If we were honest and classified President Obama objectively based on his actions alone, we'd label him a neoconservative corporatist in the same vein as Cheney. It's painful, especially after Bush. The truth hurts.
Neoconservativism is a real ideology, with real writings and a history, and people who acknowledge being followers of it.
Searching "Team B" for it's history, of "Leo Strauss" for it's ideology is a good starting point for people interested in this topic.
The actions of the G.W.B. administration are actually fairly understandable when you consider that most of his cabinet was from Team B.
As for Obama, all indications of his pre-presidential history is that he is ideologically traditional liberal, applying the term to him is problematic, even though his actions in office could indeed be described as neoconservative.
we'd label him a neoconservative corporatist in the same vein as Cheney
Only if you are a child who is unable to appreciate that people are far more complex than simplistic labels. Why not call him a socialist fascist as well ? Or a war monger ? Or a liberal ? Or anti capitalist ? Oh wait there are some contradictions there.
Think about those two in the context of the president's actions and come back to your statement.
Let's tally his accomplishments, shall we? He's bailed out private corporations at the expense of the middle class (ugh, don't like this phrase) through both taxes, and worse, inflation. He's not only continued the middle eastern wars, he's vastly expanded them (and I won't even mention drones). He's allowed the wholesale spying on Americans. Increased the size of the incompetent DHS. Basically said that murdering Americans without due process is alright. He hasn't legalized gay marriage. He hasn't decriminalized marijuana. What political ideology does that sound like? The president has only been 'liberal' on one point: healthcare. Even there, he basically handed (well, forced) over all our healthcare to private corporations. And our healthcare is still expense, even more so!
Look, President Obama is neither liberal or conservative, he's a political opportunist who's actions happen to align with the neoconservatives minus the religious stuff (thankfully). I doubt it's intentional, but if it walks like a duck...
Obama, together with the Fed, pulled the US back from the brink of financial disaster in 2008. If the banks and AIG hadn't been bailed out, we'd be in a great depression now. Luckily we learned something since 1930 (although people like you didn't, apparently).
Obama pulled us out of Iraq and Afghanistan more or less on schedule. And he kept us from getting sucked into Libya and Syria, except for extremely minor aid like the 2011 no-fly zone, and arming the rebels in Syria.
As a senator, Obama voted for TARP in 2008 (as did fellow candidate McCain). So in some sense, he did do something. It would also be naive to believe that he didn't spend a lot of time planning his future actions during that year. But you are correct that his main role in solving the 2008 financial crisis came in 2009 after he was sworn in.
You can tell that Obama doesn't believe in what he's saying in 2013. There's just so much hesitation in his words.
In 2007, he believed in what he said - that security is not an excuse to violate the civil liberties of the people. There was so much conviction in his words. That conviction just isn't there anymore.
I'd follow 2007 Obama anywhere, but 2013 Obama is severely lacking.
The problem is that both candidate Obama, you and I are arguing from a point of massive ignorance.
From what's been leaked I find the idea that all digital communication is monitored on everyone and everything disturbing. As Snowden mentioned in his interview this is a powerful thing for a government to have and can become dangerous. It's something the public should be involved in deciding where and if that line is drawn.
It's a catch-22. The information necessary to fully appreciate what's going on is classified and the only way to understand the argument completely is to get a high level clearance which then prevents you from making any arguments about it.
From what's available I can't imagine a situation where the cost of this type of massive internet surveillance outweighs whatever benefit. While I can appreciate the necessity of secrets - I wish we could know the truth.
That's a great link and interesting story. For complex scenarios I can see where they're might be many things people don't know about that changes their position.
In the case of such a broad surveillance system, I'm having trouble coming up with good secret reasons. Perhaps I'm being unimaginative. If, for example, this system was preventing hundreds of terrorists, what damage would be done by stating that it has unequivocally stopped major threats?
What's the damage in revealing what's going on and why?
Is the plan "if we're quiet enough, bad guys won't bother using encryption or cover their tracks?
