Obama being Orwellian, as usual

[Thanas]

Washington Post

President Obama’s news conference today was … weird.

Binyamin Appelbaum, an economics reporter for the New York Times, summed it up sharply on Twitter: “Obama is really mad at Edward Snowden for forcing us patriots to have this critically important conversation.”

Obama began the news conference by announcing a series of reforms meant to increase the transparency of, and the constraints on, the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. They included reforms to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which enables the collection of telephone metadata; changes to the powerful surveillance courts to ensure ”that the government’s position is challenged by an adversary”; declassification of key NSA documents; and the formation of “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies.”

“What makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation,” Obama said. “It’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.”

If that’s so, then Edward Snowden should be hailed as a hero. There’s simply no doubt that his leaks led to more open debate and more democratic process than would’ve existed otherwise.

Obama reluctantly admitted as much. “There’s no doubt that Mr. Snowden’s leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board,” he said, though he also argued that absent Snowden, “we would have gotten to the same place, and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways that we are able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country.”

As Tim Lee writes, this is dubious at best. Prior to Snowden’s remarks, there was little public debate — in part because the federal government was preventing it.

When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for a “ballpark figure” of the number of Americans whose information was being collected by the NSA last year, the agency refused to give the senator any information, arguing that doing so would violate the privacy of those whose information was collected.

In March, at a Congressional hearing, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper answered “no sir” when Wyden asked whether the NSA had collected “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.” We now know his statement was incorrect.

That was the state of the debate prior to Snowden: The Director of National Intelligence went before Congress, was given an opportunity to give the American people a clear and balanced picture on some of these programs, and basically lied. And no one from the Obama administration came out that day, or the next day, or the next week, to correct the record. It was only after Snowden’s leak that Clapper apologized.

Obama allowed that “those who have lawfully raised their voices on behalf of privacy and civil liberties are also patriots who love our country and want it to live up to our highest ideals.” But most all of those people would say Snowden strengthened their hand immeasurably.

Obama’s frustration with Snowden is that he interrupted what could have been “a lawful, orderly examination of these laws; a thoughtful, fact-based debate.” The White House believes Snowden’s leaks — and the drip-drip-drip way the Guardian released them — left the public misinformed. And at times, that’s certainly true. The initial reports on PRISM, for instance, clearly suggested that the program was wider in scope than it actually is.

But the White House could have led that thoughtful, fact-based debate, and despite Obama’s protestations to the contrary, they didn’t. They prevented it. If this conversation, and these reforms, are as positive for the country as Obama says they are, then it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Snowden did the country a real service — even if the White House can’t abide crediting him with it.

[Zaune]

You know, I'm almost looking forward to the day we find out an NSA employee starts offering PRISM background checks to order to the tabloids. Especially if it involves identifying elected officials who are cheating on their wives.

[Siege]

If you need foreign newspapers to tell you what your government has been doing, you're basically fucked. Like, Soviet Russia fucked.

Having said that, I'm loving the line how random alphabet soup agencies cannot reveal how badly they've been spying on citizens because a list of all the things they've been collecting would be a violation of privacy. That's some gorgeously Orwellian shit right there. We acknowledge we spied on people, but we won't tell you on whom, or to what extent, because to inform our lawful overseers of such things would be infringing on our citizens' privacy!

I admire the effort put into convincing people that what they're doing is actually the antithesis of what they're doing. In terms of sheer wordsmithing it's quite beautiful. And then of course there's inevitably that moment you realize there's an entire nation of some 300-odd million people (PS: also the rest of the world) that's affected by what these obviously fucking insane people are claiming. And that, yeah, kinda takes the glamour off of it.

[Esquire]

There's actually something to that - if it's wrong for the government to spy on people, it's also wrong for the government to divulge exact details obtained through spying.

Of course, the solution to that would be, you know not spying on your own populace but hey, what do I know? The only thing I can come up with in defense is that it probably actually is prohibitively expensive to cherrypick specific individuals for spying and that it's a better* use of taxpayer dollars to collect everything and only look at what turns out to be important.

