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Fojar38 posted:It's hiding its actions because that is precisely what it is supposed to do. Hide it's actions, be discreet, and do stuff in the background that almost nobody is aware of. That is the entire point of intelligence. Transparency defeats the entire point of it existing. I agree that there should be oversight, but people on this forum seem to interpret "oversight" as "Everyone should be able to see what they're doing and judge them accordingly." They may as well not even exist then. At some point people are going to have to acknowledge that there are things that they shouldn't know and that the world is a better place because they don't know them. That's fine right up until the point where the intelligence agency feels comfortable about lying to Congress. If any government agency cannot demonstrate the basic act of not lying to America's democratically elected government it starts being less an intelligence agency and more a taxpayer subsidized crime syndicate.
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Oct 24, 2013 12:43
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Broken Machine posted:As a tribute to this fine, if tragic, work of art, there is now an Jesus, it's hard for me to express just how disturbing I find that smiley. It's this horrible little empty creature, beamingly proud that it has done a horrible thing, with no comprehension of the consequences. This is the face of the NSA.
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Oct 31, 2013 08:08
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smiley for your amusement. Godspeed 
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Misogynist posted:Not to mention that the entire reason they probably got wind of his insider trading was by digging through his communications for dirt once he pissed them off. I'd actually be a lot more okay with this NSA poo poo if hundreds of CEOs got prosecuted in this way.
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Dec 22, 2013 08:32
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JeffersonClay posted:Surveillance by corporations in the free market is less onerous than surveillance by the state. That's the argument, right? Google can't arrest you.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:45
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SubG posted:They can certainly analyse your data and turn the data over to the authorities who can arrest you though. The position is actually that the government, ideally, represents society's collective self defence against abuses, crime and malicious activity. In order to conduct these functions the government is entrusted with phenomenal power over life and death. In order to ensure that the government wields this enormous power it possesses for the good of society instead of for the advantage of those people entrusted with that power, a system of checks, balances and limitations exists. In the event where those checks, balances and limitations are bypassed then the government truly has nothing stopping it from exercising it's phenomenal power over life and death purely to ensure the continued power and prosperity of the people entrusted with that power. Maybe their moral code keeps them doing the right thing for a while but that's essentially asking you to entrust the power of life and death in society to people you've never met who operate within an organisation that does not respect internal checks and balances. Meanwhile, a corporation is a group of individuals out not for the collective good of society but, instead, the continued power and prosperity of the people who comprise it. In exchange for being allowed to possess such base motives, society demands that it operate within the rules and regulations devised by the government who is, again, society's method of collective self defence against abuses. The corporation is free to follow any path it pleases to profit so long as it does not cross society, as defined and enforced by the government. Ideally if Google misused people's data the government would correct that abuse, according to it's function. When the government begins to act like a corporation then it is truly a dire and terrible situation because there is no regulatory or oversight body for the government (except maybe the Supreme Court). This results in an entity that possess A) Power over life and death B) No guidance, regulation or limitation C) Purely selfish motives. It is hard to see how society benefits from such an entity. E: I'm theoretically fine with mass surveillance, what I'm not fine with is the criminal, hostile and secretive way that the NSA has been going about it, including its willingness to compromise civilian systems for its own advantage. Thanqol fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 04:23
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SubG posted:Criminal? What criminal activity are you talking about? And are you arguing that if it isn't criminal then it's okay? I'm actually asking here. Lying to congress repeatedly comes to mind, which was what did for Snowden in the first place. quote:Also, you either didn't answer my question or I'm failing to understand your response as an answer to it: do you believe that there's no harm in violation of privacy in and of itself, absent some other overt harm (e.g. getting arrested as a result of the privacy violation)? I'm not convinced mass surveillance is an inherent harm. I believe that there are ways a surveillance state could be made open, communal and effective. I believe that the flow of data can be harnessed and managed for good as well as evil. However I think the National Surveillance Agency lacks the intelligence, morality, or strategic direction to be trusted with any of that data. I believe that if their use for mass surveillance is to catch insignificant numbers of terrorists rather than, say, identifying and prosecuting people who talk on mobile phones while driving (American road toll 2001: 42,196 - over 14 times the total terrorism casualties) then they possess a horrifying lack of imagination. The violation of privacy secretly, indiscriminately, for no purpose, in a way that can be easily abused for personal ends is terrible, and that is what the NSA does. The violation of privacy conceptually doesn't have to be any worse than talking to a government census collector - someone bound by clearly defined limits as to what they can do with that data and an unambiguously positive net outcome. E: Either way, the possibilities of the technology should be a matter of public debate and clearly defined goals, not done invisibly and unaccountably by some amoral and incompetent spy agency. Thanqol fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 07:56
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Zand posted:They can be compelled to provide their data to people that can though. Yes. And in order to be compelled to do that, there has to be a formal request made, preferably with a warrant. If there's no warrant then Google doesn't have to give out poo poo. I do not begrudge law enforcement entities who possess sufficient probable cause to have a judge sign off on a warrant getting whatever data they need. That's fine. I do begrudge warrantless surveillance on everyone, signed off on by mysterious secret ninja judges who are not part of the regular justice department, and then lied about to the country's governing officials. I begrudge all that time, manpower and data being used to look for terrorists almost as much as I'd begrudge it being used to look for people with six fingers. I begrudge the sheer incompetence that is responsible for all these leaks. The NSA's sin isn't just that it's evil, it's that it's an imbecilic system and a criminal waste of resources.
