<story><title>Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones</title><url>http://jonathanmh.com/re-obama-on-fetishizing-our-phones-yes-we-can/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomlongson</author><text>A key promise of Obama&amp;#x27;s campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. 
Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s that he decided to use his political clout to pick healthcare as his signature in American history, not wage war against the NSA, but either way it saddens me to have campaigned for someone who has empowered a surveillance state instead of fight against it.&lt;p&gt;Liberty literally means &amp;quot;freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control&amp;quot;, and freedom in the information age means the liberty to communicate and store information. Anything to compromise that makes us all more vulnerable to control in all parts of our lives, not just those stored in zeros and ones. I believe America can be &amp;quot;Land of the free, home of the brave&amp;quot;, but not without digital liberty.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jordanb</author><text>I think Washington has changed Obama more than Obama changed Washington. He&amp;#x27;s spent seven years in the craziest bubble in America surrounded by people being paid millions to distort his worldview one way or another.&lt;p&gt;A while back he advised some kids in College to never type anything into a computer if they want it to remain private. For him, it probably seems completely reasonable. I doubt he&amp;#x27;s touched a keyboard since he became president. His daughters are the only teenagers in America who&amp;#x27;ve never been near Snapchat (the Secret Service will keep it that way). And he&amp;#x27;s literally surrounded by security officers and spooks everywhere he goes. They manage every interaction he has so you can imagine their worldview is going to affect him.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not trying to make excuses for him. He&amp;#x27;s so completely off the deep end nowadays (between this and TPP) that it&amp;#x27;s heartbreaking as a long time supporter. I hope he leaves the presidency, leaves Washington and spends a few years thinking about what went wrong before writing his memoirs. It would be an amazing insight into the corrosive influence of Washington on a person&amp;#x27;s integrity.</text></comment>
<story><title>Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones</title><url>http://jonathanmh.com/re-obama-on-fetishizing-our-phones-yes-we-can/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomlongson</author><text>A key promise of Obama&amp;#x27;s campaign for the presidency was to run the “most transparent” government- however the only person to really deliver on that promise was a whistleblower. 
Secret courts, secret domestic spying, and now calls for weakening of the digital equivalent of the safe shows that he either was not honest about transparency, or has radically changed his opinion since becoming POTUS.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s that he decided to use his political clout to pick healthcare as his signature in American history, not wage war against the NSA, but either way it saddens me to have campaigned for someone who has empowered a surveillance state instead of fight against it.&lt;p&gt;Liberty literally means &amp;quot;freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control&amp;quot;, and freedom in the information age means the liberty to communicate and store information. Anything to compromise that makes us all more vulnerable to control in all parts of our lives, not just those stored in zeros and ones. I believe America can be &amp;quot;Land of the free, home of the brave&amp;quot;, but not without digital liberty.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rubbingalcohol</author><text>Speaking of transparency, Obama also secretly lobbied to kill FOIA transparency reform: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;freedom.press&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;new-documents-show-obama-admin-aggressively-lobbied-kill-transparency-reform-congress&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;freedom.press&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;new-documents-show-obama-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>