*For a remarkably non-comforting definition of "better."

[Grumman]

“There’s no doubt that Mr. Snowden’s leaks triggered a much more rapid and passionate response than would have been the case if I had simply appointed this review board,” he said, though he also argued that absent Snowden, “we would have gotten to the same place, and we would have done so without putting at risk our national security and some very vital ways that we are able to get intelligence that we need to secure the country.”

Sure, Obama. And I bet that shoplifter was totally planning on bringing back the stuff she stole, too.

There's actually something to that - if it's wrong for the government to spy on people, it's also wrong for the government to divulge exact details obtained through spying.

Wyden wasn't asking for exact details - he was asking how many (American) victims there were. That does not violate the privacy of the victims.

[xthetenth]

Well, if every American is a victim, then saying how many victims there are would be equivalent to saying any arbitrary American is a victim and that's the sort of compromising information that's too damaging to share about them.

[Grumman]

Well, if every American is a victim, then saying how many victims there are would be equivalent to saying any arbitrary American is a victim and that's the sort of compromising information that's too damaging to share about them.

That's nonsense. If there was only one person being spied upon by the NSA, then identifying them would be harmful - telling the world that Joe Bloggs is of interest to the NSA would give people the idea that he's done something wrong to deserve it. But if every American is a target, it's immediately obvious that it's just a fishing expedition and not a response to any wrongdoing on the targets' part.

[xthetenth]

It's official, the situation is beyond sarcasm or satire.

[Simon_Jester]

There's actually something to that - if it's wrong for the government to spy on people, it's also wrong for the government to divulge exact details obtained through spying.

You can tell people you've read their e-mail without saying what was IN the e-mail.

What it really comes down to is that most of the people involved in the electronic spying programs know damn well that what they're doing is wildly unpopular, and will put an almost unlimited amount of effort into lawyering to avoid admitting they're doing it.

The good news is, they're still afraid of popular reaction or they wouldn't bother. The bad news is, doing this lets them avoid and deflect a great deal of the flak they deserve to get over this, in hopes that their behavior will over time become "the new normal."

[Ahriman238]

There's actually something to that - if it's wrong for the government to spy on people, it's also wrong for the government to divulge exact details obtained through spying.

You can tell people you've read their e-mail without saying what was IN the e-mail.

What it really comes down to is that most of the people involved in the electronic spying programs know damn well that what they're doing is wildly unpopular, and will put an almost unlimited amount of effort into lawyering to avoid admitting they're doing it.

The good news is, they're still afraid of popular reaction or they wouldn't bother. The bad news is, doing this lets them avoid and deflect a great deal of the flak they deserve to get over this, in hopes that their behavior will over time become "the new normal."

As it debatably has.

It was only after Snowden that a narrow majority (56%) of Americans have swung to "the governmnet is going too far intruding in people's privacy." as opposed to an older 55% that "the government might not be doing enough to find the terrorists in our midst." [both polls conducted by NBC/WSJ.]

The government has been doing so many blatantly illegal things for the past 12 years that people don't even get outraged anymore. I feel like a fraud everytime I stand in front of a classroom and explain the things the US government can't do, because they do them as a matter of routine.

See how all that's come of Snowden's revelations is some lukewarm protest, and the president appearing on TV to say that of course the government isn't doing naything wrong, but someday in the near future they'll have a way of reassuring people of that. Maybe.

[Simon_Jester]

I think the problem is that on some level we expect "if the government breaks the rules, there will be massive outcries and popular revolts," without necessarily considering what 'break the rules' implies.

Would I get violent if I thought someone was going to drag me into a prison camp for my political views? Very possibly. Would I get violent if I thought someone was reading my email without permission? No. I think most people make a similar calculation, and the problem with government surveillance is that when it's just surveillance... it doesn't really change anyone's lives. You personally aren't even inconvenienced by NSA surveillance, you would literally never notice it if someone hadn't told you. This creates very little incentive to turn your whole life upside down to oppose the surveillance, which is the problem.

