Its a good strategic move. The way to build support against the NSA among Republicans is to associate it with Obama. "This isn't Reagan's NSA but Obama's NSA." It fits into the party's narrative of Obama being dictatorial. It also is a good way to sway his party, which is otherwise trusting of law enforcement. Someone might trust the NSA in the abstract, but an NSA run by someone who wants to round up gun owners and impose Sharia law (or so the narrative goes)? Associating the spying with Obama personally is the perfect way of creating doubt among conservatives that otherwise reflexively trust government when national security is implicated.
Unfortunately, it won't last. As soon as we have a Republican in the White House again the narrative will switch again, and the NSA will once again be protecting our security rather than threatening our civil liberties. They did it with health care: Romneycare was good and Obamacare is bad, despite the fact that they are essentially identical policies.
As it is now, it seems like every left-of-center friend I know comes to one of two conclusions: they don't want to talk about Obama or the NSA, or they say that they trust Obama with these powers (he'd never abuse them etc).
The upside to having a Republican in the White House, is that vast majority of liberals will finally stop being hypocrites about 'speaking truth to power' and pretending to care about human rights, and they'll instantly get upset about the NSA story (while claiming of course that it was solely the fault of Republicans all along). The Republican President would act as as lightning rod, the perfect excuse to rediscover their fair-weather beliefs. The liberal wing would then apply pressure to the rest of the party to restrict the spying.
There would finally be broad based opposition to the NSA's program from one of the parties.
Unfortunately, Hillary is going to win the next election by a wide margin. And absolutely nothing will change; rather, most of the programs will be permanently codified into accepted US Government practices.
"As it is now, it seems like every left-of-center friend I know comes to one of two conclusions: they don't want to talk about Obama or the NSA, or they say that they trust Obama with these powers (he'd never abuse them etc)."
Don't make this a left-right thing. For what it's worth, the people I know most in support happen to be weakly right-of-center and those most opposed are radical leftists but really there are other things dominating (the leftists are nearly tied by some Libertarians). Individuals with fair-weather beliefs are an issue on both sides (and it's somewhat human, unfortunately, which isn't to say desirable). And of course amongst mainstream politicians of both parties, we certainly are seeing a huge amount of fair-weather behavior - with strong supporters of this crap under W. now rallying against it while previously critical Democrats forget what the problem was...
To my mind, there's a few strong points worth making here to those rallying around "their guy"... 1) "you might not trust the next guy/gal" (which gets made pretty often), 2) pointing out that a lot of people involved here aren't even NSA agents but contractors with big defense firms, and 3) there's a documented history of abuses (most of which were found because they were self-reported, so there's tremendously more abuse going on we don't see).
"The upside to having a Republican in the White House, is that vast majority of liberals will finally stop being hypocrites about 'speaking truth to power' and pretending to care about human rights, and they'll instantly get upset about the NSA story (while claiming of course that it was solely the fault of Republicans all along)."
You'll have to explain why it would be different than every other time we've switched parties here. Some of this stuff was talked about under Clinton (e.g. Carnivore, though that was FBI), and some Republicans fretted. Much more was introduced under W. after 9/11, and some Democrats complained. Now Obama has extended it, and Republicans are rediscovering their opposition to this stuff, but they're sure to forget just as quickly if we give them power again. Probably the best chance is to have both houses of congress with an overwhelming majority of the party that does not control the presidency (and it probably doesn't matter much which is which).
I can tell you don't know and have never spoken to anyone left-of-center in your life. Your description of Liberals comes straight out of the Libertarian playbook. The image of the "peace-loving, bleeding-heart, hippie Democrat" is a weak attempt to make ANY support for defense look hypocrite. In reality there is support only not as much as you or other Libertarians would like. That's a perfectly normal point of discussion if you're willing to put your lies aside.
There might not be a broad opposition coming from the left but there is an opposition. If it were up to Democrats the bipartisan Amash amendment to defund the NSA would have passed[1]. The problem isn't a Democrat in the White House, it's a non-functioning GOP in Congress.
I still support Obama and I have no problem talking about it.
I do know a couple of those "peace-loving, bleeding-heart, hippies" who don't have really any support for defense. They're not mostly Democrats, though - more typically Green if they have a party affiliation... (and not all Green Party members I know are like that, either). Generalizing is hard.
Well, hopefully in that administration the Democrats would be galvanized enough to be the ones leading the charge against Big Surveillance.
The very fact that this issue would have to be ping-ponged around between both parties (like so many other issues) shows that we need more political parties in the U.S. to represent different views.
> Well, hopefully in that administration the Democrats would be galvanized enough to be the ones leading the charge against Big Surveillance.
Maybe. The dems are not quite as shameless about their hypocrisy as the republicans are. I have a hard time seeing e.g. Diane Feinstein flip-flopping on this even with a republican in the white house. I'd love to be proven wrong about that, but I won't bet my life savings on it.
Anyone who doubts the essence of the "round up gun owners" narrative (disarm us, of course) which became an imperative after Sandy Hook, post election, but not Aurora, Colorado, pre-election, hasn't been paying attention.
And your point is a very good one: smashing enough trust in the government that a lot of conservatives have, e.g. ones like me who grew up watching The F.B.I. starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., is a critical step in fixing things. I'd say it won't take much, based on the one House vote so far, which didn't break along any conventional lines (party, region, etc.)
