Why is President Obama taking this route? What does he gain? What kind of political calculus is at play here?

I'm under no illusions we'll never know his mind fully, but surely there's some kind of logic involved here.

To see all that compiled into one list, and the realization that this is ONLY in transparency/secrecy realm of issues, is so surreal... depressing would not quite begin to express how I feel. I have been looking at the events unfolding in Iran with a sense of envy literally. Protesters, demonstrations, people that have taken up to the streets so their voice can be heard and their demands not be ignored. No one knows if something significant will come out of this, but one thing for sure they have been a thorn to the side of their government. Compared to most citizens in western "democracy"; Iranian are doing this at relatively greater perils to their own well-being and/or lives. I am trully envious... and maybe pathologically idealistic.

Well, this was a bit OT in yesterday's discussion, but it is close to the topic here.

Ondelette in the previous discussion wrote:

So the government doesn't maintain a database of incidentally collected information from non-targeted U.S. persons because --- they maintain a database of all non-targeted U.S. personal email, and restrict only their searches through the database. Technically, what they told the FISCR is true? It stinks.

Yes, but nothing unexpected. The purpose of the recent change in the FISA law was to get the allowed activity a little closer to actual practice. Then the first line of argument is, well, accidents happen. Then the second is, well, in a practical sense, in order to do what the law allows, we have to violate it; limitations in the technology, you know (wink, wink). This sets up the need for another change in the law.

A database of who emails whom is the minimum that they will have. Then if you have a target, legitimate or otherwise, you already know the history of contacts. Of course, making the database requires storing all email for long enough to do the search. In practice, the buffer is always full, meaning you keep all email as long as storage space allows, so that the information can be used for other purposes as well. The available amount of storage space is growing all the time as it gets cheaper and budgets rise.

Missing from all this is any accountability. Has anything useful to the American people come out of this? Why does the law not require a justification to the people?

One really has to wonder what is going on.

Has Obama fulfilled those pledges and lived up to those commitments -- even remotely?

Well, what we have to remember is that transparency and the "disinfectant of sunlight," apply only to the future, not the past. As we drive down the gleaming new American Highway of Change, we need a clear front windshield in order to see where we're going. But who cares about the BACK windshield? That's all BEHIND US, for heaven's sake. We wouldn't want to waste any of our disinfectant wiper-solution on that. Sunlight is such a limited resource, after all -- we wouldn't want to waste it.

Here comes Glenn (on the tv) ... videostream is neat ...

Anyways, this sort of thing reaffirms my wariness last year about the limits of Obama's audacity. He has too much "the public isn't ready ... we need to be reasonable here ... we have to make compromises ... etc."

It reflects his basic personality and technique, but also might at times have to do with the fact he is a bit green. How could he truly pushback against the military or the CIA, why would they respect him?

Respect can come from a firm hand, but he isn't starting well on that front. This is an extended process, one that has to start from the beginning, and he is not doing that. We need to continue to push push push. It's a bit depressing actually.

BTW, Rachel Maddow at times does a good job criticizing the administration, much better than a Keith who spends more time shooting fish in a barrel.

forgot everything you're read since the inauguration, drink enough scotch, and hit your head against the wall hard enough, you just might be able to hold onto the fantasy that Obama is the man that he claimed to be for most of the campaign.

Or you can do the easy thing and just face reality: he's not, and never will be.

And if you still believe that it's some "Master Plan" and that he's got it all figured out because he's BRILLIANT! Please, for the love of god, get back on those meds right now!

Obama is a weak, unprincipled and cowardly Democrat with mildy liberal leanings that he easily and conveniently abandons whenever it becomes inconvenient to have them, i.e. when they get in the way of his path of least resistance to wherever it is that he's taking us.

I just want to know where exactly that is, and what he intends to do when we get there.

But man, what a major disappointment, a mere pale shadow of the progressive fighter that he pretended to be. Not that Edwards or Clinton likely would have been better. But still.

At least we could have done worse. We could have had a stupid unprincipled president.

Over the course of my adult life, watching the transitions from one U.S. administration to the next always reminds me of a conversation I had with my ten-year-old niece years ago, after taking her to a production of "Annie." She said she didn't understand the lyric "Tomorrow... you're always a day away." That's not true, is it, Uncle Brian? Tomorrow comes all the time, doesn't it? Yesterday I was wishing tomorrow would come so we could see this show, and now we have. So tomorrow is HERE, right? I explained to her that the lyrics were just a play on the notion that at the split-second that "tomorrow" arrives, it's instantaneously converted to "today", so in an overly literal sense, tomorrow never comes.

Kind of like the delivery date of political promises.