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NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

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Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#241

Post by sneak »

betterunix wrote: post #201
sneak wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest follow-up question: How much danger would it need to put us in for you to think it's a bad idea? What if what they're not telling us is that FISA collection orders and analysis has kept people from nuking Manhattan a half-dozen times?

So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants? What if the government claimed that they needed to put cameras in everyone's livingroom, because by doing so they could stop a major terrorist attack? The problem with your argument is that it basically allows the government to do anything it wants, and then claim that there…

> So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants?

Whoa, you've just gone all straw-man on me. Stop presuming and just answer my question. Somewhere between "nothing happens" and "vaporizes the whole planet" is a consequence that makes the loss of privacy an acceptable option. Where is it?

I didn't make an argument one way or the other.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#242

Post by return0 »

aheilbut wrote: post #183
guelo wrote: post #104

We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to c…

If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things. All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets. It's not pretty, but that's how things are. It might well be that the current approach to domestic surveillance is out of balanc…

History also teaches that all governments that did not trust their people (hence had to spy on them) did not survive long. Fighting wars is very different from spying your own people, societies are built on trust after all.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#243

Post by sneak »

flyinRyan wrote: post #233
sneak wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with you, but to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Would not having planes invisible to radar (B-2), or those that could fly faster than missiles (SR-71) be nice secrets to keep from ever…

>what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? I'm strongly against it. A lot of our breakthroughs are too expensive for dangerous countries to copy in any case. > be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you? When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US? If all your justifications are about nightmare scenari…

> When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US?

Why do you think those answers are what they are?

Could it be that the latest public data we have is that we were building planes FIFTY YEARS AGO that could effortlessly outrun SAMs? Can you possibly imagine the shit that is flying out of Groom Lake these days?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#244

Post by flyinRyan »

sneak wrote: post #243
flyinRyan wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? I'm strongly against it. A lot of our breakthroughs are too expensive for dangerous countries to copy in any case. > be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you? When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US? If all your justifications are about nightmare scenari…

> When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US? Why do you think those answers are what they are? Could it be that the latest public data we have is that we were building planes FIFTY YEARS AGO that could effortlessly outrun SAMs? Can you possibly imagine the shit that is flying out of Groom Lake these days?

Haha, I think you watch too much Hollywood. No one has invaded the US because there was no value in doing so. Germany taking over most of Europe made sense. Taking over the US? Not so much. At least not until they had a much larger land holding.

The US' geographical position has had more to do with their safety than any secret they've ever had. But don't let me disrupt your "G.I. Joe" comic book fantasies.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#245

Post by trotsky »

It's true, but at least an older generation sees any kind of out of band disclosure as a fundamental attack on their views ob punishment. My father, for exmaple, recently retired but still works in the intelligence community. He bloody _hates_ all of the bulk surveillance, and is very careful about what he publishes on the internet.

He routinely complains that current executive orders vis-aa-vis afgan tactics go too far, and never believed iraq made sense excpet to jr.

but once somoone has dropped TS/NOFORN docs all over, he'll never give the guy even one bit of respect. Instead (and just like manning) he's quite riled up about how such a breech (even though he ws shocked and upset to read the lengths of data being hoovered) benefitted none of us. And yet having an official reference for things I'd be prone to rail on after a handful of drinks does us all good. Before the unfortunate listened would have to nod pollitely and meekly suggest, well I'm sur they're jusy looking out for us.

I doubt many will end up seeing iy that way.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#246

Post by sneak »

flyinRyan wrote: post #240
pappyo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we don't live in a world of ideals. With complete transparency comes little ability for security. Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Crime becomes more rampant and life become more unstable. If you ask a typical American if they are willing to die for their freedom, very few would. They'd rather the security. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just true.

>Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Citation needed. We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. People who wanted to use terror against the US have either managed to or failed by their own incompetence. What we do know is that before we started getting insane about security there would be some attack about once every 10 years. Why do you imagine it's any higher frequency now?…

> We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped.

