Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors • Hacker News Board

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#451

Post by boomboomsubban » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #448

boomboomsubban wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you have any evidence...? It also links to another similar account a few days before that. And why would Egyptian activists make that up? Plus, even if the NSA isn't regularly doing the kidnapping, torture, and killing themselves, they certainly help our other organizations do these things. Things like the disposition matrix, black sites, and locally with parallel construction all rely on their surveillance.

How did she know he worked for NSA? Did she have any way to verify he was an American or worked for the NSA? Do you think the NSA hires people who specialize in HUMINT? Why would he tell her he works for the NSA? Too many unanswered questions. It's more likely she made it up because it gets people angry and that's what activists need to do. If you have problems with other parts of our government, by all means critici…

I will admit to being wrong on this one, as Egypt seems to have an NSA as well. A mistake, not a fabrication.

Personally, I agree with the other poster and view the NSA's collaboration as enough evidence, but had remembered seeing the Egypt thing last year.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#452

Post by ericns » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #443

phobosanomaly wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US did more or less drone-strike this American and his 16 year-old son for criticizing the county on social media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki The difference between 'recruiter' and a guy who sent some emails to some people is unfortunately a distinction that is up to some dweeb with more top-secret security clearances than medals on a North Korean general. I assume it's the same thing in China, the…

No... >"According to U.S. government officials, as well as being a senior recruiter and motivator, he was centrally involved in planning terrorist operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda" We are better off with him dead. He was American, but his allegiance was to al Qaeda and he was planning to murder civilians.

Didn't Bush and Obama do the same thing with their allegiance to Saudi Arabia? Recruit a bunch of kids, send them to be maimed and kill civilians...

Does your sense of morality and ethics end at the border, shouldn't these types of values be a bit more universal?

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#453

Post by phobosanomaly » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #445

phobosanomaly wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have an alternative method that wouldn't release damaging information? Yes, independent review by a board or committee separate from the defense intelligence complex who will help determine if the information is actually damaging or if it's just some bullshit a midlevel staffer at the Pentagon determined is 'damaging.' As an American, I am deeply disturbed by the complete absence of transparency of these pro…

>independent review by board or committee Their spying on Americans is reviewed by judges and courts. They get warrants for every american they spy on. The senate intelligence committee may (behind closed doors and under the oath of secrecy) inquire about just about anything the intelligence community does. The president may at his or her sole discretion declassify any information. Haven't you heard, the first rule o…

Unfortunately, they only get warrants when civilians are looking over their shoulder. Snowden cleared that one up.

Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee. That's like calling the police commission an independent committee. Even if they were, how would we even know if they're not just rubberstamping stuff?

Congress is in the dark. Remember Niger?

"We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing. So John McCain is going to try to create a new system to make sure that we can answer the question (about) why we were there," he said. "We'll know how many soldiers are there, and if somebody gets killed there, that we won't find out about it in the paper." When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was asked later on "Meet the Press" about knowing whether there were troops in Niger, he responded, "No, I did not."

https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/politics/niger-troops-lawmake...

If they don't even know where we have troops doing mildly classified stuff, how much do you think they know about black programs that are totally off the books?

The president has thus far decided things like, 'huh, the Coronavirus is a lot worse than everyone thinks...in February...better not tell anyone about it and we should do absolutely nothing to prepare' classified. Great guy to have in charge of that.

Think about the people we're actually fighting wars against? Do you think elaborate deception has made a sliver of difference in any conflict fought by the United States in the past 60 years?

We need transparency and civilian oversight. I'm not afraid of an Afghan Taliban fighter knowing our super secret plan to spy on the planet. I am afraid of a defense intelligence complex that has shown zero hesitancy in the past to spy on Americans and is increasingly operating in the shadows with little oversight outside of the White House.

This whole system is not engineered for the benefit of the American people. It's a juggernaut of bureaucracy and secrecy that serves a defense and intelligence community that is pursuing god knows what.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#454

Post by phobosanomaly » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #443

phobosanomaly wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US did more or less drone-strike this American and his 16 year-old son for criticizing the county on social media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki The difference between 'recruiter' and a guy who sent some emails to some people is unfortunately a distinction that is up to some dweeb with more top-secret security clearances than medals on a North Korean general. I assume it's the same thing in China, the…

No... >"According to U.S. government officials, as well as being a senior recruiter and motivator, he was centrally involved in planning terrorist operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda" We are better off with him dead. He was American, but his allegiance was to al Qaeda and he was planning to murder civilians.

...based on classified information that we are not allowed to see, and may or may not exist.

You and I have no evidence that he was anything other than a loudmouth who bagged on the U.S. on the web and responded to emails from anyone who sent them.

Remember when Saddam had those tractor-trailer biological weapons factories driving around Iraq ready to release clouds of Anthrax on American civilians? That was also based on classified information from a US government official.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-05-29/cia-confident-iraq-tr...

Completely fabricated.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#455

Post by deathgrips » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #451

deathgrips wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did she know he worked for NSA? Did she have any way to verify he was an American or worked for the NSA? Do you think the NSA hires people who specialize in HUMINT? Why would he tell her he works for the NSA? Too many unanswered questions. It's more likely she made it up because it gets people angry and that's what activists need to do. If you have problems with other parts of our government, by all means critici…

I will admit to being wrong on this one, as Egypt seems to have an NSA as well. A mistake, not a fabrication. Personally, I agree with the other poster and view the NSA's collaboration as enough evidence, but had remembered seeing the Egypt thing last year.

