<story><title>Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance</title><url>http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/barack-obama-lawyer-in-chief-213342</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>duncan_bayne</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t knock that approach - it&amp;#x27;s known as Sortition ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sortition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sortition&lt;/a&gt; ) and I&amp;#x27;m personally convinced that it&amp;#x27;s a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.</text></item><item><author>mjevans</author><text>A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might &amp;#x2F;want&amp;#x2F; to do, he doesn&amp;#x27;t actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he&amp;#x27;s actually being accurately briefed on the matter.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become.&lt;p&gt;I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at &amp;#x2F;random&amp;#x2F; from the entire populace.</text></item><item><author>steve19</author><text>The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake.&lt;p&gt;The less charitable explanation, since it&amp;#x27;s hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs, is that he is just another politicians and the guaranteed political fallout from surveillance and drones was far less than the catastrophic career-ending political fallout from a major terrorist attack (after dismantling surveillance programs). He chose the option that he thought would give him a second term (and then a gold plated public speaking career after the White House).&lt;p&gt;I would say his gambit paid off. The right would never love him, the left had no one else and in any case they had fallen so deeply in love with the Idea of him.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>huherto</author><text>I would like an approach where we randomly select &amp;quot;electors&amp;quot;. They are sequestered, listen to the arguments of the candidates, hold several election rounds and finally come out with he elected officials. Like a jury. They would be dismissed after that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Obama did not stop NSA domestic surveillance</title><url>http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/barack-obama-lawyer-in-chief-213342</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>duncan_bayne</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t knock that approach - it&amp;#x27;s known as Sortition ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sortition&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sortition&lt;/a&gt; ) and I&amp;#x27;m personally convinced that it&amp;#x27;s a much better way of achieving democracy than any other.</text></item><item><author>mjevans</author><text>A more reasonable explanation is that irrespective of what he might &amp;#x2F;want&amp;#x2F; to do, he doesn&amp;#x27;t actually have sufficient power to do anything about the actions, assuming he&amp;#x27;s actually being accurately briefed on the matter.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s probably more a symptom of how absolutely useless and ineffective at doing anything than consuming money to be elected for corporate interests the US congress has become.&lt;p&gt;I think at this point I might actually be better served by having representatives and senators selected at &amp;#x2F;random&amp;#x2F; from the entire populace.</text></item><item><author>steve19</author><text>The charitable explanation, which this article seems to imply, is that he suddenly discovers how important these programs are and how much is at stake.&lt;p&gt;The less charitable explanation, since it&amp;#x27;s hard to believe he fundamentally agrees deep down with these programs, is that he is just another politicians and the guaranteed political fallout from surveillance and drones was far less than the catastrophic career-ending political fallout from a major terrorist attack (after dismantling surveillance programs). He chose the option that he thought would give him a second term (and then a gold plated public speaking career after the White House).&lt;p&gt;I would say his gambit paid off. The right would never love him, the left had no one else and in any case they had fallen so deeply in love with the Idea of him.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>irixusr</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve argued for it for a few years but most people are aghast at the suggestion...</text></comment>