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Trump has consistently demonstrated his impulsiveness and lack of restraint in communicating his thoughts. To the point that erroneous statements about some companies have sent their stocks downward. He also claimed, without evidence, that a plane crash that had just occurred was by Islamic terrorists. He also called for a boycott of Apple (though his campaign staff still used their devices) because they wouldn't create a backdoor for the San Bernadino shooter's iPhone.

No doubt the Clinton administration would've continued a lot of the same surveillance, but it's unlikely she would've made populist and hyperbolic appeals to the people to turn them into a mob against those like Schneier or companies like Apple who want to protect our privacy (however imperfectly).

EDIT: What's Clinton at a Trump wedding matter? Wealthy and powerful people hobnob with wealthy and powerful people. My girlfriend's father is well-connected in Argentina, he attends events at the US Embassy and with other well-connected people. It implies nothing except that people in that strata network and socialize, which is a large part of maintaining their status.

I'm saying that the Clintons and Trump are a lot closer than people realize:

People with knowledge of the call in both camps said it was one of many that Clinton and Trump have had over the years, whether about golf or donations to the Clinton Foundation. But the call in May was considered especially sensitive, coming soon after Hillary Rodham Clinton had declared her own presidential run the month before.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bill-clinton-called-...

These people being so close makes it strange that the elcetion of one would cause fear while the other would cause things to go on as usual.

It's about probability, expectations, and complexity. A status quo candidate with a lifetime of political occupancy and a finely tuned brand of political strategy is simply more predictable; good or bad, the creation of a plan of action is less complex. An unconventional candidate with shifting priorities, an affinity for stirring tensions, challenging long-held principles of the democratic system is going to require a contextual kind of defense which is infinitely more complex.

You're referencing talks between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Trump, not Mrs. Clinton. And then you try and draw conclusions about how similar Mrs. Clinton's and Mr. Trump's presidencies would have been?

People that have been married for decades tend to be pretty similar.

Can you offer evidence, then, that Hillary Clinton by way of Bill Clinton would have had a very similar set of policies to Donald Trump based on the apparent personal connection between Bill and Donald and the marital relationship between Hillary and Bill? Or is this all just nonsense?

>Hell, one of Trump's first statements after that infamous tape was: "Bill Clinton has said worse things to me on the golf course". I'm inclined to believe him [0].

Pretty similar, huh? So you're inclined to believe that Hillary has said worse things to Trump on the golf course too?

> Why should we fear a Trump administration more?

Because Trump explicitly campaigned on going after journalists and his critics. He literally said he was going to rewrite slander and libel laws so he could sue people who criticized him. He's also probably one of the most litigious people in America, so it's not just talk.

How do you not know all this? Did you not pay attention to the election?

I'm not sure why you are getting so many down votes, it's a legitimate point. We tend to forget that it was Obama who was in his second term when the Snowden revelations hit the papers. It was Obama who approved the drone strikes on US citizens. It was Obama who was in charge during Manning's court martial, conviction and sentencing. I appreciate the complexities of each decision, but it shows he understood and accepted the usefulness of the systems in place.

Hillary is a hawk, I don't recall her speaking out against the NSA or drone strikes. I do recall Feinstein, a senior Democrat Chair in the Senate politicking for surveillance. It seems Trump is less interventionist that what we've seen in the past 30 years from both parties in Congress. Perhaps that in and of itself will lessen the massiveness of our surveillance systems, perhaps not.

If you take a step back, realize that political parties are private entities that try to get their members elected into power, and they spend a lot of money convincing the citizenry they are the right choice. If it were Exxon-Mobile doing the same thing, you would have pause, even if they were saying the right things.

I'm not saying that Trump's administration will not be a complete disaster, but that remains to be seen.

>If it were Exxon-Mobile doing the same thing, you would have pause, even if they were saying the right things.

The CEO of Exxon-Mobil is going to be Secretary of State.

Yes, I'm aware of that, but being Secretary of State and putting candidates in elections every year while only allowing 1 other real competitor (the other party) to compete are completely different levels. Imagine if there was the Republican party and the Exxon-Mobile party.

I don't have to imagine. North Carolina is actually changing which powers are allocated to which offices based on the fact that a Democrat won the election.

The country is becoming a one-party state.

Wow, I just saw that in the headlines. I suspect that's what Congress has in store for Trump if he gets out of hand. Either that or impeachment for something. They have their perfect guy waiting to take his place.

I could be wrong, but I think there is a difference in that with Clinton, there was an expectation of what kind of administration she was going to have.

Trump, on the other hand, has been unpredictable since his election (I speak more about his inclusion of Elon Musk into his advisory council as well as Bill Gates comparing him to JFK). I think an administration that is business-minded can yield great economic prosperity but might not necessarily have interests in maintaining the rights of American citizens.

"I think an administration that is business-minded can yield great economic prosperity but might not necessarily have interests in maintaining the rights of American citizens."

I don't think we've seen an administration in the last 25 years that had an interest in maintaining the rights of American citizens.

I am inclined to agree, but I would argue that most businesses do not aim to preserve the rights of their customers (think the data collection performed by Google and Facebook and 100's of ad agencies on the Internet) and I think that this thinking can be quite dangerous in a political context.

And have any failed to be business-minded?

I think to the extent of limiting expenditures and generating revenue, I can only recall Clinton's administration as one that actually created a surplus. In this regard, I posit government officials do not necessarily tend to act this way (at the expense of American tax dollars).

I understood business-minded to mean sympathetic to the desire of the business community.

No worries, that's why I tried to clarify (hopefully I did). I agree with you wholeheartedly.