[willholloway]

Let's take a moment of deep appreciation for President Obama's decision to not panic after the San Bernadino shooting, reinstate color terror alert codes, spark a ground invasion of Syria, or in any other way overreact.

For a brief interlude in American history, we had a president that didn't capitalize on terror attacks politically, or generally set a tone of paranoia and fear.

We won't always be this lucky.

[studentrob]

I am happy about that.

What does any of that have to do with the fact that he does not understand encryption technology?

I can appreciate some things about Obama and not others.

People aren't all bad or good. I support ideas, not people, just as I hate the game, not the player.

[willholloway]

We almost never say it. I want to say it. As someone who first became politically aware during the post 9/11 Bush era, it's really nice to have an administration in the White House that isn't trying to scare us.

We wouldn't live like that in a Trump administration. We would live in fear.

[digler999]

hillary would do the same god damn thing. "but...terrorism!" "Iran is threatening freedom".

[willholloway]

"SCOTT SHANE: Well, five years ago, there were—there was a question about what to do as Gaddafi’s forces approached Benghazi. The Europeans and the Arab League were calling for action. No one really knew what the outcome would be, but there was certainly a very serious threat to a large number of civilians in Benghazi. But, you know, the U.S. was still involved in two big wars, and the sort of heavyweights in the Obama administration were against getting involved—Robert Gates, the defensive secretary; Joe Biden, the vice president; Tom Donilon, the national security adviser.

And Secretary Clinton had been meeting with representatives of Britain, France and the Arab countries. And she sort of essentially called in from Paris and then from Cairo, and she ended up tipping the balance and essentially convincing President Obama, who later described this as a 51-49 decision, to join the other countries in the coalition to bomb Gaddafi’s forces."

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/3/the_libya_gamble_inside...

[eggy]

No, he just sanctions low-key drone strikes in countries we're not even at war with keeping a hushed public content. Just listen to his SXSW speech. I think you see the real Obama showing through there, and no, it is not an idealist who was corrupted by Washington. He is slick as they come in Washington.

[AI_Overlord]

Better that and kill some terrorists than send an entire army for the same terrorists. Much more efficient and safe for everybody, including the country where the drone is used. Better a drone than an army.

[eggy]

I am not against the strategic use of drones vs. putting boots on the ground. I am questioning the number of countries we have used drones in. A lot of questions are also being raised about the targets being "terrorists", and I am not talking about an accidental drone strike at a wedding of civilians, but the public's blind acceptance that we are indeed getting the 'bad guys'. I am not so sure the ratio of bad guys to civilians is as high as reported. Are you, and what's your evidence?

[waterlesscloud]

This recent debate has quite literally centered on his administration using the San Bernardino shootings as leverage to force Apple to break iPhone's encryption. It's the main reason this whole discussion has the profile level it does.

[willholloway]

He's asking to strike a balance in a court case. The tone, the actions, are so incredibly measured. Even though I disagree with them. And let's face it, iPhone encryption is weak encryption, with a single point of failure, the Apple signing key.

In comparison, six weeks after 9/11 we got the entire PATRIOT act rammed through, and the current NSA domestic panopticon put into place illegally and in secret.

And the administration is making it's arguments openly, we are not being manipulated by the general climate and context.

We aren't being made to feel afraid in the way we were in those dark years. We are not being told to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal doors and windows in case of biological or chemical attack. The administration is not making a big show of deploying missile batteries in DC, while the Terror Alert is raised another shade, all based on "chatter".

We had a Vice-President say we are going to have to "work the dark side", and he meant torture. And we did, in dark dungeons on the far side of the world.

We started to torture, and we all have to live with seeing torture a regular fixture in our entertainment. That wasn't the case in the same way before the Bush administration normalized the practice. Obama ended this inhumanity on his first day in office.

When I see how far reaching the changes to our culture were, when I see how it's percolated, when I see it in Hostel, Game of Thrones, or in the far more radical Scandal, which is actually honest about the sadistic motivations behind torture, I wince and mourn what we lost as Americans, and I curse the name of Dick Cheney.

We were, all of us, debased. Even our culture and entertainment was debased.

And the open source, lone wolf style of ISIS has a far greater potential to be exploited to cause mass hysteria. The fact that it isn't is a refreshing departure from what I fear is the norm in American politics.

The entire stance, attitude and tone from Obama makes me feel secure. Because I'm far more afraid of government overreach and repression than any terrorist group.

Watching Trump, hearing Chris Christie call this WW III, it gives me terrible flashbacks to a time I am glad is over.

"And let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria -- what happens when there's a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there? Or Libya perhaps? Or if there's a terrorist network that's operating anywhere else in North Africa or in Southeast Asia?

- Barack Obama

[studentrob]

> And let's face it, iPhone encryption is weak encryption, with a single point of failure, the Apple signing key.

So what? The underlying debate is whether or not the DOJ should be allowed to require phone manufacturers to guarantee they can decrypt phone data when served with a warrant.

You can rally for Apple to make a more secure phone all you want. That is a separate issue. It doesn't change the fact that the DOJ is willing to do everything it can to get access to all phones through the courts or Congress. They don't care how it happens, they just want it.

It's not about one phone, it's not even just about the phones the DOJ currently has waiting to be decrypted. It's about every phone in the world. The DOJ knows this, but they can't say that because it is part of their position to argue that this is only about one phone.

This is politics. These are lawyers. They will say anything that they think will convince a judge, Congress or the American people to win them to what they believe is the correct side. That's how our system works.

They're not conspiring to do evil. They just don't have all the facts. And even if they are conspiring to do evil, our course should be the same. We should educate each other about how encryption works, and how legislation requiring backdoors would actually make us all less safe on balance than having no backdoors at all.

[philwelch]

The difference between Bush's (and Congress's) response to 9/11 and Obama's response to San Bernadino were as different in scale as 9/11 was to San Bernadino. The last time something happened that was a comparable scale to 9/11, the US responded by inventing, and then using, nuclear weapons.

Trump would make you pine for the days of George W. Bush. I think we took for granted the fact that Bush did things to smooth bigotry rather than incite it, like publicly declaring that Islam is a religion of peace and taking care to distinguish al-Qaeda from Islam in general. I think rather than pinning these things on the President we should take a look at the media, the rest of the government, and most importantly the public. Like it or not, the nationally televised murder-by-airliner of 3,000 people is going to incite panic, hatred, overreaction, and fear to a degree that not even the most resolute President can control.

[spoiledtechie]

Red line in Syria anyone? Crimea anyone? Lybia and Benghazi? I call bull shittt on your appreciation.

[jonathanmh]

I have (from afar) also witnessed the Bush presidency and regarding tone of voice and speeches, Obama was the far better diplomat and seemed very concerned with humanitarian causes.

[jqm]

I suppose we should also be appreciative he hasn't instituted gulags... that we know of anyway. But that's really beside the point for this discussion.