[ccrush]

Why is this a political hit piece instead of an article? Thanks for the two facts about the agency, but were half dozen or so attacks on the POTUS really necessary? If anything, the previous POTUS, a constitutional scholar that campaigned on ending domestic surveillance, has recently relaxed the rules on espionage by allowing non-intelligence agencies to access surveillance data. Furthermore, I don't think it's fair to turn an article about a little-known government agency into bullshit click bait propaganda. Either title the post "look at what Trump can do with the nation's aerial and spatial espionage agency" or make it substantially about that. This is pure click bait garbage, and it is disguised as being of interest to this community to spread propaganda. I would be fine with an opinion or two thrown in there, but making the first two paragraphs about the agency and the rest of it an opinion and hit piece is just a waste of everyone's time. Thanks for the garbage post.

[heymijo]

"...the previous POTUS, a constitutional scholar that campaigned on ending domestic surveillance..."

1) This line reminded me how fallible my memory is. I held a view of Obama as always toeing the line on government surveillance. Then senator Obama's 2008 vote in favor of the FISA Amendments Act and pro-surveillance actions as POTUS dominate my memory. I had completely forgotten his anti-surveillance rhetoric and actions from '04 - '07 [1][2].

2) How incredible would it be to candidly hear answers from Obama about what changed his mind?

3) I also wonder what it would be like to hear his candid thoughts now about handing over a surveillance state, that he directly entrenched as POTUS, to our current president.

Wishful thinking, I know, but it's something so few have any direct information about aside from conjecture.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/obama-on-mass-gove... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/03/barack-obama...

[naasking]

> 2) How incredible would it be to candidly hear answers from Obama about what changed his mind?

It would be biased bullshit anyway. If they had any examples of real attacks being thwarted, they would have presented this evidence just to stop the criticisms. The surveillance is effective for political and economic reasons, and possibly for law enforcement's domestic use, which is borderline unconstitutional.

[leereeves]

The surveillance went as far as spying on members of Trump's campaign, which is eerily similar to Watergate.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/devin-nunes-donald-tru...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-...

[naasking]

> The surveillance went as far as spying on members of Trump's campaign, which is eerily similar to Watergate.

Obvious hyperbole. They monitored everyone that communicated with foreign nationals, which Trump's aides were doing. They used the word "incidental collection" in that article for a reason.

[leereeves]

Surveillance on foreign nationals that "inadvertently" intercepted communications from their political opponents.

> Nunes suggested this unmasking might have been done for political reasons, saying the evidence he had seen had been widely disseminated across the intelligence community and had "little or no apparent intelligence value."

We're rightfully worried about what Trump could do with such power; we should also be investigating what Obama actually did with it.

[naasking]

> Surveillance on foreign nationals that "inadvertently" intercepted communications from their political opponents.

And political allies too. That's how dragnet surveillance works. What's your point?

> We're rightfully worried about what Trump could do with such power; we should also be investigating what Obama actually did with it.

I agree, so stop wasting your time on conspiracy theories like this and look at Obama's actual questionable actions.

[heymijo]

Definition of candid:

1) free from bias, prejudice, or malice 2) indicating or suggesting sincere honesty and absence of deception

[naasking]

Obama may be candid, but my point is that he'd just report the biased information he was given.

[heymijo]

Ah, I see. That's not something I considered.

[mirimir]

Well, it focuses on him because he's President now.

Sure, Obama was an authoritarian bastard. But why do we think that Trump won't be one? Has he, for example, stopped assassinating random foreigners based on often iffy metadata?

[reddytowns]

> Has he, for example, stopped assassinating random foreigners based on often iffy metadata?

There is no way you or anyone else besides those within the agencies themselves would be able to qualify on what data and for what reasons the US assassinates anybody.

[igk]

We do know, they assassinate people though. And I'd argued that is already incompatible with democratic and humanist values

[reddytowns]

You can't stop them, so any argument of whether it's right or not is mute.

[DerpyBaby123]

That's a defeatist attitude. If you care about changing something, you must discuss it and take action against it.

[reddytowns]

There are some things which fighting against is not worth the effort. Concentrating on things which can create significant positive change is much more fruitful.

[partiallypro]

I agree with you, but I did think the article was still good. You can ignore the talking points in it and it stands on its own. It's possible that this was revised number of times, and the author was either more or less heavy handed on the political side. FP Magazine hates Trump, if you've read their publication, so this is no surprise. The biggest eye roll moment for me was Trump targeting "Black Lives Matter" like he would foreign terrorists.

[heymijo]

I live in a small university town in Appalachia Ohio. A few months ago 70 people were arrested at a peaceful sit-in at the university student-center.

The State Highway Patrol, who had nothing to do with this, requested for its intel unit, information about everyone arrested so they could begin tracking them via social media.[1]

It does not seem far fetched to me that any president or really any person in a position of power would wield that power to target any group they view as dissidents. The FBI's surveillance and meddling with MLK is well-documented [2].

[1] http://www.athensnews.com/news/campus/emails-clarify-ou-and-...

