
Why Is Obama Expanding Surveillance Powers Right Before He Leaves Office? - Fjolsvith
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/obama-expanding-nsa-powers/513041?single_page=true
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forgotpwtomain
> But while the changes may subject more Americans to warrantless
> surveillance, the last-minute timing of the announcement actually might have
> been designed to cut future privacy losses.

Obama has been immensely pro-mass-surveillance through-out his tenure, what
could possibly inspire confidence in this drivel?

In upcoming news: Trump cuts back on emission caps for automakers so the next
president cannot cut them back further!

~~~
api
I realized we lived in what almost is a one party state after Obama took power
and not much changed.

Surveillance expansion continued or even accelerated, as did our endless wars.
Obamacare is a Republican proposal even... it's based on Mitt Romney's
Massachusetts insurance mandate.

The only shift was in the culture war issues. The Culture War Show is really
just a distraction.

Trump won largely by styling himself as an actual alternative. Many people who
didn't even like him personally voted for him on the idea that he might be a
path out of the conventional corporate statist duopoly.

Personally I doubt it. Look at his picks. I predict that there will be a lot
of noise but little actual change. His trolling will be a great distraction.

We've also seen a new season of the Culture War Show begin, featuring a plot
involving the epic battle of Red Pill alt-righers vs the social justice
warrior league. There will be much arguing on the Internet.

Meanwhile the consolidation of global corporate-state power will continue.
Combatants on both sides of the culture war will see an expansion in
surveillance and the student loan and mortgage debt indenture system.

~~~
gozur88
>Personally I doubt it. Look at his picks. I predict that there will be a lot
of noise but little actual change. His trolling will be a great distraction.

This is true. Trump is almost entirely bereft of political philosophy - he was
a Democrat until it made sense to be a Republican. He changes policy positions
depending on who's asking the question. Sometimes in the same press
conference.

A guy like that is not going to make huge changes.

~~~
api
Absolutely. He believes nothing and only cares about winning. That makes him
trivial to manipulate. Just stroke his ego and make him think it's his
decision, or that it will make him go down in history, etc.

~~~
liberte82
That makes him LESS, not more stable.

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coldtea
Because all politicians serve the same interests: private interests in the
military-industrial complex that has the whole of the US in its pockets and
pays for their real salaries and retirement, and government interests in
increasing their bureaucratic reach and thus their negotiating power with said
complex and their comforts and power.

Their beef with Trump is more that he'll do the same things but with no
manners and without respect for the 'rules of the game' \-- and in that he
hasn't kissed enough ass to get to do them so he's a little of a wild-card.
Not that he's a crook and they aren't, because they are all crooks.

[ADDITION] And for the suckers on the sidelines, whether on the coasts or
"flyover country" (what a dismissive, borderline racist, term, as if those
rural people are a subspecies), there's the sideshow of the "cultural wars"
(as some other commenter rightly calls them) to keep them occupied with a
number of inconsequential crusades pro and against.

Those play into the eternally true fact that people on the rural areas will be
a little (a decade or so) slower to adapt to major cultural changes -- so you
can exploit the friction politically forever to gather your faithful, dems or
reps against the other side.

(Of course those "progressive" city people only take up those issues en masse
when they are already settled and tired and safe to identify with (e.g. not
many fighting for gay rights in the 70s and 80s, but everybody and their dog
do it now when most states have already voted them in, or are about to))

~~~
gedy
Your comment reminds me of being in school in the eighties, and seeing the
group think bullies gossiping and shunning a lesbian couple. Daring to say
"leave them alone" was met with "OMG you are a queer too", etc. Fast forward
to today, and the group think bullies will rail "OMG you are a hater too" if
you suggest you leave religious people alone who have moral objections to gay
marriage (or at least promoting it as identical to heterosexual marriage).

Bullies are always the same type of people, no matter the beliefs.

~~~
coldtea
I think there's some truth in that. Unless the number of activists and good
people increased, and the number of bullies decreased (which I think is more
of a constant in a given society), the bullies just use whatever cause is more
convenient in the present as a means to club other people with and/or promote
their personal brand (that said, depending on their area and the general
sentiment there, this could be, against just as well as pro gay rights, for
example).

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themgt
What absolute bullshit, with the Atlantic just credulously slurping up the
spin of a former NSA attorney.

12333 is an executive order! By its very nature Trump can rescind or update it
on a whim the moment he's in office. How can you completely uncritically
present readers the argument this is a way to set the rules in stone when
they're written on the White House Etch-a-Sketch?

And we of course get the "because 9/11" answer: _The origin of these changes
dates back, honestly, to just after 9 /11._ Now more than fifteen fucking
years later, days before the guy these Dems all said was an unacceptable
fascist threat walks into power, and because 9/11 we had to put the Obama
stamp of approval on the "bcc: everyone" model of NSA dragnet surveillance
sharing. Gotcha!

[1]
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349-Raw-12333-su...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3283349-Raw-12333-surveillance-
sharing-guidelines.html)

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mindcrash
If I remembered correctly Obama already expanded surveillance powers after
Bush laid down the foundation. Now he expanded it even more.

IMO this has nothing to do with Trump taking office, and everything to do with
giving the NSA even more power before he (Obama) leaves the White House.

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Zhenya
Is there an Olympics for mental gymnastics? This author should represent the
USA.

------
andrewclunn
In other news The Atlantic asks, "Was Obama's mishandling of Syria just a plan
to discourage his successor from foreign intervention?"

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MichaelBurge
Trump's talked about reducing the number of intelligence agencies and in
particular removing staff from the CIA. That's different from reducing their
power, though.

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afterburner
Could it be to allow deeper investigation into Trump's Russia connections?

~~~
Zhenya
Using govt powers to investigate political opponents. Nothing wrong with that.

/S

~~~
afterburner
Using government powers to protect the government from foreign subversion,
more like. Seems like the intelligence community's exact mission, whatever you
may think of the methods.

~~~
rokosbasilisk
Yea. I cant wait until Trump uses that reasoning to have Bernie or Warren
investigated in 4 years.

Either way Obama set many terrible precedents that will be used.

~~~
afterburner
It was an executive order. Trump could have done the exact same thing in five
days. Not a great precedent, sure, but don't think Trump is afraid to break
new ground. It's likely though that Trump would like to quash any
investigation into his foreign connections. It's an ugly time all round.

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ccvannorman
If I understand this correctly, a _local policeman_ can now apply for access
to anyone's internet and phone call history. So if a policeman is having a bad
day when you bump into him on the street, you're an application away from that
policeman uncovering every tiny detail of your private life.

Murica!

~~~
opless
The UK also.

~~~
jimnotgym
The difference in the UK is that just about every government agency you can
think of, including the 'Food Standards Agency'(!!), can look into your
browsing history without having to apply to anyone. Presumably the Food
Standards people have a role in preventing terrorism that is not clear to the
rest of us.