I'm curious to know, what information, in theory, would change someone's opinion, and must remain secret in order to keep things safe. Aside from breaks on popular ciphers or mass collusion with major hardware/software vendors.
Edit: I'd trust a president stating for sure that this is entirely necessary, and stating there is secret information that'd even change the EFF's opinion. Obama's speech doesn't give that perception at all. It feels like he's stumbling around to justify something he knows is bad, using nebulous threats.
I think it's a complex issue and it's hard to know anything without having the full context.
I think Obama is somewhat conflicted over the balance and is unable to reveal the interesting parts of that question.
Assuming an environment where all digital information is monitored and it actually is used in a reasonable way (active, investigations, internal warrants from courts, etc.) I could see there being an argument that keeping the extent of it secret prevents people from knowing what's being monitored and avoiding those methods of communications. I don't agree with this argument primarily because things change in leadership and governments and having a system like this (especially with it being secret) can lead to abuse.
This was Snowden's point about changes in policy and 'turn key tyranny'.
Clearly access to this information changed Obama's opinions pretty severely - there must be a lot we don't know.
> In the case of such a broad surveillance system, I'm having trouble coming up with good secret reasons. Perhaps I'm being unimaginative. If, for example, this system was preventing hundreds of terrorists, what damage would be done by stating that it has unequivocally stopped major threats?
What if it had prevented a biological weapon that could have killed millions of people in NYC? Revealing this publicly could cause mass panic.
Obviously I have no evidence of something like this, but it's a thought experiment to consider. Would that make the surveillance worth it in your mind?
Obviously giving specifics might cause panic, but, I'm not sure I see the problem in having e.g. Obama state "Unequivocally, there has been major threats thwarted, and considerable lives saved due to this program." Or some assertion recognizing that yeah, this is a 180 from my prior, but there's a good reason, seriously.
The thing is, I don't think anyone is claiming major successes. They're just saying that it's OK. Watching Obama's talk just gives you the feeling it's political nonsense, with a bit of CYA lines too.
The catch-22 you've described is why it's so important for as little to be classified as possible. When secrets are kept from the people who those secrets are intended to protect, it is impossible for the people to know and debate their value. It creates two classes of people: ordinary people, and their rulers who possess this special information.
This is why even a vague societal acceptance of the idea that safety requires sacrificing certain rights is exceedingly dangerous. It creates a slippery slope where the people make progressively greater sacrifices to the "cleared" class so that, according to that same class, they can protect the people. But the people never know if they were safer. All they know is that they gave up rights for a promise that may or may not have been kept.
One thing I've always appreciated in concept about American law is the idea that sometimes- we just say that the law enforcement can't do something because we (should) hold ourselves to a higher standard. Found out about something during an illegal search? Inadmissible. Think someone's selling drugs but don't have anything more than a hunch? Well, just can't do anything about that and you've gotta wait for a reason to search them.
Yet, we're at a point that the boogey-man of 'terrorism' has made us throw that away for the concept of safety.
Yes, I'm absolutely certain that if you're in the position to protect people and enforce the laws that its rather nice to be able to do anything to make that happen- but we've just got to accept some level of risk (and hazard) in exchange for them not violating everything just to create that risk-free perception.
It's a catch-22. The information necessary to fully appreciate what's going on is classified and the only way to understand the argument completely is to get a high level clearance which then prevents you from making any arguments about it.
That's one way to put it but it seems like a jarringly bad way. Secrecy is such powerful force that we shouldn't bluntly say it has a corrupting, corrosive and poisonous effect on our society? I disagree. It is so powerful we should say that.
I don't really get the argument that President Obama and Candidate Obama were somehow different people.
In 2008, Candidate Obama first promised that he would not vote for retroactive immunity for telecom companies that had opened their networks to the NSA. And then, a matter of weeks later, he did so anyways [1,2].
