in the article. It is possible to oppose these programs with some but not utmost urgency, and then be catapulted into utmost urgency by an event such as a minority of the voters electing a fascist.

generic_user4• 10 years ago

But the threat of unbridled autocracy was less present under Obama than it will be under Trump.

The creation of the laws is the creation of the autocratic power. The temperment of who ever is in power at a particular point is irrelivent. By creating the law you automatically open the door to use those laws.

tunap2• 10 years ago

Ah, but it is acceptable to the majority for Apple & Google, and now, with a vengance, MS. Or the ISPs and telecoms. Or the IoTs. But not for the guv, unless a 'good guy' is in charge.

Copy that.

pfarnsworth4• 10 years ago

s/many/most/

Obama betrayed liberal ideals by enforcing and extending Bush's surveillance policies.

idlewords5• 10 years ago

NSA surveillance, while terrible, is also kind of a red herring.

The bigger risk to people is the enormous pile of data at large Internet companies and ISPs which any government would find useful in implementing a policy of mass deportation or "extreme vetting".

NSA has legal and institutional barriers on domestic surveillance. These are damaged, but still exist. What private industry collects is completely unregulated and far broader in scope.

revscat8• 10 years ago

Those institutional barriers are less effective in the face of those who do not respect them, and/or feel that disregarding them serves greater ideological goals. Couple this with both of the other branches of government being in the hands of political allies, and the normal system of checks and balances is no longer present.

It is a fearful recipe. The calculus pre-Trump wherein corporations were considered threats as you described has changed: now the government is far, far more dangerous.

dredmorbius3• 10 years ago

The threats compound.

Gov't plus commercial is worse than either individually.

dredmorbius3• 10 years ago

Absolutely.

I didn't even realise the significance of the date until after I'd posted it.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/foKDxbyh...

greggy• 10 years ago

Now you remember? Good to see liberals finally acknowledging the frankenstein monsters they have created.

revscat8• 10 years ago

You know, I think the danger in partisan labels is that we are labeling ourselves. When that happens, we shut down big pieces of our brains and morality.

But that's ok, because those other people did it in days gone by. Such hypocrites, they. What I do today is just a response, and I'm better than them.

akerro• 10 years ago

They would not complain about it if Clinton was elected.

revscat8• 10 years ago

Do you see the world so narrowly? Which "they" is it you speak of? The voices that have protested these programs are many and loud. The separate existence of partisans does not change that.

waterphone• 10 years ago

I voted for Clinton. I would have been very concerned by mass surveillance still if she were President-elect now, and I would have advocated major reforms or removal of domestic surveillance programs just the same. Stop making things so black and white. Mass domestic surveillance is bad, whoever is doing it.

matt40775• 10 years ago

Liberals have always spoken out against these programs. One example is Apple under Tim Cook's leadership actually getting into legal fights with the federal government.

And you know who exploited that episode for his own gain, called for a boycott of and criminal prosecution of Apple? Yeah, that guy.

bitmapbrother• 10 years ago

He should also pardon Ed Snowden before it's too late. Be sure to add that to the list of things that will never happen.

ojbyrne• 10 years ago

I guess you didn't actually read the article, because it says that too.

SiVal• 10 years ago

You know, libertarians have been saying for a long time that it's best to keep government as local as possible, so you could choose how you wanted to live, and live that way to the greatest extent possible, without having to worry about what happened in other states or in the federal election. You decide how you want to live and others can decide how they want to live.

Liberals responded with a policy of moving as much power to Washington as possible, explicitly to enforce a policy of, No, we will decide how everyone lives, and enforce it federally to minimize others' ability to escape our reach.

Libertarians have been saying that judges should do their best to interpret the meaning of the legislators, so that whatever laws we had would be those written by legislators elected by the people. Liberals said, No, we want judges to interpret laws to mean what they ought to have said if they people had done as we wanted, so that the laws will be what the political elite want them to be, regardless of what the know-nothing rabble choose for themselves. So now, we have the precedent established and argued for for years from the left that the law is what the court wants it to be, not what the people said. Nice work.

All along, those promoting local government rather than central, unescapable authority have been derided as fascists by liberals. Now the chickens come home to roost. Do you think now that maximizing and centralizing and moving out of reach as much power as possible was a good idea? No? Want to change it? Why didn't you in all the years you were in power and advocated the opposite, because now you've turned that power over to another group. It didn't have to be this way, but you wouldn't stop. Probably still won't and will instead just fight to regain control.

csallen3• 10 years ago

This is vague and hyperbolic.

