Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress? • Hacker News Board

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#101

Post by tormeh » Fri, May 02, 2014, 5:08 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #84

tormeh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi Germany and Japan partly lost WW2 because the Americans and the British broke their codes. Particularly the Japanese. Had the axis known their codes were broken they would have made new ones. Intelligence gathering would have been worthless without secrecy in this case. To be honest I don't really know too much about this. I've read Cryptonomicon, and that's basically it. But it would be hard to dispute that sig…

It's tough to dispute that this stuff is useful while in a major war, but I think the relevant question here is whether you need to have it all in place ahead of time, or whether you can spin it up on demand, as it were. In any case, SIGINT certainly helped a great deal, but what really won the war for the allies was the roughly order of magnitude difference between the size of the economy of the United States and th…

The US didn't have that much of an effect. By D-day, Germany was already running out of people to feed the meat grinder. The Soviet Union, Britain and France basically won the war in Europe. I'm grateful for not being born in the Soviet Union and all, but won the war, the US didn't. Also, the US is about 2.5 times as big as Japan and 4 times as big as Germany today. I don't know what the historical data is, but "order of magnitude" sounds way unrealistic.

I think it would be very hard to spin up on demand. There's not a catalogue of talented SIGINTs lying around. These people need to be found and hired. A whole organization as big as Google would have to be built overnight. It would be a nightmare. Not to mention that this organization would be starting from scratch while its counterparts might have taps into American society already.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#102

Post by mikeash » Fri, May 02, 2014, 5:22 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #101

mikeash wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tough to dispute that this stuff is useful while in a major war, but I think the relevant question here is whether you need to have it all in place ahead of time, or whether you can spin it up on demand, as it were. In any case, SIGINT certainly helped a great deal, but what really won the war for the allies was the roughly order of magnitude difference between the size of the economy of the United States and th…

The US didn't have that much of an effect. By D-day, Germany was already running out of people to feed the meat grinder. The Soviet Union, Britain and France basically won the war in Europe. I'm grateful for not being born in the Soviet Union and all, but won the war, the US didn't. Also, the US is about 2.5 times as big as Japan and 4 times as big as Germany today. I don't know what the historical data is, but "orde…

Don't forget that the US extensively supplied the Soviets and other allies for some time before officially entering the war. They mostly used their own weapons, but a huge amount of Soviet logistical support was American trucks and trains.

As for the disparity in GDP, an order of magnitude is a bit of an exaggeration for Germany, only slightly for Japan at the beginning of the war and not at all by the end. Wikipedia has figures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Worl...

The US's advantage in the long term became enormous because it was so far removed from the fighting. Germany and Japan's economies were mostly flat, while the US's nearly doubled in that time period. By the end of the war, the economic disparity was almost 5x over Germany and over 10x for Japan. Even in 1941, the disparity between the US and Japan was well over 5x, which makes one wonder WTF they were thinking.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#103

Post by hga » Fri, May 02, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #31

gottasayit wrote: post #21

Of course Clapper isn't going to be punished. Holder was held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling on Fast and Furious, but since pursuit of his punishment would require action from an Obama political appointee, nothing will happen. No one went to jail for the Wall Street fiasco. No one was fired for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq. We still don't know anything about Benghazi while some poor sap who published a vi…

Each house of Congress has inherent contempt powers and can jail people, in the Capitol if necessary. They haven't exercised that power since 1934, these days they refer contemptors to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The older power still remains though and is on very firm Constitutional grounds (though for a cabinet official there are issues of executive privilege). More generally it's hard to take Con…

Thing is, though, I don't think Clapper would fit into this slot. Unlike other examples, he testified, the only problem is that he lied in it.

Our Founding Fathers were very careful to separate executive and legislative powers, very much different and in reaction to the Westminster parliamentary system they had after all rebelled against. So I don't see the Congress having the power to go beyond jailing someone to force them to testify (their being the nation's Grand Inquisitor is part of our small 'c' constitution if not explicitly in the written one).

