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Comment by junto | Hacker News Reader

For that to be true, that would mean that the existing president would have been campaigning to curb the powers of the NSA before he became president and then afterwards flip flopped, changed his mind and backed off to the point of supporting more surveillance.

No way! That actually happened! [1] my god, why aren't the American public and press even asking these questions?

However, he must have changed his mind for some other reason, because otherwise that would mean the NSA blackmailed the president of the USA. Which of course is completely unrealistic!

[1] http://www.propublica.org/article/the-surveillance-reforms-o...

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There is also a long history of doing this, just one example: https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi%20mlk

Another (not so clear) example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scan... He was called "Wall Streets worst nightmare", and suddenly he has to resign because he spent time with a prostitute.

Joseph Nacchio is a better example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

They threw a bunch of insider trading charges at him when he impeded efforts by the NSA to get Qwest (of which he was chairman and CEO at the time) to do warrantless bulk collection.

Spitzer was also evading financial regulations.

Or do you mean to imply that it was a fabricated hit job? Because to me it seems to be a real problem when a law enforcement official is giving himself special treatment.

> Or do you mean to imply that it was a fabricated hit job?

Suspected parallel construction. They used illegal collected records in order to find the dirt, and then dug it out using other means that were quasi-legal.

That having been said, an anti-prostitution crusader who is using prostitutes deserves exactly what he got. If he hadn't been a crusader, I would have been sympathetic.

It just like Republican congressmen. I really don't care how or with whom they're having sex, as long as they aren't crusading against what they, themselves, are doing.

Spitzer was out of control. His sin was alienating all of those around him.... Many folks in Albany were cheering his demise.

The other two leaders of the legislature have been prosecuted for corruption. His Lieutenant Governor upon succeeding Spitzer disclosed that he was a cocaine user that routinely cheated on his wife. You need to look at Spitzer through the lens of corruption that is NY politics... He was a victim of hubris, not conspiracy.

I don't think it's blackmail. The NSA is probably afraid of the executive branch, not the other way around.

More likely, it's simply the continued concentration of executive power combined with fear of political fallout in the event an attack happened in the wake of scaling back these programs.

Given that the NSA spied on Obama when he was still a wannabe-senator, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was blackmailed [1].

Also, just watch candidate Obama debate President Obama on government surveillance [2].

I mean, short of someone providing a document detailing how the NSA intents on spying on the next presidents of the United States and manipulating them, I don't see any more clear evidence than this.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk&t=3m11s

[2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmdovYztH8

Obama did say everything he needed to be elected.

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