For starters, there is no united group known as "liberals" whom either of us can speak on behalf of, but I will indulge you and also speak in generalizations.

Liberals do not arbitrarily support "moving as much power to Washington as possible". Rather, they believe strongly that human rights should be dispensed equally to everyone in the country. If abortion is a right, then being born in Texas shouldn't deprive a woman of that right any more than being born in the south in the 19th century should've deprived blacks of their freedom. Similar arguments can be made for gay marriage, miscegenation laws, female suffrage, the availability of healthcare for the poor, quality education, etc.

There's nothing whatsoever baked into the liberal ideology that supports things like domestic spying and warrantless wiretaps. Rather, the better explanation is any branch of government (in this case the executive branch) is incentivized to increase its own power, and people tend to be biased in favor of their party's presidents. But I've met countless pro-Snowden liberals, and I think you've really mischaracterized the essence of what makes liberals liberal.

rayiner• 10 years ago

You're skirting around his point. American liberals don't just believe in human rights for everyone in the country--they have embraced using a strong centralized government and its court system as the way of enforcing those rights. But the side-effect of that is taking away autonomy and independence from the states, which leaves states less capable of opposing centralized surveillance.

Liberals may not want surveillance, but they helped create the power structure that enables surveillance as a byproduct of pursing end goals they do want. I think the benefits of that approach far outweigh the drawbacks, but it's important to acknowledge the drawbacks. If you give the central government more power so it can achieve X, you have to be aware of the possibility that it will use its power to also do Y.

rubyfan• 10 years ago

Some of what you outlined aren't rights. Some are really issues of equal protection under the law. Sometimes political groups try to mischaracterize these issue as rights but they are overextending.

zanny• 10 years ago

I absolutely agree with this premise philosophically, but history speaks against it sometimes.

Civil rights are a great example. Minorities living in the south during Jim Crow were always legally allowed to move north to freer states that wouldn't discriminate against them. But they didn't. Mostly because they were economically and informatively suppressed to the point where they no longer possessed free movement - either they could not afford the cost, or did not know the option existed through intentional disinformation.

The same applies today, for everything from legalized cannabis, to right to die, to bathroom law, to abortion availability and rights, to gay marriage before the supreme court decision. People who are oppressed by hostile local legislation still choose to stay, often because they don't have a choice.

But that is fairly black and white, and reality really isn't. The more interesting, and I think where the liberal argument gets its support more than anything, is in those who have the choice but have to weigh their options. It is an awful situation to be in to decide between gaining rights and leaving everything you know behind. People really resist leaving their homes, in all definitions of the term. There is resistance to leaving your parents house. To leaving your hometown. To leaving your home culture. And that resistance often defeats people who would, objectively, and purely analytically, be better served just leaving.

But that is 20/20 hindsight showing itself. At the time, these people do not know what might happen. They have to weigh the risks. And there is a tremendous natural human aversion to risk. It drives millions of people who would be more prosperous - economically, personally, etc - to stay where they are and not take what they perceive and weigh as unnecessary risk.

A lot of this is a problem of the times. The more opportunity you have in your destination the lower the risk of moving there. Opportunity, in aggregate, is at generational lows today in the US. It suppresses mobility, and that generational lack of opportunity and thus promotion of conservative decisions regarding your own prosperity and rights creates the environment for top-down policy to centralize authority over the whole, to use a wide brush to direct ideology than letting people chose their own. Because in practice, many people cannot make that choice, objectively or as a product of their own uncertainty, and the liberal wing that pushes centralized power to assert their beliefs see that people suffer in conditions they wouldn't need to if they had perfect information and had no emotional baggage holding them back from seizing opportunity.

Distributing power, localizing governance, and making it as democratic as possible in the process is the path to maximal liberty and happiness. But it requires that people actually take advantage of that opportunity. If you build it, how are they to come if they don't know its there?

hackuser5• 10 years ago

Minorities living in the south during Jim Crow were always legally allowed to move north

Rights are not services sold in the free market, matched up by supply and demand. They are universal and inalienable. Whether they move or not, those people were 100% entitled to their rights and to a government that protected them. That's why governments are instituted among men and women.

