Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA • Hacker News Board

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#121

Post by xerophtye » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:03 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #35

ForHackernews wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A truly free people don't keep secrets. > What the NSA 'should be' is a National Communications Agency, wherein all harmful human activity they observe are communicated - to all and sundry! Openly! Publicly! Without any barrier to delivering full awareness - for all! This is ridiculous hyperbole. There are all kinds of legitimate secrets: trade secrets, private sexual kinks, personal financial or medical records, e…

The thing you must understand is that I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning. Actually, a society ruled by secrets is little more than a mafia, playing charades. But I see you are limiting your viewpoint to 'what is real' and not to 'what could be done differently about the situation'. That's okay with me, to 'keep it real'. But I have no desire to live in…

While i harbour no affection for the American Govt, but you seem to be targeting it a lot for having secrets. From what everyone understands from your comments is that there shouldn't be secrets. A secret = hidden crime. Well the irony here is that, this is EXACTLY how the NSA seems to be functioning. It doesn't want anyone to have any secrets from it. Because it assumes, like you, secret = (possibility of) hidden crime. In fact the NSA can argue, just like you, we uncovered secrets of people, it turned out they were criminals. Hence no one should be allowed to have any secrets. See what's wrong with the picture?

Now, I assume everyone here is mature enough to understand the distinction of things that should be kept secret and which not, and i shouldn't be wasting anyone's time (including mine) into giving an explanation of what matters require secrecy, and in what cases certain secret things should be made public

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#122

Post by mark_l_watson » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:07 AM UTC

bosma wrote: post #77

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So not telling Congress everything is (in principle) necessary. No, its not. At least, not in any principle grounded in the Constitution and the rule of law.

Do you disagree that secrets during war are necessary?

What war?

I was a defense contractor during the Cold War, a scary time in many ways.

It profoundly troubles me that the military intelligence complex is acting like we are still in the Cold War. The world changes and things done in the past are often not the rigt things to do in the present and future. This is a brittle mindset, looking at the past and not the current situation.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#123

Post by brownbat » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:09 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #35

ForHackernews wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A truly free people don't keep secrets. > What the NSA 'should be' is a National Communications Agency, wherein all harmful human activity they observe are communicated - to all and sundry! Openly! Publicly! Without any barrier to delivering full awareness - for all! This is ridiculous hyperbole. There are all kinds of legitimate secrets: trade secrets, private sexual kinks, personal financial or medical records, e…

The thing you must understand is that I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning. Actually, a society ruled by secrets is little more than a mafia, playing charades. But I see you are limiting your viewpoint to 'what is real' and not to 'what could be done differently about the situation'. That's okay with me, to 'keep it real'. But I have no desire to live in…

> I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning.

Either everyone gets to know the President's credit card number or it's tyranny?

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#124

Post by xerophtye » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:12 AM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #31

mahyarm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the amount of NSA staffers and people who have clearance being well above that number, really?

"Clearance" isn't supposed to be some magic card that lets someone go find every document marked with their level of "clearance." It's just a permission to receive knowledge marked with that level of "clearance" as necessary to do one's job. NSA staffers have defined roles and are given information on a need-to-know basis. Obviously the Snowden leaks proved that at least for a sysad, the technical component of the ne…

i think both of you are on the same side of the argument. If i got you correctly, you mean to say that Congressmen DESERVE a higher level of clearance than the NSA itself. The congress SHOULD be able to ask for any information and thus gain access to it. Did i get that right?

If i did, then your parent seems to want the same thing. He means that "there are 535 people in congress" is a bad defense.

Though i might have gotten you incorrectly and you might have meant that you cant say "but NSA employees have access! The congress should have it too!" Because giving access to congress is different to giving access to NSA employees as Congrees needs a VERY high level clearance to all 535 members, and that in the NSA itself, the actual number of people who have that kind of access would be very small.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#125

Post by dllthomas » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:12 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #123

fit2rule wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you must understand is that I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning. Actually, a society ruled by secrets is little more than a mafia, playing charades. But I see you are limiting your viewpoint to 'what is real' and not to 'what could be done differently about the situation'. That's okay with me, to 'keep it real'. But I have no desire to live in…

> I do not actually consider a society with any investment in state secrecy to be actually functioning. Either everyone gets to know the President's credit card number or it's tyranny?

