> Isn't step one President Obama ordering these programs > to be stopped? It's hard to see how he's going to > prosecute anyone for carrying out programs his own > administration either started or allowed to continue.

Yeah, President Obama is the one driving all of this. How can anyone even imagine that he would stop it? And, the next president (probably Hillary) will drive it even harder. 9/11 pushed the US past a point of no return. If you read some recent US military history you can get a well integrated picture of what's really going on. The Office of the President essentially has it's own military, separate from the US Armed Forces and the US Legislature - SOCOM. The President by his hand alone can order SOCOM, in secret, to strike at any time and even to assassinate American citizens. That's an incredible power. It's not the only way the Office of the President has become more powerful in the last decade, though. The number of "signing statements" used by Obama to bypass congress is mind blowing. The only way the power of the Office of the President will be reduced in the future, and things like the NSA domestic surveillance activities stopped, is through a civil war that ends in a new constitution and completely restructured government. Does anyone really think that members of congress aren't being blackmailed with information the domestic surveillance activities produced? Look at the recent monitoring of press phones to see that the capabilities are turned against our representatives. Look to the recent insider trading investigation to see the kinds of things they'd be blackmailed over. They're powerless.

I think it's impressive that you think the figurehead has the power.

I promise you that if you think Congress is being intimidated by the intelligence community, than it's equally if not more so likely that the president himself is as well.

Here's the likely scenario: the President has his first real sitdown with the intelligence community after inauguration, and they hand him a manilla folder. Inside the folder is the file they've kept on that new president for decades. Every phone call, email, text, app-download or piece of mail they ever sent is in there. It's all there, every blackmail piece, every high school sweetheart, every illicit lover, everything. The blackmail isn't overt, but the nature of the asymmetric relationship is established and the truism that information is power is reaffirmed.

I simply cannot believe that the figurehead-of-the-decade is the puppeteer and not the puppet.

Not just blackmail material on the president, but on every family member, friend, colleague, and political ally. There's no reason not to suspect that this has been the norm for decades.

> The only way the power of the Office of the President will be reduced in the future, and things like the NSA domestic surveillance activities stopped, is through a civil war that ends in a new constitution and completely restructured government.

I'm inclined to agree. My knowledge of political history is rough at best, but I have a hard time recalling a large-scale reduction of a government's power through legislation and prosecution alone.