system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How much is Obama to blame for this latest domestic spying scandal.

I know Obama promised to get rid of the NSA's warantless spying as a candidate and clearly hasn't done that. He's also arresting any whistleblowers who bring forth evidence documenting the illegal activities of the government or his policies, but how much is Obama to blame for this and how much of it is due the pre-established laws such as the Patriot Act and other branches of government acting of their own discretion? If we had elected McCain would things have been different or was this just an unavoidable scenario that the president alone couldn't control?
gpt
Obama can be held quite clearly accountable for the NSA's activities, since it's a branch of the gov't that falls under his control.

That he hasn't curtailed the NSA's spying is different from how he hasn't closed down Gitmo: The latter required legislative approval (and approval was NOT granted).

To break down the rest of your questions:

Repealing the PATRIOT Act would need legislative approval, so Obama's not entirely responsible for that. He could have asked for it, and not asking for it is points against him, but he probably would have gotten turned down anyway even if he did (as in closing Gitmo)

The IRS scandal, AFAIK, has not been directly linked to Obama. It's possible that the persons involved in this did not receive a directive from on-high, which clears Obama (although he's still involved in a very indirect way, as he's the head of the gov't)

No, the NSA thing is and was avoidable. However, it's unlikely that things would have been different under McCain or Romney, as Republican policy is also hawkish with regards to 'counter-terrorism', which all this surveillance would ostensibly fall under.