Something similar applies when the US government starts peeing on the concept of due process but only applies that to people who are currently in foreign countries, rather than doing it to domestic political groups people actually know and respect and would be made afraid and angry about.

The kind of 'stereotypical' collapse of constitutional rights we are accustomed to would probably provoke more of a response, precisely because it would be a bigger provocation that would get directly under the skin of more people, rather than causing purely intellectual discontent.

What's disturbing is that this allows the state to perfect the apparatus of oppression on foreign soil and by nonintrusive means... and that the resulting apparatus might one day be deployed full force on domestic soil at a time that makes it too late to do anything about it.

However, I continue to hope that changes in public opinion will affect this before it becomes a major issue. If Snowden-like scandals keep hitting the press, it is entirely possible that surveillance will become a serious issue in the 2016 primaries and election (for a change). It didn't happen in 2008 because the dominant issue between the parties was the economy and the War on Terror, specifically ending the 'big army' phase of that war. It didn't happen in 2012 for the same reason, plus because Obama had the liberty of resting on his laurels and didn't have to run as an anti-establishment candidate this time.

But it might happen in 2016 or slightly later, because I'm quite sure mass electronic surveillance of everyone's e-mail isn't going to get MORE popular. Neither party actually likes it. The Republicans fall for it because We Must Be Safe Against Terrorfreedomhaterists, a party line which has fallen out of style in the Tea Party era, when economic libertarianism is a favored party line over Bush-era Orwellianisms. The Democrats fall for it because it's Obama doing it and they have enough other worries to keep them deeply distracted from actually policing the conduct of a politician of their own party.

Those are not permanent conditions.

[Thanas]

The Democrats and GOP do not like surveillance? What is the evidence for that extraordinary claim when I can easily pull hundreds of quotes denouncing Snowden and defending the great NSA against anything?

[Simon_Jester]

Let me be more clear.

Rank-and-file members of both parties have little interest in or support for mass surveillance. Politicians tend to be rather fond of it in this era of US politics, for a wide range of ugly reasons.

Politicians engaging in chest-thumping denunciation of Snowden as a traitor (most of those quotes you're talking about) is the establishment trying to put a different spin on it and obscure the part where they're reading everyone's e-mail. Because they know that's not popular, even if people aren't actively rioting about it.

There is also a minority of Americans who are such power-fetishizers, or so easily hypnotized by political rhetoric, that they do think having the government read everyone's e-mail is a good idea. But if you actually, say, walked around asking people, I think you'd be surprised at the number of Americans who do NOT approve of such things, and who only think the status quo is OK insofar as they underestimate how intrusive the current surveillance regime is.

[Thanas]

Do these people matter? The whole establishment supports it. Where are the primary candidates running on anti-surveillance?

[Grumman]

Do these people matter? The whole establishment supports it. Where are the primary candidates running on anti-surveillance?

The Libertarians, the Greens and Ron Paul in the Republican Party were all candidates in the last elections. But as long as people think a willingness to murder Arab men, women and children is not a deal breaker in a President, they'll continue handwaving about how they'd be so much worse.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ron Paul would be a terrible President.

I don't know enough about the Green and Libertarian parties to say weather they'd be good alternatives.

[White Haven]

Nobody said he'd be a good one. He is (or at least was), however, a candidate for presidential nomination who has been very vocal about his displeasure at PRISM, just off the cuff.

[Simon_Jester]

Another point is that I'm making predictions about the future. It's only been about ten months since the last presidential election; the primaries for the 2016 election cycle have (thankfully) not started yet. I can't point to politicians who haven't decided to run for president yet.

I'm reminded of the Iraq War; in 2005 the war was still reasonably popular because the wave of 9/11 STOP THE TERRORIST BAD GUYS FIGHT THEM THERE SO WE WON'T HAVE THEM HERE fear was overpowering. Two years later it was obvious that despite everything the administration could do (the surge), the war was unpopular and on the out. Not even the Republicans tried too hard to defend it in 2008, and further warmongering of the "bomb Iran" type was actively destructive to McCain's chances of victory.

