Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
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Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#2Secrecy of a program undermined it's effectiveness. It seems clear from this document that they completely failed to learn what the 9/11 commission blamed the attacks on: not that we didn't have the intelligence, that the intelligence was managed and communicated poorly.
I can't imagine as an FBI agent to investigate random phone numbers and told they were relevant without any context, especially when most of them are nothing. And if nobody can use this intelligence, why collect it? It sounds like big data buzzwords gone mad.
Even worse is the secret legal memos. If judges aren't allowed access to the legal documents about the program, how can they be expected to protect our democratic institutions and freedoms? Even most of the Bush and Obama administration's counsel were kept in the dark about the legal memos.
A power grab? If so, a pretty ineffective one, it seems nobody has benefited from the stellar wind program or even has access to information from it.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#3I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive.
Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone could have imagined was going on. People's thoughts as they were evolving, the NSA could watch someone and know what they were doing before they did! But compared to this level of surveillance, which was WAAAAAY beyond anything the Stasi or Gestapo ever did. And did people think that they were living under a police state? Did people have to watch what they said and wrote? No.
Because the NSA treated that data with an incredible amount of responsibility. They were, quite literally, a black box: https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+building
And you were hard-pressed to find irresponsibility there. They actively denied their capabilities, hid from the public, remained completely hidden. This is great: it's the opposite of living under a dictatorship. It's great that they hid so well. I gained enormous respect for them. In addition, I thought that that data would have the most amazing historical significance of anything humanity has ever recorded.
One of the greatest insights into the past that we have is at Pompeii, where Vesuvius erupted and covered a city in ash, freezing everything just as it was, in the middle of conversations. Blackboards were filled with crude insults to the teacher. People left graffiti everywhere. It gave us an incredible amount of information.
Can you imagine in the year 3,000, when the NSA's documents are ancient history, what kind of insight into the human condition, machinations, good guys, bad guys, plans, history, humanity can gain by seeing every single person's complete activity down to the second, down to when they were composing their thoughts?
I believe that history can be a huge lesson, and not only "those who do not learn from history are doomed to report it", but that it's better to learn from somebody else's mistakes. In the year three thousand, humanity can learn so much from a complete black-box recording of everything that has ever happened today.
Compared to this level of access - which is illegal, which they denied, which they still do not acknowledge - about the only abuses someone can name is that a general had a sexual affair (which most people would consider immoral) and they manufactured a back story for how they learned this. That's the worst thing I've ever heard about them.
Why do they have to exist at all?
Some people suck. A free society means people are free to do and think whatever they want. Some of them will choose to pursue great ideas and ideals, set up huge disruptive businesses where they generate billions of dollars in true value for society, that never existed before. The easiest way to be a millionaire is to make something great, and let people buy it.
Other people will look at a millionaire, and make an elaborate scheme to blackmail and extort them. They think that the easiest way to make money is through theft, scamming, blackmail, extortion. What should happen if Larry Ellison's wife is kidnapped? What if a virus writer encrypts your files and illegally blackmails you to decrypt them?
In the latter case, the person should be brought to justice. And this should happen: https://noransom.kaspersky.com/
Everybody knows what happens under an anarchy, or a complete lack of rule of law: people spend their energies arming up personally, as opposed to building relationships, products, ideas, or being productive. People don't trust each other. Might makes right.
How much better than that is the fact that if you concoct an elaborate kidnapping or terrorist plan, the appropriate agency can get the black box to spit some facts out about this?
Since learning the extent of the information the NSA has siphoned up, and the incredible responsibility that they've treated this with, I would not have a problem if they had a a multi-petabyte database with every thought, action, keystroke, of everyone on the planet. If anything it is too bad humanity is not quite in a position to be united into a single world government that this is a part of.
I support the NSA in siphoning off all the data, treating it responsibly, hiding, cowering from oversight, denying what they are doing (even from other agencies), withholding data, and being the black box that they are. I don't mind if readers here work for them.
This is just about the opposite of what I thought about the NSA before the Snowden revelations!
Their very existence keeps people honest. When people online happen to be talking about how to do something destructive, they joke about being added to some list. But by the same token, they wouldn't even think about actually concocting such a plan.
EDIT: I want to reiterate that they should not admit any of this and vehemently deny it. That is the difference between living under a dictatorship, or living under complete freedom from surveillance and government oversight, while enjoying protection from kidnapping and ransom.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#4I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
The picture you've painted isn't comforting at all. It's absolutely terrifying. You're drawing these comparisons against communication edge cases (blackmail and a descent into anarchy), rather than realizing that the vast, vast, majority of conversations are banal. Banality notwithstanding, that doesn't mean it's okay for them all to be sucked up and stored forever. Common people keep their FB and Instagram set to private for a reason: because they don't want strangers viewing their semi-public, banal information. And you want to extrapolate out FB and Instagram (small slices of life) to everyone's entire online presence, forever? That's both patronizing, to make that assumption for other people, and absurd.
Pompeii is great for archaeologists, but given the opportunity, I bet those people would have opted to leave behind a crafted and consented-to image, rather than having their laundry aired out for all to see for eternity.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#5I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
You can't possibly believe a word of what you just wrote.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#6I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
> Some of them will choose to pursue great ideas and ideals, set up huge disruptive businesses where they generate billions of dollars in true value for society
I think the verdict is still out on whether or not someone's great idea + my data is good for me or not. I'm leaning with it's not.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#7I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
I would not have a problem if they had a a multi-petabyte database with every thought, action, keystroke, of everyone on the planet.
I would, and furthermore the supreme law of the land dictates that they have no right to do such a thing.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#8I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
I'm sitting in front of my keyboard for like 10 minutes trying to find where to start from... Honestly, I cannot.
> Can you imagine in the year 3,000, when the NSA's documents are ancient history, what kind of insight into the human condition, machinations, good guys, bad guys, plans, history, humanity can gain by seeing every single person's complete activity down to the second, down to when they were composing their thoughts?
Yes, it will be very pleasant - and exciting at the same time - to be able to view - and perhaps enjoy the same - activities of a person that searches for tentacle/eel porn.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#9Does anyone seriously think the program is actually to stop terror? It is here to control the population in the country. Oh you want to run for president with ideas we don't like? It would be sad if someone publishes all this data we are sitting on.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#10I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction to rethink their life, and work on something constructive. Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone co…
If as it seems Snowden sucked it all up with wget and there was no audit trail, there can be no doubt that many others also have all this data - still comforting?
The fact is that collecting all this info in the first place is diametrically opposed to security of individuals, companies, and the state. It will never be perfectly secure and digital storage and distribution means that one breach and it's all out there forever.
What that means is that the individuals who run your judiciary and police, government, media, education, corporations, financial institutions, and infrastructure are all now compromised and open to blackmail and pressure tactics. Great ammo for another trading bloc which wants to manage your slow decline, or trigger some shocks through your financial markets at just the worst possible moment, or maybe influence your next election.
The only conclusion here is that the practise of collecting and aggregating personal data can harm the national interest and should be very highly controlled, whether by state or private organisations.
We used to think asbestos was great and produce tons of the stuff. These huge aggregated datastores are much the same.