FTA: Specifically, the day after the protest, the State Highway Patrol’s Athens Post commander, Lt. Virgil Conley, emailed OU Police Capt. Brian Kapple, asking him for details on the protesters.

“Can you advise how many were arrested last night? Also, I have a request from our intel unit if you were to provide their names and DOB, they can begin to track them through social media and open resources,” Conley wrote. “As we know, these folks tend to move around a little bit and are involved in other instances across the state, and that would assist other agencies in identifying those subjects and mitigate future issues.”

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/14/us/fbi-and-mlk/index.html

[downandout]

Well over half of the article is nothing but speculation designed for fearmongering among their audience (who are undoubtedly extremely liberal, judging from the other Trump articles on their site).

[dmix]

It depends on the author and subject, FP has some decent writing and some excellent geopolitical analysis.

Although I haven't been reading it as much since the election - maybe the editors are pushing the anti-Trump angle hard like NYTimes has been shamelessly doing recently. It's writers are very 'internationalist' and focused on geopolitical diplomacy so a lot of them are falling under the 'I'm appalled at Trump and must bring it up at every moment to show that America is still okay'.

It's tough being a news junkie and not being a typical foaming at the mouth US mainstream liberal these days (which to the surprise of many in that category does not make one a right wing Trump supporter, nor American for that matter).

[arca_vorago]

Foreign Policy is a main media extension of the Council on Foreign Relations, an extension in the US of Chatham House and British Imperial cough sorry Commonwealth policy.

Relevant reading verifying they are part of a conspiracy against the US: Carroll Quigley.

[kelnos]

Trump might not target BLM, but I wouldn't put it past Bannon.

[spoiledtechie]

Why is that? Because you have heard bad things about Bannon? What bad things have you heard that make you believe that? Facts, not opinions.

[lukifer]

The quotes about "Leninist", "Darth Vader", and "Fourth Turning" are sufficient to justify this suspicion.

[repples]

It's a reasonable concern that Trump may try to abuse his power in this area as well, given his rhetoric and behavior so far.

Nothing wrong with pointing that concern out, to give the article some context about the potential domestic power of this agency.

[liquidise]

Is that speculation the duty of these articles, though? It's clear they seem to think so, but the politicizing of otherwise informative articles grows tiresome to me. Why is providing facts so difficult these days?

[dsfyu404ed]

Facts don't drive clicks.

[jameskegel]

To me, this much conjecture just serves to deride the rest of the article. I couldn't get past the unprofessional tone.

[meowface]

I agree the post is overly politicized and biased towards Trump, but I think a strong argument could be made that Obama's reasons for and uses of expanded intelligence capabilities may turn out to be less concerning than Trump's. (Not to defend Obama's intelligence expansion.)

[oh_sigh]

Why would you assume that? Is it more than just you like Obama, and don't like Trump?

[meowface]

I suppose in some sense it amounts to that at a very fundamental level (though I wouldn't really say I "like" Obama).

But, worded more eloquently, I think that Trump's ego, insecurity, arrogance, and overall personality makes him more likely to abuse his power; especially for petty or vindictive reasons.

Not incredibly more likely. I don't think he's going to call the NSA director and ask him to spy on an ex-wife or something (probably...). I just think Obama respected the gravitas of his position more.

[dsfyu404ed]

> makes him more likely to abuse his power; especially for petty or vindictive reasons

And everyone around him knows this and wouldn't hesitate to say "don't f*ing do it, the media will crucify you if you do and they hear about it"

Trump also doesn't have a good relationship with the intelligence agencies.

There's two sides to the coin. I think the fact that Trump does not have a good working relationship with these agencies is probably a good thing.

[zachkatz]

Yeah, the media's been pretty lax on the guy! /s

I don't disagree, though. I just think the media cried wolf too many times and they're not a real threat anymore.

It really comes to this: Deep down, is Trump a good guy or not? Who knows?

[oxide]

You don't become successful in a city like NYC by being a good guy, you do it by being cutthroat. I'm not saying successful people are always bad people, of course. I mean, he hasn't exactly lived out of the public eye up until this point.

As an aside, from what I can tell he seems to not realize the power of his words as President, or the consequences of certain actions in the realm of politics.

After taking credit for good things happening he had nothing to do with, I nautrally wonder how much credit he will take if things don't pan out as he plans.

The buck stops with him, I don't think that has fully sunk in during this past 90 days or so of his adminstration.

Only time will tell.

[cmdrfred]

His children know and they seem to like the guy.

[eksemplar]

Well for one, Trump doesn't seem to understand how the law or even democracy functions. I mean, you can't bully the courts to get your way, and you run votes on legislation when you've secured the necessary votes through comprise.

Failing to understand such basic concepts would make me extremely concerned about giving the man access to anything.

[COGlory]

Obama did both those things that you mentioned, routinely. I don't think they're good examples.

[spoiledtechie]

You said it! Political hit piece. Full of glaring, what ifs.

[lucio]

Very well put.

[jakeogh]

edit: Not the CFR, I had the mag name mixed up.

[saryant]

Wrong magazine.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/about-foreign-affairs

[jakeogh]

Ah. Correct. Thanks.