
Trump will control the NSA - what this means for your privacy - raldu
https://protonmail.com/blog/trump-control-nsa-privacy/
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clifanatic
Ok, seriously, give me a break with this "Trump won, the sky is falling".
There may well be a lot of things that Trump would be worse than Hillary might
have been on (maybe...), but for crying out loud, she would have been just as
bad, if not worse, on a surveillance state.

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mzw_mzw
Yep. If you're only bothered by surveillance _now_ , you need to ask yourself
if you were ever really bothered by surveillance at all, as opposed to being
bothered by who won the election.

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emodendroket
This stuff drives me nuts. Obama gets into office and all the people who were
talking about how George W. Bush's presidency was illegitimate and the drone
programs he was running were wrong suddenly switch positions to saying you
have to stand with the president no matter what and drones are fine. And now
Trump comes into office and everyone switches sides again.

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orly_bookz
But but but... Obama stopped the influx of people into Gitmo!

I mean, sure, he did that by just drone bombing the shit out of everyone
instead but...

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emodendroket
I doubt it means anything different when Trump controls a huge and likely
unconstitutional surveillance complex than when Obama controlled a huge and
likely unconstitutional surveillance complex.

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rurban
Yes, but neither Obama or Trump controlled the surveillance complex. They
controlled Obama and will most likely control Trump also.

At least someone controlled Obama, who seemed to be a clever and liberal guy,
and not someone who turned out to be one of the worst war criminals and
offender of liberal or constitutional provisions. Obama could only control
soft issues, the "complex" didn't care about. Or as it was leaked they even
mandated the people to lead these soft issues also. And they will most likely
control Trump as well, as he is just another new inexperienced outsider.

But different to Obama, Trump at least talked about clearing the house a bit.
Obama also made some promises, but on the very first days he betrayed them
with the Raytheon lobbyist Lynn, violating his own new ethic rules.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Lynn_III#Deputy_Sec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Lynn_III#Deputy_Secretary_of_Defense)

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emodendroket
I mean, can you really tease it out? I don't think Obama ever wanted to shake
up the security complex in the first place.

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JoeAltmaier
Its wishful thinking to imagine anyone 'controls the NSA'. They spy on
Senators for gods sake.

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emodendroket
It's hard to say because so far it's not like any president has shown any
interest in reining them in. I think the last president with any real interest
in muzzling the CIA was Carter and that work has all been undone by now.

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dsfyu404ed
This is the guy who would drop out after New Hampshire, would never get the
nomination and would lose the general election in a landslide. All this "Trump
will do X", "Trump will do Y" is meaningless speculation at this point.

With all the regulatory agencies Trump and his social circle have had to deal
with over the course of their careers I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't
buck the trend when it came to authoritarian surveillance.

