Hacker News Reader

Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

Even with your "charitable reading" it means that he is willing to betray his own set of values

Right. I think this is critically important- and rather than attribute it to Obama being a liar, I suspect the reality is far more interesting/complicated. What would cause a person to betray their values? Certainly, the moment you are elected President you are privy to a lot more classified intelligence information than you are as a private citizen.

Something tells me we won't find out until an autobiography decades from now (if we do at all), but we'll see.

View on HN

He had been a US Senator since 2004, so he definitely would have known a lot more (given his security clearance) going into the presidency than the average private citizen.

Honest question: Does the president really have that much more access to classified information than US senators?

> Honest question: Does the president really have that much more access to classified information than US senators?

I, too, would really like to have an answer to that. My assumption based on very little evidence is that the Chief Executive should have access to all classified information held by the executive branch's agencies. That seems to be logical. I seriously doubt that the President would accept an answer from one of his chiefs that "that information is classified." Now, a more nuanced and interesting answer might be found by digging into not whether the President has access to all classified information, but whether the President chooses to interrogate that classified information. There, I assume a President should, because if s/he does not, that raises serious doubts about a President making thoroughly informed decisions.

The only way forward for solving this problem is for the People to collectively say, with full knowledge of the potential consequences, that they are absolutely not willing to compromise, and want their government to trade security for inviolable protection of their freedom.

> The only way forward for solving this problem is for the People to collectively say, with full knowledge of the potential consequences, that they are absolutely not willing to compromise, and want their government to trade security for inviolable protection of their freedom.

The People did so collectively say: the Bill of Rights, which this president swore to preserve, protect and defend.

I'm talking about now, not 237 years ago.

Sfter some reading on how CIA works and how the information retrieved is used by washington, I guess that Obama is getting highly interpreted and filtered information. More opinions based on the opinions of analist's boses, than really having access to the whole picture.

Yes. The daily national intelligence briefing content is worlds away from anything that senators get. The only people privy to anything close to the same content would be the members of the intelligence select committee, but they receive periodic reviews not daily decision maker content. And it's worth considering that once you become president, by nature of your status you suddenly become the person everyone is spinning to. Even if you have access to the same thing, only one of you is getting told all the worst case horror stories that will benefit someone's budget if they get protected against.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com