
Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance - declan
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/barack-obama-lawyer-in-chief-213342
======
steve19
The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he
suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~
irixusr
I've argued for it for a few years but most people are aghast at the
suggestion...

~~~
duncan_bayne
I have seen the same thing. I now firmly believe that most people understand
that voting for representatives is a sham, but go along with it either for
unstated reasons like tribalism and hero worship, or out of a deep seated
misanthropy common to both the left and right wing.

~~~
harryh
This sort of nihilism is childish. You may not get everything you want from
your government but jumping from that to "it's a sham" is absurd.

If McCain had won in 2008 would the US have passed national health care
reform?

~~~
irixusr
We're not nihilists. We see a political process that is broken and throws some
peanuts our way to keep the paroles happy. But if you're a potential donor
like Lockheed Martin you bill the gov't for a flightless bird

The ACA is less than peanuts, since you have to buy the insurance yourself!

------
fasdf3asdf
The NSA is part of the executive branch. Obama controls the executive branch.
Reining in NSA powers is effectively giving up some of his own powers,
something that people rarely do.

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

------
yc1010
There is another scary explanation, is that they have collected enough dirt on
him and other politicians to become "untouchable"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

------
caseysoftware
> An important meeting with Obama was scheduled to begin in the Situation Room
> at half past noon on Friday, February 6, 2009. Officials who had been asked
> to participate gathered around the conference table waiting to brief the new
> president. He was late

> The officials were there to tell Obama about secret surveillance
> programs—including the fact that the National Security Agency was collecting
> Americans’ domestic phone records in bulk.

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

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

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

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

------
whoopdedo

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

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

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

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

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

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

if elections changed anything they would be banned, right?

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

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

------
tn13
When was the last time a politician said no to power ?

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

