The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni • Hacker News Board

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#91

Post by AJ007 » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 1:01 AM UTC

Floegipoky wrote: post #79

AJ007 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lessons are here for groups outside intelligence as well: political, corporations, not-for-profits, universities, etc. If you create enough propaganda, repeat it long enough, and put great effort in to suppressing the debunking of that propaganda eventually your own people will fall victim to that propaganda and believe that it is unquestionably true. At that point any remaining success is not the result of good deci…

You just described the war on drugs. Generations of leaders who were brainwashed in grade school now perpetuate the exact same hysteria and junk science. Just goes to show how long-lasting this process can be.

Bingo, it applies to a wide range of areas. Sometimes it is better to exclude examples when explaining a concept and let people think about it for themselves a while.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#92

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 4:34 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #76

mpweiher wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As retold by Adam Curtis in the excellent BBC three-parter "The Power of Nightmares": 3a. CIA people told new director, "er, boss, that was actually us". 3b. CIA director does not believe his own people. And of course the whole "Team B" episode (Rumsfeld etc.), where the complete lack of evidence that the Soviets had was reinterpreted to mean they MUST OBVIOUSLY HAVE and perfect secrecy, otherwise how could we not ha…

Curtis wrote also wrote a great piece about the role incompetence played in the formation of intelligence agencies, titled "BUGGER: Maybe the Real State Secret Is That Spies Aren't Very Good At Their Jobs And Don't Know Very Much About the World". http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

Yep, that was also excellent. Some confirmation from the highest places:

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recounts that he never read the BND reports, because anything they wrote was tainted. He just asked other world leaders directly instead.

http://www.zeit.de/2013/45/nsa-abhoeraffaere-gelassenheit

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#93

Post by tripzilch » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 8:23 AM UTC

teekert wrote: post #15

tinco wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because for non-US countries nothing has changed. It's been a publicly known fact that the US spies on non-US citizens by monitoring internet traffic for over 20 years. Ask any hacker aged over 24. There's simply hardly anything worth being surprised about as a foreign national. If you asked anyone in The Netherlands 10 years ago if they thought their e-mail on Hotmail or GMail was monitored by authorities in the U.S…

I agree, I find it way more shocking that my government (the Netherlands) is so laid back about all this than the "revelation" that Americans care about America spying on Americans. Yes, the dutch government announced a Dropbox alternative that is open source ( http://tweakers.net/nieuws/97793/overheid-werkt-aan-opensour... ) but I believe it is the wrong approach. They should publicly denounce NSA spying and swear t…

The Dutch secret service is at least as bad as the NSA. They just lack the scale, the budget and the opportunity.

Re: The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

#94

Post by bakhy » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 2:32 PM UTC

worklogin wrote: post #88

bakhy wrote: post #5

The same offensive narrative repeats itself. - The government is bulk collecting data on foreigners. - Meh... - They're also incidentally spying on US citizens in the processs. - SAY WHAT?! If the USA could try to acknowledge the human rights of non-US citizens, that would be really nice.

And your same indignant stance will get largely ignored by me, because it ignores a core fact: The US doesn't have imminent jurisdiction over you. You likely aren't ever going to run for political office in the United States. The US probably doesn't share data with local Japanese law enforcement. In short, the practical threat is much lower for you than it is for an American. The CIA spied on the Intelligence committ…

That is a good point! But the same attitude does not stop at surveillance. Detaining people (or, should I say folks? lol), or executing them by drones, without any trial, are also things that don't cause too much fuss in the US public, because the targets are not US citizens... Granted, the scope of these issues is minute compared to the scope of NSA surveillance.

But all of this together makes the famous words "all men are created equal" sound hollow.

You also stated their abuses against your government, and I agree that those are the truly worst offences they made, completely undermining your democracy. But that is off topic from my comment. US media react strongly to any US citizen being spied on, not just politicians, while implicitly condoning bulk collection of data on ALL non-citizens, not just adversaries. I presume adversaries are most targeted, but nobody really raises that issue or asks for that kind of oversight. Non-citizens are just not created equal.

P.S. Constitutions are a big thing in many other places, not just in the US. I hope your phrasing was just an accidental mistake, because you sounded as if you think no other country respects it's constitution...