No. What I'd bet is happening here is that you, like many people, don't really understand how an executive order works.
Except in a very specific set of circumscribed cases, the President cannot overrule Congress by fiat. An executive order communicates through the President's own administration how they plan on interpreting the laws written by Congress, and how they will exercise whatever rulemaking authority Congress has delegated to their administration.
If the President is declaring through executive orders an intent to ratchet up surveillance of US citizens, that is very much Congress's responsibility to resolve. The President is exercising rulemaking authority carved out by Congress. That authority --- OBVIOUSLY --- needs to be curtailed.
Executive orders aren't subject to oversight by Congress. But their validity depends either on Constitutional or (as in this case) statutory authority.
As I said upthread: the President can issue executive orders like this because Congress has overtly and deliberately allowed him to do so.
I think what he's trying to say is that due to the relatively lower barrier of entry to (1) than to (2) that it is incumbent on the POTUS to resolve the issue over Congress. His perspective is likely reinforced by a sense that Congress will have difficulty making majority decisions as it has been significantly gridlocked. In general Americans feel that of the branches of government the President represents them the most (it should really be the house and possibly the judiciary...)
I think further he is trying to say that the POTUS and Congress that originally published EO 12333 and some associated legislature are no longer in office today - and that this means the current branches of US law have inherited these policies and framework of legal interpretation. I think he means that undoing these traditions would be a departure from accumulated experience, investments and internal processes and thus represents a significant systemic overhall: again raising the bar of difficulty to get something passed.
For these reasons I think sky001 is placing the burden on the President to realign the interpretation of the law with modern storage/processing/collecting capabilities.
The fatal flaw with this reasoning is that every President gets to change their mind. So long as the law of the land delegates this authority to the executive, you'll always have to wonder what internal rulemaking the President has done, or plans to do.
Any President can change their mind about executive orders.
Every President can't change their mind about the limitations imposed on them by Congress.
This is a very simple point. I'm sure you get it. I understand, you're mad at Barack Obama. Fair enough. But getting Barack Obama to play nice doesn't fix the fact that current law regarding surveillance is bad and must change.
"Obstructionism" isn't the problem. This isn't a partisan issue. The law is the way the law is because both sides of the aisle want it that way.
