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Comment by benmcnelly | Hacker News Reader

This is a bad time to be a liberal. Let me explain.

On nearly the eve of handing over the country to Trump, Obama is laying the groundwork for policy that has huge potential to be abused. I am confused, because if anything you would think he would do the opposite, but I refuse to believe it was done to give him a noose to hang himself, but why?

Why is it a bad time to be a liberal? Because there is a good chance you will disagree with a lot of upcoming policy. But with this in place, criticizing your government or standing against tyranny could make you a target, one that is now easier than ever to trudge through an archive of your online life for anything remotely wrong, and prosecute you, retroactively, for it.

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This is nothing new. Those on the right have felt the same squeeze you're describing over the Obama years in the form of politically targeted pressure from the IRS.

The lesson /should/ be that when the government is powerful enough to use against your political enemies, it's powerful enough to be used against you. Unfortunately, the allure of what you can do with that power next time you run the show seems strong enough to override a lot of rational concerns.

>Obama is laying the groundwork for policy that has huge potential to be abused. I am confused, because if anything you would think he would do the opposite,

Why would I think that? During his campaign in 2008, he switched his stance on the issue and voted for more surveillance - something he had promised to vote against only months prior.

Since his time in office, he has stuck to this reversal.

This is nothing new - he's been doing this for the last 8 years.

Precisely. I lost interest in Obama as a presidential candidate when in 2008 as senator he voted to renew the Patriot Act[1].

[1]Clinton Slams Obama for Voting “for” the PATRIOT Act at ABC-Facebook New Hampshire Debate - https://www.wired.com/2008/01/clinton-slams-o/

Obama just gave a riveting farewell speech about the US commitment to democracy. So it's not surprising that people who bought into his words are feeling burned, despite his actions being totally different for 8 years. Even ignoring the record=setting surveillance, whistle-blower persecution, and covert wars thing, he signed more executive orders than any president in history.

Therefore he's exploited the unilateral powers given to the executive branch more than any other president in history. So even if Trump does even half it won't seem so bad.

The best part is that he's handed plenty of fuel to any Russian who wants to dismiss their own governments abuse of power by pointing to the US. And they do this at every turn. So despite his tough talk on Russia, Obama has done more to make it easier for Putin to do whatever he wants than anyone.

The problem with a 'good' seeming guy going to such extreme lengths of power is that it legitimizes the bad ones who do it. So the problems should not only be analyzed locally but also considering externalities.

This is why ideological consistency is critical. If you're going to be abusive at least be honest about it. Fortunately we won't have this problem with Trump, he can't help it even when he tries.

I don't like Obama's expansion of the surveillance state, but he's at 260 executive orders, compared to 291 for Dubya and 381 for Reagan, and a whooping 3,522 for FDR.

This is a thought exercise, not my opinion as it's too complex/conspiracy theory-ish and more the plot of a Tom Clancy novel, but what if Obama is expanding the power and handing the reins over to intelligence groups that Trump has sidelined? The NSA/CIA are fantastic at collapsing and running foreign governments -- why not ours?

That is an interesting thought.

We do know Obama (like most presidents) is pretty cozy with the Intelligence Community. We know Trump isn't. I think a coup d'etat or shadow government is too much of a stretch, but this may at least let them work around Trump to an extent.

Also, we're living in interesting times where thoughts like "the intelligence agencies are covertly trying to work around the President!" are actually considered a neutral or good thing by many.

I've heard rumors that a decent number of people will resign from their jobs in the Intelligence Community. This will allow Trump to appoint more political employees. I don't know if this is true or not, but Trump's relationship with those agencies might get less hostile.

Well, if the people who stick around are constantly clashing with the political appointments, things might get even more hostile.

Maybe he'll appoint someone who will lie to Congress less?

That would make him a horrible human being.

My first thought and in my mind not at all complex. I can imagine a bunch of last minute meetings with a bitter President (Obama) and angry and scared TLA representatives cooking up a surprise treat for the President elect. Probably phrased as "a last defence line for democracy", "in the event of a substantial rogue political support base for a compromised commander-in-chief". Or such.

It's an interesting thought, but it would be extremely reckless for Obama to do this with the hope of undermining Trump.

Trump and those sympathetic to him could easily use the power of the intelligence apparatus to punish anyone who opposes him. We've already seen Congress pass a measure allowing them to reduce any federal employee's salary to $1. There's also a bill that would make future federal employees at-will hires that the president can fire. Imagine the climate of fear and intimidation that can be created if the president can fire anyway and has access to a massive surveillance complex that monitor all manner of digital communications.

Now maybe Obama knows something we don't, maybe he knows there really is damning information about Trump out there that just needs to find its way to the right hands. But even if that is the case, a more powerful surveillance state is not going to police itself, nor weaken itself even if Trump gets pushed out.

> Now maybe Obama knows something we don't, maybe he knows there really is damning information about Trump out there that just needs to find its way to the right hands.

Makes no sense. If he did, a couple of months ago would have been the best time for it to come out.

We don't have to assume Obama knew about it back then. The spooks could have been keeping it in their pocket for December-intelligence-briefing leverage. In years past, they haven't had to worry about who was president, because they had a degree of control over each one. Now that it's clear that Trump DGAF, they're desperately circulating all the dirty laundry they have or can manufacture, but perhaps to no avail?

As the sibling comment said, maybe things only came to Obama's attention recently. There could be information that intelligence personnel were pursuing but felt like they needed to escalate to the president given other information that has come to light. Could be people with a grudge. Could be that they were pursuing rumors but then recently found more substance to those rumors.

All things considered I think there's a decent possibility that President Trump has more skeletons in the closet that haven't been outed yet.

Then he'd be setting up something a faction that's analogous the the Praetorian Guard, and that worked so well for Rome.

Time to become a (big L) Liberal. ;-)

Almost everywhere but in the US, Obama would be considered pretty conservative, not liberal at all.

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