Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/11/in-nsa-leak-case-a-whistle-blower-or-a-criminal/before-prosecuting-snowden-investigate-the-government

by Libertatea • 13 years ago

567 98 13 years ago

nytimes.com

pfortuny• 13 years ago

Well, at least this sets some balance against Brooks and (have just read it, what a shame...), Friedman! [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/friedman-blowing-a...

venomsnake• 13 years ago

I was thinking of submitting the Friedman article too. Sadly what Friedman fails to acknowledge is that a whole generation is entering puberty now for which 9/11 never happened. But Friedman has always been naive of full of crap depending on the interpretation.

Both Brooks and Friedman have one great problem though - they fail to show some real and tangible harm brought to the US or their allies by this leak.

It is also interesting that the Editorial can be used as rebuttal to those articles.

Schneier is sober and sensible as usual. But sadly among the connected people the opinions are strongly against the leak.

icebraining2• 13 years ago

It's amazing how he refers to the Boston Marathon bombing, when that happened despite having NSA monitoring and despite the FBI having warnings from Russia and from informants of the Joint Terrorism Task Force about one of the brothers.

"We can't find the needle. I know, let's stack more hay on top, that'll help!"

junto3• 13 years ago

In my honest opinion, I truly believe that this ship has sailed. It is too late to turn back now. Too much money and too much value has been had from these systems for these black projects to be switched off.

They will not budge and those systems will never be switched off. I would bet my last dollar on that premise.

Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go as dark as the modern world currently permits without hindering day to day life.

At a minimum, we now know that we are being watched and listened to on a massive scale. Previously we only suspected the worst. Sadly, the worst was not anywhere near how bad it actually is.

christoph• 13 years ago

I'm not really sure why you've been down-voted for this?

I agree - I can't imagine a scenario whereby these large scale systems are switched off. Even if we are told they have been switched off or the data destroyed, how would we (as everyday folk) ever verify this?

monsterix• 13 years ago

No it hasn't. And they'll have to budge, or go out. Too much money has been put (It's the tax-payers money) and value gained (doesn't it sound like finding terrorists this way is as bad as finding the next superstar for Hollywood?) is near-negligible in contrast to the value eroded: trust that's been destroyed - particularly in Internet companies - both inside and outside of US. Think again.

Our only choice is to accept this and live in the knowledge that we are always being watched, or go as dark as the modern world currently permits without hindering day to day life.

You sound low here, but if the above were true then it'd mean that people are willing to live under a dictator too. That's simply untrue.

reinhardt• 13 years ago

The problem is (most) people seem to be ok with the have-nothing-to-hide argument. Unless the public opinion on this is inverted, there's not much hope for change I'm afraid.

Ygg2• 13 years ago

You sound low here, but if the above were true then it'd mean that people are willing to live under a dictator too. That's simply untrue.

It's true now. But it might be true in future. Hate to sound pessimistic but there are benefits (however perverse they are) to dictatorship.

You aren't pestered every year to vote (unless it's a democratic dictator that rigs the elections). You aren't asked about lot of things. You don't have to worry about saving the environment or your impact, just what he does. Things most people dislike like gays or immigrants is taken care of by a dictator. As long as he doesn't piss off too many people or too influential people, he's golden (and even then). Also dictators are more predictable then a nation to deal with.

Dictatorship are great if your nation is compromised of lazy, mostly irresponsible people.

jacoblyles3• 13 years ago

The American people would never stand for a dictator in name. But they would stand for powerful permanent bureaucrats that no elected official had the ability to push around.

6 of one, half-dozen of the other.

Mordor• 13 years ago

You could apply the same logic to Obama's tenure as president, but we all know he can resign any time.

pknight2• 13 years ago

What purpose do comments as these serve to you? Encourage other people to be sheep? Such a small minded attitude to have, if you ask me. And insulting to all the people throughout history that time after time have sought to bring change, successfully and unsuccessfully. We all have pessimistic attitudes, but to make pointless comments like these, to me, it's like pollution; better to be a leader, no matter how small or insignificant a person is in the large scheme of things. Anything can change, nothing can be fully predicted, this much is proven throughout history. It starts by not accepting the status quo.

junto3• 13 years ago

I'm being pragmatic. I would loved to be proved wrong, but history shows us otherwise.

notacoward• 13 years ago

I don't think it's a defeatist position. The first step to devising an effective strategy is to acknowledge and understand reality. "Anything can change" is simply not true. Strategies based on fantasy will fail. This reality of ubiquitous surveillance is not going to change. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can direct our energy toward changes that might actually be possible. It's not that outlandish to say that we can't prevent the information from being gathered. Can we exert some control over what's done with it? Can we add some meaningful accountability? Who watches the watchers, and how can they do so without invading people's privacy themselves? These are questions we should be addressing even if we think we can prevent or limit the data gathering, and if we can't then that vain hope will have distracted us from other approaches while those were still feasible.

