No it isn't. It's not an intelligent point anymore then the ease of making people grumble against taxes is an argument against them.
The common retort to anti-taxation sentiment entails extolling the benefits of the various thing taxes fund, like roads and schools. If there were not such examples to point to in defense of taxation it would be difficult to persuade anyone in its favor.
State surveillance has no such examples; if benefits exist to any significant degree they are by their nature far less obvious than those of taxation. The surveillance state is just an easier target than the welfare programs many people rely on. Regardless, I admit that it's not a particularly powerful argument against surveillance, as good policies can become rhetorical targets as well.
It does, however, bring me back to what I consider to be one of the strongest arguments against the current surveillance policy, which is that it has not been convincingly demonstrated to be necessary or even appreciably beneficial. Obviously an intelligence agency is by its nature limited in its ability to publicly defend its practices, but such an expansion in scope requires a better demonstration of necessity and efficacy than we have been given. Right now all I've heard is "Trust us, guys, we need this amount of funding and this extent of capability or the terrorists will get you."
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
Its also important that no one is saying "trust us guys". We have a large body of civilian oversight, elected by the people, who have carte blanche to release negative information to the public, who have complete access to all finished intelligence data as well as all of the court proceedings. We're saying "we have about as good oversight as its possible to have while still having signals intelligence exist and our oversight is saying we're fine"
If you don't trust your oversight, elect someone you trust.
It has to be taken with a very large pinch of salt since there is no documentation and no named sources, but in July Jack Murphy reported that his sources in the CIA told him that the "seventh floor" at CIA wanted Petraeus out and used his affair to do it. And that Clapper and Petraeus had a heated meeting where Petraeus was informed that he would be resigning. http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/1/was_deadly_benghazi_kil...
The fact that we can't be sure that he wasn't being blackmailed with something even more scandalous demonstrates the problem perfectly. There is no reason to believe that he was, but you can't say it is impossible now that we have documentation proving their capabilities. That is why this sort of dragnet mass surveillance is so dangerous to a democracy. It undermines the legitimacy of the political process.
It's comments like this that remind me the people who think they're outraged here, don't actually understand the issues they're talking about in the first place.
There's certainly a lot of irony in the fact that people complaining about the lack of transparency of intelligence services tend to be advocating for a lack of transparency of the activities and conflicts of interests of government employees - but it really depends which side of politics you think it'll favor.
The whole "what if they release scandalous material on a politician" angle seems to be all anyone can think of, apparently ignoring that it only works if the voters think its scandalous, or it's actually a bad thing for your political representatives to be doing, and also is way simpler to do by just making stuff up.
The irony of arguing for a more opaque government while complaining about opaque government intelligence services is also lost on people.
It's pretty hilarious that that is what you take away from that article.
So what should I be taking away?
The fact is that one of Snowden's first and largest claims - that he had unfettered access as a junior administrator - has been shown to be an outright lie.
It's pretty hilarious that that is what you take away from that article.
So what should I be taking away?
The fact is that one of Snowden's first and largest claims - that he had unfettered access as a junior administrator - has been shown to be an outright lie.
That NSA analysts don't practice one of the most basic tenets of good network security - don't share your fucking network password with anybody - isn't much more comforting.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I am *really* tired of the fallback argument of "There are worse abuses, and clearly because I haven't heard *GROUP X* protesting those worse abuses that means this is totally an illegitimate complaint, damn those civil liberty activist fakers."
Its disingenous and insulting to anyone who does care about both
When you start protesting an abuse only because it's affecting your group, I think a questioning of the legitimacy of your position is in order. Once again, as I've stated in past threads, a lot of this outcry over surveillance boils down to "the surveillance state is supposed to target the dirty poors and minorities, not me."
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
It's pretty hilarious that that is what you take away from that article.
So what should I be taking away?
The fact is that one of Snowden's first and largest claims - that he had unfettered access as a junior administrator - has been shown to be an outright lie.
That NSA analysts don't practice one of the most basic tenets of good network security - don't share your fucking network password with anybody - isn't much more comforting.
Which is no different that a statement I made in one of the earlier iterations of this thread. The real news here is our shitty vetting process and our lax internal controls.
It's pretty hilarious that that is what you take away from that article.
So what should I be taking away?
The fact is that one of Snowden's first and largest claims - that he had unfettered access as a junior administrator - has been shown to be an outright lie.
That NSA analysts don't practice one of the most basic tenets of good network security - don't share your fucking network password with anybody - isn't much more comforting.
I don't really see that Snowden got what information he did as a some sort of nail int he NSAs coffin.
Was Ames a nail in the CIA coffin?
Was Hansen a Nail in the FBI coffin?
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
I don't really see that Snowden got what information he did as a some sort of nail int he NSAs coffin.
Was Ames a nail in the CIA coffin?