Ah, I also failed to consider that Egypt had an agency named NSA. I feel dumb now.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#456

Post by deathgrips » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

srean wrote: post #449

deathgrips wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the NSA gives the orders on who to kill and who to kidnap?

"Order" not sure, "recommendations" very conceivable. Anyway the issue is not NSA issue is the freedoms and protections offered by the country. If NSA doesnt but CIA does, its not any better. You started with the claim that unlike China an US citizen is unlikely to get his/her privacy encroached on quoting all sorts of processes. I just gave examples where these processes didnt do much in preventing breaches of such…

The examples you included do not show that Americans have their rights deprived without legal oversight. The exception is drone striking Americans who are overseas plotting imminent terrorist attacks.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#457

Post by deathgrips » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

phobosanomaly wrote: post #453

deathgrips wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>independent review by board or committee Their spying on Americans is reviewed by judges and courts. They get warrants for every american they spy on. The senate intelligence committee may (behind closed doors and under the oath of secrecy) inquire about just about anything the intelligence community does. The president may at his or her sole discretion declassify any information. Haven't you heard, the first rule o…

Unfortunately, they only get warrants when civilians are looking over their shoulder. Snowden cleared that one up. Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee. That's like calling the police commission an independent committee. Even if they were, how would we even know if they're not just rubberstamping stuff? Congress is in the dark. Remember Ni…

>Unfortunately, they only get warrants when civilians are looking over their shoulder.

Source on this?

>Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee.

What does independent committee mean to you? They are from entirely different branches of government. That's as independent as it gets.

The post you linked is from the Senate Armed Services committee which is not the legislative oversight for the NSA. Different people, different processes. Geriatric senators probably forgot we had troops in Nigeria because America has troops in untold dozens of countries. No one remembers the whole list.

If you think the Taliban is our biggest threat you should leave national security to the people who do it for a living.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#458

Post by phobosanomaly » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

deathgrips wrote: post #457

phobosanomaly wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, they only get warrants when civilians are looking over their shoulder. Snowden cleared that one up. Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee. That's like calling the police commission an independent committee. Even if they were, how would we even know if they're not just rubberstamping stuff? Congress is in the dark. Remember Ni…

>Unfortunately, they only get warrants when civilians are looking over their shoulder. Source on this? >Those judges, and the members of the senate intelligence committee are most definitely not an independent committee. What does independent committee mean to you? They are from entirely different branches of government . That's as independent as it gets. The post you linked is from the Senate Armed Services committe…

This is the problem. I can't prove based on an objective source I can drop a link to, because it's all classified. That's literally the crux of the problem. When someone says 'trust us, we have all this evidence, but we can't let you see any of it because it's a secret,' does your skepticism not trigger in the least bit?

I can say that there are only 11 judges listed as being on the FISA court, and I don't believe that 11 people can personally oversee every instance of the NSA conducting surveillance on all potential Americans of interest around the planet. Maybe they can. Who knows, it's classified.

Congress is a different branch than the presidency, doesn't mean Mitch McConnell is an independent check-and-balance on the authority of the president.

It's literally their job to be aware of that. They have a staff whose entire job it is to keep them aware of that. If they can't keep track, what's the difference between them and the congressional committee that's supposed to be keeping tabs on the NSA?

The people who do national security for a living are in a bubble that facilitates the construction of boogeymen. And if they can't give me any credible evidence as to the existence of said boogeymen without saying 'sorry, that's all classified,' then why should I believe otherwise?

Right now I'm supposed to be scared of China, but I personally see no evidence that I should be more worried about them than my own president who covered-up the threat from Coronavirus in February, and then tried to blame it all on the Chinese as a diversion. Looks to me like the Chinese were actually trying to warn us in February, while the President was trying to cover it up:

Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China - January 24, 2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study - February 24, 2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...

If the Taliban aren't a threat to U.S. national security, then why was the longest war in American history fought on Afghan soil? Isn't that where all those 9/11 hijackers were from, and the country that bankrolled them? If they weren't from Afghanistan why didn't we sanction or invade the country they were actually from, and that gladly bankrolled the operation? Is that classified too?

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/13/855611173/fbi-accidentally-re...

Oops... I guess it isn't anymore.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#459

Post by kube-system » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #365

boomboomsubban wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of them particularly care about the average citizens interests, so treating the two similarly seems fair.

Who would you rather have logs of all your Internet activity: your own government, or another government thousands of miles away that is increasingly at odds with country's?

The answer highly depends on who you are, what you do, and who is interested in your information.

Re: Former NSA chief Keith Alexander has joined Amazon’s board of directors

#460

Post by turing_complete » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #119

Here in Germany I used to work for a company that swore off Amazon and other US cloud vendors because of things like this: the relationships between them and the government are too tight. They didn’t want German user data being compromised. It could have been FUD to do things on premises or what not but it seemed to make sense at the time and now with this...

Relationships between large German companies and the government are even tighter than Amazon's.