I am playing devil's advocate a bit here. I actually do believe that we can stop data gathering on this scale. However, I don't have the certainty that comes from ignorance, nor the hauteur to condemn someone else for reaching a different conclusion. Let others have their say, even if you disagree. The urge to quash dissent is exactly what we're fighting.

olalonde4• 13 years ago

In my opinion, the situation is much worse now because government can now openly use those tools without having to bear the cost of revealing their capabilities. Before PRISM came to light, they wouldn't have dared to use it for an IRS investigation because they would have ran the risk of revealing their spying activities. Now that everyone knows, they don't run this risk anymore.

TheCondor• 13 years ago

Cost and value don't apply here. Honestly, I think they've provided very little value. The fundamental truth is that terrorists are still a tiny minority and while they may have disrupted an attack or even a few, they didn't stop Boston and there simply haven't been hundreds of legitimate plans.

That leaves insane costs with little to no intentional value and tremendous risk for corruption. Hard to shutdown but not impossible.

junto3• 13 years ago

Their are a large number of secret 'fiefdoms' that have been created since 9/11. The people in those positions of power do not want to see those positions threatened. Therefore, when you have such power and knowledge about everyone, you can also threaten anyone, since everyone has something to hide. Including senators, judges and presidents.

knorby• 13 years ago

Large, multi-billion dollar projects have been cancelled by the US in the past for merely being over-budget for too long. The NSA does quite a bit that I doubt would even be at risk of going on the chopping block, though I really have no idea what the NSA budget looks like. Unclassified national supercomputing, for example, is pretty intertwined with the NSA, and I doubt that will be threatened, even if their data collection/storage efforts are. 'Those systems' aren't much more than data centers and people--things can change.

lucian1900• 13 years ago

As a non-American, this is in fact the only course of action. I both have no control over the NSA and am considered to have less rights.

"No taxation without representation" or something?

alan_cx• 13 years ago

No one is suggesting that the NSA or these system should or would go, even many would like to see that happen.

The whole point is over-sight, and making these spooks follow the laws of the land.

See, the point is we can all see and debate these laws and rules. We don't need to know about the operations of the NSA as long as we have confidence in the rules, over-sight and enforcement.

Here is my problem: When was the last time any of us, US or non US, heard of a senior spook employee sacked and jailed for breaking the laws governing their work, with out it becoming public first as an accusation in the media? The real problem is the closed loop shop which only respects the law one some one out side of the closed shop discovers the law breaking.

The over sight is totally broken, and worse still there is literally zero incentive for it to be fixed.

DennisP• 13 years ago

I think the value is questionable. Much of the money could be recovered by selling off the hardware or reusing it for something else. It's probably just lots of commodity equipment.

btipling• 13 years ago

Anyone have a pulse of Congress to know if "PRISM" has become politically toxic enough to warrant change? I'm guessing that if PRISM has SOPA level public distain that real change can happen. If the majority of Americans are shrugging at this, any announced changes may be superficial.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Change! There's a masterful political campaign centerpiece if I ever saw one. Obama's recent comments re: PRISM: "I'm not against change". How vacuous.

crimsonzagar• 13 years ago

Feels like Obama Bin Laden ... hope they don't kill me for the perfection :-)

joshuak• 13 years ago

As Bruce Schneier points out in his book Beyond Fear humans are very bad at assessing risk accurately. Ask yourself how scared are you of terrorist attacks vs. heart disease.

Notice how the government is putting much more money into the terrorist attack threat then the heart disease threat?

Here are some of the reasons why people are so bad and assessing risk: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/five_neglects_...

(note finding the actual risk of death by heart disease vs terrorist attack is left to the reader...you might be surprised)

icebraining2• 13 years ago

By the way, he was Econtalk this monday: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/06/schneier_on_pow.htm...