Was Hansen a Nail in the FBI coffin?
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
One of his initial claims was that he had unfettered access to the NSA data store as a whole, even though he was just a junior sysadmin.
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
I'm not sure I buy the idea that there isn't an intelligence agency in the world that would have loved to have had proprietary access to the information Snowden leaked publicly.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
Its also important that no one is saying "trust us guys". We have a large body of civilian oversight, elected by the people, who have carte blanche to release negative information to the public, who have complete access to all finished intelligence data as well as all of the court proceedings. We're saying "we have about as good oversight as its possible to have while still having signals intelligence exist and our oversight is saying we're fine"
If you don't trust your oversight, elect someone you trust.
But we’re not in WWII anymore and just because they cracked the enigma machine doesn’t give security agencies carte blanche.
Just because they’re shrouded from public eyes doesn’t make our surveillance agencies fairies and pixie dust and all their operations run away hits. I brought up this statistics in the previous thread, but the huge PRISM program, which monitors data in some of the biggest social media sites, has only yielded assistance in less than 20 cases over several years. That’s an abysmal record for the amount of money and effort being poured into that program.
The system is clearly broken when you congressmen responding to the leaks with shock over the NSA’s conduct. This is information they had access to and they should have restrained the NSA if they felt it had gone too far. But there’s no public accountability for restraint and no PR in going against the security industry in a post 9/11 world.
And this brings up a key point for me - if this story was so important, so vital - why all the fucking lies?
Because the truth was already known and no one was doing anything about it.
Back in 2007 a technician for AT&T went public with information that the NSA had installed a fiber optic splitter in an internet hub. This was a major internet backbone located in San Francisco. The splitters made a copy of all data heading into the hub before it was routed to it’s proper location and sent the copy into a room (Room 641A) and into equipment manufactured Narus. The Narus equipment would sort through the data and send “filtered” data back to the NSA in Fort Meade.
It’s hard to deny the fanfare from Snowden has paid off. Tell someone the NSA is tapping internet communications at its backbone and people look at you puzzled, tell them their looking at your Facebook and it begins to sink in what that all means.
When people unite together, they become stronger than the sum of their parts.
Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
Just a quick question since I am on my phone. Did you even read past the first two sentences?
Edit:
The system is clearly broken when you congressmen responding to the leaks with shock over the NSA’s conduct. This is information they had access to and they should have restrained the NSA if they felt it had gone too far. But there’s no public accountability for restraint and no PR in going against the security industry in a post 9/11 world.
1) No. You would kind of expect that congresspeople who think they can get ahead when they learn that people are geese about a particular issue are "shocked" about the allegations.
2) There is clearly public accountability for restraint
We have a large body of civilian oversight, elected by the people
The gang of eight plus the president is a large body?
The entire congress has access to every finished intelligence piece they wish. The entire intelligence committee is actively briefed unless its extraordinary circumstances. Everyone of them(congress at large, the intelligence committees and gang of eight in specific) can publicize what they wish by inserting it into the congressional record. None of them can have their access to information removed as a result of said publicizing.
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
I'm not sure I buy the idea that there isn't an intelligence agency in the world that would have loved to have had proprietary access to the information Snowden leaked publicly.
Maybe the KGB thing is a stretch, but he was primarily-from all we know- ideologically motivated. Money,Ideology,Coercion,Ego, MICE.
And what country is sympathetic to his ideology? None basically. I mean they are all sympathetic when it comes to them being the spied upon, but on an idealogical level there isn't Libertopia. So selling the information to the Chinese or whoever doesn't get him what he wants. He's not helping his 'cause' by doing that.
I don't really see that Snowden got what information he did as a some sort of nail int he NSAs coffin.
Was Ames a nail in the CIA coffin?
Was Hansen a Nail in the FBI coffin?
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
One of his initial claims was that he had unfettered access to the NSA data store as a whole, even though he was just a junior sysadmin.
Remember how he could totally read the President's emails?
This article proves both points anyway, so I don't see why anyone is arguing:
1) Snowden had to "hack" the human component of the system to get the info he wanted. Which means he didn't actually have access to it.
2) Security in these contractors seems ridiculously lax. Not only did they hire Snowden, Snowden managed to collect 20-25 passwords from people with high level access.
The system is clearly broken when you congressmen responding to the leaks with shock over the NSA’s conduct. This is information they had access to and they should have restrained the NSA if they felt it had gone too far. But there’s no public accountability for restraint and no PR in going against the security industry in a post 9/11 world.
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
I'm not sure I buy the idea that there isn't an intelligence agency in the world that would have loved to have had proprietary access to the information Snowden leaked publicly.
I dunno. We don't have full access to the information that Snowden has, but there isn't anything novel in there so far.
