I think this is an interesting question: is it worse for him to have made promises he never intended to keep, or for him to have gone back on his promises after he was elected?
I think that the former would probably be a worse indictment of his character, but at the end of the day the result is the same from the outside.
Whilst many people would see your comments as tinfoil-hattery, the point is an interesting one. There is obviously no proof that the president has been blackmailed by the NSA. However it is not outside the reasons of their capabilities to have targeted and monitored him prior to him becoming president whilst he was unaware of their capabilities.
The point, and this is important, is that the NSA not only has the real technical capability to fully monitor any number of up-and-coming senators, but there are no checks and balances in order for us to know that they HAVEN'T targeted and subsequently blackmailed him.
Technology has made it easy to target and monitor anyone that has the possibility of making a noticeable impact on the system. The people that control the system at that point in time, are then able to embrace, extinguish or "redirect" any outside risk to their power base.
Total surveillance makes this process simple. Not only can you start to weed out the bad apples, but you can also start to automate the process. Slowly you can train the system to spot the risks. He who controls the surveillance, then controls everyone else.
With complete storage archives of all the data, you can also backtrack on flagged entities and see their entire history. Imagine being presented with a blackmail dossier that listed (with photographic / video evidence) your youthful escapades during your school and university years. "I did not inhale!". "Oh yes you did Mr President, and here's a HD video of it".
The NSA have taken the worst that the internet had to offer and weaponised it against all citizens - both foreign and domestic.
One NSA whistleblower claims they do indeed do blackmail (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk). He even implicates them doing it to Obama. Granted there's no accompanying top secret powerpoint so I'm sure no one will believe it.
Thank you for linking Russ Tice, I have watched most of his interviews and people should be more aware of what he says. More specifically, he says Obama was not even senator yet, he was simply the nominee, when wiretap papers came accross his desk... This has vast implications about their true targetting methods.
It's easy to pooh-pooh such a conspiracy theory. Yet if I ask myself whether a three letter agency would go this far to protect itself, the last five (or so) years has revealed an ambition (and lack of boundaries) that leads me to answer 'quite possibly'.
A general problem with conspiracy theories is that they require some number of people to keep quiet regarding the matter. However, in an environment where keeping quiet is a core, institutionalized requirement, conspiracies become much less hard to believe (or at least consider).
I don't have a problem seeing this one as a real possibility.