If you want to see Clapper clapped in irons, elect a non-Democratic Party President with a spine, and hope he doesn't get a pardon before then.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#104

Post by bradleyjg » Fri, May 02, 2014, 5:39 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #103

bradleyjg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each house of Congress has inherent contempt powers and can jail people, in the Capitol if necessary. They haven't exercised that power since 1934, these days they refer contemptors to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The older power still remains though and is on very firm Constitutional grounds (though for a cabinet official there are issues of executive privilege). More generally it's hard to take Con…

Thing is, though, I don't think Clapper would fit into this slot. Unlike other examples, he testified, the only problem is that he lied in it. Our Founding Fathers were very careful to separate executive and legislative powers, very much different and in reaction to the Westminster parliamentary system they had after all rebelled against. So I don't see the Congress having the power to go beyond jailing someone to fo…

There have been several cases over the years of punitive contempt (as opposed to contempt to compel testimony) by Congress. In fact, in early US history it was most often used to punish bribery attempts.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#105

Post by Nelson69 » Fri, May 02, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #77

bediger4000 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would lose wars, basically How do we know this? This strikes me as an assertion without evidence. Are there examples? It also strikes me that the secrecy more often gets used to conceal career-ending mistakes and cost overruns, at least in the USA. Has anybody done an honest assessment of secrecy?

Nazi Germany and Japan partly lost WW2 because the Americans and the British broke their codes. Particularly the Japanese. Had the axis known their codes were broken they would have made new ones. Intelligence gathering would have been worthless without secrecy in this case. To be honest I don't really know too much about this. I've read Cryptonomicon, and that's basically it. But it would be hard to dispute that sig…

We won pretty handedly in Afghanistan and Iraq and we had bad intelligence. We were flat out wrong about a number of things, yet we prevailed..

I think equating it to war fighting is a little naive and an over simplification. There is strategic and tactical war intelligence and there are real historical examples of them making the difference, no disputing that. But today, especially for the United States and most other g7 type nations, it's a communication channel for things that it's unpopular to communicate, don't under estimate this. Could any military in the world practice without the modern intelligence gathering that all these nations have? Also regarding any negotiation for anything, knowing when the other side is bluffing or telling the truth is huge, it's everything. Those powerful nations routinely ask/demand other nations to do things, stop doing things, etc.. Information is incredibly powerful in those discussions and these aren't commonly war related things.

Whether or not we need it, I don't know, I seriously doubt it would change the results of most wars though. Another world war? It could be decisive but with the global economy I think just about every body capable for world warring has too much invested and to risk to let that happen.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#106

Post by belorn » Fri, May 02, 2014, 6:05 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #91

belorn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me add a few others: 1) Every nation should protect their citizens against intelligence gathering from outsiders. 2) Intelligence-gathering must be subject of the rule of law. 3) Military forces must be under democratic control. Surely, neither of those are controversial either?

No, not even in the U.S. where all 3 conditions are in effect (unless you mean to quibble about oligarchy vs. democracy, in which case that's a whole 'nother level of argument).

I guess you could argue the definition of "protect", but sabotaging security standards and hording security vulnerabilities is not it.

And if the rule of law require says every citizen is protected against warrant-less searches, you can not "steal" personal information about those citizens when it rest in care of a service provider.

But I take it that what is controversial is not that every national government in the civilized world needs an intelligence-gathering agency that can operate with some degree of operational secrecy. The controversy how an intelligence-gathering agency may behave.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#107

Post by joshstrange » Fri, May 02, 2014, 6:41 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #35

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had always assumed that for everyone except those with something to lose (e.g. politicians, bureaucrats) that Snowden 's actions were seen in high regard. I imagine this is entirely a function of your social circle. The polls conducted this year have been marginally in favor of his prosecution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentary_on_Edward_Snowden's_... . It's a deeply divisive issue for Americans, though it…

My Dad is the same way, so a few months after first discussing Snowden I decided to write a little satire about living in communist Russia. It was fairly short, probably 3 pages of dark humor, however he got the point and in now at the very least understands why this is important. I think many Americans (especially those who grew up in the cold war) do not realize how serious this is. There was a campaign to white wa…

>> I decided to write a little satire about living in communist Russia.

Is that public anywhere? I'd be interested in reading and potentially passing it on to a few people I know.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#108

Post by talmand » Fri, May 02, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #62

talmand wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any member of Congress that starts putting Administration personnel in jail will be committing political suicide.