Any intelligence agency out there should already have been operating under the assumption that the NSA, as well as every other competent intelligence agency, was already or trying to do those things. If they weren't, they were simply incompetent.
We've known the US Government (and allies) have been top-notch at signals intelligence since at least WW2. Any intelligence agency that doesn't automatically assume that the US Government would have access to information sent through US corporations and / or stored in servers on US soil is being negligent.
At most, the Snowden leaks would provide verification and maybe some program names. He would be most useful either in place as a mole, or doing exactly what he's doing now - releasing bits and pieces of information, making claims, and agitating the public to try and put restraints on the US intelligence gathering apparatus.
I don't really see that Snowden got what information he did as a some sort of nail int he NSAs coffin.
Was Ames a nail in the CIA coffin?
Was Hansen a Nail in the FBI coffin?
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
One of his initial claims was that he had unfettered access to the NSA data store as a whole, even though he was just a junior sysadmin.
Remember how he could totally read the President's emails?
This article proves both points anyway, so I don't see why anyone is arguing:
1) Snowden had to "hack" the human component of the system to get the info he wanted. Which means he didn't actually have access to it.
2) Security in these contractors seems ridiculously lax. Not only did they hire Snowden, Snowden managed to collect 20-25 passwords from people with high level access.
As I said once before, it's the digital version of the janitorial security problem - the janitor is relatively low in the food chain but needs wide ranging access to do their job. Which is why they are an oft overlooked weak point in security.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
Its also important that no one is saying "trust us guys". We have a large body of civilian oversight, elected by the people, who have carte blanche to release negative information to the public, who have complete access to all finished intelligence data as well as all of the court proceedings. We're saying "we have about as good oversight as its possible to have while still having signals intelligence exist and our oversight is saying we're fine"
If you don't trust your oversight, elect someone you trust.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Your last sentence strikes me as being extremely idealistic and incommensurate with reality. "Elect someone you trust" ? How many Senators do you trust? Which of those aging millionaires do you think has your back? How many people do you know who even have the resources to run for Senate, and of those people, how many would you trust in office?
"Trust" has nothing to do with electoral politics in America. Holding an elected official responsible for their actions rely on open access to their voting history and stated positions; even when those conditions are fulfilled, it is difficult to ensure accountability. In a situation like NSA surveillance, where most members of Congress are not privy to classified details and where the amount of funding itself is a state secret, holding said Congressfolk accountable for their votes is essentially impossible. The only reason people in office/running for office are even being forced to state a position on this subject is that the issue has been in the news over the past few months.
I wish the solution to our problems was a simple as electing trustworthy individuals to Congress, but that's just not the world we live in.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there
Are any such people in this thread?
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there
No it isn't. It's not an intelligent point anymore then the ease of making people grumble against taxes is an argument against them.
The common retort to anti-taxation sentiment entails extolling the benefits of the various thing taxes fund, like roads and schools. If there were not such examples to point to in defense of taxation it would be difficult to persuade anyone in its favor.
State surveillance has no such examples; if benefits exist to any significant degree they are by their nature far less obvious than those of taxation. The surveillance state is just an easier target than the welfare programs many people rely on. Regardless, I admit that it's not a particularly powerful argument against surveillance, as good policies can become rhetorical targets as well.
It does, however, bring me back to what I consider to be one of the strongest arguments against the current surveillance policy, which is that it has not been convincingly demonstrated to be necessary or even appreciably beneficial. Obviously an intelligence agency is by its nature limited in its ability to publicly defend its practices, but such an expansion in scope requires a better demonstration of necessity and efficacy than we have been given. Right now all I've heard is "Trust us, guys, we need this amount of funding and this extent of capability or the terrorists will get you."
And if one wants to extend beyond just this thread, there's Snowden himself who's motives have become very clear at this point and they aren't about stopping abuse, they are about stopping surveillance. And then many of his supporters.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
I wouldn't go as far as saying that the threat is nonexistent, but I'm deeply skeptical that the threat is dire enough to warrant the expansion we've seen over the past ten-fifteen years. I feel that you've hit on an important point, though from an angle opposite to my own. In most situations, the burden of proof is on who is asserting a positive- in this instance, the people asserting that the threat is severe enough to justify such an expansion should be expected to demonstrate that severity. However, the nature of this issue necessitates a higher degree of secrecy than pretty much anything else, so that burden of proof can be difficult to adequately fulfill.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
Kaputa, do you want to abolish all government surveillance?
I would like to live in a world without government surveillance, but no, I don't think abolishing state surveillance entirely is a realistic or rational goal, at least for the foreseeable future.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there
No it isn't. It's not an intelligent point anymore then the ease of making people grumble against taxes is an argument against them.
The common retort to anti-taxation sentiment entails extolling the benefits of the various thing taxes fund, like roads and schools. If there were not such examples to point to in defense of taxation it would be difficult to persuade anyone in its favor.
