[osth]

Still the best article I've seen on this whole affair was the one at foreigpolicy.com back on June 11:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2012/06/11/to_protect_and_defen...

The US actually tried to impeach a president for lying about a sexual encounter with a White House intern yet does not seem to care much about a president who despite teaching Constitutional Law (G.W. Bush was not even a lawyer) does not appear to know his primary responsibility as president - to protect and defend the Constitution - and proceeds to violate the sworn oath of allegiance he took (twice) after being elected and reelected.

Do we really care more about presidents who lie about sex scandals than presidents who violate their oath? Maybe we should change the oath to state "I do solemnly swear that I will not have sexual encounters with any White House staff." Under that oath, JFK would have been in clear violation.

The Constitution is far more important than any single president, administration or election.

I guess there are still some folks who might still believe that there's really been no obvious violations of the Constitution in the course of these surveillance programs. But then why did so many senior lawyers at DOJ, even the Attorney General himself, oppose and threaten to resign (or resign) over these programs when they learned about them years ago? How many more lawyers need to look at the facts and say, "Something is not right here," before we all agree to get to work and fix it?

Bush Jr. too was at fault for what has taken place, but it's Obama who has been fully caught out (thanks to Snowden). Why should Obama be excused for this? The issue is not personal nor political (as it may have been with Clinton... as if he was the first president ever to cheat and to lie); it is a matter of protecting the Constitution. What higher calling is there for any public servant? And while it's unfortunate the issue has come to the public light during his term, this is much more important than Mr. Obama, his presidency, his administration, or his legacy.

"Yes we scan." Time to stand down, my brother.

EDIT: added "www." to link

[javajosh]

> The Constitution is far more important than any single president, administration or election.

Yes.

Which makes me wonder about the motives of those who pushed for a broad interpretation of section 215. As tempting as it is to think of them as power-hungry, evildoers, I actually don't think that's the case.

There is a cultural movement away from self-restraint, that was nowhere exhibited more freely and forcefully than by George W Bush. His example has been copied in public and private, showing how powerless "the public" really is when it comes to checking unethical, or even illegal behavior of the powerful.

I think we all thought Obama represented a movement back toward self-restraint as a virtue. And yet, time and again he shows himself to be even less restrained than his predecessor - a failing that is all the more terrible for being so very unexpected. The Obama administration should have actively resisted a broad interpretation of 215, and indeed lobbied Congress to amend the bill to avoid any possible loophole. That would have been restraint. Instead, the Obama administration stretched the law to it's breaking point, then did complex legal dances to give their power grab an air of legitimacy.

My heart is broken.

[Domenic_S]

"By the people, of the people, and for the people" is a description, not a prescription.

Take a look around -- that movement away from self-restraint is evident everywhere, in public and in private, in business and in government. You can even see it in people's bodies, from eating too much to working out too much.

By the people: a description. If as a society we don't restrain ourselves, it is not a great leap in logic to predict that government will do the same. We are a society obsessed with loopholes & me-first attitudes and we glorify rampant consumerism and pretty people that consume rampantly. Our companies publicly claim to "do no evil" and privately do what they want.

The surprising truth should be that the government is a mirror on ourselves. If we don't like the government, we have a much more sinister problem.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

[newbie12]

It is a human condition to have endless wants. The genius of the American experiment was that the Founders understood this, and created institutional checks on the size and power of government-- after all, governments are made up of people. The problem is that these institutional checks are crumbling under the twin weight of the military industrial complex and the entitlement state.

[osth]

"I actually don't think that's the case."

Neither do I. I think people make honest mistakes.

Alas, under pressure, people also try to cover them up.

I forget where I read it but some insider in the intelligence community said he thought that Obama's behavior could be explained by the fact he never had such access to such secrets before (unlike the Bush family who are closely connected with the CIA) and he quickly became obsessed with his newfound power of secrecy.

The question is whether he is man enough to admit he (and those before him) made a mistake and whether "yes we can" fix it.

[munificent]

> The US actually tried to impeach a president for lying about a sexual encounter with a White House intern yet does not seem to care much about a president who despite teaching Constitutional Law (G.W. Bush was not even a lawyer) does not appear to know his primary responsibility as president - to protect and defend the Constitution - and proceeds to violate the sworn oath of allegiance he took (twice) after being elected and reelected.

I believe that this is actually literally true: people do care more about the former than the latter. And I think the reasoning is the same psychological flaw that leads to bikeshed[1] arguments.

The executive branch manipulating the interpretation of laws to undermine the checks and balances of the Constitution is too huge, complex, and nebulous of an issue for the average voter to understand or know how to feel on. So many of us just sort of assume that other, smarter people will figure out how to fix the problem for us.

Meanwhile, we can all relate to and easily come to a moral judgement when it comes to infidelity in a marriage and lying about it in court. We can imagine ourselves in that situation and have a clear picture of what the right thing to do is.

With this whole privacy issue, it isn't even clear who the actors are in the story. We all know something bad is going down, but who is doing bad things and why, who is doing good to combat it, and what as citizens should we do to improve the situation? It's huge and overwhelming.

[1]: http://bikeshed.com/

[narrator]

Theory: It's important to make things somewhat complicated so they don't fall victim to bike-shedding.

[deelowe]

What's this "we" stuff about? The media cares more about it and that's all that matters. Control the distribution of information and you control the populous.

[bennyg]

That link can't be found. Any mirrors?

[acqq]

The same site:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/11/to_protect_...

"Now in his second term, President Obama insists that his counterterrorism policies differ markedly from Bush's. However, there are far more similarities than differences with regards to: non-battlefield targeted killings (an estimated 50 under Bush, and 387 under Obama); indefinite detention of suspected terrorists (approved by both through executive orders); broad surveillance authorities (as former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden admitted on Sunday, 'NSA is actually empowered to do more things than I was empowered to do under President Bush's special authorization')"

Impressive!