This vote was inextricably linked to the issues we're discussing today. In 2008, companies were on the verge actual accountability: they would have had to pay millions and billions of dollars in fines to their customers (or at least their customers' lawyers). If that had happened, it's easy to imagine those companies' modern incarnations being more adversarial with regards to new surveillance laws, court orders, and appropriate process.
It was clear then that Candidate Obama would easily cave on core issues for political expedience, just as it is now. I'm not saying that there were better alternative candidates. I'm just saying that if you'd really have followed "2007 Obama anywhere." you either weren't paying attention or willfully deceived yourself.
The thing about Obama 2007 was that he was, in fact, giving Obama 2013 all tools he needed.
Candidate Obama promised law enforcement "all the tools they need" as much as he promised an end to all the wiretapping. President Obama is, in fact, right that there are choices between the powers of the police and the rights of the citizens. If candidate Obama had ponied up and said sometimes you do have let one guilty man escape, let one cop feel like their "hands are tied" to protect the liberties of Americans, then he'd have an argument. If candidate Obama had said "yes, there are tradeoffs but the seesaw had clearly moved in a dysfunctional and unbalanced direction that we have to correct", then you could honestly say he's shifted now. The candidate Obama I saw, was promising anything and everything and thus it's not the least bit surprising he is now just doing what's convenient. Course, the candidate Obama had a great ability to say things in a way that made people think he's saying what you want.
Just consider the beauty of candidate Obama's, uh, "languaging", President Obama still opposes illegal wiretaps, right? What President Obama is defending here is legal wiretaps, of course.
2007 Obama's key point was that he would "provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists _without undermining our constitution, and our freedom._"
He believed that security was not just cause for violating our constitutional liberties. In 2013, apparently that's no longer the case.
Every time a 'new' president does something that seems completely illegal on a national security matter, I have this little film reel (er, h.264? Youtube video?) that plays in my head.
It generally begins in the Movie-Standard high-level, windowless, government briefing room. President and the national security advisors are there. The advisors spill whatever beans are appropriate to the situation. President pulls a Home Alone face and poops his pants.
Obviously, it doesn't let the GHWBs, or any president, off the hook. I imagine it to be a test of the sort of moral character we should focus on when evaluating candidates, rather than whether they inhaled or let a skanky woman sit on their lap while boating.
Maybe candidates should get a briefing six months before the election and then we can make sure we elect a total bastard from the start.
True story: after writing this 2002 blogpost -- http://www.openp2p.com/pub/wlg/2448 -- a researcher preparing material for the 2004 remake of 'Manchurian Candidate' contacted me by email looking for more background material.
Everyone's asking what changed him? What changed his mind? But I think the simplest answer is that he hasn't changed very much. Obama is and always has been a gifted political opportunist. In 2007 he found it politically expedient to oppose Bush's surveillance programs. In 2013 he finds it politically expedient to oversee programs that are orders of magnitude broader and more intrusive.
The man does not have principles. He never had them.
I can only imagine that what he saw when the curtain got pulled back and he started receiving the PDB shocked him to the core. This is a pretty radical swing on a fundamental issue, there has to be a root cause for the change.
There's definitely a root cause: he's in power now. I don't know why people assume he must have seen something shocking to change him, the position of power alone could easily do it. His job is now to defend the powers that the government has acquired. That is what he was elected for, whether people want to believe another fantasy or not.
Special interests and insiders own Obama just as they have every modern President.
Our system is not run by: Congress + President + Judical. The Pentagon, US military, DOJ, NSA, IRS, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Federal Reserve etc are all directly involved in politics.
From what I understand, once you're at a certain level as a presidential candidate (and already a senator, governor or representative you get some of this anyway) then you're given some of the briefings on this stuff. It isn't that they just learn everything day-1 when they get in the oval office.
Well the NSA head did say that dozens of terrorist acts had been thwarted with the help of the phone records. Which could means that there are potentially hundreds/thousands of active terrorist investigations. Given that any one could be the next Boston Marathon, 9/11 or perhaps on an even bigger scale like polluting water sources or dirty bombs using material from poorly secured Pakistan/Russian nuclear sites.
