Barack Obama
6 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2013–2014
1:06 · 176K views · Dec 18, 2007
A one-minute 2007 clip of Barack Obama, during his campaign, opposing warrantless wiretaps. It was later reposted with a campaign call to action.
HN uses it as a critical reference to contrast his campaign promises with later NSA surveillance policy.
6 comments from Hacker News
Exactly, Obama in 2007: [LINK] this video "This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand." (...) "That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists." This should be quoted much more often. Regarding "work within the framework to modify the framework" Snowden decided not to work within it and we still don't know what will happen to him. [LINK]
> Is the idea that our democracies could eventually fix this situation really beyond all hope? Of course not. We should vote these creeps out of office and elect someone that really stands for privacy and civil liberties - like this promising young man: this video
I voted for him in part because he seemed to be in strong opposition to policies like these. It seems like a total 180 from the positions he was espousing in the campaign before the 2008 election. this video [LINK]
And my guess is the following video is an example of why the NYT is now saying that Obama no longer has any credibility on this issue: this video
video from 2007 this video There is also a video from December 15th 2005 that I cannot find online which is even more hypocritical than this one.