State surveillance has no such examples; if benefits exist to any significant degree they are by their nature far less obvious than those of taxation. The surveillance state is just an easier target than the welfare programs many people rely on. Regardless, I admit that it's not a particularly powerful argument against surveillance, as good policies can become rhetorical targets as well.
It does, however, bring me back to what I consider to be one of the strongest arguments against the current surveillance policy, which is that it has not been convincingly demonstrated to be necessary or even appreciably beneficial. Obviously an intelligence agency is by its nature limited in its ability to publicly defend its practices, but such an expansion in scope requires a better demonstration of necessity and efficacy than we have been given. Right now all I've heard is "Trust us, guys, we need this amount of funding and this extent of capability or the terrorists will get you."
And if one wants to extend beyond just this thread, there's Snowden himself who's motives have become very clear at this point and they aren't about stopping abuse, they are about stopping surveillance. And then many of his supporters.
When I said surveillance has no such examples, I meant that it lacks the obvious examples of benefits that can be easily pointed to when discussing other issues like taxation. That's not really a criticism of surveillance so much as an observation that its benefits are far more difficult to perceive. As I said in that post, however, the argument which led to that statement was a fairly poor one in the first place.
The second bolded part specifically designates "current surveillance policy" as being unjustified, not state surveillance as a whole.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
I wouldn't go as far as saying that the threat is nonexistent, but I'm deeply skeptical that the threat is dire enough to warrant the expansion we've seen over the past ten-fifteen years. I feel that you've hit on an important point, though from an angle opposite to my own. In most situations, the burden of proof is on who is asserting a positive- in this instance, the people asserting that the threat is severe enough to justify such an expansion should be expected to demonstrate that severity. However, the nature of this issue necessitates a higher degree of secrecy than pretty much anything else, so that burden of proof can be difficult to adequately fulfill.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
Another thing to point out is that successful intelligence work is by its very nature secret in its successes and only noteworthy and publicized in its failures.
Lets say that there is a terrorist cell out there planning some majorly nasty shit. And the intelligence community scores a slam dunk. Rolls up the terrorist cell before they can do anything, backtraces their suppliers and financiers and shuts those guys down as well. An utter 100% success. The kind of shit that happens in an action movie and almost never in real life. The public will never hear about that. If the technique can be used again, telling the public about operation "We just kicked ass. Go us" will prevent that technique from ever working again. Also if the people you just took down knew something and you are currently interrogating them, if their terrorist associates know they are captured they are going to work very hard and very quickly to make whatever their buddies knew irrelevant and out of date.
On the other hand you can't just assume no terrorist attacks means success. Ala the rock that grants you protection from Tigers.
Edit: I know, I just restated what you said (when I re-read your comment I got that), but I still like expanding the point.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
I wouldn't go as far as saying that the threat is nonexistent, but I'm deeply skeptical that the threat is dire enough to warrant the expansion we've seen over the past ten-fifteen years. I feel that you've hit on an important point, though from an angle opposite to my own. In most situations, the burden of proof is on who is asserting a positive- in this instance, the people asserting that the threat is severe enough to justify such an expansion should be expected to demonstrate that severity. However, the nature of this issue necessitates a higher degree of secrecy than pretty much anything else, so that burden of proof can be difficult to adequately fulfill.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
Another thing to point out is that successful intelligence work is by its very nature secret in its successes and only noteworthy and publicized in its failures.
Lets say that there is a terrorist cell out there planning some majorly nasty shit. And the intelligence community scores a slam dunk. Rolls up the terrorist cell before they can do anything, backtraces their suppliers and financiers and shuts those guys down as well. An utter 100% success. The kind of shit that happens in an action movie and almost never in real life. The public will never hear about that. If the technique can be used again, telling the public about operation "We just kicked ass. Go us" will prevent that technique from ever working again. Also if the people you just took down knew something and you are currently interrogating them, if their terrorist associates know they are captured they are going to work very hard and very quickly to make whatever their buddies knew irrelevant and out of date.
On the other hand you can't just assume no terrorist attacks means success. Ala the rock that grants you protection from Tigers.
Edit: I know, I just restated what you said (when I re-read your comment I got that), but I still like expanding the point.
It's more then that. When intelligence works you don't need to stop "imminent attacks". Stuff doesn't get barely averted, it's gets shut down long before anyone starts buying fertilizer. The planners get turned into informants, and everyone trying to figure out what to do spends a bunch more time wondering if "Jihadhi87" is actually a CIA honeypot.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
I wouldn't go as far as saying that the threat is nonexistent, but I'm deeply skeptical that the threat is dire enough to warrant the expansion we've seen over the past ten-fifteen years. I feel that you've hit on an important point, though from an angle opposite to my own. In most situations, the burden of proof is on who is asserting a positive- in this instance, the people asserting that the threat is severe enough to justify such an expansion should be expected to demonstrate that severity. However, the nature of this issue necessitates a higher degree of secrecy than pretty much anything else, so that burden of proof can be difficult to adequately fulfill.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
Another thing to point out is that successful intelligence work is by its very nature secret in its successes and only noteworthy and publicized in its failures.
