I could plausibly justify it when the NSA (a department of the DoD) was solely focused on national security (assuming the NSA's self-imposed controls, protocols, procedures, etc were implemented and executed as the NSA Director claimed).
Now national security resources are being retasked to fight another failed prohibition. The US Federal Government's failed drug policies are as much a threat to US national security as foreign drug cartels are. Re-legalize narcotics, redirect enforcement and imprisonment funding to rehab, education, abd.
I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve.
In October, 2007 he had promised to filibuster any attempt to give telecoms retroactive immunity.
So this counts in my book as his first broken campaign promise, and proof that he hoped to continue warrantless wiretapping before he became President.
Most of IC guys are careerists. Presidents come and go, which makes me think the DoD has a lot of practice at scaring novice presidents into accomplishing their policy goals.
Does it really matter when he decided to take this course of action? I think what matters is that he did.
>I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve.
That's no excuse, it doesn't justify his actions. Obama was selected from a country of 300 million people to lead the nation, it's perfectly justifiable to expect for him to be above being manipulated by "scary daily reports". And here he is, step by step turning the US into an Orwellian police state (God, I wish this was hyperbole).
Also, I seriously doubt the NSA has been bugging Obama for permission to hand over their data to various LE agencies.
I would hope a President (or any politician really) would feel free to change their mind as they're presented with evidence they weren't previously familiar with. Or maybe their own priorities have even changed 8 years later and that's influenced their change of heart. That sort of thing happens.
Just because I might disagree with their conclusion or interpretation doesn't mean they shouldn't be free to reevaluate.
One of the most hollow, worthless political insults is to call someone a "flip flopper" IMO. It panders to ignorance. I want politicians to be persuaded by the facts. To not be zealous idealogues.
It's not like he has to promise anything...
CA politics seems to have trouble with referendums. I want the President to feel like they have a duty to make unpopular decisions sometimes.
I live on the other side of the world in Australia... and I am STILL getting BOMBARDED with this constant cycle of election crap going on in the USA due to how much the US media drives advertising.
Its just crazy... You guys have way bigger problems than the whole "the people think POTUS is in charge, but congress is actually meant to be in charge", it starts with the fact none of your politicians have enough time to do their fucking jobs due to all the campaigning.
Now, there could be the argument that being a professional politician was never supposed to be a thing, but any hope for that is dead and gone, probably before Washington set the precedent of stepping down after two terms.
The point, and this is important, is that the NSA not only has the real technical capability to fully monitor any number of up-and-coming senators, but there are no checks and balances in order for us to know that they HAVEN'T targeted and subsequently blackmailed him.
Technology has made it easy to target and monitor anyone that has the possibility of making a noticeable impact on the system. The people that control the system at that point in time, are then able to embrace, extinguish or "redirect" any outside risk to their power base.
Total surveillance makes this process simple. Not only can you start to weed out the bad apples, but you can also start to automate the process. Slowly you can train the system to spot the risks. He who controls the surveillance, then controls everyone else.
With complete storage archives of all the data, you can also backtrack on flagged entities and see their entire history. Imagine being presented with a blackmail dossier that listed (with photographic / video evidence) your youthful escapades during your school and university years. "I did not inhale!". "Oh yes you did Mr President, and here's a HD video of it".
The NSA have taken the worst that the internet had to offer and weaponised it against all citizens - both foreign and domestic.
A general problem with conspiracy theories is that they require some number of people to keep quiet regarding the matter. However, in an environment where keeping quiet is a core, institutionalized requirement, conspiracies become much less hard to believe (or at least consider).
I don't have a problem seeing this one as a real possibility.
(Yes, I know this means most recent Presidents and current candidates are not qualified to be President. But does that really shock you?)
My fear is this will be done through CISA, as I expected it would be. That would give them the excuse to say it's legal.
Some interesting facts:
"The total budget of the DEA from 1972 to 2014, according to the agency website, was $50.6 billion." So in 40 years 51 billion dollars, or a billion dollars per year.
"In 2005, the DEA seized a reported $1.4 billion in drug trade related assets and $477 million worth of drugs.[20] According to the White House's Office of Drug Control Policy, the total value of all of the drugs sold in the U.S. is as much as $64 billion a year"
So basically they are robbing poor and not really making any dent in the drug trade.
Quote "Here's an interesting factoid about contemporary policing: In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong pointed this out at his blog, Armstrong Economics, last week.
Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...
do privatized for-profit prisons have a gov't lobby to help fill their cells to max capacity?
Largest by total number by a huge margin (2.2 million, with the next largest being China with 1.7 million), but we've fallen to the #2 spot when measured per capita. Newly #1 there is Seychelles with about 700 prisoners out of a population of 90,000.
Source: http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_popula...
They want plausible deniability. If it works, Congress can claim they reduced crime. If it fails, they can blame the President failing to properly oversee his people.
They have literally no incentive to get involved.