
Obama Promises Disappear from Web - 1337biz
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/07/25/obama-promises-disappear-from-web/
======
pvnick
I see this as largely coincidental, and nothing nefarious. If you follow the
link from the page to the archived version [1], look among the dozens of
subjects, click on Ethics, scroll down to near the bottom of the page, you'll
see the single paragraph he's referring to. It makes up for about 0.1% of the
total content. It's unlikely the administration took down an entire website
just to hide Obama's whistleblower promises.

What's more likely is that that, since Hope/Change was the old slogan and
"Forward" has replaced it as the new slogan, it's time to take down the old
site because it's simply outdated.

C'mon guys let's show a little critical thought and stop looking for
conspiracies where they don't exist. It's bad for our credibility. Things are
bad enough as it is with the stuff the NSA is _actually_ doing.

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130515024407/http://change.gov/agenda/)

~~~
samstave
I have a fool-proof way to test your retarded theory: (and I call it retarded
only because its the best word in the modern human lexicon to discuss such
topics of self-delusion)

Why don't we make a non-stop replaying channel of all the ridiculous bullshit
propaganda campaign promises that Obama (and all other campaigning
politicians) tells us, for everyone to see. Make it time-stamped, tagged,
listed, searchable and correlated to their current actions - let people vote
comment and review all things said.

After all - are we not for open-source code, which allows us to review for
bugs and malicious code?

We need open-source politics that allows for the same.

~~~
anigbrowl
What do you think the wayback machine is? As for calling other posters
retarded (and a poster who is generally on the same side as you on these
issues, at that) - don't.

~~~
coldtea
> _What do you think the wayback machine is?_

A generic, difficult to navigate, seriously lacking in content, website?

Nothing at all like what he said, except the "archives old webpages" part.

------
konklone
This is a simple discovery, but an important one. Change.gov was the
President's official transition website, and included a vision for his
presidency. It's a central piece of the historical record of the US, and they
yanked it from the Internet.

It doesn't matter whether or not the Administration was trying to remove
something specific: taking down the content at Change.gov is un-American and
un-Internet.

~~~
true_religion
I'm curious. What's un-American about it?

I can see the whole "un-internet" aspect, becuase after all "cool urls don't
change", but un-American?

~~~
lukifer
In theory, the shared narrative of America is rooted in Enlightenment values,
including a respect for reason, education and history. The lack of a proactive
attempt to preserve that history, let alone to erase it intentionally, goes
against the principles of the Age of Reason.

In practice, obviously, this story is at best an ideal we strive for, and that
we only achieve partially or intermittently.

~~~
true_religion
Ah I see what you mean, though the argument could be made that people treat
the internet like casual verbal communication. There's nothing to preserve
because its supposed to be ephemeral.

------
joering2
I wrote about this 31 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5933806)

But is this news surprise to you??

We needs to focus on jobs and middle class and stop wasting time on phony
scandals!!

[1] [http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/24/obama-repeats-carneys-
phon...](http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/24/obama-repeats-carneys-phony-
scandals-line-in-economy-speech/)

This comes after:

\- IRS scrutinizing and unconstitutionally profiling people while spending
$5MM on "trainings", shutting down operators due to gov cuts while giving
contractors 80MM in bonues? phony scandal!!

\- 4 US Officials dead in Benghazi almost 1 years ago, no answers, no
credibility (people in charge promoted) phony scandal!!

\- 1 US Official dead, hundreds of people dead mostly on Mexico soil after
DOJ's Fast And Furious mismanage? phony scandal!!

\- DOJ spending time on possible civil lawsuit against Zimmerman, while since
the tragedy at least 600 murders done by one race on another in Chicago alone.
phony scandal!!

\- NSA spying on all americans and foreginers intercepting all possible
traffic illegally unlawfully and unconstitutionally? phony scandal!!

\- Salandra: hundreds of millions given without proper checks to Presidents
friends? phony scandal!!

------
ibejoeb
I think this is sensational, but it got me looking around the archive[1], and
it's a pretty good read.