Lets say that there is a terrorist cell out there planning some majorly nasty shit. And the intelligence community scores a slam dunk. Rolls up the terrorist cell before they can do anything, backtraces their suppliers and financiers and shuts those guys down as well. An utter 100% success. The kind of shit that happens in an action movie and almost never in real life. The public will never hear about that. If the technique can be used again, telling the public about operation "We just kicked ass. Go us" will prevent that technique from ever working again. Also if the people you just took down knew something and you are currently interrogating them, if their terrorist associates know they are captured they are going to work very hard and very quickly to make whatever their buddies knew irrelevant and out of date.
On the other hand you can't just assume no terrorist attacks means success. Ala the rock that grants you protection from Tigers.
Edit: I know, I just restated what you said (when I re-read your comment I got that), but I still like expanding the point.
It's more then that. When intelligence works you don't need to stop "imminent attacks". Stuff doesn't get barely averted, it's gets shut down long before anyone starts buying fertilizer. The planners get turned into informants, and everyone trying to figure out what to do spends a bunch more time wondering if "Jihadhi87" is actually a CIA honeypot.
Well if its gonna be a CIA honeypot shouldn't it be "Jihottie87"?
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Y'all can't drop the whole "politicians play to the crowd" thing when it becomes inconvenient.
The converse strikes me as true as well--you can't hold politicians who support the NSA to be acting in the pure public interest--because that's what politicians do!--but then turn around and hold politicians who don't support the NSA to be acting out of unprincipled self-service.
Everyone of them(congress at large, the intelligence committees and gang of eight in specific) can publicize what they wish by inserting it into the congressional record. None of them can have their access to information removed as a result of said publicizing.
Sort of; senators in the past who have done that have been censored.
Y'all can't drop the whole "politicians play to the crowd" thing when it becomes inconvenient.
The converse strikes me as true as well--you can't hold politicians who support the NSA to be acting in the pure public interest--because that's what politicians do!--but then turn around and say politicians who don't support the NSA to be acting out of unprincipled self-service.
I don't recall anyone pointing to senators publicly supporting government actions as demonstration that those actions are therefore good.
A system is not broken because Rubio throws a shit fit.
You want an example? How about "we won world war II because of our intelligence services". Now, it is true that we don't have a WWII to win today. But a lot of that is because of our intelligence services. And i know what you're thinking you're saying "but the USSR doesn't exist anymore and no one has stepped up to take the mantle and a lot of that is probably because of our intelligence services. Terrorists aren't the only thing we spy on. And while its pretty great that we can use these technologies to spy on terrorists its also pretty great that we can use them to spy on everyone else too.
The first paragraph would be a decent argument against someone asserting that intelligence agencies should be abolished entirely (though I'm quite skeptical of the idea that our intelligence agencies are a primary reason for the absence of a successor to the USSR), but that is not the argument privacy proponents are making in this thread. Criticism has generally been focused on the post-9/11 expansion of state surveillance, not on the concept of intelligence agencies in general.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
I wouldn't go as far as saying that the threat is nonexistent, but I'm deeply skeptical that the threat is dire enough to warrant the expansion we've seen over the past ten-fifteen years. I feel that you've hit on an important point, though from an angle opposite to my own. In most situations, the burden of proof is on who is asserting a positive- in this instance, the people asserting that the threat is severe enough to justify such an expansion should be expected to demonstrate that severity. However, the nature of this issue necessitates a higher degree of secrecy than pretty much anything else, so that burden of proof can be difficult to adequately fulfill.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
Another thing to point out is that successful intelligence work is by its very nature secret in its successes and only noteworthy and publicized in its failures.
Lets say that there is a terrorist cell out there planning some majorly nasty shit. And the intelligence community scores a slam dunk. Rolls up the terrorist cell before they can do anything, backtraces their suppliers and financiers and shuts those guys down as well. An utter 100% success. The kind of shit that happens in an action movie and almost never in real life. The public will never hear about that. If the technique can be used again, telling the public about operation "We just kicked ass. Go us" will prevent that technique from ever working again. Also if the people you just took down knew something and you are currently interrogating them, if their terrorist associates know they are captured they are going to work very hard and very quickly to make whatever their buddies knew irrelevant and out of date.
On the other hand you can't just assume no terrorist attacks means success. Ala the rock that grants you protection from Tigers.
Edit: I know, I just restated what you said (when I re-read your comment I got that), but I still like expanding the point.