slicktux• 10 years ago

It is important to note that RIGHTS differ from POWER; I as an individual whom has a libertarian philosophy say "limit the federal government, not the people" and I know what that implies; A federal government of which its power is limited to adherence of the US Constitution, Article 1 Section 8; Dr. King fought for a uniformity of African-American Civil Rights through out the united states, so he is a perfect example of the power individuals have when it comes to RIGHTS: Now we get in more gray areas like abortion maybe it can become a right to abort through out the united states, or maybe not, but that is not to say that states cannot deal with the issue; it gets messy when government starts to PAY for such programs through the POWER it has from taxing people that it becomes messy; if that is the case states have the right to both make it a RIGHT and to use its POWER to pay for such programs; now for the federal government, whether it goes through the legislative branch, or not, it becomes UNCONSTITUTIONAL if and only when the POWER to TAX is used to pay for such programs (back to Article 1 Section 8), but if it simply becomes a RIGHT to abort without imposing state sponsored programs (which would be abuse at this point) then it is not unconstitutional. Long live the constitution!

jjoonathan• 10 years ago

I really ought to know better by now, but I'll bite.

libertarians have been saying for a long time that it's best to keep government as local as possible, so you could choose how you wanted to live

... and maximize the reach of the market, which is more global than any government on Earth, and in practice works in the opposite way: organize your life around making yourself useful to those with money, fast, or you will starve. If that means uprooting your family and moving someplace where you can work yourself to an early grave in the coal mines, so be it. If that means neglecting your duty as sherriff and looking the other way while the company machine-guns striking workers, so be it. If that means giving blowjobs to strangers on the street, So. Be. It. Such liberty! Very freedom.

Libertarians have been saying that judges should do their best to interpret the meaning of the legislators

... unless they're striking down regulations that are a result of government overreach, which is quite OK.

Every corner of the political spectrum accuses judges of judicial activism precisely when the rulings don't go their way. It's like complaining about the referee in sports, except easier, because laws for society are much more complicated than the rules for sports, which are complicated enough. Yesterday's legislators and their laws agreed with each other about as well as today's legislators and their laws, which is to say "not at all," so everyone has a claim to the judicial activism argument and everyone uses it when they want to sound insightful but don't want to expose themselves to the risks of talking specifics. Yawn.

All along, those promoting local government rather than central, unescapable authority have been derided as fascists by liberals.

That usually happens when local government is being especially asinine -- buying their police department tanks, targeting minorities, making poverty illegal, making protests illegal, etc. Local != benevolent. Local != escapable, either, because opinions and incentives tend to be highly correlated between communities, so even if it is worth it to up and move you'll find that every other "local" government is doing the same damn thing. Options without choice. Something that should be all too familiar to free-marketeers ;)

Now the chickens come home to roost. Do you think now that maximizing and centralizing and moving out of reach as much power as possible was a good idea?

Even if we wanted, an option to federate power was never really on the ballot. All parties want power, that's why they seek it. Everyone thinks they are right, or else they would change their opinion, and everyone wants (reasonably) to fight for what is right. Show me a politician who wants to devolve power and I'll show you a liar. They may not know it yet, especially if they've never won power, but it's true.

hiou• 10 years ago

we will decide how everyone lives

everyone? Dial back the extremism for a minute. Get off Facebook.

coredog642• 10 years ago

When a reporter drives out into what they think of as "hicksville" looking for a quote that can be ginned up into a big story[0], that is one thing. When the subject of the story has to close up shop due to death threats for holding a position on gay marriage held by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton circa 2009, now we're shading into that "will decide how everyone lives" territory.

[0] http://reason.com/blog/2015/04/02/was-memories-pizza-a-victi...

Kenji• 10 years ago

Related (Trey Gowdy excerpt): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxonn5QjaJY

pdkl95• 10 years ago

libertarians have been saying for a long time that it's best to keep government as local as possible

Libertarians have in practice spent far more time trying to remove as much power from government as possible and handing it to corporations[1]. This strategy is either very naive or based on self interest, because it doesn't actually address the concentration of power; it only moves it to a different group of people.

The way to manage power is to spread it out as much as possible, subject to as many self interest based checks and balances as possible. Neither governments or corporations[2] can be allowed to "win", because it is the struggle itself that keeps power restrained to a necessary minimum. The system fails without both: corporations need to use their money and influence to push back against government overreach, and governments need to use their various powers to regulate the corporate world.

those written by legislators elected by the people

That's what the judges are addressing, because it isn't always clear what those laws actually say, especially in ambiguous situations that didn't exist when the law was written.

we want judges to interpret laws to mean what they ought to have said

Yes, which is necessary because the law isn't magically unambiguous. How else do you think we should interpret the law in ambiguous or unforeseen situations? Also, remember that the legislature - the people that were elected by the people - can simply override judicial interpretation at any time.

the laws will be what the political elite want them to be

That problem happens anyway. The branch of government used is simply whichever is currently convenient. This is an orthogonal problem (that needs to be addressed).

