51–60 of 140 posts
I'm not sure this addresses the problem vs. just moving it to another agency. Would it be better for the FBI to be doing these things than the NSA? Or should we be instead fighting that they're done at all?
[deleted]
Read "The Puzzle Palace" and find out why the NSA is structured like it is. The US gov has been re-orging the NSA and factions inside the gov have been fighting over its control since its inception. To use an annoyingly beat to death phrase: we haven't seen its final form yet. Actually a pretty good article overall, but these two lines bother me greatly: > "What was supposed to be a single agency with a dual mission—…
It wouldn't be the first time that a government enterprise had a misleading name.
I think an even better argument for breaking up the NSA is that there's a fourth category of work they (should) do that's totally unrelated to surveillance and that I'd classify as "very good:" actively working to secure the communications of US government and companies against the NSA-equivalents of other nation-states and rogue actors. Having this is on the same list as encryption sabotage is a recipe for mismanage…
For one, there has been little appreciable gain from this practice, but it's also way too easy for an adversary to subvert a backdoor planted for purposes of peeping around, and use it to do very serious damage. The more entrenched surveillance via cyberespionage becomes, the more it expands the attack surface for a foreign actor to exploit it.
Second, there is no guarantee at all that the NSA is impervious to the same sort of infiltration methods. If they become compromised themselves by a foreign hacking entity, then that's it for everyone they're "surveying".
Regarding NSA and CIA, what do they have to do to get shut down completely? Do we wait until genocide? It doesn't seem like a re-org is the proper response to institutionalized torture, semi-automated assassination campaigns, and creation of a panopticon.
It's better to keep the good parts and reform the bad parts than to throw the entire baby out completely. Let's draw a parallel to something more tangible than the cyberwar we don't see. Recently there was a number of high-profile cases where police got into a clash with unarmed civilians, with disastrous results. Should police be shut down completely? Would you be safe in a city with no police? Many cities in the wo…
Also, we cannot confirm or deny that the NSA and CIA do anything important.
"Actively attacking enemy networks is an offensive military operation, and should be part of an offensive military unit." Key word here is offensive military unit , like a bomber squad or tank devision. You should not send out this kind of units to allies, neutral states or neighbors, not matter how "valuable" it would be in trade negotiations. Its to the benefit of all that on-line communication is restored to peace…
Spying isn't even a military operation, it is mostly diplomatic.
Spying has always been common even amongst allies. It is a form of hacked transparency. Countries hide as much as they can.
Regarding NSA and CIA, what do they have to do to get shut down completely? Do we wait until genocide? It doesn't seem like a re-org is the proper response to institutionalized torture, semi-automated assassination campaigns, and creation of a panopticon.
Regarding NSA and CIA, what do they have to do to get shut down completely? Do we wait until genocide? It doesn't seem like a re-org is the proper response to institutionalized torture, semi-automated assassination campaigns, and creation of a panopticon.
It's better to keep the good parts and reform the bad parts than to throw the entire baby out completely. Let's draw a parallel to something more tangible than the cyberwar we don't see. Recently there was a number of high-profile cases where police got into a clash with unarmed civilians, with disastrous results. Should police be shut down completely? Would you be safe in a city with no police? Many cities in the wo…
Sometimes, yes. When the corruption and brutality is so bad that there's no other option.
--Would you be safe in a city with no police?
In Acapulco, the answer was yes. The police went on strike and it was so much better without them that the people didn't want them back.
"Actively attacking enemy networks is an offensive military operation, and should be part of an offensive military unit." Key word here is offensive military unit , like a bomber squad or tank devision. You should not send out this kind of units to allies, neutral states or neighbors, not matter how "valuable" it would be in trade negotiations. Its to the benefit of all that on-line communication is restored to peace…
But this sort of spying clearly isn't like ordering a bombing run on Berlin or sending a tank division to capture Athens. Spying isn't even a military operation, it is mostly diplomatic. Spying has always been common even amongst allies. It is a form of hacked transparency. Countries hide as much as they can.
If you are collecting data in order to analyze and identify threats to national security, how would you possibly exclude "the innocent" beforehand? These people are not innocent as much as they aren't guilty - however blinding oneself to observation seems like a knee-jerk alternative.
If these practices are "liable to be abused" isn't the solution proper oversight or accountability and not to shut down the entire program?