IF you believe Russ Tice it MIGHT be a shadowy cabal of super secret spies. Breaking the Set host Abby Martin suggests that our elected officials are nothing more than pawns that are controlled by blackmail.
Mr. Tice hedges the bet. And conspiracy theories are just a bit too much for us.
A story from the New York Times suggests that we have let the FISA court overstep it's boundaries. The story is illustrative of the fact that we have allowed democracy to crumble in the USA. According to the Times:
"The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions."
The court is making new law, not just interpreting it.
My guess is the President is fine with all this. There isn't a secret cabal. Obama and many unelected officials are simply operating outside of their proper authority. It's been done before.
Ronald Reagan called this plausible deniability. Nixon said it was okay, "because he was the President." George Bush agreed with that philosophy, but he safely stayed away from legal trouble by using the secret opinions of his staff to shield truth from the limelight. Bush got blasted by his critics for such a move, so Obama has attempted to gain legitimacy by using the court system. Only, because he's a crafty Constitutional Lawyer, he made sure to use the secret FISA Court to shield his dirty work.
Turns out that attempt may not work, because a
Federal Judge Allows EFF's NSA Mass Spying Case to Proceed
So we shall see if out system still works. There is still a chance one of the branches of government will decide to make all the branches follow the law.