It's more then that. When intelligence works you don't need to stop "imminent attacks". Stuff doesn't get barely averted, it's gets shut down long before anyone starts buying fertilizer. The planners get turned into informants, and everyone trying to figure out what to do spends a bunch more time wondering if "Jihadhi87" is actually a CIA honeypot.
Well if its gonna be a CIA honeypot shouldn't it be "Jihottie87"?
What does it matter if there are real threats out there? I don't believe the CIA, NSA, or any other government intelligence organizations are actually exploring those threats. There is no profit in that, and they are looking for a needle in a haystack.
What I believe they are doing is encroaching on our civil liberties. They are looking at what private corporations are doing in the US and around the world and selling it. They are also probably using this information to trade stock on. I think that it's much more likely that these organizations are selling private corporations and inviduals secrets for the top dollar than actually looking for terrorism. The simple fact that these organizations have such capacity and need no warrant and have limited oversight ensures that they will do these kinds of things, which is threatening to our democracy and to any notion of fair competition.
What does it matter if there are real threats out there? I don't believe the CIA, NSA, or any other government intelligence organizations are actually exploring those threats. There is no profit in that, and they are looking for a needle in a haystack.
What I believe they are doing is encroaching on our civil liberties. They are looking at what private corporations are doing in the US and around the world and selling it. They are also probably using this information to trade stock on. I think that it's much more likely that these organizations are selling private corporations and inviduals secrets for the top dollar than actually looking for terrorism. The simple fact that these organizations have such capacity and need no warrant and have limited oversight ensures that they will do these kinds of things, which is threatening to our democracy and to any notion of fair competition.
Got proof? And no, cynicism does not count as proof.
What does it matter if there are real threats out there? I don't believe the CIA, NSA, or any other government intelligence organizations are actually exploring those threats. There is no profit in that, and they are looking for a needle in a haystack.
What I believe they are doing is encroaching on our civil liberties. They are looking at what private corporations are doing in the US and around the world and selling it. They are also probably using this information to trade stock on. I think that it's much more likely that these organizations are selling private corporations and inviduals secrets for the top dollar than actually looking for terrorism. The simple fact that these organizations have such capacity and need no warrant and have limited oversight ensures that they will do these kinds of things, which is threatening to our democracy and to any notion of fair competition.
Got proof? And no, cynicism does not count as proof.
The oversight system as we understand it now appears to be lacking. If this sort of thing is not currently going on, with limited oversight it's only a matter of time. Unless you somehow believe that these organizations are able to only hire 100% ethical individuals who have no interest in profit. It's a matter of incentives, the less authority figures are looking over your shoulder and asking questions, the more prone you are to abusing your power.
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State surveillance has no such examples; if benefits exist to any significant degree they are by their nature far less obvious than those of taxation. The surveillance state is just an easier target than the welfare programs many people rely on. Regardless, I admit that it's not a particularly powerful argument against surveillance, as good policies can become rhetorical targets as well.
It does, however, bring me back to what I consider to be one of the strongest arguments against the current surveillance policy, which is that it has not been convincingly demonstrated to be necessary or even appreciably beneficial. Obviously an intelligence agency is by its nature limited in its ability to publicly defend its practices, but such an expansion in scope requires a better demonstration of necessity and efficacy than we have been given. Right now all I've heard is "Trust us, guys, we need this amount of funding and this extent of capability or the terrorists will get you."
Its also important that no one is saying "trust us guys". We have a large body of civilian oversight, elected by the people, who have carte blanche to release negative information to the public, who have complete access to all finished intelligence data as well as all of the court proceedings. We're saying "we have about as good oversight as its possible to have while still having signals intelligence exist and our oversight is saying we're fine"
If you don't trust your oversight, elect someone you trust.
It's comments like this that remind me the people who think they're outraged here, don't actually understand the issues they're talking about in the first place.
There's certainly a lot of irony in the fact that people complaining about the lack of transparency of intelligence services tend to be advocating for a lack of transparency of the activities and conflicts of interests of government employees - but it really depends which side of politics you think it'll favor.
The whole "what if they release scandalous material on a politician" angle seems to be all anyone can think of, apparently ignoring that it only works if the voters think its scandalous, or it's actually a bad thing for your political representatives to be doing, and also is way simpler to do by just making stuff up.
The irony of arguing for a more opaque government while complaining about opaque government intelligence services is also lost on people.
And this brings up a key point for me - if this story was so important, so vital - why all the fucking lies?
The gang of eight plus the president is a large body?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So what should I be taking away?
The fact is that one of Snowden's first and largest claims - that he had unfettered access as a junior administrator - has been shown to be an outright lie.
That NSA analysts don't practice one of the most basic tenets of good network security - don't share your fucking network password with anybody - isn't much more comforting.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Which is no different that a statement I made in one of the earlier iterations of this thread. The real news here is our shitty vetting process and our lax internal controls.
