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The people we elect aren’t the ones calling the shots, says Tufts University’s Michael Glennon. Others at SN have also voiced similar opinions so I thought this might be an interesting read for our members.
The voters who put Barack Obama in office expected some big changes. From the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to Guantanamo Bay to the Patriot Act, candidate Obama was a defender of civil liberties and privacy, promising a dramatically different approach from his predecessor.
But six years into his administration, the Obama version of national security looks almost indistinguishable from the one he inherited. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The NSA has, if anything, become more aggressive in monitoring Americans. Drone strikes have escalated. Most recently it was reported that the same president who won a Nobel Prize in part for promoting nuclear disarmament is spending up to $1 trillion modernizing and revitalizing America’s nuclear weapons.
Why did the face in the Oval Office change but the policies remain the same? Critics tend to focus on Obama himself, a leader who perhaps has shifted with politics to take a harder line. But Tufts University political scientist Michael J. Glennon has a more pessimistic answer: Obama couldn’t have changed policies much even if he tried.
Though it’s a bedrock American principle that citizens can steer their own government by electing new officials, Glennon suggests that in practice, much of our government no longer works that way. In a new book, “National Security and Double Government,” he catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.
[Related]: ‘National Security and Double Government’
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:09PM
But we have a rule of law, and I'm FAR more afraid of an out-of-control government than I am a bunch of terrorists.
We HAD a rule of law. Obama refuses to enforce them [wsj.com]
Not just the little laws, that everyone might agree need to be ignored occasionally, but the huge ones.
There was a time when the CIA and the NSA did not operate in this country. When people, here legally, flew airplanes into buildings all of that changed. They have gone for a technological solution instead of feet on the ground in a hundred little places talking to local police. Just easier to listen in on phone calls. They've gotten lazy, and let the computers round up everything.
I agree it is unprecedented, but only in this country. Others have operated this way for decades.
What I worry about is the day when these government snoops feel their livelyhood is threatened, and instead of a bunch of sting operations with inert fake bombs run against ignorant islamic militant wanna-be's they actually fund, or turn a blind eye to a shopping center attack [wikipedia.org] like Westgate. Every time the heat is turned up on them they run another silly security theater sting. I wouldn't be surprised if they have convinced/threatened Obama that any move against them would result in such an attack.
Its clear Obama has totally lost interest in the Job. Maybe its just because he has nothing more to gain, term-limited out. I suppose its also possible he's been totally cowed by the security apparatus.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:23PM
I've had similar thoughts, but I still don't see that as a problem for the President. That is the point at which he should use his greatest weapon, the press and the bully pulpit, stand up in front of the American people and tell them that he and the American public have been threatened, and that he has directed whatever law enforcement is still legitimate to immediately arrest the offender(s), or, failing in that, mobilizing the National Guard to remove the offenders as domestic enemies, or, failing in that, at least telling the American people that their government is no longer legitimate and allowing them to take whatever steps (if any) they see fit to remove the illegitimate government.
Again, unless he's concerned about his own well-being (political or otherwise), the president is pretty much never backed into a corner that doesn't let him do SOMETHING to uphold his oath. And if he's worried about his popularity, life and limb enough to not uphold his oath, than he is unworthy of the office.
Maybe I'm hopelessly idealistic, but I've seen people at the returns counter at Wal-Mart fighting a losing battle in a bigger outrage than I've seen any politician fighting against the out-of-control security apparatus. Except maybe Ron Paul.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:33PM
well, yes, but in this country we have a constitution - a document that grants the country sovereignty and grants our representatives the authority to govern - that explicitly limits the powers of government. a government which goes outside of the rules that it must follow to receive its authority and sovereignty is a rogue government. the US is officially a rogue nation. unlike those other countries which have been rogue (or under despots or dictators) for a long time, we're living through the time in which our government has gone rogue; its far too late in those other states to stop it, but we may still have a chance. the fate of our nation literally hangs in the balance. if the article is correct that its been too late for a long time, then we need to abandon ship or begin the Second American Revolution.
(Score: 3) by frojack on Tuesday October 21 2014, @09:42PM
Sorry to say it, but appeals to the constitution are laughed at in every courthouse in the nation.
Every lawyer and judge snickers up their sleeve when anybody raises a constitutional issue.
The constitution has no teeth. There is no punishment for violating it once you are in government.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:26PM
there is, its just nobody is enforcing it.
5 U.S. Code § 7311 - Loyalty and striking [cornell.edu]
ignoring/undermining the constitution = overthrowing or advocating the overthrow of our constitutional form of government. if our representatives aren't respecting the constitution, we no longer have a constitutional form of government.
18 U.S. Code § 1918 - Disloyalty and asserting the right to strike against the Government [cornell.edu]
every federal employee who ignores, undermines, suggests to ignore or undermine the constitution, or knows their coworkers or superiors do is to be locked up for a year, fined, or both.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 22 2014, @08:40PM
Washington DC and those who control it consider the American people to be the greatest threat to them. They have demonstrated that with their failure to punish the NSA for massively violating our Constitution, and not charging investment bankers for laundering money for drug cartels or defrauding the American people, and militarizing local police departments, and a whole host of other crimes and usurpations. They have already declared war on us. It is important to understand that.
Our system of checks and balances was well-designed, but over the last 200 years it has been subverted to the point of collapse. There remains no branch of government or traditional avenue for peaceful change that can or will do anything about it, because they are all in on it. It is up to the American citizens to stand up and enforce the law.
Soylentils can do their part by developing software and hardware that undermines their central control and makes it impossible for them to conduct business as usual. Let's crowd-source intelligence gathering on them and make it public for all to see, so they can be hoisted on their own petard. Let's send clouds of drones to swarm over their homes. Let's stop working to help them, and apply our considerable skills to resist and stop them. There are millions more of us than there are of them. Snowden has shown us all how powerful information can be, so let's follow that example and do likewise.
Washington DC delenda est.