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Comment by hammerzeit | Hacker News Reader

This headline is misleading. It implies the program is still ongoing, where the original article clearly states that the program was shut down 2 years ago.

Moreover, after a lot of cynical complaining about Obama not being meaningfully different than previous administrations, it's worth noting that Obama was the one to shut this down.

I'm not interested in reflexively defending the government or Obama but we still need to pay attention to the facts at hand.

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If you read the article carefully, or even better the original Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-online-metad... you'll find claims that while the original program was shut down something very like it although probably larger in scope is still ongoing - details are murky though.

I instinctively like Obama, but I'm forced to admit that his policies on national security are by any objective means worse than his predecessor. He's just more eloquent when he talks about them.

I read both of the original articles (also http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-... ) -- there is still nothing in them that would cause this statement to be reliably true. You may surmise it, but speculation != fact.

Also, I think you must have a phenomenally short memory if you think Obama's policies on national security are stricter than Bush's were.

Let's see:

  - He has expanded and extensively justified the drone strike program
  - His administration has denied more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did
  - His administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than *all other administrations combined*
  - He's clearly in favour of all this surveillance, even though he campaigned with promises to remove it

I used to think there was a lot to like about Obama and there are still some things. At least he doesn't look like a chimp in photos. But it's naive to think he's not extremely hawkish on national security. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to each of us to decide.

Candidate Obama and President Obama are two very different people, despite what many reporters and big supporters would have you believe. But it takes a strong willed human being not to give in to all the pressures that must be present in the Oval Office. Just imagine the day after he was sworn in how much classified shit the CIA/FBI/HSA/NSA must have presented him with. How would any individual be able to sift through it and call these agencies, who have a vested interest to protect America AND expand their own budgets, on their bullshit? I'm not saying all of it is, but the way they go about security leads me to believe a lot of it is. But who wants to be the next Bush and ignore a terrorism warning?

Naive, naive comment. Its all about the money. The cyber security apparatus is worth more than 80 billions. Terrorism is a creation from the same people seeking to profit from it. No, candidate Obama and President Obama are roles played by the same individual, neither is true, just like an actor playing a script, his job is to convince you the script is real... What does matter is the money the actor brings to his sponsors.

Yeah, 9/11 definitely was a fabricated event...

People need to keep their comments reasonable and cut the hyperbole if they want to get anything done. When you keep crying wolf, people stop listening. Which is fine if you just want to always get the last word in, but if we're actually concerned with overreach and national security then choosing our messaging well and keeping our concerns focused, specific and provable with neat, incremental steps is the way to go.

Kill-lists (that cannot be challenged in court) of Americans that are not in combat roles and are far from any battlefield.

> I instinctively like Obama, but I'm forced to admit that his policies on national security are by any objective means worse than his predecessor.

Maybe the difference is a management style that does a better job following through with things.

Example: Bush spends 8 years going after bin Laden, finds nothing. Obama does it in 2. When I witnessed this it always struck me that probably Bush wasn't trying very hard.

Possible parallel: Bush hears from security apparatus that we need lots of wiretapping, so they do that for a while. Obama gets in there, gets similar advice ... You can guess where that goes.

At any rate I have a hard time believing Bush would say no to this stuff.

Programs are often shut down when superseded by new or better tools. In any case, both the WaPo and the Guardian article on the same leak says metadata collection is ongoing:

A senior administration official queried by the Washington Post denied that the Obama administration was "using this program" to "collect internet metadata in bulk", but added: "I'm not going to say we're not collecting any internet metadata."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-...

Don't you think if there was evidence that the government was still harvesting CCs,BCCs, etc en masse, that the article would have made this their central claim? The vast majority of the article is about how this stopped in 2011. One line implies they still collect "internet metadata" but not in bulk.

The information that has come out over the last 12 years has taught us that they will change the name of the program, calling "this program" "shut down," while continuing with what they were already doing under another name, sometimes under different authorities (but always the same conduct).

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