You can't ignore that he was a sysadmin, though.
Was Ames a nail in the CIA coffin?
Was Hansen a Nail in the FBI coffin?
Pretty much every intelligence agency has had moles in it throughout its history. 30 years ago Snowden would have been feeding his info to the KGB. Lacking an outside nation that was ideologically sympathetic he went public instead.
One of his initial claims was that he had unfettered access to the NSA data store as a whole, even though he was just a junior sysadmin.
I'm not sure I buy the idea that there isn't an intelligence agency in the world that would have loved to have had proprietary access to the information Snowden leaked publicly.
But we’re not in WWII anymore and just because they cracked the enigma machine doesn’t give security agencies carte blanche.
Just because they’re shrouded from public eyes doesn’t make our surveillance agencies fairies and pixie dust and all their operations run away hits. I brought up this statistics in the previous thread, but the huge PRISM program, which monitors data in some of the biggest social media sites, has only yielded assistance in less than 20 cases over several years. That’s an abysmal record for the amount of money and effort being poured into that program.
The system is clearly broken when you congressmen responding to the leaks with shock over the NSA’s conduct. This is information they had access to and they should have restrained the NSA if they felt it had gone too far. But there’s no public accountability for restraint and no PR in going against the security industry in a post 9/11 world.
Because the truth was already known and no one was doing anything about it.
Back in 2007 a technician for AT&T went public with information that the NSA had installed a fiber optic splitter in an internet hub. This was a major internet backbone located in San Francisco. The splitters made a copy of all data heading into the hub before it was routed to it’s proper location and sent the copy into a room (Room 641A) and into equipment manufactured Narus. The Narus equipment would sort through the data and send “filtered” data back to the NSA in Fort Meade.
A similar system was in place in 10-20 facilities across the US. This was happening as far back as 2003.
It’s hard to deny the fanfare from Snowden has paid off. Tell someone the NSA is tapping internet communications at its backbone and people look at you puzzled, tell them their looking at your Facebook and it begins to sink in what that all means.
Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding.
Edit:
1) No. You would kind of expect that congresspeople who think they can get ahead when they learn that people are geese about a particular issue are "shocked" about the allegations.
2) There is clearly public accountability for restraint
The entire congress has access to every finished intelligence piece they wish. The entire intelligence committee is actively briefed unless its extraordinary circumstances. Everyone of them(congress at large, the intelligence committees and gang of eight in specific) can publicize what they wish by inserting it into the congressional record. None of them can have their access to information removed as a result of said publicizing.
And what country is sympathetic to his ideology? None basically. I mean they are all sympathetic when it comes to them being the spied upon, but on an idealogical level there isn't Libertopia. So selling the information to the Chinese or whoever doesn't get him what he wants. He's not helping his 'cause' by doing that.
Remember how he could totally read the President's emails?
This article proves both points anyway, so I don't see why anyone is arguing:
1) Snowden had to "hack" the human component of the system to get the info he wanted. Which means he didn't actually have access to it.
2) Security in these contractors seems ridiculously lax. Not only did they hire Snowden, Snowden managed to collect 20-25 passwords from people with high level access.
Seriously, this is the stupidest argument.
Y'all can't drop the whole "politicians play to the crowd" thing when it becomes inconvenient.
I dunno. We don't have full access to the information that Snowden has, but there isn't anything novel in there so far.
Any intelligence agency out there should already have been operating under the assumption that the NSA, as well as every other competent intelligence agency, was already or trying to do those things. If they weren't, they were simply incompetent.
We've known the US Government (and allies) have been top-notch at signals intelligence since at least WW2. Any intelligence agency that doesn't automatically assume that the US Government would have access to information sent through US corporations and / or stored in servers on US soil is being negligent.
At most, the Snowden leaks would provide verification and maybe some program names. He would be most useful either in place as a mole, or doing exactly what he's doing now - releasing bits and pieces of information, making claims, and agitating the public to try and put restraints on the US intelligence gathering apparatus.
As I said once before, it's the digital version of the janitorial security problem - the janitor is relatively low in the food chain but needs wide ranging access to do their job. Which is why they are an oft overlooked weak point in security.
Your last sentence strikes me as being extremely idealistic and incommensurate with reality. "Elect someone you trust" ? How many Senators do you trust? Which of those aging millionaires do you think has your back? How many people do you know who even have the resources to run for Senate, and of those people, how many would you trust in office?
"Trust" has nothing to do with electoral politics in America. Holding an elected official responsible for their actions rely on open access to their voting history and stated positions; even when those conditions are fulfilled, it is difficult to ensure accountability. In a situation like NSA surveillance, where most members of Congress are not privy to classified details and where the amount of funding itself is a state secret, holding said Congressfolk accountable for their votes is essentially impossible. The only reason people in office/running for office are even being forced to state a position on this subject is that the issue has been in the news over the past few months.
