Important voice in the whole discussion around NSA, but forgive me being suspicious - it comes around the time his Kickstarter campaign is to end...
True enough, but wouldn't you probably do the same? :)
The NSA: An Inside View
231–240 of 323 posts
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#232TLDR: Don't worry. We have civil liberties orientation. You can trust us.
The author understands their is a misconception at play, but it's not that the public thinks NSA agents aren't upstanding or law-abiding, it's that NSA agents think their idea idea of patriotism is broad enough. It's telling that he dismissed an examination of patriotism, because that's the root of so much discord over civil liberties and national security.
There are two major currents of patriotism in this country. The first is that we take pride in our accomplishments, and we must defend our borders, protect our treasure and lives, and maintain the status quo. The second is more idealistic, that we take pride in having an open (vulnerable, ever-changing) society, and we must defend our democratic identity, promote participation, protect individual freedom, and be skeptical of concentrations of power. The first is practical, easy to quantify (and therefore appealing to a data-thirsty culture). The second is strategic, asks more from the average citizen, and rests on an understanding of alternative forms of society (what is lost when we prioritize security and order over those "inalienable" rights).
Ideally, the NSA would be staffed by patriots of the second type. They'd embrace 'public service' as having deep reverence for the public (not just their physical safety, but their liberties as well), that appreciates the philosophical underpinning of democracy (including it's necessitation of vulnerability and cultural evolution), and that prides itself in taking on their intelligence goals while ardently building checks and balances. They'd never just ask how they can get the information, but how it can be done in a way that proudly upholds American values. With bureaucracy you'll always have some amount of inefficiency and misalignment with top-level goals, but a pervasive culture can go along way.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#233Data is provided by ISPs and big companies like Google and Facebook.
Now, if you ask someone working for a ISP or Google if they hand over information to anyone, of course they'll say that they don't and haven't heard of someone doing it.
But of course they wouldn't have heard of it, one person with access is enough to rsync or sftp it to the NSA; no need for the others to know about it. They are needed to their jobs with clear conscience. I assume its the same in the NSA on the other side of the 'relationship'.
The same phych screening process the author took probably also selected the guy is doing the abuse.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have a great point, and the TL;DR of OP's entire post is "Unless you're doing something wrong, you have nothing to worry about." Which is the slimmest argument I ever hear in favor of these pervasive civil rights violations. I've never been a terrorist, never given any information to a foreign enemy, hell, I've barely ever even broken the law. But I do have a personal interest in Russia, speak Russian, and have b…
Doubt it, Russia isn't the enemy anymore, it is a country in disarray, trying to pick up the pieces after communism.
A number of countries could be of interest, not just "the enemy".
Recall that Russian sleeper agents were arrested in the US as recently as 2010.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imagine applying that idea to any other field, and keep in mind the unintended consequences The difference from other fields, is that the consequences in other fields are public. If a soldier shoots someone, that someone is dead and can prompt an investigation. If someone in the NSA abuses his powers, it is very likely that nobody will ever know. Or be able to know. No investigation will be triggered, and even if o…
> If someone in the NSA abuses his powers, it is very likely that nobody will ever know. But this claim is only a concern if an analyst can unilaterally abuse his power and never be caught. Are you saying this type of surveillance capability would then be acceptable if proper accountability and oversight safeguards can be emplaced? If anything this should be one of the easier things in the world to do, putting audit…
I thought the track record of the US Government on the matter was pretty clear:
1) Write down the law
2) Break it
3) Retroactively make the violation legal
Wrt to what oversight exists, well... the fact that they have no idea what material Snowden took with him is telling. But that's not what I'd be the most worried about. How hard would it be for the White House to ask information about a specific individual for "national security" reasons?
> But either way, you say that the consequences will at least be public in other scenarios. But that's not really true either. People get shot every day in this country; how do you know that any given shooting wasn't from a soldier?
I'm not a US citizen, but I would think murders are investigated by the police. It's usually difficult to hide.
> How do you know when the government lets a contract that they actually fully complied with the Federal Acquisition Regulations?
I suppose there are audits? Not to suggest that abuse does not exist, but I assume there is some oversight.
> How do you know that when a Congressman votes against his normal voting habits, whether that vote was due to his conscience or due to someone else's wallet?
You certainly don't, but you can make an educated guess.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. That the NSA doesn't need any form of oversight, and can be 100% trusted with the power to snoop on everybody belonging to any country (knowing - in case you thought "I don't care about these dirty foreigners as long as they promise not to look at US data" - that nothing prevents them from asking another Five Eyes member about your whereabouts without breaking the rules)? From the same government which gave you Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, warrantless wiretapping and extrajudicial executions-by-drone? Their definition of legality is terribly elastic.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but why can Loren Sands-Ramshaw use a blog, where he critics his employer and also use Kickstarter without getting fired? Not that I want him to get fired, but I worry that he risks his job in telling us this critical information! Aren't those things, a spy shouldn't have? Is the working strategy, filling the web with disinformation about NSA employees, or is it to never use the web with a real identity for the…
He's no longer employed by the NSA. He left to play with a startup and some personal coding projects; the last paragraph of his post links to them. Any discussion of his employment there still gets reviewed by the NSA, but that's routine for anyone who does classified work. (And he does say up front that he sought that review, and that they had no problem with him posting what the rest of us read.)
Thank you :)
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#237Don'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.
Bend over and shut up we are good peeps and the others that will rape you if we "pull-out" would be much worse. 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 na…
:-) Sorry, it was sarcasm.
It's what psychopaths usually say to their victims. If you hear it (or think you're hearing it), the person/organization you have in front of you is of psychopathic nature (it should be stopped at all costs).
Other translation: If we let them rape us, then we deserve it.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#238If he's so "patriotic" and so proud of him being a cyber spy, why didn't he jump out earlier to defend NSA's position? Why did he only come out and write an blog a few months late and around the same time as CBS 60 minutes NSA interview? I say this is a NSA propaganda.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#239The surveillance's purpose is not to catch criminals or terrorists, as evidenced by the recent confiscation of some NZ citizen's electronics at the airport. He had attended a meeting on mass surveillance, and is therefore considered a troublesome, unharmonious little peasant, and must be kept in check or made an example of. That is the point here. It's about power, and maintaining it through whatever means possible.
The US is showing clear and abundant signs of being a police state - there's simply no denying that anymore. So what does it matter what their rule books say about spying on people, when even the Constitution has been calmly disregarded for years?
"Here are the official guidelines for spying on people! Remember that spying on US citizens is restricted because that would be kind of naughty, but foreigners are fair game."
It's just ridiculous. But again, it's certainly not about catching terrorists. This level of surveillance would make Stalin just shit himself with joy.
Re: The NSA: An Inside View
#240Don'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.
"...everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."