When you work in a body with a 13% public approval rating, you'd think there would be little effect political suicide could have. More seriously: I think it'd be a wild-card maneuver, but I honestly don't know that it would be political suicide. Some people are angry at Congress for being ineffective. Some people are angry at the administration for failing to check the powers it has been given along lines of "decency…

Who cares what the public thinks? They'll worry over how their party and the opposing party will react to it. There's probably a reason it hasn't been done in almost 100 years. It would be political suicide because they would likely be shunned amongst their own peers.

When you're in theater, you don't kick the other actors off the stage. The others might do the same to you.

Never mind the press going crazy over the silly headlines they'll be able to craft regardless of the actual situation.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#109

Post by tormeh » Fri, May 02, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #102

tormeh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US didn't have that much of an effect. By D-day, Germany was already running out of people to feed the meat grinder. The Soviet Union, Britain and France basically won the war in Europe. I'm grateful for not being born in the Soviet Union and all, but won the war, the US didn't. Also, the US is about 2.5 times as big as Japan and 4 times as big as Germany today. I don't know what the historical data is, but "orde…

Don't forget that the US extensively supplied the Soviets and other allies for some time before officially entering the war. They mostly used their own weapons, but a huge amount of Soviet logistical support was American trucks and trains. As for the disparity in GDP, an order of magnitude is a bit of an exaggeration for Germany, only slightly for Japan at the beginning of the war and not at all by the end. Wikipedia…

I knew there were some supplies coming from the US, but was it really of a war-winning magnitude? I would like to know.

GDP is not really that good a measure of a nation's war-fighting ability. Only some types of production is useful for near-total war. A nation needs solid institutions, natural resources, logistics, roads, factories and heavy equipment. The service sector goes out the window, ditto with all luxury/entertainment production and the construction business. The European Coal and Steel Community didn't focus on those two because they were good indicators of GDP, but because they were good indicators of war capabilities.

As for what the Japanese were thinking? That they were the natural rulers of the world and everyone else should tremble before them. Everyone else were worthless barbarians in their opinion.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#110

Post by mikeash » Fri, May 02, 2014, 8:00 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #109

mikeash wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that the US extensively supplied the Soviets and other allies for some time before officially entering the war. They mostly used their own weapons, but a huge amount of Soviet logistical support was American trucks and trains. As for the disparity in GDP, an order of magnitude is a bit of an exaggeration for Germany, only slightly for Japan at the beginning of the war and not at all by the end. Wikipedia…

I knew there were some supplies coming from the US, but was it really of a war-winning magnitude? I would like to know. GDP is not really that good a measure of a nation's war-fighting ability. Only some types of production is useful for near-total war. A nation needs solid institutions, natural resources, logistics, roads, factories and heavy equipment. The service sector goes out the window, ditto with all luxury/e…

Well, just scroll down a bit and see military production numbers on that Wikipedia page. The US produced over 100,000 tanks compared to German's 67,000 and Japan's 3,700 (although the Soviet Union slightly outweighs the US here), 250,000 artillery pieces compared to 160,000 for Germany and 13,350 for Japan (the USSR once again outweighs the US here, with over 500,000), about 2.7 million machine guns compared to about a million total for Germany and Japan combined, and then the real kicker: 2.4 million military trucks, compared to 345,000 for Germany, 166,000 for Japan, and 197,000 for the USSR. Hit up the page on Lend-Lease, and it claims that American trucks made up about 2/3rds of the total truck transport for the Red Army, in addition to 2,000 train locomotives provided (no clue about how that relates to the total though).

You're right, of course, that GDP isn't by itself a good measure of war-fighting ability, but I think the US did as good a job as anyone at throwing the entire country behind that particular war.

As for war-winning magnitude, it's always hard to say, of course. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine Germany properly conquering a space as vast as the USSR. On the other hand, they sure came close to taking a lot of important places, like Moscow and Leningrad. Logistics is what wins wars, and the Soviets needed it even more than usual with their massive relocation of industry away from the invasion, and of Siberian military forces toward it.

In any case, Stalin seems to have thought that the American contribution was essential:

"Without American production the United Nations [the Allies] could never have won the war."

Well, he said it. Who knows what he really thought. I wouldn't necessarily put a lot of stock in his stated opinion on the matter, but I thought it was an interesting quote anyway.