[dmix]

Sadly not much has changed since 2013 and now that we can (hopefully) move past the Trump train wreck and look towards the future via Clinton's policies, it seems to can expect even more of the same from the next president.

Leaked emails shows she sides with law enforcement regarding encryption, publicly she is calling for an "intelligence surge" as a core part of her national security strategy, and in interviews she still strongly stands by her support for the Patriot Act:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/clinton-wont-budge-mass-surveillanc...

The people who will end up getting appointed to the various leadership roles is the other big question. Hillary's advisers contain many hold-overs from the Bush-Cheney era, including ex-DHS lead Michael Chertoff who strongly supported the TSA full body scanners (made by the company he went on to work for), who I hope aren't given big roles.

Regardless, all of those cyber contractors in DC, Maryland and Virginia must be excited that their gilded age was given a 4yr extension and likely a further expansion. Not that they were ever at much risk of losing it - given the majority of the candidates were hawkish from the start of the primaries, the pull of influential thinktanks, and of course the media, with the NYT - in between fawning over Hillary - publishing daily articles citing 'anonymous intelligence sources' supporting various causes.

There's also been almost entirely silence over surveillance policies from the tech industry/community as far as I can tell. Although typically our industry isn't very political or partisan (until things actually go down like SOPA), so this is not entirely atypical.

Note: most of this is regarding military/defense but it seems to spill over into federal drug and criminal investigations. Drug policies are another big elephant in the room.

[forgetsusername]

>it seems to can expect even more of the same from the next president

This is the saddest thing about this election. Everyone is so distracted by the Trump buffoonery that a Generic Politician (tm) is going to take the reins and continue policies we've been bitter about for years. And most will see this as a "good thing" ("At least it's not Trump!")

[llamataboot]

To be fair, having a professional political class, having politics infested with large amounts of money, and having a two party system make it pretty sure odds that by the time someone gets to the level of "serious presidential contender" that they want to preserve the status-quo in most of these things.

We did get two decent outsider runs this year, and I do wish Bernie Sanders was mopping the floor with Trump, but there are limits to the amount a President can do when the entire process rewards pay-to-play, incremental change, and preserving business-as-usual.

And, to be fair, it's pretty great that it's not Trump.

But yes, it was a horribly sad election. In some ways HRC represents everything that is wrong about politics in the US, and Trump represents everything that is wrong about, well, pretty much everything.

[jjawssd]

Why are you so upset over Trump? Is it because he is mean to people he doesn't agree with? How do you hold Bernie in a higher esteem? Trump has a far better track record.

[sremani]

Trump gets blame, Hillary gets blame, Dubya gets blame but hello, what about the guy who is in charge for the past 8 years, will he be held accountable?

[rasz_pl]

At least he did deliver on his election promise to close Gitmo.

[atom_enger]

Who is in charge?

[wu-ikkyu]

Nobody. It's a runaway train. Blaming any one individual is naive and pointless.

[kyleblarson]

Of course not. Are you racist or something?

[cloudjacker]

A lot of people see it as a rare opportunity to ditch the current establishment.

A lot of people know the repercussions of mentioning anything that sounds like affinity toward Trump.

A lot of people know the inefficiencies in the Republican nomination process and the inefficiencies in the Democratic nomination process that promote the dichotomy being presented.

The point is, not everyone is distracted by that.

[CaptSpify]

And that's the point. With the two party system we keep encouraging by voting against the "other team" ensures that nothing really changes.

[savagej]

Keep telling yourself Trump is going to lose if it helps you sleep.

[Joof]

He's got roughly a 16℅ chance last I checked. Maybe more due to higher than normal uncertainty.