If you were receiving daily updates outlining the creative and more sinister ways terrorists were planning attacks perhaps you might come to the conclusion that the US is out of its depth and needs every tool at its disposal.
Which ones were real or could have actually pulled anything off? The underwear bomber? The guy that locked his keys in the car? Or the ones the FBI convinces others to attempt? The NSA has been doing this for a long time and have missed things like the Boston bombing while there was plenty of evidence that required further observance. Just looking at some of his public photos, it was apparent to me that he probably should be observed. Those didn't even require these new legal means.
Don't you think if they did successfully stop a really major terrorist attack either Bush or Obama would have ran with it in the open? If it happened in 2008, Obama probably wouldn't have been elected because people would have loved to see these new [horrible] laws stop 9/11 part 2. Bush would have said something like "We told you we needed this and we were right. Without these laws we wouldn't have been able to catch them. These laws saved thousands of lives today and will continue to do so in the future."
However, here we are and nothing major has been found. Now they have the potential for political blackmail that can stop all sorts of challenges to the establishment. One thing many people agree is that Congress sucks and both parties are out of touch with us. They will use these legal means in order to hold onto their power. I do not trust them in the least.
Also, if they can do this, why can't we attach live camera and microphones to all of them? Why can't we make all of their emails public? They want this access to us, why can't we have it for them?
These clowns couldn't catch the bumbling Boston bombers, who were about as unprofessional as terrorists get. And there was no shortage of arrows pointing to them.
Hypothetical other explanations: 1.) Obama always had the same views, but was lying to get elected 2.) Obama changed his mind, a possibility for any person on any topic 3.) Becoming president gave Obama new information which changed his mind, and which would change the mind of anyone elected president 4.) His opinions stayed the same, but now that he's president it's in his best interests to take this stance, which it wasn't before
There's more than one possible cause here, and possibly more than one of them are the case. Despite the fact that it's much easier to blame external influences.
I agree. It'd be great if we could just ask him, but I don't know if I've ever heard him say something that wasn't manipulative and to his perceived political advantage.
It may be partly that he saw the Bush unilateralism and wanted more consensus-based governance.
The problem being that, in the executive bubble, where most of seats and nearly all of the money is held by the military-industrial complex, that's the consensus you will get.
The more pressing problem is that many tough solutions aren't solved by committee, they're solved by leadership and expertise, a point where Congress fails, the executive branch fails, and where the roots of government (e.g. Constitution) start to fail under the stress of lobbying and corruption.
Your post implies that Obama has been forced to go along with this surveillance program, so it wasn't directly his fault.
Being a liberal myself, I'm shocked to see how much Obama has been getting the benefit of the doubt by liberals on all the crap that has been happening lately. The same liberals that qwew quick to criticize and blame Bush on everything, and never extend him the same courtesy.
This reminds me of this video showing a similar change for George Bush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvknGT8W5jA -- maybe the case is simply that being the president leaves you in a position where you have to consider so many different interests and so many people try to influence you that being steadfast becomes impossible?
Obama's speech is obviously canned, while Biden's is the opposite. He is speaking candidly and openly, because he knows that it's the truth. The President, on the other hand, is hesitant and only chooses neutral words.
Amazing what diction can do for public viewpoints. It's equally amazing how many don't care enough to notice the aural cues of the state of being disingenuous.
Wasn't this the speech where he had to wait for like a minute before his staff brought him the speech, because they lost it or something? So yes, definitely canned, and he would've rather waited until they found the speech, instead of taking the issue head-on himself.
I think he is being incredibly careful and deliberate with his words here, there is a pattern and speed to his typical rhetoric that is clearly gone here. He knows that there is certain words or phrases he must avoid (privacy instead of civil liberties) or else he takes a moment in which he is trying to defuse a tough political spot and magnifies the problem.
I downvoted this because you linked to an entry without reading it, which drives me insane. Strike "probably" from your post and you have an accurate statement.
