It did not start with Obama and by all accounts it was not stopped, slowed or in any way diminished by him. I think the backlash is from people who thought he'd be different and embrace a different mindset than the one he apparently has. He was a constitutional law professor and the hope that he'd be different than what he is was quite a let down.

Compare the Bush-era level of surveillance intrusiveness with the Obama-era level.

You'll find that what Bush started, Obama has drastically developed, distributed, and expanded.

Under Bush we had increasing levels of surveillance which were undesirable, but the veneer that it was still all about terrorism could at least be believed. Now, we know it's targeted specifically at us for the purposes of exploitation and domination of us.

> Under Bush we had increasing levels of surveillance which were undesirable, but the veneer that it was still all about terrorism could at least be believed.

Not if you were paying attention to any of the players involved before 9/11. Or even after for that matter.

That 9/11 was used as a pretext for things the people involved wanted for other reasons and had been seeking for years (in some cases decades) without any connection to terrorism was pretty obvious. These were in some cases the very same people that were openly upset while serving in the Ford Administration against the legislative constraints that were placed in the wake of abuses by Nixon.

It was never believably about terrorism, it was always about restoring overwhelming executive power.

In the eyes of the public, I think that it was very much believably about terrorism-- people have internalized the false maxims that security must be sought, and that liberty must be traded to get security. This wasn't really a popular trope before the anti-terrorist propaganda came along.

I agree with you when you say that it was never about terrorism but rather increasing executive power, though. There certainly was a trend toward increased surveillance for many years before, but the entrance of surveillance into the new world-dominating media of the internet is a story in and of itself, I think.

How do you compare the two? Based on what information?

>the veneer that it was still all about terrorism could at least be believed. Now, we know it's targeted specifically at us for the purposes of exploitation and domination of us.

The great thing about hyperbole is that it rebuts itself.

Is it really hyperbole when we know via Snowden that one of the projects of the NSA is to infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt any/all dissenting groups?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellige...

What about parallel construction, putatively started to help with terrorists but now usually used in drug investigations in order to sidestep civil rights safeguards?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

It was legalized under Obama. Under Bush, it was criminal; now, it's institutional.

> It was legalized under Obama.

It was legalized (both retroactively, covering events that had occurred prior to the act, and prospectively by broadening the allowed surveillance under the law) through the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, signed by George W. Bush on July 10, 2008.

Its true that Obama signed the bill passed by Congress extending parts of the FISA Amendments Act that were scheduled to expire in 2012 for five additional years. But that just kept it legal, it didn't legalize it.

It wasn't created under him, but now is his opportunity to do something positive about it. His track record on the subject hasn't been good for the last 6 years; here's hoping the next 2 will prove substantially better.

It's not something that began under Obama. When CALEA passed, people like me were complaining that it would be abused. When The USAPATRIOT ACT passed, people like me were complaining that it would be abused. Now, that there is undeniable proof that they are being abused, the retort is that it's been going on for decades.

I'm sorry but that's not good enough for me.

I am an ideologue, not a partisan. I'll complain about it when a Democrat steps over the line just as quickly as I'll complain about it when a Republican steps over the line.

EO 12333

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/29/new-documents-...