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Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

reuters.com

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Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#31

Post by vlasev »

Brushfire wrote: post #27
brown9-2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large part of the picture is being lost in the title of this submission. It's not that the NSA's entire mission has boiled down to monitoring 300 phone numbers worldwide. What is being stated is that "[l]ast year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records gathered daily by the NSA". ( http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021199412_nsatechd... )

I guess my point was that if they only use it 300 times, is it really worth having the program around given the combo of costs both in privacy and dollars? Of course there is more at play here, but they should be selling how many terrorist attacks they avoided, now how many people they snooped.

Would you know WHICH 300 phones to check without the program?

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#32

Post by stretchwithme »

threeseed wrote: post #30
Brushfire wrote: post #16

This is pretty amusing, but they've just made a classic apologists mistake. Either they need all this access and funding to surveil a large number of dangerous people, or they dont need either to surveil such a small number of people. If it only resulted in 300 phone numbers to track, then sure, maybe the privacy violations weren't as bad (hypothetically). But that argument then puts the whole program at a ridiculous…

But that argument then puts the whole program at a ridiculous cost to threat ratio. Sorry but this is just nonsense. Major terrorist acts e.g. 9/11 have a devastating impact on the economy. It results in a country-wide drop in consumer spending, consumer confidence, business spending, business confidence, hiring etc. As well as locally in areas like tourism. It alone accounted for a 1.1% drop in the third quarter GDP…

There are many threats to human life. There is a cost associated with preventing each life lost. Obviously it makes sense to consider it.

We could have never allowed foreign tourists into the country. That has a cost associated with it, right? That would prevented Saudis from going to flight school and booking those flights, right? Shouldn't protecting lives be before every other consideration?

No, we have to balance things. Protecting life can not prevent us from living our lives. Not everything the government chooses to do is worth the price.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#33

Post by stfu »

cpleppert wrote: post #29
EthanHeilman wrote: post #26

I am reminded for an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart changes his grade from 'F' to an 'A+'. Homer: [incredulously] A-plus?!? You don't think much of me, do you boy? Bart: [almost proudly] No sir! Homer: You know a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy. 300 phone numbers is a such low number it is completely unbelievable. I would expect a intelligence agency would be better at telling convincing lies,…

>>300 is a surprisingly round number. "[l]ast year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records gathered daily by the NSA" >>For future reference I might believe somewhere in the range of 15,000 to 50 million You think that there are at least 15,000 terrorists/foreign targets of interest that would have any reason to call a US number?

Obviously not the OP but I would give a definite yes to the second question, esp. considering what qualifies as a "terrorist" these days.

Let's take the Boston Bombers and make a low balling guess that each one of them has called 20 unique numbers in the last 6 month, each of which have in turn again called 20 unique numbers and we are already at 800 numbers under surveillance.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#34

Post by JacksonGariety »

> "As everybody who has been associated with the program's said if we had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego - two hijackers - able to use that program, that capability against the target, we might have been able to prevent 9/11"

These politicians believe it's worth invading everyone's privacy in order to prevent an attack on American soil. That's insane. A surveillance state is far more of a danger to people than terrorism.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#35

Post by saraid216 »

Karunamon wrote: post #15
saraid216 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "without their knowledge"? You didn't know?

Knowing that the NSA "watches a bunch of people" is a far sight different from knowing the NSA is watching you personally.

Eh, I guess you guys are just more optimistic than I. I've pretty much assumed for years that anything I type or say is recorded. NSA, black hat, script kiddie, whatever.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#36

Post by ahallock »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #34

> "As everybody who has been associated with the program's said if we had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego - two hijackers - able to use that program, that capability against the target, we might have been able to prevent 9/11" These politicians believe it's worth invading everyone's privacy in order to prevent an attack on American soil. That's insane. A surveillance state is far more of…

I would say surveillance at this level is almost a form of terrorism. I don't not feel safe using phone and web applications. I'm also fearful to post libertarian-leaning comments or comments that could be deemed "anti-government" for fear of being targeted in the future. It may be irrational and slightly paranoid, but I think history has shown us not to trust people with extraordinary power like this.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#37