My favorite part: "We don't say that pigs kill more people than terrorists every year."

defuzz• 13 years ago

At a certain degree quantification and comparing numbers is just stupid, and Bruce is still right we suck at this, and so is he.

larryCh• 13 years ago

Given this known bias politicians then have stronger incentives to try to prevent terrorist attacks (as opposed to heart attacks).

It may also be the case that our perception is that politicians can have a more direct impact on terrorist attacks than on heart attacks.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

What annoys me is that just watching the various government agencies, IRS, NSA, FBI, and others, is that there is a pattern of not telling the public the truth, they lie to Congress as well.

How is it that our own government agencies can lie to Congress with near impunity? It is like disrespect has become second nature to government. They do not respect us nor do they respect other agencies within the same.

Too big to fail, too big to jail, applies to government now.

mtgx• 13 years ago

I think you should be even more outraged about the fact that Congress doesn't really seem to care that they lied to them. Because if that continues, then we have a pretty big problem here.

Where are all the impeachments and swift punishments from Congress? By not punishing them, it just makes it ok for the next guy to do it.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

I'm not sure the process should be too swift. Otherwise agreed, though.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

Where are all the impeachments and swift punishments from Congress? By not punishing them, it just makes it ok for the next guy to do it.

The influential people in Congress, by and large, want to be the next guy, be appointed to a high position by the next guy, or have influence with the next guy while remaining in Congress, so this is perhaps unsurprising.

Coupled with the fact that FPTP, single-member district elections (for the legislative branch, with even strong two-party incentives in the indirecte executive elections) tend to produce a weakly ideological and more strongly tribal party system, and a greater expectation than in a multiparty system for the average legislator that "we may not like it when their guy is in charge, but we need not to cripple the office for when we get back in charge", well, the results are what should be expected.

l33tbro2• 13 years ago

First the GFC architects getting away with tearing down the financial system, and now the NSA carelessly violating Congress without repercussion. It disgusts me that America has come to this. Why do we, the people, allow such anarchy in the halls of power, yet relinquish all freedom in the streets and online? I'm no long-hair, but this is our government. Why do we keep installing these criminals to throne?

trebor2• 13 years ago

I know a retired NSA analyst. When I asked him what he thought of the NSA wiretaps, etc, he was silent for a bit. Then he said one of the most important things I've heard politically (paraphrased, I wish I wrote it down):

The organization is only as good as its administrative head, and the NSA I served in was widely different from the one that exists today.

The problem is that the administration, the Congress, the Senate, the Judicial System, and the intelligence agencies (with some of the law enforcement agencies) have lost their integrity. The ends do not justify the means. Lying to the American public which put them in power is the ultimate breach of faith. Not only are these things usually secret, but when revealed they are outright lied about.

Why would we punish intelligence agencies for something we don't hold either the administration or our elected officials to? They're all dishonest.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Where are all the impeachments and swift punishments from Congress?

They're all in on it. Note today the GOP saying what interest they have in oversight, while Obama is just continuing what they supported under Bush and what Democrats are supporting under Obama. It's the same thing, the sides just switch based on elections, but the behavior of the government (all of them) remains the same. It's an anti-Constitutional racket.

jacoblyles3• 13 years ago

Are you going to get the President's party to support the impeachment of his elected officials?

USGov is broken.

loceng• 13 years ago

Terrifying. Really.

judah• 13 years ago

"The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen."

fnordfnordfnord• 13 years ago

Congress itself has been in on the lie the whole time to at least a small degree. Some willingly, and some perhaps not so much. Don't forget that this is exactly the sort of thing that Americans wanted the gov't to do, "keep us safe from the terrorists" I don't find the material leaked so far to be more compelling or worrying than prior leaks about the subject. The only difference I see so far is that the press suddenly cares, and that we've been promised more in the coming days. I do find it suspicious on the part of the gov't that there has been such a strong immediate effort to focus on and discredit Snowden, where prior leaks were almost ignored. But that's just my initial gut feeling.

lifeformed• 13 years ago

Why is it legal for public officials to knowingly lie with intent to deceive, in a public setting? I feel like that should be a basic rule for politics. There should be legal repercussions to the things public officials intend with what they say (proportional to their claims).

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

Because the only thing members of Congress care about is being re-elected. And for that, being able to say "we held hearings about the IRS/NSA/FBI scandals" is good enough.

