I would say not. It seems the military/surveillance arm of the Executive has become a truly autonomous entity, with no one who takes the big seat willing to come down on it or do anything other than to listen to its [from our uninformed perspective] FUD, and follow its whims. I might guess, for example, that for the same reason Obama expanded surveillance, Bush went to war. There is no representative democracy here, at least where "national security" is concerned.

If the president can't stand up to it, who can?