Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

Given that the poster robomartin is less than 1.5 years away from asking what the best (undergrad) online CS degree is, I felt it was particularly apt in this case.

Gee, let's see: All that NSA 'big data', every phone call, from, to, time, etc.

Then we had the wacko Boston bombers. So, apparently the great, all powerful, all seeing, all knowing NSA didn't see those two wackos coming.

But, but, but, how could the poor, little NSA be expected to see two, obscure, wacko nutjobs?

Well, let's see: The Russians told us over and over that those guys were wackos and dangerous. Told us face to face, in plain English/Russian. No phone records, Internet data intercepts, super computers required.

Really sounds like 'security theater', like Senator Feinstein is having fun straining her arm patting herself on the back for "protecting the US" and a lot of middle managers in the huge NSA funny farm are having fun doing what not very good middle managers are wont to do, build empires. Gee, they can build their own giant facility in Utah, with rows, columns, and layers of racks of computers, disk drives, etc. with rivers of cables overhead all with its finger tips on the pulse of every little thing, except ignoring the wackos in Boston the Russians told us about in simple sentences, face to face, didn't even need a phone tap.

I used to live in Laurel, MD and, thus, have two pictures of the NSA:

First, when I was in graduate school, in our class in measure theory and functional analysis, we had an NSA employee also in the class. Nope, not the sharpest tack in the box. Really, a bit out of it. We're talking slow witted. I was the grader for the class, and as I recall he never got anything correct. He said nothing in class and lasted a few weeks, and then we didn't see him again.

Second, there's a great photograph taken, likely, at a Congressional hearing, of the head of the NSA and standing not far away Diffie Hellman or one of the RSA guys, etc. The Hellman guy, of course, had been explaining public key crypto-systems that heavily embarrassed the NSA and, really, essentially put it out of business for its stated mission, is smiling. As I recall, he had blond hair long, nearly to his waist. The head of the NSA, a real ram rod straight arrow, short hair, close shave, crease in his shirt, etc. is a sour looking puss. Torqued. Like he was just made a fool of, embarrassed, like he's just lost his self-respect, career, etc.

The evidence is that the NSA is a bunch of fumble bumblers collectively about three cans short of a six pack. We should be even more concerned about the NSA if there was good evidence that they were competent.

NSA has thousands and thousands of people. Even if some of the people are bright with good backgrounds, they will get lost in the mob of paper pushers, mediocre middle managers, and high end military brass.

First fundamental problem: Too much big gumment. Sorry, Senator Feinstein: Why don't you do something useful like help some grade school children read Mother Goose?

Second fundamental problem: Our democracy is short on well informed citizens. So, gumment just grows and grows. A problem? Sure: Mo big gumment, Ma! Hopefully the Internet can make some progress here. Or the technology that can let the NSA ruin the US can also let the US keep the NSA 'safe and effective' for the good of the US.

Supposedly Bin Laden claimed that he wasn't trying to defeat the US but just to have it so over react it would bankrupt itself. Whether he said this or not, there's a point there.

We're again back to the old "America always does the right thing after trying everything else.".

Money wasting, incompetent big gumment is a very ugly thing. If they try actually to do something, then they get even uglier. When they take the next step and really want to take over, then they are taking us close to Hitler, Mao, etc.

The US founding fathers were fully correct: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.".

The thing for Congress to do is just to cut the budgets. How much? Recently there was a report that supposedly the wealthiest area of the US is Silicon Valley. Next was the hedge fund area of CT. Next? And the nominees are, Houston with its oil, NYC with its finance, Chicago with its "broad shoulders", Redmond with its computing, and within 100 miles of the Washington Monument with its big gumment. May I have the envelope, please? Yes, here it is. And the winner is (drum roll) within 100 miles of the Washington Monument with its big gumment.

Put it on a diet. Cut it back. Leave the money in the hands of the citizens. Then let that money be seed corn actually to get the economy going again.

Kings of old commonly bled their countries white, over their delusions of self-importance and especially their absurd foreign adventures. Now DC is doing the same.

For people leaving back packs with pressure cookers in public places, sorry 'bout that, but NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc. clearly are no real solution. So, basically we just have to leave that issue to local police.

NSA, etc. are short on both safety for our democracy and efficacy for stopping the bad guys.

Yes, yes, we know that they are incompetent. But we have to understand: They are really, really expensive, a gigantic waste. Besides they trash the spirit and/or letter of the Constitution.

Just vote for guys in Congress who will cut their budgets. Let's get Detroit, etc. looking like 100 miles from the Washington Monument and that area looking more like Detroit.

The main purpose of the US is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", not forever bigger and bigger big gumment. The main business of the US is business, not gumment. Gumment is there to serve the people, not force the people to serve big gumment. Senator Feinstein: Go help some children with Mother Goose.

Why aren't we all using strong, private crypto for everything -- or at least for email? Nobody seems to using PGP? We "the people" have the technical ability to communicate privately but nobody seems to use it. What happened to Zimmerman and his followers? This is a solvable problem!

-----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY----- MFwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADSwAwSAJBAObAT8Pn+C1Ets8Ge/EyMgiOPzmy/Mzk N+ENpDYRJzqGoyS59QkI58GhYwIVkhmEEk2pjp6gqWPNjTzO0QI1KOUCAwEAAQ== -----END RSA PUBLIC KEY-----

The difference between a person and a camera is that people get tired, miss things, have to eat, and cost a lot more money to maintain. For this reason, people are deployed only where necessary, while cameras can be deployed much more widely. It is the weighing of cost associated with sending a person that used to protect privacy in public places, but with electronic surveillance we lose that cost consideration as a check against surveillance.

Let's be real. This president versus that president isn't going to change a thing if most of their constituents just don't care.