Liberals responded with a policy of moving as much power to Washington as possible

You are seeing what you want to see, which seems to have led to some very creative misinterpretations of how government works.

Instead of following the politics of fear and blaming a very large group of your fellow citizens, I suggest trying to find ways we can work together to dilute power away from "the political elite". A lot of people will try to distract from this idea with suggestions that prey on fear and ignorance to simply move power around, so this will require a lot of effort, vigilance, and sometimes a sacrifice. That cost, unfortunately, is the price of liberty, but it's a manageable cost if it keeps power form concentrating in the hands of the few.

[1] and the people, but most of the time the capital to actually take advantage of the power vacuum is usually held by corporations.

[2] the people (and things that serve the people directly like trade unions and civil rights orgs) are, of course, also involved as a check on the other two groups.

vacri4• 10 years ago

Ah, yes, those evil liberals and their centralising ways. Never mind that conservatives have, in actuality, done more centralising than liberals have.

Also, can you give some examples of "deciding how everyone lives"? What have liberals actually put in place in the US that curtail what people can do, that isn't in the name of freeing up part of the population (such as anti-discrimination law). What are some actual examples of federal liberal enforced monoculture in the US?

spoiledtechie• 10 years ago

Before its too late? Its been too late for years!!!

idlewords5• 10 years ago

Now it's too later!!!

hawkice• 10 years ago

There is something to be said about how this went past "urgent" into "emergency response / recovery" sometime before the Snowden leaks (prompting the Snowden leaks). Odd that there is an attitude surrounding this akin to (not just telling firefighters not to bother as you said elsewhere in thread) but, "The house is already on fire, clearly that means we shouldn't care about putting it out. If it was a real priority to not have a building on fire why is it clearly on fire? Also let's build some very flammable houses next door."

People's lives have already been ruined by the inability of the government to secure the sensitive data it collects (see: OPM breach). That's pretty much the end-of-the-line in terms of damage assessment. Let's just try to do it better.

gmuslera• 10 years ago

This was one of the reasons why Hillary lost. It WASN'T ok that Obama got, expanded and strengthened it. Still today come to light uses and misuses of it under current administration. And Hillary would had kept that trend for sure. It is one of the things that should change, and for sure she wouldn't do that.

Yes, Trump could make things even worse, or not. Is not the same people that actually set things as it was in the last years, unless the people behind both sides on this is the same, of course.

In any case, shutting down/disabling/destroying all dangerous things that US may have in stock or running now (nuclear, cyber, biological, foreign interventionism/destabilization and so on) that the narrative on Trump could misuse could finally give some meaning to Obama's Nobel prize.

njharman3• 10 years ago

I extremely doubtful that an "on the way out" president would be able/allowed to do that. Hell he can't even get a SCOTUS nomination appointed, a constitutional power.

He could (and must) pardon Snowden.

matt40775• 10 years ago

Presumably the system is mostly based on executive actions, not laws. Thus, he could shut it down.

To stop it from just continuing come January, it is well within his authority to instruct them to delete data.

coredog642• 10 years ago

As I understand it, he's got a phone and a pen and that's pretty much all he needs.

njharman3• 10 years ago

Tell it to the Supreme Court Justice he has nominated.

noonespecial• 10 years ago

It's the same reason you don't keep a loaded gun in your night-stand when you've got a 5 year old. Immense power to defend your home is a good thing... but that's probably not what's going to happen.

We're having a close call. We just caught the child peeking into the drawer and got a quick education on why certain powers should be kept safely locked up by the constitution. Even if it makes them a bit harder to use when we "really need them".

jonstokes• 10 years ago

Like Calexit, this proposal is so unrealistic as to be unserious and not worth discussing.

