Intelligence Community Says President Obama's Non-Plan To 'End' Metadata Collection Is 'Impossible'
from the shockingly-unshocking dept
What do you get when the President of the United States, rather than take a stand and act as a leader, decides to try to "balance" everything by pretending to promise to end the Section 215 bulk metadata collection, while promising to "retain its capabilities"? And then, after announcing that non-plan, tossing it over to the Attorney General and Congress to sort out the details? Yeah, you get a whole lot of nothing. And, folks in the intelligence community are basically saying that nothing's going to change because what he's suggesting isn't really possible.“The idea that this complicated problem will be solved in the next two months is very unlikely, if not impossible,” said one official with knowledge of the discussions. “It is not at all inconceivable that the bulk collection program will stay the same, with the records held by the government until 2015,” when the law that authorizes the bulk collection is set to expire.And, of course, many assume this was the plan all along. Say that they're ending the program while promising to keep the capabilities, then punt the issue to others to work out, and you pretty much guarantee the status quo for quite some time. Perhaps permanently. This wasn't leadership, this was passing the buck. And that's why most of the intelligence community seems perfectly happy with the result.
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Filed Under: barack obama, bulk collection, intelligence community, metadata, nsa, section 215, surveillance
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And how is this uniquely different than the last couple of generations of "leaders"?
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But int he meantime, put up or shut up.
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There is a problem with something - Public Outcry - Something happens - Public assumes it is all better and moves on.
We seem to lack the required attention span to make sure they actually solve the problems beyond a speech or badly written law.
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Response to: That Anonymous Coward on Jan 27th, 2014 @ 4:02am
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When people can't be bothered to part from their favorite soap opera and reality show for some real news, then you get a system like this.
I don't think it's incidental tho..
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First would be the problems as hand would have to be simple enough to figure out a solution for.
Next it would require citizens to have standing and a willingness to engage in a legal fight to attempt to correct the problem.
Few problems are simple and even fewer have the willingness to fight.
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First would be the problems as hand would have to be simple enough to figure out a solution for.
You imply that there are actual problems that a politician can solve, but a group of experts (real experts with working knowledge) couldn't. You must be kidding, right?
We live in a society for a reason. No one is capable of solving every problem, but together..
Next it would require citizens to have standing and a willingness to engage in a legal fight to attempt to correct the problem.
I'm talking about a real democracy, not some legal fight. In a real democracy, every citizen have a standing because they're citizens.
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A democracy don't really need leaders in the traditional sense. (that's why it is much less susceptible to bribery and corruption, and more to demagogy)
It needs a forum where people decide what to do, and an executive branch that executes exactly what is decided, exactly as decided by the people.
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The problem is: how do you determine what "the people" want? Is it a simple majority kind of thing, where anything less than 50% support for a yes/no proposition is considered not to be the will of the people? Do minorities get any say in the matter, and, if so, who is to meet their demands when the rest of "the people" will not support them? Does the executive branch ever get to act against a small majority in favor of a large minority? Against a large majority for a small minority?
It makes no sense to speak of "the will of the people" when there's no such thing as "the people". That's why democracy from the top down -- whether in the form of "leaders" or in the form of "executives" -- will never quite work.
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continuing scandal = very valuable for gathering viewers, but unless it brings many and important new developments it will tire people of news about the issue.
political reaction = after the initial political actions it is usually pretty much settled, for now. No need to talk about it, since something has been slammed together to make some reports to support decision making (in several ways...).
reports come out = not very exciting. The continuing scandal will often have been over for some time and people are becoming increasingly bored of the issue.
actual legislative action = who the *beep* cares anymore. Now you are just covering the issue to drive people away...
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Set to be "extended"
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The question at hand
Something wrong with the way the government works?
Hey, don't threaten the status quo, will ya?
We work here for a living, and we know what we're doing!
"We're the government and we're here to help/protect/spy on you."
Now go away and let us do our jobs in peace and quiet, you peasants! No more of this nonsense!
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It's doable, but the end result isn't what they want. Instead they'll keep the programs intact . Scraping them Is the only fix.
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The issue, of course, is that it's "capabilities" are the problem that needs to be solved. They need to be eliminated. That's not going to be part of the solution by definition.
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We all saw how that promise turned out.
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Im sure young kimmi of north korea could stop any program in his government.
It isnt that hard to fire everyone involved and drag them to court.
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We are now a nation of "unconstitutional laws, and men".
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