\--

Improve Intelligence Capacity and Protect Civil Liberties

* Improve Information Sharing and Analysis: Improve our intelligence system by creating a senior position to coordinate domestic intelligence gathering, establishing a grant program to support thousands more state and local level intelligence analysts, and increasing our capacity to share intelligence across all levels of government.

* Give Real Authority to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board: Support efforts to strengthen the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board with subpoena powers and reporting responsibilities. Give the Board a robust mandate designed to protect American civil liberties and demand transparency from the Board to ensure accountability.

* Strengthen Institutions to Fight Terrorism: Establish a Shared Security Partnership Program overseas to invest $5 billion over three years to improve cooperation between U.S. and foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

\--

He f'ing nailed 2 of those.

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130425003939/http://change.gov/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130425003939/http://change.gov/agenda/homeland_security_agenda/)

~~~
samweinberg
Don't forget this one:

* New Capabilities to Aggressively Defeat Terrorists: Improve the American intelligence apparatus by investing in its capacity to collect and analyze information, share information with other agencies and carry out operations to disrupt terrorist networks.

~~~
d23
This is what blows my mind about some of these people. They act as though
Obama said he was going to legalize weed, stop all wars, and turn America into
an orgyistic utopia. When in fact he basically did what he said he was going
to do: be a hawk on foreign policy in a more intelligent way. Rather than
getting involved in long, drawn out ground wars he resorts to drones and
things like stuxnet.

------
zdw
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Whistleblowers are frequently viewed by people who disagree with them as
whiners, complainers, disgruntled people with axes to grind, and frequently
they are all those things, often with nothing more than circumstantial or
spurious claims.

Not everyone's a Snowden.

~~~
jasonlotito
> One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

That quote also means that the man is still a terrorist.

~~~
pizza
only as a function of the observer

------
ewoodrich
So just to be clear, President Obama's staff took down a transition website
that was primarily a link to whitehouse.gov, and this is somehow a scandal
because of one of many campaign promises included on the site?

Sure, I guess it could be some sort of conspiracy, but it's equally possible
his staff wanted to consolidate web presence. The title on the other hand,
implies some direct connection to the whistleblower segment, which has no
supporting evidence.

~~~
rhizome
Well, it _did_ happen two days after the first Snowden revelations. What
support for "web consolidation" have you found to continue to correlate them
as "equally possible" in light of that timing?

------
drawkbox
"When one knew that any document was due for destruction... it was an
automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in,
whereupon it would be whirled away..."

------
mtgx
You know, ending the mass surveilling would be a huge achievement on its own
(probably by repealing the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act) - but what
I'd really like is to get so much support from the people and the Congress, to
eventually impeach him. Now _that_ would remain in history, and would teach
future presidents a lesson about overextending themselves with the spying.
Obviously people like Alexander, Clapper and Holder would be gone in the next
second, too, and the FISA Court disbanded.

~~~
jivatmanx
Alexander is an extremely powerful, dangerous man. His removal should first
priority.

~~~
lukifer
While I agree, is there any reason to expect different behavior from a
replacement?

Even scarier than a single corrupt tyrant, or even a cabal of "shadow
government" figures, is the possibility that these institutions have taken on
a life of their own, independent from any one actor.

[http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-
youre-...](http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-
soaking-in-it.html)

------
mkr-hn
Regular civics reminder: the Executive is supposed to be the weakest of the
three branches of government when it comes to domestic issues. If you want a
president who's decent at his/her job (foreign affairs, proposing policy), but
don't want him/her meddling with domestic affairs, elect a better congress.

This means actually going out to vote in primaries and main elections at the
city, county, state, and federal level. All of these determine how much
influence and power the federal government has, and whether or not they're
doing a good job.

It's true that finding useful information on most candidates is impossible at
the moment, but that's solvable.

------
rdtsc
So his supporters are right. He does keep his promises.

...

By slowly removing the ones he hasn't kept from the list.

~~~
ekianjo
Too bad people save pages offline. That does not go unnoticed nowadays.

------
gojomo
We have always been at war with whistleblowers.

~~~
Demiurge
What about the "change we can believe in"?

~~~
aegiso
I dunno.