The longer an inherently unpopular and undesirable thing like a guerilla war, or the government reading your email, drags on, the more likely people are to get annoyed enough that a politican can gain actual political capital by opposing it.

[Serafina]

But the Iraq war was an ongoing problem, with notable personal costs for lots of people and frequent news that showed up in the media.
A program like PRISM however can be swept under the rug - if there aren't any new leaks, nothing that generates news, it might be out of the public conscience in a few years - if the Obama-administration does proper damage control, and right now they are doing the best to sweep very well and order some extra rugs.

[Zaune]

The Democrats and GOP do not like surveillance? What is the evidence for that extraordinary claim when I can easily pull hundreds of quotes denouncing Snowden and defending the great NSA against anything?

They don't like losing votes, and this issue is getting past the point where they can muddle through by spouting pious platitudes and waiting for the next round of squabbling over some windswept rock in the Pacific to bury it.

[Simon_Jester]

More or less what Zaune said. Personally, I think the issue will cause enough public discontent that future politicians in the later part of the 2010s will be able to actively profit by cutting back government surveillance.

But Serafina isn't wrong; it is a real possibility that this will not happen and that the system will continue to successfully sweep things under the rug. The main reason I tentatively project change is that the issue seems to be causing more discontent now than it did five or ten years ago, and that I am expecting this trend to continue.

[Serafina]

But Serafina isn't wrong; it is a real possibility that this will not happen and that the system will continue to successfully sweep things under the rug. The main reason I tentatively project change is that the issue seems to be causing more discontent now than it did five or ten years ago, and that I am expecting this trend to continue.

I'm pretty sure that's because of the following:
- there is more of those programs, and they get more intrusive
- it's so bad that information about them gets leaked.
Ten years ago you certainly didn't have such huge leaks, so there being less outrage has a pretty obvious cause.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes.

Put this way- if NSA surveillance programs were smaller-scale, and did not read everyone's email and so on, then they would not inspire such outrage... but they wouldn't need to, and it wouldn't matter so much.

When the NSA is massively intruding on the privacy of all citizens all the time, then this can be expected to create more outrage, yes, but it should create more outrage.

At some threshold of outrage, actual change is likely to take place: if not because of administration X being pushed into it, then because administration X+1 actually has political capital to gain by saying "we will no longer read the email of all Americans, unlike our predecessors," and demonstrably following through on that.

If the current administration successfully breaks this cycle, then we have a problem, because that political capital goes away. But at the moment, it does not look like they are breaking this cycle at all; it's getting worse for them, and it's worse now than it was a few years ago.

Meanwhile, it wasn't bad enough in 2012 to change things decisively, especially because there were a lot of other pressing issues at stake in the 2012 election.

[Thanas]

At some threshold of outrage, actual change is likely to take place: if not because of administration X being pushed into it, then because administration X+1 actually has political capital to gain by saying "we will no longer read the email of all Americans, unlike our predecessors," and demonstrably following through on that.

Or, like in most societies who had been faced with a choice like that, they will simply continue those policies, creating the new normal so much that the end result is a society which is utterly unrecognizable from the one it originated from. Your assumption that at some point the people will get fed up is not really proven in history. See Weimar for example.

[aerius]

At some threshold of outrage, actual change is likely to take place: if not because of administration X being pushed into it, then because administration X+1 actually has political capital to gain by saying "we will no longer read the email of all Americans, unlike our predecessors," and demonstrably following through on that.

How'd Gitmo work out for you guys? There was some good outrage and one of Obama's key promises was to close the place down. And that's something which we can actually see, and yet nothing has been done about it. The NSA surveillance programs are invisible for the most part, for most people they're just some abstract thing which they can't see let alone understand. It's very easy for the government to put their own spin on it and/or use the national security excuse to confuse matters and sweep it under the rug.

Not that public outrage would matter anyway unless it got to the point where mass protests/riots break out throughout the country and everyone stops going to work for days, weeks, or however long it takes for the government to fold. There's simply too much money & other interests tied up in these programs for the government to stop them without a damn good reason. There's far more at stake here than Gitmo, and it's going to take a lot more to stop it.