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Aug 16, 2014 09:09
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SubG posted:Can you cite particular examples? James Clapper lies under oath to congress. I'm not saying that the lie is the dealbreaker there. The lie is the sign of an organisation utterly out of control and removed from oversight - an organisation that is paid 10.8 billion dollars a year. An organisation that cannot maintain basic internal safeguards to stop someone like Edward Snowden walking out the front door with literally everything. An organisation that relies on self reporting of abuses. An organisation that undermines the integrity of the entire internet. An organisation that spies on allies, subverts civilian infrastructure, and builds star trek style information dominance centres. And what's the NSA trying to protect us from? The chance of death by terrorist is one in twenty million. What I'm saying is that the NSA is a bad organisation. The incompetence and waste offends me far more than the thought of having my privacy violated. They suck at their jobs and their assigned task is stupid to begin with. They should be shut down and replaced with something of use to society. quote:I'm not saying that mass surveillance is an inherent harm, I'm saying that violation of privacy is an inherent harm, just like the violation of any other right. Surveillance may or may not violate privacy, and whether or not it is `mass' surveillance is not a good predictor. And in society the government has the ability to violate rights when certain conditions are met, i.e. incarcerating people. That's fine, they should be able to do that, so long as it is subject to sufficient scrutiny and rigour and the benefit to society outweighs the harm and cost. Privacy violations by the government are pretty low on the list of bad things that can happen to you so I'm not particularly fervent about that. Hell, they learn everything they need to know about you with each tax return you put in. Privacy violations by an unaccountable, wasteful, imbecilic organisation are really really bad because you've got no idea who's going to get that data or what they're going to do with it. Maybe a politician gets it! Maybe a corrupt cop! Maybe China! Who knows!? quote:You seem to have a misapprehension about the relationship between information sources like Google and information sinks like the NSA. From what is known in the public record this is not a particularly adversarial relationship. Oh, I know that. But on the same token, if Joe Sheriff wants to find out what Murdering Lisa sent to her boyfriend the night he was killed he does need a warrant or Google won't give him anything. That's fine. That's a check on the power of the government to spy on it's citizens. NSA doesn't have that check. That's not fine. quote:And you really didn't address my earlier response on this point---the fact that Google can and does analyse user content and voluntarily discloses it to LEAs. The story I linked involves Google automatically scanning images for child pornography and turning in violators. So they presumably have some automated image analysis algorithm that flags content for review by human operators who then look at the content, decide if it's a violation, and then hand the data over to law enforcement if they think it is. Google doing this is fine. Google is a private entity and it can do what it wants, so long as it doesn't break the law. Google also has its logo everywhere and clearly tells you when you're using its service so if you find that Google is ratting you out to the feds you can go elsewhere. Google's only obligation is to obey the law, that's the deal we made with Google when we let it incorporate in our society. If Google runs amuck then the government will deal with it according to it's function. If the NSA wants to build a giant monster spybot using taxpayer money we should ask why. If the NSA wants to use that giant spybot not to monitor and prosecute child pornographers, but instead, spy on literally everyone, we should ask why very loudly. If the NSA comes to America and is like, 'hey, we think we can shut down child pornography forever, but we need to build this giant monster spybot to do it and it'll cost, like, ten billion dollars' then we should actually have a debate as a society if that's the play we want to go with. And that'd be fine. Basically the system matters. Far more than anything else going on here, the system matters.
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Aug 16, 2014 14:39
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SubG posted:Given what's known in the public record, the NSA has operated with the knowledge and consent of the executive branch, the Congress, and the courts. Since you disregarded my entire post to nitpick a citation, I'll do the same for you. Would you go ahead and provide some citation for this point? Because it runs totally contrary to my understanding of this story.
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Aug 17, 2014 02:39
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