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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 01 2016, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the can-you-hear-me-know dept.

The US surveillance state is poised to grow more powerful under a Trump administration.

Though President-elect Donald Trump still has nearly two months until he's sworn in, his picks for Attorney General and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency are a sign that many surveillance reforms could be overturned or changed, such as the NSA's collection of telephone metadata on all Americans — a program that was reformed after it was exposed by Edward Snowden.

Trump recently appointed Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo for CIA Director. Both have advocated for the increased domestic spying that was implemented by former President George W. Bush after 9/11, according to Bloomberg.

"Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database," Pompeo wrote with coauthor David Rivkin, Jr. in a Wall Street Journal editorial in January.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 02 2016, @01:18AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 02 2016, @01:18AM (#435757) Journal
    They might dimly recall President Obama who was elected within living memory. Every power they hand to Trump has a strong likelihood of ending up in the hands of the next Obama who will probably be elected in the next four to eight years rather than way beyond their "don't care" horizon.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Whoever on Friday December 02 2016, @01:21AM

    by Whoever (4524) on Friday December 02 2016, @01:21AM (#435758) Journal

    This is very true.

    Unfortunately, the same could be said for the current President who doesn't have a stellar history when it comes to state-sponsored surveillance on citizens.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @01:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @01:46AM (#435764)

    It's going to be interesting who runs for POTUS in 4 or 8 years after Trump. If he actually does a good job, the next in line probably won't be a career politician.

  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 02 2016, @12:40PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 02 2016, @12:40PM (#435901) Journal

    I made this same point all through the Bush and Obama administrations. You might be OK handing police state powers over to "your" guy, but what happens when those powers transfer to the "wrong" guy?

    I'm certain none of these powers should ever have been granted in a country that likes to think of itself as free, and I'm pretty certain we would have found ourselves regretting their having transferred to either of the two major candidates this time when a couple years have elapsed.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.