I wish the solution to our problems was a simple as electing trustworthy individuals to Congress, but that's just not the world we live in.
Except it hasn't. The problem is people don't want to present a reasonable metric by which they think national security can be guaranteed against an adversary of unknown scope and capability. They instead assume that our adversaries are incapable, wouldn't do certain things, and will probably be caught by other measures.
So you see the problem of course? We can't make assumptions about our foes without information on them, we can't collect information if we don't know who they are, and to collect information you generally need to sift a large body of general information to find leads.
We're not fighting WW2 anymore, but even when we were, signals intercepts on civilians was kind of an important counter-espionage operation method. There's a reason the phrase was "loose lips sink ships" amongst civilians.
The overwhelming perception I get from people who argue against the whole concept of intelligence agencies (or the NSAs intercept capabilities) is a feeling that the threat just isn't there - which, while not unreasonable, is something you can't know without intelligence to support it. That's the minimum response you can have - and as comes up often in discussions of the absurdities of airport security, has always been a far better defence against terrorism then any amount of invasive bodily searches at "random".
Are any such people in this thread?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The very guy he's talking to?
And if one wants to extend beyond just this thread, there's Snowden himself who's motives have become very clear at this point and they aren't about stopping abuse, they are about stopping surveillance. And then many of his supporters.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So, you're right that the anti-surveillance sentiment in part results from a belief that the threat, if present, is overstated and not significant enough to justify the current policy, and you're right that the nature of the issue makes determining the truth or falsity of that belief difficult if not impossible. But if privacy proponents have to prove the lack of a threat, an argument against extensive surveillance is essentially impossible unless you're one of the relative few who is privy to state secrets. Which brings us back to "trust us, guys."
When I said surveillance has no such examples, I meant that it lacks the obvious examples of benefits that can be easily pointed to when discussing other issues like taxation. That's not really a criticism of surveillance so much as an observation that its benefits are far more difficult to perceive. As I said in that post, however, the argument which led to that statement was a fairly poor one in the first place.
The second bolded part specifically designates "current surveillance policy" as being unjustified, not state surveillance as a whole.
Another thing to point out is that successful intelligence work is by its very nature secret in its successes and only noteworthy and publicized in its failures.
Lets say that there is a terrorist cell out there planning some majorly nasty shit. And the intelligence community scores a slam dunk. Rolls up the terrorist cell before they can do anything, backtraces their suppliers and financiers and shuts those guys down as well. An utter 100% success. The kind of shit that happens in an action movie and almost never in real life. The public will never hear about that. If the technique can be used again, telling the public about operation "We just kicked ass. Go us" will prevent that technique from ever working again. Also if the people you just took down knew something and you are currently interrogating them, if their terrorist associates know they are captured they are going to work very hard and very quickly to make whatever their buddies knew irrelevant and out of date.
On the other hand you can't just assume no terrorist attacks means success. Ala the rock that grants you protection from Tigers.
Edit: I know, I just restated what you said (when I re-read your comment I got that), but I still like expanding the point.
It's more then that. When intelligence works you don't need to stop "imminent attacks". Stuff doesn't get barely averted, it's gets shut down long before anyone starts buying fertilizer. The planners get turned into informants, and everyone trying to figure out what to do spends a bunch more time wondering if "Jihadhi87" is actually a CIA honeypot.
Well if its gonna be a CIA honeypot shouldn't it be "Jihottie87"?
The converse strikes me as true as well--you can't hold politicians who support the NSA to be acting in the pure public interest--because that's what politicians do!--but then turn around and hold politicians who don't support the NSA to be acting out of unprincipled self-service.
Sort of; senators in the past who have done that have been censored.
I don't recall anyone pointing to senators publicly supporting government actions as demonstration that those actions are therefore good.
A system is not broken because Rubio throws a shit fit.
Those Suicide Girls are the bomb.
What I believe they are doing is encroaching on our civil liberties. They are looking at what private corporations are doing in the US and around the world and selling it. They are also probably using this information to trade stock on. I think that it's much more likely that these organizations are selling private corporations and inviduals secrets for the top dollar than actually looking for terrorism. The simple fact that these organizations have such capacity and need no warrant and have limited oversight ensures that they will do these kinds of things, which is threatening to our democracy and to any notion of fair competition.
Got proof? And no, cynicism does not count as proof.
The oversight system as we understand it now appears to be lacking. If this sort of thing is not currently going on, with limited oversight it's only a matter of time. Unless you somehow believe that these organizations are able to only hire 100% ethical individuals who have no interest in profit. It's a matter of incentives, the less authority figures are looking over your shoulder and asking questions, the more prone you are to abusing your power.