Remember: in politics, results don't matter. The only thing that matters is the successfully giving the perception of working towards results. People who like to actually deliver results don't go into politics. They go into the private sector.

richeb• 13 years ago

All federal prosecution is done under the Justice Department, which is part of the executive branch-- as is the IRS, NSA, FBI, etc.

So, if the president is fine with them lying to congress, there isn't anything congress can do short of impeaching and removing the president. Good luck with that.

I remember during the Bush years where administration leaders were flat out ignoring congressional subpoenas, and there was nothing the investigating committee members could do to force them to show up since the justice department was instructed not to act.

hanifvirani• 13 years ago

When this issue came out, I was really hoping that the people will rise and big changes will finally happen. But now I realize that it was just wishful thinking. For any real big positive changes to occur, there first needs to be a change at the root level, and by that I mean the way people think. The government doing this is a big problem, sure. But the majority of people don't even care, and that I think is a much bigger problem.

misiti37802• 13 years ago

a majority of people know more about what is happening on the jersey shore than they know about prism - that is the real problem - its cool to be ignorant and apathetic these days

misiti37802• 13 years ago

maybe it's not "cool", but it certainly is not "uncool"

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

Even worse, a lot of Americans seem to see Snowden as a traitor.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Irrelevant. The question is whether these programs are legal.

l33tbro2• 13 years ago

I wish the "nothing to hide" people would just actually stop and think outside their myopic b.s.

Look, from what I've been seeing in the last few days (mostly from talking to friends), the "nothing to hide" people are usually white, middle-upper class, and citizens of the USA.

But let's try this: get out of your privileged world for a moment and pretend, just for a second, that you are a Middle-Eastern American. This is where shit gets pretty real.

Why? Because the reality is that with every email, telephone conversation, and internet search you ever commit to - you will pretty much always be censoring yourself in the back of your mind if the government may misinterpret what you are doing. One search term, one "trigger word" on a phone call, and you could be finding yourself having to defend yourself against some very serious allegations.

This is why PRISM is a completely INSANE breach of freedoms. Given that so much of human communication is now conveyed electronically, this is such a huge loss of freedom for those who are being racially and religiously profiled.

FYI, I'm a white dude. But if I had to seriously self-censor every every email, phone call, and text I wrote for fear of persecution - the US would feel to me like Syria with MTV.

bmelton2• 13 years ago

"When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking", Ai Weiwei

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

People will only rise up and get upset when they're denied their status quos.

Let's talk about it economically. To effect real change, there would have to be a huge shift in the number of upset and angry people. So one or two of a few things would have to happen:

1) right now, most people are working from paycheck to paycheck. They have no buffer, no savings, no freedom from their day job. In fact, they are sacrificing more and more basics just to have the privilege of a job. How do you expect them to find the time to rally?

2) Probably near half the people in the US believe they have nothing to hide and thus shouldn't care about these issues. Something very significant would have to happen to many of them to get them to take action on it. Just by the nature of intelligence, this is likely outside the realm of reality.

3) what's left after throwing all your time and energy at your work and dealing with torturous bureaucracies? Whatever it is that makes life worth living. Your family, entertainment, food; whatever it is, a person just wants to enjoy these things for the little time they have on this planet. When trying to wrangle an entrenched insititution like the US government seems like it would take an entire lifetime to make happen, people evaluate their lives and make that calculus. Most find its just not worth it.

I don't really know what the answer is except to say that for anything to happen, probably at least two of those three things have to affect most people in a negative way.

olalonde4• 13 years ago

"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve." - Alexis de Tocqueville

In a sense, Americans deserve what they got. They chose to re-elect the same party (Democratic/Republican party, is there a difference really?) over and over again when there is an alternative in the libertarian party which by the way, would most certainly not authorize or encourage what the NSA has been up to. Regardless of your political inclinations, I would strongly suggest you consider voting for them if only for the sake of shaking up the establishment.

oleganza3• 13 years ago

Those who do not vote have the right to complain. And those who do, also have the right because everyone is brainwashed. Government is not some magical entity, it is a group of armed bandits who claim to represent the whole society for the "common good" at each individual's expense. It's just religious excuse. People do not deserve to be threatened to surrender property, secrets and liberties that they arrange freely between each other for some "common good" invented by priests and presidents.

