Obama’s Path From Critic to Overseer of Spying
The headline might as well be a more Onionesque "After gaining power, politician turns out not to actually hold the strongly principled views he expressed while campaigning".<p>I'd be surprised if Obama holds <i>any</i> of the views he expressed during his campaign.  A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power.<p>Generally speaking, the vast majority of power holders agree that aggressive spying is a good idea.  This is closely related to their strong preference for maintaining the status quo across the board.  We should not be surprised that Obama did not reverse any of Bush's controversial decisions <i>because they were not actually controversial</i> among those with power or with the potential to gain power.<p>Generally speaking, when an issue is touted as being highly controversial between the major parties, it consists of 98% solid agreement and 2% hyped up disagreement.  The disagreement and the "fray" are part of the choreographed propaganda undertaken by powerful interests to create the illusion of dissent.