I don't necessarily agree with the thesis of the post you're responding to, but your example is personal privacy on the part of someone who happens to hold office, not a state secret.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#126

Post by greatsuccess » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 5:20 AM UTC

bargl wrote: post #15

On his blog Schneier comments that this meeting was kept small on purpose. I wanted to see who was present at this meeting so I looked up some of their information. Not hard to find, but here you go. I plan on emailing each of them and thanking them for consulting someone the tech industry considers a Security SME. Rep. Logfren (Democratic) http://lofgren.house.gov/biography/ Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Personally the fact that your spam links to the legislators wikipedia pages is top on HN shows that 1) you have nothing to say on the subject, 2) you are a spammer, and 3) that you are probably a complete idiot who could give a shit about the topic and 4) that HN is a complete fucking waste of time with people like you posting in the comments.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#127

Post by blazespin » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 6:00 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #55

tokenadult wrote: post #54

Schneier links to a Wikipedia article about Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and explains that he wanted to speak to the members of Congress in such a facility, but could not do so because he is denied access to such facilities as someone without the appropriate security clearances. And that puzzled me, and prompted me to read the Wikipedia article after reading Schneier's blog post submitted he…

There are standard processes in pretty much every government organization for escorting uncleared personnel into a SCIF. The fact that they chose not to in this case might indicate that they aren't taking this seriously.

Or a) they wanted to record the conversation b) they wanted to keep the meeting off the books.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#128

Post by jvdh » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 7:28 AM UTC

timsally wrote: post #109

tokenadult wrote: post #54

Schneier links to a Wikipedia article about Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and explains that he wanted to speak to the members of Congress in such a facility, but could not do so because he is denied access to such facilities as someone without the appropriate security clearances. And that puzzled me, and prompted me to read the Wikipedia article after reading Schneier's blog post submitted he…

> So now what Schneier says has me puzzled about whether or not there is any level of secure room between what he calls a "regular room" and a room that a United States citizen can only enter with a very high level of security clearance. There are. Schneier has it wrong unfortunately (or at least, was misinformed). You can enter a room approved for classified information without a clearance, you just must be escorted…

Schneier, a non-governmental security researcher, was asked by the representatives to hold a meeting with them. He suggested to hold it in a secure meeting room. They tell him that he's not allowed in there.

And you're blaming Schneier for his assertions?

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#129

Post by chrismcb » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 7:38 AM UTC

ef47d35620c1 wrote: post #56

tokenadult wrote: post #54

Schneier links to a Wikipedia article about Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and explains that he wanted to speak to the members of Congress in such a facility, but could not do so because he is denied access to such facilities as someone without the appropriate security clearances. And that puzzled me, and prompted me to read the Wikipedia article after reading Schneier's blog post submitted he…

The whole security clearance thing is rather over-rated. Many people are immediately disqualified during the background investigation because they missed a payment on something once, or changed jobs too often, or were arrested, yet never convicted of a crime. So the fact that someone does not qualify for a security clearance says very little about them as a person.

Or they participated in the right to free speech and claimed to be communist.

Re: Today I Briefed Congress on the NSA

#130

Post by tedivm » Fri, Jan 17, 2014, 8:16 AM UTC

antsar wrote: post #115

syntern wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be related to the topic: One aspect of the Dilbert-universe the pointy-haired boss who has no expertise, yet he imposes immediate consequences upon the overseen. In contrast, if we are calling for management that does (understand) code, we are calling for management that have expertise. This begs the question: who would be able to oversee the agencies with expertise , ever?

Sn^H^Ha former employee/contractor?

You mean like the revolving door between financial regulators and the banks they oversee?