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by archvile 3096 days ago
Exactly. Three letter agency abilities were expanded hugely under Obama. Why people can’t grasp this, I’ll never know.
3 comments

> Exactly. Three letter agency abilities were expanded hugely under Obama. Why people can’t grasp this, I’ll never know.

Partisanship is one hell of a drug.

The boat was built and set sail under Bush and the GOP congress, under the super-Orwellian PATRIOT Act. I am not happy Obama expanded their powers but fail to see how the GOP would make the situation better.
The boat has been under construction for decades. The FISA courts were set up in 1978 (that's the Democrat Carter, and I believe that it was Democratic Congress at the time, too), but even that was only a response, trying to rein in the national surveillance apparatus that was already running wild. Reagan upped it a notch with Exec Order 12333, GWB obviously built on top of that, and Obama went hog-wild with it. There's plenty of blame to drown both parties.
Don't forget the grand daddy: J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, 1924-1971.
That's true. Myopic of me.
> Three letter agency abilities were expanded

As well as politicized and weaponized.