Saying "you deserve your government" is like saying "you deserve to be raped because you didn't try to avoid it hard enough".

I don't care about losing money because of taxes. But if government kills people and I cannot withdraw financial support for it, then it bothers me. Then, its real mafia face is exposed. "Go vote for change, but still pay for our activity."

olalonde4• 13 years ago

Saying "you deserve your government" is like saying "you deserve to be raped because you didn't try to avoid it hard enough".

I meant Americans as a group, not the individuals. Also, while I mostly agree with you, I certainly hope you do not get into politics. This kind of discourse is fine amongst people who are already like minded but will assuredly fail to convince anyone who does not already share your ideas. I hope you realize that and tone it down a little according to your audience even if you are right.

sigzero• 13 years ago

"Those who do not vote have the right to complain."

Yup, I just won't listen to them.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

In a sense, Americans deserve what they got. They chose to re-elect the same party (Democratic/Republican party, is there a difference really?) over and over again

Sure, there's a pretty big difference both practically and in terms of ideological PR (those two differences don't, of course, align perfectly; the former is largely, but not entirely, a subset of the latter.)

So, no, they didn't choose to re-elect the same party over and over again.

when there is an alternative in the libertarian party which by the way, would most certainly not authorize or encourage what the NSA has been up to.

I'm not at all certain of that. Sure, the Libertarian Party ideological PR isn't that, but we really have no idea what the LP in practice would be like, and we certainly know that parties' ideological PR and actual actions in office are rarely universally consistent (and we know that from far more examples than just the US Democrats and Republicans, as its true of virtually every political party in existence.)

Further, I think its not all that true that the American people freely choose any party; each individual American voter makes a decision of how to maximize value out of a fixed game that is tilted in their favor, and where they have much less power to address the fundamental problems in the electoral structure than they have to choose to minimize the harms within the structure.

And, frankly, too many of the people who try to sell alternatives to the major parties aren't interested at all in exerting effort to get people behind measures that would actually fix the electoral structure to increase the potential for alternative parties to be viable. In addition to the fact that this makes it virtually impossible for them to succeed, since they aren't willing to highlight and correct the primary barrier to their success, it also makes me suspicious of both their honesty of purpose and their competence to follow through on their purpose if elected, since they either lack the former or have far too weak a grasp on the structure of the government they seek to run to have much of the latter.

Regardless of your political inclinations, I would strongly suggest you consider voting for them if only to shake up the establishment.

For people who understand that political activity isn't limited to voting, there are a lot more effective means of shaking up the establishment than voting for a third party that you might agree with on only a very narrow range of issues for that purpose. In fact, of all the successful movements that shook up the establishment and shifted the ground of American politics, I can think of exactly zero for whom that was a central part of how they succeeded.

jjoonathan• 13 years ago

In a sense, Americans deserve what they got. They chose to re-elect...

So if I kidnap you and give you the choice of dying from a pistol and dying from a shotgun, I'm off the hook for murder?

there is an alternative in the libertarian party

Spoiler effect. Also, given that the party currently in control of the executive branch campaigned on the promise of stopping these surveillance programs and then went on to extend them, I question your certainty that the libertarians would actually stick to their values once in office.

olalonde4• 13 years ago

As I replied to someone else, I meant Americans as a group, not the individuals. Regarding the Libertarian party, I am not certain they would stick to their values but I'm certain it would be better than status quo.

slacka• 13 years ago

If you want to show the media and government that we care, you can join your local protest on the 4th of July. Here's more info:

http://www.reddit.com/r/rtforganizers

frankblizzard• 13 years ago

The same could be said for people in general... Don't just complain about the issue on the internet, but actually go out to the streets and demonstrate. It's a long way from the internet to the street...

yoster• 13 years ago

We are slowly losing freedoms that were once thought to be a given.

conroe642• 13 years ago

There probably won't be any prosecution because Snowden most likely defected to the Chinese government. It may have been his plan all along. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who would love to leave their families, and be considered a hero by the general public, and live their life comfortably in another country. Given all the secrets he probably has that he hasn't released, he would be a very valuable resource to China.

This is something someone in his position would know how to do, safely, and with a great reward to himself, given that he's probably read the outcomes of hundreds of informants defecting to other countries.

And given his CIA background, he knew enough about propaganda to know how to sell it to keep his family from being shamed by being related to a defector.

