Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio] • Hacker News Board

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#191

Post by charonn0 » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 6:34 AM UTC

phaus wrote: post #187

charonn0 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but try to say So help me [allah|budah|spagetti] to see what happens. What would happen? (serious question)

In almost all cases, your religious preference would be respected, and no one would give a shit. Unless of course you actually did mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because this would be an obvious attempt to demean another person's religious beliefs. Yes, Christians are in the majority in the military, but they are also required by regulation and therefore law to treat everyone with respect. There are Muslims, J…

    Unless of course you actually did mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster, 
    because this would be an obvious attempt to demean another person's 
    religious beliefs.

Do you hear the hypocrisy, the conceit? Who gets to decide which fairy tales are blasphemous? Whose moral outrage is justified when others dare to disagree with their religious beliefs?

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#192

Post by pg » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

charonn0 wrote: post #191

phaus wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost all cases, your religious preference would be respected, and no one would give a shit. Unless of course you actually did mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because this would be an obvious attempt to demean another person's religious beliefs. Yes, Christians are in the majority in the military, but they are also required by regulation and therefore law to treat everyone with respect. There are Muslims, J…

Unless of course you actually did mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because this would be an obvious attempt to demean another person's religious beliefs. Do you hear the hypocrisy, the conceit? Who gets to decide which fairy tales are blasphemous? Whose moral outrage is justified when others dare to disagree with their religious beliefs?

Please stop.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#193

Post by mikeash » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 2:24 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #139

mikeash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's important to note that there are not people who are simply toiling away, objecting to the work, and reluctantly carrying it out. These are people publicly advocating for the organization, and trying to get more people to join it.

Given that the NSA is likely to exist in some form no matter what, would an NSA with more fresh blood in it, of varying ages and competencies and ideologies, be more prone to abuse, or less prone to abuse? You seem to be assuming that every person joining the NSA makes it worse, and that's not clear to me. In particular, a small, cohesive, monocultural institution will be more likely to commit abuses and more able to…

And you seem to be assuming that the NSA's abusiveness can be determined by the rank-and-file, when it looks to me to be completely due to orders from the top (up to and including the President).

So a good guy joins the NSA and tries to effect change. What happens? They tell him "no". If he refuses to carry out his job, they replace him and get somebody else. If he shuts up and works within the system and eventually reaches a position of real power, then refuses to abuse... the people with power over the NSA as a whole replace him and get somebody else.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#194

Post by mikeash » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 2:26 PM UTC

embolism wrote: post #185

mikeash wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's safe to say that they are not protecting people to any major degree. When pressed, the only justification they can come up with is "terrorism", which is a completely insignificant threat.

Just to be clear - what do you think they are actually doing? I.e. what does the government pay for them to do?

I think they are trying to protect people. It's just that they have been tasked with a pointless job. I don't think they're deliberately evil, they're just a massive overreaction to an irrelevant threat.

Basically, what do you think the immune system in somebody with a bee allergy is actually doing when that person gets stung by a bee? It's only trying to help, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that 1) a bee sting can be ignored and 2) the massive allergic reaction threatens the person's life.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#195

Post by embolism » Fri, Jul 05, 2013, 4:32 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #194

embolism wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear - what do you think they are actually doing? I.e. what does the government pay for them to do?

I think they are trying to protect people. It's just that they have been tasked with a pointless job. I don't think they're deliberately evil, they're just a massive overreaction to an irrelevant threat. Basically, what do you think the immune system in somebody with a bee allergy is actually doing when that person gets stung by a bee? It's only trying to help, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that 1) a be…

I understand the point you're making, I just don't think it's obvious that the NSA is unimportant. As well as detecting terrorism, they may well be doing a lot of other things to protect the us against then machinations of others e.g. Russia and china.

Also, don't underestimate terrorism. Over decades, the IRA did a lot to disrupt the UK, including killing cabinet ministers, and two nearly successful assassination attempts against the prime minister. Ultimately the UK conceded and the new Irish government contained ministers who had been leaders of the terrorist movement.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#196

Post by mikeash » Sat, Jul 06, 2013, 2:33 AM UTC

embolism wrote: post #195

mikeash wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are trying to protect people. It's just that they have been tasked with a pointless job. I don't think they're deliberately evil, they're just a massive overreaction to an irrelevant threat. Basically, what do you think the immune system in somebody with a bee allergy is actually doing when that person gets stung by a bee? It's only trying to help, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that 1) a be…

I understand the point you're making, I just don't think it's obvious that the NSA is unimportant. As well as detecting terrorism, they may well be doing a lot of other things to protect the us against then machinations of others e.g. Russia and china. Also, don't underestimate terrorism. Over decades, the IRA did a lot to disrupt the UK, including killing cabinet ministers, and two nearly successful assassination at…

The NSA's efforts against Russia and China and other geopolitical enemies of the day are probably not much influenced by wholesale surveillance of American citizens. If the question is what the NSA as a whole is doing, the answer is, "a lot". I was concentrating on this one particular bit.

As far your IRA example, the US doesn't face anything like that, and shows no prospect of doing so. Even if it did, I'm not convinced that efforts like the NSA's would be very helpful in combating it, and given the example of the last 12 years, I'm quite sure that the US government's reactions as a whole would be far more damaging than the terrorism itself.