Pretty sure we've always been at war with Eastasia.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-
Four](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four)

~~~
ceol
I think we're passed the point where someone on the internet needs to clarify
they made a _1984_ reference.

------
prawn
How likely is it that the pre-pres Obama was as-advertised, but he's now
operating with top-level knowledge about the US's place in the power struggles
of the world? And that knowledge pushes him to act against some of the
friendlier statements he's made in the past?

Could the strength of the US WRT China (for example) be on a knife-edge that
warrants the back-pedalling we're seeing?

~~~
d23
No no no, you see. He should spend 100% of his time caring about the issues
_I_ care about! Forget foreign policy, the economy, a woman's right to choose,
equal pay for women, gay rights, gun control, medicare, social security, and
immigration. These issues don't concern little old _me_. I can't be bothered
to judge him on multiple issues to come up with a nuanced view of the job he
is doing. Removed his transition election website? Corporate fascist political
shill!

------
6chars
I agree with the first commenter on the link. This is quite a reach. It's
unlikely that the order to take down an old, unmaintained site would have come
from someone who's in on some sinister agenda to revise history.

~~~
DannyBee
It's not really a reach when you realize how things like this really occur:

It got emailed around or something, and someone who was close enough to a WH
staffer or DNC person saw it, and send it along.

They asked their boss what to do, and the answer was "just change the
website".

It's not like there was some ordered plan of "first we'll change this, then
we'll change the transition site". It's clearly a reactive move to someone
noticing, and they didn't expect it to blow up.

The reason it blew up is equally simple. Somewhere in the forward chain,
someone was close to sunlight, and sent it to them. The original story was
going to be "obama promises things about whistleblowers, breaks his promise",
but once it got removed from the website, the much juicier story of "obama
revises historical promises" came along.

This is how a lot of things in DC get noticed. There are hundreds of staffers
and DNC people and what have you. They also likely have a fairly low degree of
separation to someone who would notice this, ...

------
sehugg
This section of the site has been removed and "revised" before, notably in
2008: [http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/changes-at-
cha...](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/changes-at-changegov-
return-of-the-agenda/?_r=0)

------
christiangenco
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

------
Vivtek
Change I'm forced to believe in.

~~~
smsm42
Nobody forces you to believe in it. Some people must bear the consequences of
too many people choosing to believe in it, though.

------
obtino
Throughout the years of my life I have learned of certain inalienable truths.
The fact that politicians are not trust-worthy is one of them.

~~~
crusso
And yet we continue to give them more authority to control our lives as though
they were our "better angels".

Politicians are no better than we are. Often, they are worse since a strong
desire to control others is often what puts them on the political track.

Obama said the other day, "The government is us, and we're doing things right"

HUH?!

If the government is us, then why are we spying on ourselves? Why can't we get
any answers about the NSA spying, the IRS scandal, Benghazi, or even the Fast
and Furious gun running scandal?

If we are the government, then we're kind of masochistic.

------
steve19
Can't someone just file a FOIA request to get a copy of the entire website?

(Just in case archive.org or other archivers missed some of it)

~~~
joering2
Watching US Government since Obama took over, I would rather imagine US gov
going after archive.org, first nicely sending C&D, then with help of IRS
thoroughly auditing all archive.org employees' files, then if that doesn't
help, ask DHS and take over their site and plaster it with nice eagle logo
with "DHS seizure" notice on it.

Edit: oh yes we are still in country of freedom and democracy. Archive.org
would be welcomed to sue the government; you guys just prepare yourself for
couple years of tough fight and make sure you got couple mil in bank for legal
fees; oh and of course you cannot operate your site until you get the judgment
that you were right and we were wrong, but even then we will appeal and after
another couple years, IF and IF supreme court decides on case against us, then
we will still put the file under internal "review" (read: put it on hold for
couple more years) and then what are you going to do?? Its not like Eric
Holder will prosecute... Enric Holder to release your domain back to you.

------
CamperBob2
Well? He promised "change," didn't he? It changed.

------
msgilligan
About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was able
to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in the
yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At
the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were
written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily
stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a
paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a
ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was
able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant,
except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to
understand, but would say nothing.

\-- George Orwell, Animal Farm

------
thret
There's something seriously wrong with the entire political system when every
single person here is like 'well yeah, he's a politician'.