The idea that a guy that's smart enough to make 6 figures after not graduating high school can't plan far enough ahead to explain why he went to China is ludicrous. He's simply not telling the truth about his motives.

beeneto• 13 years ago

Snowden most likely defected to the Chinese government

I keep reading this hypothesis

Am I right in thinking that it still has no evidence to support it whatsoever, excluding the fact that he announced his identity while in a Hong Kong hotel?

conroe642• 13 years ago

Regarding the modding, I guess the group think is still in the doe eyed fanatical allegiance phase.. and hasn't reached the bitter disappointment and finger pointing stage yet.

darkarmani• 13 years ago

There probably won't be any prosecution because Snowden most likely defected to the Chinese government.

Or maybe he defected to Brazil? There's no proof one way or another, so let's just pick random countries and speculate.

trotsky3• 13 years ago

In a state where even corporate malfesance is rarely pursued and even more rarely punished beyond fines that can be considered a cost of doing business, exactly which of our agencies, representatives or judicial systems are we expecting to perform such an investigation?

At least from my memory, It's varey rare to see a go-get-em special prosecutor attached to anything that didn't have a partisan political origin. And neither of the parties are anti-surveillance - the last thing they want to do is ruin their next chance at bat with it.

robomartin• 13 years ago

One way I think about this is the parallel with unions.

The fundamental concept of unions and collective bargaining are good and, if you will, wholesome. There are working environments where it would be difficult to have a voice without such a facility in place.

However, it is my opinion that, unions have degenerated into virtual viruses that kill their hosts. Unions have optimized their side of the equation to such an extent that they are now absolutely deadly for both industry and government. The simplest example of this are the ridiculous benefit and pension packages they have obtained. These packages are mathematically impossible to sustain without hurting both their host and people outside the union. Imagine hiring an employee, paying them above industry average and then having to continue paying them 90% of that salary for life once they retire.

How does that happen? Are these organizations evil? Are the people evil?

Well, no, the people in the unions, the average union member is not evil at all. Tese are generally good folks just like anyone else in the country, union or not.

Where is the evil?

At some level it is in the union's management. Perhaps not explicitly. Again, most of the people running unions are probably just as nice as anyone else.

The evil really resides in the system and its interaction with other systems. Union leadership and me bership seek to optimize the deals they make looking mostly only at their criteria: more money, more benefits, protections, etc. taken to an extreme this leads to evolving a "virus" genetically coded to kill the host.

Part of this is facilitated by incompetent negotiators on the other side of the table, particularly in government.

That was a long setup to draw a parallel between unions and government agencies entrusted with national security.

The vast majority of the people who work for these agencies are good people. The failure is in the system of rules that they operate under and, perhaps, a failure to, just like unions, look way beyond self needs and consider a sphere beyond theirs and a timeline far into the future.

In the end it is a failure in the leadership of these organizations. They all work for the executive branch, which means the buck stops with the President.

ilaksh• 13 years ago

I see the state as basically being a _really_ official Mafia. They are the government because they have a virtual monopoly on deadly force.

If more people understood what the wars were actually about then they would have much more realistic expectations (none) in regards to the ethicality or legality of state actions.

joonix• 13 years ago

Given that the vast majority of American support this type of surveillance in the name of fighting "terrorism," democracy appears to be working. You should blame the electorate.

grappler2• 13 years ago

I'm curious why I haven't seen any talk about porn.

Wait, seriously. Come back for a second. Porn.

We all know a significant fraction of internet traffic is porn. Most men probably watch it. Perhaps also a large fraction of women.

How much you want to bet the NSA knows lots and lots about people's porn habits. Maybe they know exactly what percentage of men and women watch it, browse it, and/or read it.

After all, if you want to threaten, embarrass or otherwise manipulate somebody, knowing their porn habits would probably be a good start.

JumpCrisscross• 13 years ago

We may have a decent time looking at NSA employees' trading histories for suspicious activity. They are a large, secretive organisation populated by smart people who have access to privileged information and who operate on the assumption of immunity. If you could channel public fury over Libor, TBTF, etc. at the NSA it would give the Obama administration even less of a platform to stand on.

malandrew• 13 years ago

This is interesting. I wonder if we could audit the entire holdings of any NSA agents, investigating any portfolios with unusual gains.

mseebach• 13 years ago

Insider trading investigations generally work by looking for unusual trading patterns, especially prior to large market movements. So any NSA employee who's had substantial gains from classified information in his possession would already have been investigated by the NSA.

