
Obama's NSA 'reforms' are little more than a PR attempt to mollify the public - wittyphrasehere
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/17/obama-nsa-reforms-bulk-surveillance-remains
======
spikels
Obama admits this is "to restore public confidence" not to fix a broken
system. He doesn't even think there is an actual problem. This is all about PR
and very little, if anything, about reform.

Our power-mad leaders never give up any of their power without a long
protracted fight. We have to continue to keep the pressure on until this is
actually fixed.

------
lukejduncan
If nothing else comes of this PR stunt I hope it's more energy thrown into the
EFF February 11th Campaign.

"February 11th: The Day We Fight Back Against NSA Surveillance"

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/february-11th-day-
we-f...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/february-11th-day-we-fight-
back-against-nsa-surveillance)

------
DanielBMarkham
I don't want to do the usual ranting thing, mostly because of how pathetically
sad it all is.

I will say as a disinterested observer (I do not support either major
political party in the U.S.) I'm curious to see if any candidates will run on
an anti-surveillance state message in the upcoming presidential elections.

We could end up with the same assholes who support all this nonsense going
back out and making a bunch more speeches about how bad it all is -- just so
they can get elected and continue things as before.

People say cynical voters are a problem, but you watch enough of how politics
actually works (and has worked over the centuries) and if you don't become
refreshingly cynical you're an empty-headed fool and more of a danger to
yourself and others than anything else.

ADD: Ok. Maybe a little ranting.

~~~
_greim_
> I'm curious to see if any candidates will run on an anti-surveillance state
> message in the upcoming presidential elections.

The danger of this (from a politician's POV) is that it paints a giant target
on your head, to the extent that the public is spooked about bad guys.
Especially if something bad happens while you're in power, and the public
rises up demanding the ability to catch all the bad guys whatever it takes. If
we could learn to not freak out every time J Random Lunatic does a public bad
thing, then we wouldn't be handing pro-surveillance politicians the tools to
so easily defeat their opponents.

Basically this isn't _just_ politicians being evil, it's the symptom of
widespread irrationalism.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
You point out the excellent reasons for politicians not taking any action --
who wants to be the guy that changed the rules so the next 9-11 could happen?
But my point is more along the lines of happy-talk: red meat to throw at some
energetic segment of the population to get them to donate and come out and
vote.

We see this same pattern on many issues, take for instance welfare for
Republicans. They'll talk up their objections, including making all sorts of
nuanced arguments, but at the end of the day nobody is going to vote to throw
grandma off a cliff.

I'd be ten bucks we same some of this same crap with security. Somebody will
make impassioned, reasoned speeches -- probably explaining things just as you
have done, and making a case for something that sounds great but is more of a
marketing blurb than anything else. Maybe it'll be "peace through reasonable
security" or something. (Be assured that it will be heavily poll-tested.)

But in the end, it'll just be more whitewashing. My curiosity is just how
banal and pandering the politicians will get. From a rhetorical and
philosophical viewpoint alone, it's always interesting to watch these verbal
and policy gymnastics. What'll be the catchphrase? Will the tech community
come out and support a politician even when it's blatantly obvious he or she
is just beating a pinata and isn't serious about real change? I suspect so.

~~~
_greim_
Maybe. I'll also be curious to see if politicians will go against surveillance
in their campaign speeches.

Although the cynical side of me asks, if a politician goes against the
surveillance state, who has both the motive and opportunity to sabotage that
politician's career? Answer: the surveillance state.

------
gaius
The man who promised to closed Guantanamo Bay... And didn't.

They say a country gets the government it deserves, and America deserves Sarah
Palin in 2016.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The man who promised to closed Guantanamo Bay... And didn't.

Yeah, I mean its not like Congress passed a law _specifically prohibiting_ the
actions the President proposed in order to close the detention facility at
Guatanamo Bay. [1]

[1] They didn't pass _a_ law, but several, on different occasions.

~~~
jjoonathan
You mean they passed a law specifically blocking the actions the President
_took_ : he gave the executive order to close Guantanamo 2 days after the
inauguration.

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantanamoDetentionFacilities)

Sure, he could find a way to push it through, but given the Republicans'
historical success at demanding the world from a Democrat with a mandate (e.g.
cutting capital gains tax by a third in exchange for childrens' health care),
I'm sure their asking price was high.

