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.
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.
I truly don't believe this.
Any popular uprising that gets large enough, or loud enough, has the capacity to demand change. Sure, the corporate, moneyed interests will push their agenda as hard as possible to try to sway opinion (which isn't always misaligned with the public good, by the way). But at the end of the day politicians will do what they can to save their jobs. Most of them are just ordinary people, after all.
The fact of the matter is, the story of surveillance was sold to us as, "We're protecting you from another 9/11!", and there are many people who really believe that. It might even be true, who knows. Outside of the technorati in SV and urban centers (who, ironically, created the surveillance system), most people really don't give a damn about their digital privacy. Yet. If or when a sensational story happens that involves the "common man" being boned by surveillance, the tide will shift. I'd put money on it.
He definitely had enough power, but as steve19 points, he could have estimated that such actions would have probably lowered his chances for reelection.
Random reps wouldn't work because the public is largely uneducated and malleable to propaganda. Maybe opt-in random with a series of civic examinations would work.
That was how democracy was initially conceived and practiced in ancient Athens too (at least for some public positions).
This isn't a rhetorical way of saying that there aren't any. I expect that there are valid reasons to be silent in such a position. although I can't think of what they might be. Perhaps the chances of success in six months seems better if he's silent now than if he talks loudly now? But what could that assessment be based on?
But when you go beyond Dunbar number, seeking popularity turns into game. Then it is matter of playing the game well. Which doesn't necessarily correlate with anything else.
Random selection from people who gathered 100 endorsements should get somewhat good results.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/14/...
> But recently the Senate again took up legislation that would let the phone companies off the hook. It would also expand the government's domestic spying powers.
> Obama supported an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the measure. But after that amendment failed, Obama declined to filibuster the bill. In fact, he voted for it. It passed the Senate, 69-28, on July 9.
The point being that all of this just makes logical sense given their (essentially impossible) mission of preventing all future terrorist attacks, whether or not you agree with it from an ethical perspective. It makes an argument against the NSA's methods difficult without hard evidence that threats to the country are either overinflated or could not possibly be stopped without surreptitious methods.
Isn't it also possible that he chose the option he thought was right for the country?
Of course, it isn't that clear cut and there were probably many other things weighing in, but I wouldn't discount it.
Any rational person would consider preventing a major terrorist attack far more important than keeping their job for four years. People with the opposite motivation do exist, but generally I'd consider them pretty close to evil. Someone like that would probably have had a different 2 terms to Obama, in my opinion.
Elections are cutthroat, and to become president you have to have won many of them. It could be argued that an evil person has slightly better of odds of getting through. Raise that to the power of the half dozen elections needed to become president and you end up with Cheneys, Hilarys, and the like...
For example, it would be more important for President Obama to forcibly make a large portion of private industry to work on a super laser to defend against alien invasions, because alien invasions would cause more political fallout than not defending against them.
This is the mental problem with forecasting black-swan events, then basing your strategy on the outsized risk of those events. You can end up justifying insane behavior due to an event you have convinced yourself will happen, even if the odds are infinitesimal.
Why do you say it's hard to believe he doesn't agree with these programs?
I thought the article was arguing that he in fact did agree with those programs so long as they had a sound legal basis. In criticizing the Bush surveillance programs, people complained that they were (i) bad and (ii) illegal. The article argues that Obama thought that once (ii) was fixed, his work was done.
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
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series)
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).
The only question is whether they use this kind of information to get what they want. I'd say they probably do, via the axiom that power corrupts. This also explains why people like Clapper and (now ret.) Gen. Alexander can go into a congressional inquiry, lie to the panel's faces, be caught in the lie at the time or later, and still keep their jobs.
John Edgar Hoover did this with the FBI almost 100 years ago. Why would it have stopped? There's no reason for them to have stopped blackmailing folks. In fact there are several buildings bearing his name in DC
I remember it being really good, you should read it if you have the time.
Most people do not walk away from power. George Washington and Cincinnatus were rare exceptions, and not at all the norm.
> 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.
This lawyerly approach to government had some surprising
consequences for civil libertarians
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.