Security clearances, especially TS ones, come with very elaborate requirements that I'm certain would include a requirement to disclose that you're being investigated by the SEC. Even if it doesn't (or the employee decides not to disclose it), I'd be surprised if there wasn't some exchange of data between the SEC and the clearance authorities. Since trading in the public markets based on classified information constitutes a leak, you wouldn't keep your clearance for long.

trotsky3• 13 years ago

disclosure of investments, assets and other sources of income is an annual requirement for everyone (or nearly) that works at these agencies. The forms are very thorough and clearly get examined carefully and checked against other sources - if you accidentally omit something it is very likely they will contact you about it. Except for some specialized jobs, this constitutes by far the most serious security review employees are regularly subject to. If anything it seems like those subject to the financial disclosures go out of their way to avoid anything that could even slightly be interpreted as a conflict of interest.

While I'm sure there are cases, I think the controls in place to guard against that kind of abuse are probably some of the most effective in government. More effective than polygraph programs to screen those moonlighting for a hostile party, for example.

joering2• 13 years ago

I believe the worst is still to come up to light: that Obama used his friendship with Schmitt and others that sit on the table during his dinner with CEOs of the biggest IT companies to get pinpointed data on all americans that were not sure how to vote in the second therm. That list was priceless and in the presidency race of 2012 would give Obama huge and unfair competitive edge against Romney. Criminal edge I should say.

grappler2• 13 years ago

Event: A bunch of schoolchildren are brutally murdered by a guy with a gun.

Conversation in the media: Maybe citizens shouldn't have guns. At least not guns that can easily fire lots of rounds in a short period of time.

Massive well-funded response: Don't even think about it. This is a violation of a constitutional right (2nd amendment) which is a vital protection against a tyrannical government.

Result: Attempt to pass a bill in congress fails.

Event: Guy with access to highly classified information concerning massive surveillance programs leaks some of this information to the press, which makes some of that information public.

Conversation in the media: This sounds like George Orwell's “1984”. The government is monitoring everyone and lying to congress and to the people about it. The laws, interpretations and court rulings are all secret, preventing accountability. People should know what their government is doing.

Pitiful response from lots of people with no clout: Stop tracking all our calls, movements and internet traffic. This is a violation of our constitutional rights (1st and 4th amendments) which are a vital protection against a tyrannical government.

Counter-response from establishment people with lots of clout: This is necessary to protect you from terrorists.

Result: TBD...

sneak• 13 years ago

I think you are oversimplifying a very complex system.

Silly gun control (which is ineffective at addressing the threat to which it responds) isn't simply difficult to get passed because the NRA has a lot of money.

Conversely, in the second example, the clout/well-funded comparison argument is similarly ineffective.

It's not really that parallel, and there are a lot more factors involved.

egsec• 13 years ago

I don't know if anyone read the onsite comments, but I don't know if this is funny or true:

"Simple question, why wasn’t Snowden’s girlfriend a Spook? Back in the 1990s, if any nerd/geek/brain had access to Top Secret data then one of 17 U.S. agencies would have paired such a person with a beautiful girlfriend with similar level of clearance with whom he could talk just so he wouldn’t run away or leak, and said girlfriend would go on to become wife and pop out a kid or two, preventing said nerd/geek/brain from ever leaking (even if he ran away) just to avoid starving his kid/s because their mommy would lose her security clearance. What happened to America after 9-11? Fear got rid of all the common sense? lol.

Let me guess, the Carlyles went Boozing with Allen and Hamilton and they supplied the intelligence community with so many thousands of geeks and nerds that America’s 17 intelligence services ran out of beautiful women with whom to keep them in line. Ofcourse Snowden would leave his pole dancing, nature loving girlfriend of 8 years (with whom he couldn’t talk about anything and who couldn’t share the burden to his conscience because she had no security clearance) to blow the whistle and expose the alarming surveillance of innocent Americans who have no way to prove their innocence if their innocent words and second or third degree online associations mistakenly put them under suspicion and surveillance just because some computer algorithm got triggered. Just how many Americans are under suspicion right now? What are the numbers exactly? Thousands? Millions? lol."

Before Prosecuting, Investigate the Government

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