~~~
spikels
C'mon it is not the Republicans. At the time that executive order was issued
Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

There is no bad team and good team (i.e. your team) but a rotten sport. Your
thinking has fallen victim to their divide and conquer strategy.

~~~
jjoonathan
My point was not that Dems as a party were blameless, only that Obama could
plausibly lie anywhere on the fault spectrum for this issue. You're correct to
observe that the real fault lies with the political system that encourages the
use of bargaining chips, but the people blaming Obama were the only ones
saying otherwise.

I used CHIP as an example of congress opposing a mandate in order to win
concessions. The CHIP issue almost certainly had roughly similar party lines,
but given a few hours I'm sure I could dig up 10 examples of party X opposing
party Y's mandate to extract concessions regardless of whether X==Y or X!=Y,
if that would make you happy.

------
streetnigga
Any comments submitted here may be stored in for-profit corporate databases
ran by the likes of Booz Allen Hamilton. Your comments are not data, they are
meta-content. No data is collected to be stored in this database, any
incidental data that does get stored in the database will be carefully
minimized so a worker has to press a key to expose the information.

This data will be pitched to the likes of US Chamber of Commerce[1] via firms
like Hunton & Williams[2] as to be used to attack/stifle/undermine political
dissidents, journalists like Glenn Greenwald[3], and _THEIR FAMILIES_[4][5].
These comments may be used against you by any nation-state that pays, or
entity that leaks information from the database.

All of this foretold in the details (meta-content) of the 2011 anonymous
leaks.

[1]
[http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143419/lobbyists...](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143419/lobbyists-
chamberleaks/)

[2]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html?_r=0)

[3]
[http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/palantir/](http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/palantir/)

[4]
[http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143428/chamberle...](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/10/143428/chamberleaks-
target-families/)

[5] [http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Aaron-
Ba...](http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Aaron-Barr5.jpg)

edit: Oh eat me anonymous down-voter. Anyone that wishes to learn more about
the for-profit interests often created by the NSA or their past employees can
read Telecomix's BlueCabinet[1] or Barrett Brown's Project PM[2]. Free Barrett
Brown.

[1]
[https://bluecabinet.info/wiki/Blue_cabinet](https://bluecabinet.info/wiki/Blue_cabinet)

[2]
[http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page)

~~~
tzs
> Any comments submitted here may be stored in for-profit corporate databases
> ran by the likes of Booz Allen Hamilton

...

> These comments may be used against you by any nation-state that pays, or
> entity that leaks information from the database

Uhm...HN comments are by design available to anyone in the world who wants to
read them. What is the point of leaking something that is freely available
from the original source?

~~~
streetnigga
Same reason many corporations make a pretty penny off easily accessible public
data? Slick presentation, rich tools to use the data with, and integration
into existing work-flow?

The comment was more a gesture at how all this public/semi-
public/private/extremely private data can end up being used. Or indeed how it
has been used or pitched to be used. When you have NSA affiliates like
Palantir mucking about with firms like Hunton & Williams. Teaming up to do
attack work on generally anyone who opposes the persons who make up the facade
that is US Chamber of Commerce, you have a shipwreck in progress.

How much you are targeted by these entities is a matter of how much of a nail
you are to their hammer.

~~~
tptacek
"NSA affiliates like Palantir mucking about with firms like Hunton & Williams
[teaming up to attack] anyone who opposes the persons who make up the facade
that is US Chamber of Commerce" is brilliant. You're hitting some Robert Anton
Wilson notes here. 23 Skidoo!

~~~
tzs
Tha NSA is quickly becoming the 21st century's flying saucers.

~~~
streetnigga
Inane response to well cited content.

------
puppetmaster3
President OblaBla did a bla bla. That is all the data that you need.

