71–80 of 323 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No offense taken. I was not asked to write this, nor guided in its contents by the government.
Did your post have to go through some sort of internal review before you were allowed to publish it? I find it weird that you're allowed to blog, let alone blog about the NSA.
The ends do not justify the means; on the contrary, nefarious means imply nefarious ends.
What is not in doubt is that the data from a panopticon used by a benevolent organization would be a powerful protection. But that same argument could have been used to subvert the 4th Amendment. Indeed, that argument could be used to subvert every amendment in the Bill of Rights, since a benevolent actor, by construction, would only subvert those rights with good reason.
The lack of thoughtfulness about what the Constitution means, and how it applies in a world where government wishes to piggy back on ubiquitous corporate surveillance (and extend it), is fascinating. One can imagine the creation of a new police robot that knows when you are not in your home, and which lets itself in, reads all your documents and catalogues all of your belongings, disturbing nothing. Would that be okay?
Don't fight it. Just let it take over. Stop struggling. Once you'll have stopped struggling, it won't hurt anymore. You won't feel any difference anymore. And it will be like it was never different.
Sad to see a programmer be so lost. Kudos for the post but if the NSA was squashing terrorist attacks daily with evidence of their efficacy they would be screaming it from the roof tops.
Snowden proved the implicit insecurity of information aggregation on such a massive scale and if he had access so will nation states... the one that I fear most is my own county.
I am a patriot too, just sad.
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Potential future abuse, whether due to laws becoming more permissive or a radical in-agency culture change that led to more people ignoring the law, is certainly concerning. As are current abuses. I just believe that the capabilities provided under the powers currently given to the agency are worth the abuses and potential future abuse. If I thought there was much chance that in the future, law enforcement and intell…
How do you answer questions of the NSA's known past involvement in targeting political figures such as Martin Luther King[1], US journalists, and US antiwar activists? The NSA was known to pass this intelligence to LE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MINARET#Domestic_target...
Interesting to get a look at what it's like to be inside the bubble. It's compartmentalized enough that the individual actors can justify their actions by the assumed competence and benevolence of the others. > I didn't test it, but I'm sure there was automated analysis that prevented or flagged use of US selectors. The mental leap here is subtle, but substantial. Since I have been told I can't use US selectors , I a…
What's particularly interesting is that some of the recent disclosures don't seem to be visible inside the bubble. Take this assertion, for instance: "The NSA copy of my emails won't be viewed by police or FBI investigating me about marijuana use, for instance. Law enforcement might get a search warrant and retrieve a copy from Google, but not from the NSA." In fact, it's been known for months that the DEA receives i…
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On one hand, I completely buy his assertions about China's pervasive hacking attempts/successes and that the NSA is our best tool for stopping them. On the other hand, you're right on the money about parallel construction. In my book, that's the one thing that sent the NSA "over the line." It's good to hear that many NSA employees take the police/military distinction seriously, but we know for a fact that some higher…
Thanks for letting me know about parallel construction - I hadn't heard of it. You're right, abuses probably have happened more often than those caught.
Seriously? Have you - as far as the NSA's activities goes - been living under a rock?
... oh.
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Definitely a bizarre mix, I thought it was a parody a couple of times. To combat the threat of nuclear war with the completely isolated totalitarian state of North Korea we must create and store copies of all global communication... (Of which approximately none will have originated in NK, our intelligence agencies still literally watch NK news broadcasts to find out what's going on in NK.)
North Korea surely has contacts with the rest of world, to deal with China, for instance.
They tell you about North Korea and your radioactive future. You like big problems and give it your best effort, perhaps thinking that you had a small part in saving the world. Then one day you read in the New York Times that your well intended project doesn't just scoop up communications from North Korean thugs, but what you helped make is collecting communications on everyone. It's helping the DEA illegally bust people. It's helping diplomats illegally snoop on our allies. It's helping keep US companies aware of what non-US companies are doing. Etc etc.
tl;dr Anyone could be a terrorist, everyone must be monitored.
There are articles suggesting this is happening many thousands of times per year - shouldn't each of these 'regular employees' be put on trial? They have committed serious crimes.
Some of the most disturbing passages:
> it would seriously impair our ability to spy if we couldn't gather everything.
It is saddening to hear someone so young say this.
> I am an American patriot. Patriotism to me simply means that I care about the US and its future.
How often is the word "patriot" used internally in the NSA? Who is building up this false hero, blind to his own oppression? A synonym might be a "justifier" or "oppressor" or even more simply "someone who has not yet been oppressed."
The rest speak for themselves:
> The NSA copy of my emails will only be viewed if the Agency can convince a judge that I might be a foreign agent.
> The vast majority of unauthorized retrievals of US-person data are unintentional.
> ...the rare cases of unauthorized data retrieval were ... regular employees illicitly viewing communications for personal gain
> XKeyscore ... was an analyst tool that I had access to.
> NSA employees are the law-abiding type.
I am scared to respond to this article. How easily could I be labeled a "foreign agent"? Does criticizing the system mean I'm working for another country? Did the NSA try to demonize Snowden as working for the Russians? Everything you have written has only increased my fears. To hear the blind loyalty to the system that comes from the NSA's own employees means that nothing is safe.
I hope that later in your life, as you grow as a person and a citizen, you see the evil in the system you colluded with, and experience a deep regret about your actions. The same regret that lay citizens feel when we learn our tax dollars have built a criminal entity. The regret that we did not try harder to stop it, to read up on laws like the Patriot Act and protest more. The regret of our collective ignorance that has built the tool to intrude on everything we do.