“Those who seek power are not worthy of that power.”

------
downandout
From NSA to prosecuting reporters for...well...reporting, it is quite clear
that one Obama ran for office and a different one actually took office. They
are trying to get rid of all the evidence of the many misrepresentations he
made in order to get elected, probably so that the next round of Democrats
running for office aren't also seen as liars and hypocrites.

------
kolev
Just because you deleted your promise from the web, it does not annul it. A
man who does not keep his word (regardless of price) is no man, but a [insert
the C word here].

------
informatimago
In France we have a saying about politicians' promises: "Les promesses
n'engagent que ceux qui les écoutent.", ie. " Promises are binding only to
those who listen to them.". It must be a good thing they try to erase them
from the web.

LOL

------
thetron
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

------
rangibaby
We've always been at war with whistleblowers

------
arcosdev
And that is why you fail.

------
Buzaga
~Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste,
fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to
public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and
patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars,
should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees
as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will
strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste,
fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal
agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and
whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.~

Ouch.

~~~
fear91
A classic psychopathic behaviour. Blind your victim with carefully spun web of
lies. Distort the reality and then when the time comes, abuse them.

Psychopaths are so good at lying that they self-deceive themselves. They
believe their own lies. That's why it's so easy to fall for what they say.

They always fly to the top - be it at corporations, governments, crime
organizations. The more psychopathic they are, the higher they get.

~~~
chatmasta
The fact that psychopaths and Obama share certain characteristics does not
prove that Obama is a psychopath. Yet people continue to suggest that he is,
citing the incongruent logic that overlapping characteristics imply equality.

The fundamental problem is not people's flawed logic, but the psychological
diagnostic tests. Psychologists broadly categorize most disorders because they
cannot find a reliable symptom that also acts as evidence of a disorder. That
is, there is no symptom that definitively allows psychologists to say "Patient
exhibits Symptom X. Therefore, patient has Disorder Y."

Contrast this to "biological" diseases like viruses or cancers. They exhibit
_physical_ evidence as symptoms. Doctors can detect the physical presence of a
virus or a cancer. The evidence they find serves both as a symptom and
evidence of their diagnosis. Thus, medical doctors can precisely define
diseases by their symptoms.

Unfortunately, psychologists are not afforded such luxury. Yet many of them
act as though they are. This is how we end up with severe misdiagnoses. We
need to be aware as a society of how this affects us.

~~~
criley2
ITT: Armchair psychologists confuse "psychopathy" and "sociopathy".

The tops of government and business exhibit the signs of sociopathy, not
psychopathy.

Psychopaths _generally_ exhibit many behaviors that makes them fundamentally
unsuited for public life, such as poor behavior control.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, have just the right mix of anti-social
tendencies to turn their empathy on for the crowd, and off while making
decisions that affect millions negatively.

~~~
mortehu
If you're really a trained psychologist; in what diagnostic system do these
categories even exist? Surely not ICD or DSM?

~~~
Bluestrike2
Outside the public consciousness, the term's only real professional use is
limited mainly to some forensic psychologists because of the criminal justice
system's rather peculiar requirements of psychology. Given the hoops it
requires they bend through, I wouldn't look towards FP for diagnostic
guidance. Robert Hare as well, but personally I tend to think of his work is
sophomoric at the best of times and idiotic at the worst . He's also (in my
opinion) a world-class prick, having used legal action to prevent the
publishing of a critical paper that had already made it through peer review:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=critique-
of...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=critique-of-forensic-
psychopathy-scale-delayed-by-lawsuit)

But that's neither here nor there.

Anyhow, setting aside the lack of any diagnostic definition for either term,
_sociopathy_ has never been anything more than a synonym preferred by certain
individuals. But if we're looking for some point of differentiation, one of
the main reasons to prefer one synonym over another was to try and emphasize
causation by social factors. Certainly not some sort of empathy switch.

Generally speaking, that confusion is part of the problem with both terms.
They carry a lot of baggage and pop-psych definitions, but sorting through the
muck and deriving some sort of diagnostic criteria is an exercise in futility.

------
Allower
If this surprises you well then, you are as dumb as they come

------
AcessoNegado
Shocking!