Tone was lost over the Internet. Inclusion of "probably" was a joke: without Favreau or another speechwriter, Obama isn't going to sound particularly erudite, in the same way that an actress without makeup generally looks much more normal. Most people don't realize that Obama doesn't write his own speeches anymore than he picks what suit to wear.
You can't - the government's argument is that you can use the metadata to usefully augment other intelligence/investigative techniques without undue violation of the privacy of, well, everybody whose metadata you've collected. If you know a terrorist has used a particular phone number you can use the historical metadata record to try to identify the terrorist's potential associates. Ex-NSA head Michael Hayden claims that's the way the data is used.
Given the very limited number of hard, verifiable facts about these programs, whether you believe or disbelieve this explanation is almost a matter of faith.
Imagine 3 burner sim cards used by three individuals used to call each other with call durations of 5 seconds. Such a scenario would probably light up on the NSA's dashboard like a Christmas tree.
In the investigation of the Hariri assasination such analysis was employed by painstakingly looking into millions of phone calls in Lebonan. If I remember correctly, the UN investigation team identified 4 rings each color coded (red, blue, yellow, and purple) each ring would only call phones in their ring and the ring leaders talked to each other. So you had nodes that talk to each other and one single node would talk to one other node outside of each group. They also correlated the timing of the calls and locations in relation to where the Hariri convoy was on the day of the assassination (eg. a green call made as Hariri left his palace.)
I can't remember the details but the report was a very interesting read.
One of the major advances in the last decade or so in intelligence gathering has been social-network/cohort analysis. Phone metadata makes it possible to identify relationships between people. Let's say you know two "terrorists". If you can identify, say, 3 other people who are all friends with those two then you can tentatively identify those folks as possible terrorists. If you obtain other information such as actual phone conversations, email, etc. then you might be able to confirm that, which then gives you the ability to find their friends, and so forth.
Potentially it's an effective way to identify folks who might deserve more investigation. Though it's highly questionable how effective it is as a means of stopping crime or terrorist attacks.
Basically, you're looking for connections to already known groups of terrorists. If you find that terrorists X and Y communicate with each other, and that immediately after, X always calls Z, W, and Q, then you might want to engage in deeper surveillance of Z, W, and Q. If you find that Q always calls P, M, and N, and you also find that Y regularly calls N, that might suggest that N is somebody important within the terror network.
This excellent article was on the HN front page a few days ago:
With no other information, you probably can't. But imagine the metadata as a graph; phone numbers are nodes, edge weights correspond to the length and frequency of calls between the two phone numbers. Clique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clique_(graph_theory)) -like entities in that graph are people who are all in close communication, so if you know that one phone number is a suspected xyz, the others in the clique are probably of interest too.
"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls" because the NSA has voice recognition. The machine listens to the call, and saves the transcript as metadata. :)
Not an excuse at all but watching President Obama these days is like watching the end of The Man Who Fell to Earth (the original one with Bowie) where he's lost all control of people around him that he helped bring to power in the first place and he's utterly frustrated but stuck having to work with them.
As someone who was thrilled to see him elected, I am going to be very relieved to see him flown away on that last day, just like Bush.
FWIW, it is important that Candidate Obama had to say the things he did to be elected. I would rather live in a world in which the ideals we put forward are good, even when the system then corrupts them and people turn out hypocritical. It is far worse when we as a society lose our principles.
The difference between 2013 Obama and 2006 Biden is that 2013 Obama gets briefings on what exactly they uncover with that metadata and who they are catching with it. That's what he means when he says it was worth it.
That, "we have our reasons, but we can't tell you" excuse holds no water with me. I'm more likely to get shot by cop than hurt by a terrorist in this country. Whatever happened to, "give me liberty or give me death"?
I was only addressing the reason for the conflicting statements. Whether or not National Security is irrelevant I'll leave to others to debate. But it's a virtual certainty Obame and Biden would have disagreed with you (correctly or incorrectly) before taking office, as they would now.