What is needed now are technologies of resistance. We need the private sector companies who essentially built this monster to give us the tools to render it nugatory. Not only is that the only way forward, but they owe us that.

aikah• 10 years ago

Unbelievable hypocrites. It was fine during Obama but somehow he needs to shut it down because they all despise Trump ? no it was shameful back then and it should have never existed.

grzm3• 10 years ago

NSA surveillance predates the Obama administration. Limiting it now is a good thing, isn't it? Regardless of when it started or who was responsible?

fakeslimshady• 10 years ago

It's probably impossible to shut down, but put in place authorization processes that will discourage abuse

leroy_masochist7• 10 years ago

HN really does have a soft spot for scathing denunciations of the SIGINT Enterprise written by people who have absolutely no clue what the Enterprise does, how it does it, why it does it, and the results consistently delivered.

It's very interesting to me. I get that this is an EFF-friendly crowd, and attitudes here skew hard toward the maximalist end of civil liberties. But the fact that articles like this continually get upvotes is a bit embarrassing to our community, isn't it?

reneherse• 10 years ago

I suppose the logical fallacy you're employing is a variation of the argument from authority, isn't it?

Why don't you present an actual argument in support of "SIGINT Enterprise" instead?

leroy_masochist7• 10 years ago

Sorry, so criticizing the article puts the onus on me to write you my version of what the article should be?

stirner4• 10 years ago

You are a traitor to the American people.

leroy_masochist7• 10 years ago

Thanks for helping me make my point. It's really unfortunate that such a large part of the HN community responds this way against anyone who dares stray from the "Snowden is a hero" party line.

return02• 10 years ago

When the good guys do it it's fine.

wwalser• 10 years ago

I don't understand all of the fighting in this thread. I don't understand why people are acting like every liberal was on board with these policies until the election. It's simply not accurate.

Two groups of people who completely agree that mass surveillance is a bad thing will go at each other's throats about _when_ the other speaks up about it needing to be dismantled. You're on the same fucking side and chances are, if you actually believe that mass surveillance is bad, you've both been at least mildly against it the whole time.

The expansion of surveillance powers under Obama was probably _the most_ consistently cited dissatisfaction amongst HN contributors one, four, and six years ago. Threads critical of these policies were consistently on the home page during the Obama presidency. Security and privacy conscious individuals on the left and right agreed. The top thread at the moment mocks liberals: "Well, sure, unconstitutional power grabs are tolerable when someone I like is in power…" but that straw man simply isn't in line with reality, not on this forum at least.

More broadly, yes, masses of people have given up their privacy. Go talk to them, stop bitching at people who agree with you.

jnbiche2• 10 years ago

I don't understand why people are acting like every liberal was on board with these policies until the election.

As a libertarian, I agree. Many liberals have opposed these policies. I think even Glenn Greenwald may have or may still identify as a liberal.

However, every person I know who self-identifies as a "Democrat" and not a "liberal", has supported "all" of Obama's policies (including mass surveillance), and has condemned Snowden in the strongest terms. There are a few of those on HN, but I agree that by far most HNers oppose mass surveillance (unless there's a large "hidden" segment as is apparently the case with Trump supporters, who have come out en masse on HN in the past few days).

dllthomas8• 10 years ago

I know a lot of people who identify as a "Democrat", few who can't find things to nitpick about any given candidate (including Obama). I'm surprised our experiences are as different as you describe. Probably presentation is different when discussing with people they view as allies versus those they view as opposition?

pfarnsworth4• 10 years ago

Most progressives despise Obama as well for exactly this, and for betraying progressive ideals. That's one of the factors that lead to Sanders' popularity and Clinton's loss.

rabboRubble• 10 years ago

I consider myself a liberal leaning person. I voted for Obama in 2008 with the hope that he would unwind the worst of Bush era policies. He failed to to this in my estimation, and doubled down on espionage prosecutions, so I did not vote for him in 2012. Rather I voted for a 3rd party candidate.

I have long warned friends that Obama's refusal to address the proliferation of technologies supporting a future turnkey totalitarian state was a huge risk to our future stability.

With Trump's ascension to the presidency I am dismayed to find myself perhaps proven correct. At the very best interpretation, Trump will not use these executive powers to target opposition. However his future potential use of these powers will cause a large segment of the population to mistrust everything he does.

perseusprime11• 10 years ago

"The expansion of surveillance powers under Obama was probably _the most_ consistently cited dissatisfaction"

What about the wars? Does anyone here even know why we are bombing Yemen?

hga12• 10 years ago

While your general complaint is fine, "Does anyone here even know why we are bombing Yemen?" has some very good answers:

If you fire a missile at a US warship, you shouldn't be surprised if any assets used to do that get zapped in return.

Probably the 2nd biggest principle for our having a Navy, beside the obvious one of protecting the nation from attacks, is to keep the sea lanes open, so that's why we had warships offshore Yemen in the first place.

