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Comment by smokeyj | Hacker News Reader

The timing for this is peculiar. I'll give my hypothesis. Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office. This huge revelation that our constitutional rights were being systematically violated didn't register because of cognitive dissonance.

Liberals are finally piecing the puzzle together. The executive branch with dragnet surveillance, infinite military capabilities, the right to detain and torture anyone including US citizens is the recipe for disaster.

As a libertarian I welcome anyone joining the fight for our constitutional rights regardless of what triggers them.

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> Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks

Yes, lots of them did. In fact, it was liberals that organized around the information in the leaks, liberal groups that sponsors the lawsuits based on the leaks that got at least one program revealed by the leaks ruled to be illegal by the courts, liberals who kept calling for a pardon, and liberal media personalities that reached out to Snowden in Russia and broadcast his views to the positive reception from their liberal audiences.

Quite a lot of liberals criticized Obama throughout his Presidency on national security and civil liberties, and equal rights issues, including Guantanamo (even though the closure was blocked by Congress), surveillance, drone strikes, the treatment of Manning and Snowden, the initial feet dragging on DADT, the administration's failure to intervene as timely as critics on the left would have liked in various state and local law enforcement issues, issues surrounding the DAPL protests, etc.

> Yes, lots of them did.

I'm not disputing that, but my point is there wasn't the current sense of urgency to reign in the executive branch. HN didn't partner with the ACLU and unicorns didn't use the situation as a PR piece.

But what's changed? The president decided to restrict travel and "enhance" screening from muslim countries? Ok.. Yet Obama's drone usage in Islamic countries wasn't good enough to get this response? Or maybe the American citizens Obama decided to assassinate without due process, that didn't raise any eyebrows?

I think my point stands. Obama was so damn charismatic that only he could have pulled that off without major backlash. The vast majority of voting democrats just didn't care about constitutional rights when Obama was in office, and the renewed interest is politically motivated. And for that, I'm thankful to have this clown in office.

"And for that, I'm thankful to have this clown in office."

I wonder if anyone said the same thing about emperor Nero's role in raising the profile of fire safety.

> Liberals didn't care about the Snowden leaks because it was "their guy" in office.

You're painting with a very broad brush there, smokeyj. Plenty of us were either anticipating (but unable to verify) the sorts of things he leaked or on the side of the leak once it happened. Liberal is not equal to `not libertarian`. Perhaps to `not Libertarian`. Notice the capital there. Little-l libertarianism has long been a major part of the liberal perspective, particularly relating to free speech, press, religion, and privacy rights, and due process.

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