My guess would be that NSA guys probably take the fact that many Americans hold that view as a huge compliment. I'd be willing to be there's a whole book of "if only you knew".

(FWIW, I still don't think that warrants the program.)

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#247

Post by anigbrowl »

javajosh wrote: post #229
anigbrowl wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government isn't really spying on us en masse, any more than terrorists are out to get us en masse. for one thing, people are more concerned with external threats than internal ones (and I think that's reasonably rational, because the US is really a very long way from anything resembling totalitarianism); for another, most people assume taht the government already has/had access to what you do on your cellphone/f…

>The government isn't really spying on us en masse Actually they are. >most people assume taht the government already has/had access to what you do on your cellphone/facebook/internet searches I think that most people assume that email is just like mail: private, and protected by the 4th amendment. I think most people assume that their phone records are similarly protected. And I doubt that most people, possibly incl…

I don't count trawling data as described so far to be spying, any more than I consider my back yard getting photographed by spy satellites to mean they're spying on my place of residence.

I think that most people assume that email is just like mail: private, and protected by the 4th amendment. I think most people assume that their phone records are similarly protected.

The law has said otherwise for >30 years, and I think most people who think about it are aware that their email and phone records are stored by 3rd parties. Do you have evidence for your view, or are you just projecting what you think should be the case onto everyone else?

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#248

Post by flyinRyan »

sneak wrote: post #246
flyinRyan wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Terrorist attempts become more frequent. Citation needed. We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. People who wanted to use terror against the US have either managed to or failed by their own incompetence. What we do know is that before we started getting insane about security there would be some attack about once every 10 years. Why do you imagine it's any higher frequency now?…

> We have no reason to believe that any actual terror attacks have been stopped. My guess would be that NSA guys probably take the fact that many Americans hold that view as a huge compliment. I'd be willing to be there's a whole book of "if only you knew". (FWIW, I still don't think that warrants the program.)

Life is not a Hollywood movie. Hollywood movies, comic books and so on use larger than life figures doing larger than life activities to stop larger than life villains. In reality, no one on earth is that competent. The villains are usually not very good (often blowing themselves up alone with their bombs) and the "good guys" are usually not that great either (often corrupt themselves).

If the government actually were stopping constant terrorist activity (a) they wouldn't parade obvious entrapment cases as "wins", they'd pick something legit to make us feel safer and (b) someone would talk. One of the contractors, loud mouths, drunks, etc. would eventually leak something. A group as large as NSA wouldn't be able to keep their world-saving completely quiet forever, that's just unrealistic.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#249

Post by ekianjo »

aheilbut wrote: post #183
guelo wrote: post #104

We don't need an NSA or CIA or any other spy agency. I know I'm an extremist on government secrets, but I think there should be none. Nothing should be outside the reach of a FOIA request. In my ideal world all government officials' documents and emails would be made publicly accesible in real time, they're working for us. Any exception or loophole to transparency gets abused, every time. If that makes it harder to c…

If you stop playing the game Civilization and look back at history, you'll see that there are a lot of very bad people in the world who do very bad things. All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets. It's not pretty, but that's how things are. It might well be that the current approach to domestic surveillance is out of balanc…

Yeah, if you stop seeing reality through your super narrow lens, you'll realize that large-scale wars are started by governments and states and not common people.

Re: NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor

#250

Post by ekianjo »

aheilbut wrote: post #225
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What freedoms are being protected exactly? The freedom from government intrusion in your private life? The freedom to travel? The freedom to bear arms and defend yourself? The freedom to grow whichever plant you wish in your own land? The freedom to do with your own body as you please, provided you do not harm anyone else? The freedom from excessive labour? The freedom to run a currency like Bitcoin? The freedom from…

The point is that security is a precondition to enjoying all of the freedoms you list. There are trade-offs to make between freedom and security, and neither the freedoms nor the security are absolute, and they never have been.

Since where Security is a precondition to Freedom ? I wonder where you conceived that strange idea. We never had as much security as we have now (compared to the hundreds of generations before us) yet we are losing our liberties at an alarming speed.
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