> I assume this is not a new phenomenon. So, why does every president do it? Does he not have advisers who know something about the security apparatus? Someone that might say "you know, there's a lot of bad stuff you don't fully understand, so maybe you should roll back the rhetoric a bit?"
The issue I have with this point of view is evident in the current presidential race. The candidate who says unequivocally that encryption should be illegal, Snowden should be executed, and white hat hackers should be jailed, is the current front runner for the Republican party (Trump), a party which historically has considered the right to privacy an absolutely necessary one. Yet here we have him campaigning on a platform of totalitarianism when it comes to communications and privacy, and the people at large are eating it up.
It blows my mind that the very same people who hold the 2nd Amendment close to their hearts are willing to elect a man who wants to strip away their 4th and 5th Amendment rights.
The issue I have with this point of view is evident in the current presidential race. The candidate who says unequivocally that encryption should be illegal, Snowden should be executed, and white hat hackers should be jailed, is the current front runner for the Republican party (Trump), a party which historically has considered the right to privacy an absolutely necessary one. Yet here we have him campaigning on a platform of totalitarianism when it comes to communications and privacy, and the people at large are eating it up.
It blows my mind that the very same people who hold the 2nd Amendment close to their hearts are willing to elect a man who wants to strip away their 4th and 5th Amendment rights.