One of the reasons Yemen is a major area of contention, part of today's "Great Game", it that it's a great place to interdict sea traffic to and from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. As I just measured it by eye from Google Maps, the initial straits vary in distance from Djibouti and Eritrea by 15 to 25 miles, less if you count an island in the narrowest chokepoint.

But, yes, as Peter Theil put it, "Just as much as is is about making America great, Trump's agenda is about making America a normal country.... A normal country does not fight five simultaneous undeclared wars."

return02• 10 years ago

The panic over trump is starting to get comical. Aren't you americans proud of your guns to protect you from power abuses? Dont you have probably the worlds best democracy that many would be jealous of?

hga12• 10 years ago

Ah ha ha, the people panicking pretty much by definition haven't taken advantage of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA), in fact loathe the very concept and have been campaigning for decades to take them away from the people who do have guns, which I'm sure massively overlapped with those who voted for Trump.

Many even live in cities or states where it's impossible to own guns (NYC unless well connected, D.C.), or hard/decided by whim (e.g. Massachusetts), or where the types of arms that can be legally bought and owned are severely limited in a way that makes them less useful for this sort of thing (e.g. California, much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic).

Me, when Obama was elected, I finally broke down and bought an Evil Black Rifle and ammo for it, but that was more a FU to someone I'd correctly pegged as a "gun grabber" than anything I was planning on making "serious social use" of (well, I'd bought those earlier). And I have a lot of company, for years, most every month, sales of guns through licenced dealers are greater than the same month in the previous year.

vacri4• 10 years ago

I'm not sure what you're talking about - there's been plenty of carving away at the bill of rights, and it's started well, well before Obama took office. And what have those passionate gun-owners done? Absolutely nothing but protect the second amendment. Where were the gun-toting constitutional defenders when the 'free speech zones' went up, for example?

The idea of a popular uprising against government overreach is a fiction. You even have the police shooting citizens dead in the street to the fury of their community, and the gun owners do...? Well, the ones you're describing, the Trump-loving RKBAing lot, decide not to fight against the government, but instead find excuses for the police's actions. The gulf between their 'talk' and their 'walk' is better described as a chasm.

drawkbox• 10 years ago

9/11 allowed all this, next time let's not be little scared kids that hand away our freedom so easily for security. They are hard to get back, probably even need revolutions to get that back.

A decade and a half and we still can't shake this overreaction. "They hate us for our freedoms", so our representatives went ahead and took away our freedoms.

Both parties are responsible and we need to start being American over The Party of your chosen type. If you like a one party system and vote in line with it every time go to China, you'd fit right in.

Snowden is a hero as is every other statesman that is left that puts country over party. It is time to start helping this country not your party.

daodedickinson• 10 years ago

You try opposing people that have all the blackmail material and power they need to ruin you or anyone you could ever love. Look what happened to Hillary with an incomplete email dump. They have every email anyone in this thread has ever sent, at least in the last decade. Anyone who's been elected in this country. Even encrypted ones which they may know how to read or may soon. So don't threaten them unless you're ready to be ruined or you somehow have a tremendous army.

gorbachev• 10 years ago

Why would he do that? It's been abundantly clear he's been in favor of it all along.

LyndsySimon• 10 years ago

Trump isn't even in office yet, and already he's done more to advance the libertarian agenda than 40-ish years of libertarians have managed.

Democrats are coming out in support of the Second Amendment, the right of secession, and limited government. They're now apparently opposed to the surveillance state and the expanding powers of the Executive.

pfarnsworth4• 10 years ago

Surveillance is not a Democrat belief. Most Democrats/all progressives are against surveillance. The problem is that Obama went against liberal ideals and enforced and extended Bush's policies, which is why Obama was generally hated by progressives.

dogma11382• 10 years ago

In all honesty i see very little evidence that mass surveillance would naturally increase under Trump more than it has prior to him, or more than it would under Clinton or any other candidate.

Also anything that Obama does now can easily be reverted; there is little time nor there is sufficient political capital to pass this as a law, and any executive order can be overturned completely by the next administration.

Obama can't dismantle the NSA, he can't cut their budget, he can't do anything of meaning at this point there is too much momentum behind these programs to stop them if the next administration would indeed want to keep them or expand them.

In his last 2.5 months he can't really do anything but pack.

President Obama Should Shut Down the NSA’s Mass Spying Before It’s Too Late

Related Stories