Its irrelevant, whatever the 'value' of spying. Utilitarian ethics is a horrifying foundation for a nation.
Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#62Does 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.
> It is here to control the population in the country. I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it. During terrorist scares its powers expanded because there was an opportunity to expand, so…
This is how I see it. NSA gonna NSA. NSA gonna maximize the amount of NSA it does. This is why we are SUPPOSED to have congressional oversight. It is quite literally the point of congressional oversight; to keep things from getting out of control. To ensure the US citizen's and the US's ideals and interests are being served in organizations who have every incentive to pursue their own self-interests. However 9/11 happened and they were able to capitalize big time on fear. Our intelligence community does way to much serving its own interests under the guise of serving US interests IMHO.
However, I believe it is ALSO dangerous to have all this information as pointed out by the OP. Again, this is why we are supposed to have congressional oversight and why transparency and secret courts are such hot issues.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#63Does 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.
> It is here to control the population in the country. I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it. During terrorist scares its powers expanded because there was an opportunity to expand, so…
>I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it.
"It's there because it's there" is probably true, but that doesn't preclude the "population control" part. Such a system, will: 1) fight tendencies for change that doesn't play well with it ("self preservation"). 2) Find ways to justify its existance and funding, including targeting people, labelling them as "threats", and convincing politicians and the public about its necessity.
For targets of such a system think Aaron Swartz, Snowden, Assange, activists and such (and back to the past: the red scare, the huge FBI files and government interference with people like MLK, etc).
>But not because some cabal of Illuminati wanted to read sexting messages of every person on earth.
No, but a cabal of high ranking officials and corporations wanted a multi-billion system they could profit from, and have forever wanted a populace that plays by the establishment rules. It doesn't have to involve ancient orders to be a conspiracy, all power decisions taken behind closed doors and in a non democratic way are.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is here to control the population in the country. I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it. During terrorist scares its powers expanded because there was an opportunity to expand, so…
This is how I see it. NSA gonna NSA. NSA gonna maximize the amount of NSA it does. This is why we are SUPPOSED to have congressional oversight. It is quite literally the point of congressional oversight; to keep things from getting out of control. To ensure the US citizen's and the US's ideals and interests are being served in organizations who have every incentive to pursue their own self-interests. However 9/11 hap…
>This is why we are SUPPOSED to have congressional oversight.
Gongressional oversight, in the form of some special briefings, and meetings and such, means nothing. In a real democracy what you should have is oversight by the people, in an open and transparent system. Congress itself doesn't have that oversight (what with gerrymandering et al).
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#65It's kind of like security checks at airports, I am not aware that in the long history of terrorism, a single attack has been stopped at one of these security checks.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is how I see it. NSA gonna NSA. NSA gonna maximize the amount of NSA it does. This is why we are SUPPOSED to have congressional oversight. It is quite literally the point of congressional oversight; to keep things from getting out of control. To ensure the US citizen's and the US's ideals and interests are being served in organizations who have every incentive to pursue their own self-interests. However 9/11 hap…
> This is why we are SUPPOSED to have congressional oversight. Gongressional oversight, in the form of some special briefings, and meetings and such, means nothing. In a real democracy what you should have is oversight by the people, in an open and transparent system. Congress itself doesn't have that oversight (what with gerrymandering et al).
> In a real democracy what you should have is oversight by the people, in an open and transparent system.
In this context what exactly would that entail?
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#67Does 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.
> It is here to control the population in the country. I am not even sure about that. It is there because it is already there. By that I mean it is a giant bureaucratic investment project with billions of dollars flowing through. Many careers (oh look job creation!), business opportunities, support, training, etc tied into it. During terrorist scares its powers expanded because there was an opportunity to expand, so…
I agree. Intelligence services always liked collecting data. In fact, before facebook and computers, they had whole departments maintaining big paper files on who published what opinion, what any informer said on anyone, people's CV, relationships, etc. Browsing these files efficiently was a discipline in itself. The move to electronic files was only natural and they collected more data automatically just because they could, but it is sort of in their DNA, nothing to do with terrorism.
The problem with these files is that they are only going to really bite us over a longer period of time. When intelligence services get more reckless about them (procedures becoming more lax over time is a natural decay), and when they contain sufficient data over a long period.
Imagine what Nixon would have done with this data. We don't even need to invoke dictators!
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#68Its irrelevant, whatever the 'value' of spying. Utilitarian ethics is a horrifying foundation for a nation.
It's unfortunate but in a world where rationality on subjects like these (forget about ethics) is hard to find pointing out that the thing the world seems to revolve around (money) is being wasted can be used to some effect.
I agree that this is not the way the world should work but when you all you have is eggs omelette is on the menu.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the rule of law is an edge case. Blackmail happens every day. You make a really interesting point with this: >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. But I wonder: is a well-crafted idyllic image of history worth a limited understanding of humanity as a result? I t…
I think the fact that modern historiography can present both the benevolent and the dubious sides of America's founders' histories without the use of what you are proposing is a testament to mass surveillance's needlessness. We don't have a limited understanding of humanity for the past 2000 years, we have a pretty darn good one, and an even better one for the past 500 years. Do you sincerely believe that the best wa…
interesting thoughts, if you have an email I'd continue there.
Re: Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying
#70It's kind of like security checks at airports, I am not aware that in the long history of terrorism, a single attack has been stopped at one of these security checks.
That doesn't really say anything about whether the checkpoints are effective or not.
If they are ineffective, I'd not expect any attacks to be stopped at the checkpoint due to its ineffectiveness.
If they are effective, I'd not expect any attacks to be stopped at the checkpoint because the attackers know about the checkpoint. If they don't know how to get past it, they will not start the attack.
We do know that before checkpoints where introduced in the early '70s there were a lot more hijackings. In 1969 there were over two dozen hijackings to Cuba, for example. Airline hijackings went way down after checkpoints were introduced and made it so you had to have a more sophisticated plan to get a gun onto a plane than simply tossing it into your carryon bag.