Post by rayiner »

stretchwithme wrote: post #32
threeseed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that argument then puts the whole program at a ridiculous cost to threat ratio. Sorry but this is just nonsense. Major terrorist acts e.g. 9/11 have a devastating impact on the economy. It results in a country-wide drop in consumer spending, consumer confidence, business spending, business confidence, hiring etc. As well as locally in areas like tourism. It alone accounted for a 1.1% drop in the third quarter GDP…

There are many threats to human life. There is a cost associated with preventing each life lost. Obviously it makes sense to consider it. We could have never allowed foreign tourists into the country. That has a cost associated with it, right? That would prevented Saudis from going to flight school and booking those flights, right? Shouldn't protecting lives be before every other consideration? No, we have to balance…

If we're going with a cost/benefit analysis, it should be noted that the NSA accessing data that AT&T, Google, Facebook, etc, already collect is just about the cheapest sort of counter-measure you could have to terrorism. The "good old fashioned police work" that people keep suggesting would be far more expensive and invasive.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#38

Post by stretchwithme »

rayiner wrote: post #37
stretchwithme wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many threats to human life. There is a cost associated with preventing each life lost. Obviously it makes sense to consider it. We could have never allowed foreign tourists into the country. That has a cost associated with it, right? That would prevented Saudis from going to flight school and booking those flights, right? Shouldn't protecting lives be before every other consideration? No, we have to balance…

If we're going with a cost/benefit analysis, it should be noted that the NSA accessing data that AT&T, Google, Facebook, etc, already collect is just about the cheapest sort of counter-measure you could have to terrorism. The "good old fashioned police work" that people keep suggesting would be far more expensive and invasive.

Then let people volunteer for it in exchange for lower taxes. If the impact is truly minor, there should be many takers and much savings.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#39

Post by threeseed »

stretchwithme wrote: post #32
threeseed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that argument then puts the whole program at a ridiculous cost to threat ratio. Sorry but this is just nonsense. Major terrorist acts e.g. 9/11 have a devastating impact on the economy. It results in a country-wide drop in consumer spending, consumer confidence, business spending, business confidence, hiring etc. As well as locally in areas like tourism. It alone accounted for a 1.1% drop in the third quarter GDP…

There are many threats to human life. There is a cost associated with preventing each life lost. Obviously it makes sense to consider it. We could have never allowed foreign tourists into the country. That has a cost associated with it, right? That would prevented Saudis from going to flight school and booking those flights, right? Shouldn't protecting lives be before every other consideration? No, we have to balance…

Are you answering the right person ?

Because I was specifically talking about the costs associated with terrorist acts. And that preventing them has significant and widespread benefits to the economy. It's pretty clear that focusing just on ROI alone this program is easily worth the price.

Re: Obama does not feel Americans' privacy violated

#40

Post by EthanHeilman »

cpleppert wrote: post #29
EthanHeilman wrote: post #26

I am reminded for an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart changes his grade from 'F' to an 'A+'. Homer: [incredulously] A-plus?!? You don't think much of me, do you boy? Bart: [almost proudly] No sir! Homer: You know a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy. 300 phone numbers is a such low number it is completely unbelievable. I would expect a intelligence agency would be better at telling convincing lies,…

>>300 is a surprisingly round number. "[l]ast year, fewer than 300 phone numbers were checked against the database of millions of U.S. phone records gathered daily by the NSA" >>For future reference I might believe somewhere in the range of 15,000 to 50 million You think that there are at least 15,000 terrorists/foreign targets of interest that would have any reason to call a US number?

NSA does drug busts, industrial espionage, and political work for many other TLAs.

For instance we know some details about the MINARET project which was not the full extent of their spying that:

"Operating between 1967 and 1973, over 5,925 foreigners and 1,690 organizations and US citizens were included on the Project MINARET watch lists. NSA Director, Lew Allen, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975 that the NSA had issued over 3,900 reports on the watch-listed Americans." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MINARET

One imagines that with the growth of technology and the growth of the NSAs budget from that time they are able to distractedly increase those numbers.

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