

Intelligence Chief Calls Leaks on U.S. Data Collection ‘Reprehensible’ - magoghm
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/us/intelligence-chief-calls-leaks-on-us-data-collection-reprehensible.html?pagewanted=1

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mpyne
I have to hand it to the whistleblower in this case, he leaked what he thought
was objectionable, leaked nothing else, leaked it to a very few other
reputable parties instead of INTERNET at-large, and what he did leak had an
obvious public interest and little threat to national security otherwise. This
is both because any foreign operatives worth their salt should already be
assuming that their naive electronic comms are available to Ft Meade, and
because the program is so similar to prior programs which have been known to
posterity.

Thanks, "career intelligence community worker" for showing how it's done.

~~~
gaius
Consider this from the BBC:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22811002](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22811002)

 _I 'm of the view that life is too short to worry about whether the FBI is
reading my emails_

I sure as hell hope he didn't leak anything to the BBC as they have abandoned
the notion of protecting their sources!

~~~
logn
He's right. Let our kids worry about it... no. If you think stopping the
inertia of post-9/11 is hard now, wait 50 years. It will get worse and it will
not be stopped, except with extraordinary civil unrest.

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fingerprinter
Just to see if I understand the logic correctly, this person thinks the _leak_
is reprehensible, but the _collection_ of this data is just dandy?

So, the knowledge of this program existing is a huge danger to us, but the
actual collection of this data in no way infringes on our rights? Or, are they
saying they don't care about the latter b/c of the former?

I sometimes can't tell what is malice and what is incompetence in government.
I'd obviously like to assume incompetence, though, to be honest, that really
doesn't make me sleep better at night thinking the people making and
overseeing policy are just plain stupid.

~~~
ryguytilidie
How does this surprise anyone? Bradley Manning released tapes of the US
military murdering civilians after the military denied it happened. Dude went
to jail, military continued to deny thing there is evidence of, and on we go.
People literally see the guy who exposed heinous crimes as worse than the
people who committed the heinous crimes. It's utterly depressing.

------
scotch_drinker
_“The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely
legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the
security of Americans,”_

Said without an apparent hint of irony.

 _In time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act._
George Orwell

~~~
sologoub
The "legal" part is what's probably the most important question. Is it really
legal? Or is it legal, so long as it has not been disclosed and made illegal
by general public outcry?

Sounds too much like "not caught, not a criminal" philosophy.

~~~
darkmethod
I'm starting to question if morality and legality are considered the same by
those in power? Honest question, although off topic and a bit esoteric.

~~~
cmiles74
Perhaps if one becomes comfortable with the idea that all illegal acts are
immoral, it's possible to trick yourself into thinking that all legal acts are
by definition moral.

------
revelation
I really don't get it. I read the court order to Verizon. All it says is "you
are to give us all your data". There are no individual cases, there are no NSA
people identified. There is not a single bit of any identifying information
anywhere to be found.

The nerve of some people. How you can defend classifying the mere fact that
NSA was granted access to Verizon data from a court? What possible "damage to
national security" could there be?

The only damage here is that the government looks like a bunch of lawless
thugs, and to expose that we created transparency laws and classification
systems in the first place. That is the one reason out there that is
completely invalid for classifying something.

~~~
betterunix
There are two ways to view this:

1\. By letting _them_ know how we collect intelligence, _they_ will find ways
to evade us.

2\. By letting Americans know that we are spying on them, we risk a backlash
and possible budget cuts.

I suspect that both of these were going through the heads of high-ranking
decision makers at the NSA (and the FBI and the DEA).

------
pwg
Quote from Clapper from the article:

“The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely
legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the
security of Americans,” Mr. Clapper said.

If the program is "entirely legal", why all the effort to hide it?

~~~
ceejayoz
Lots of things are legal that should be hidden. When the Secretary of State
writes a memo to the President about how much of a dick Vladimir Putin is,
that's entirely legal... but it's not something that Putin needs to be
reading.

That's not the case here, but "if it's legal it should be public" is not
always a reasonable standard.

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nsns
The post-9/11 US administration is a post-traumatic patient, and should be
treated as such: occasional delusions, paranoid thoughts, mood swings, self-
harm...

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lisper
It's not the leaks that are reprehensible.

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/its-not-leaks-that-are-
re...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/its-not-leaks-that-are-
reprehensible.html)

------
balabaster
How hilarious is this? They think that having every piece of information about
you they can get their grubby little hands on is okay... but they don't think
that you should be able to get your hands on all their information? Seems a
touch hypocritical...

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chris_mahan
Their moral compass is slightly off, methinks.

~~~
joonix
Everything they are doing is _legal._ Americans are shocked that a spy agency
was _given powers and money by Congress_ and then proceeded to use them. What
did they think would happen? What about holding the idiots who voted almost
unanimously on the PATRIOT Act accountable?

~~~
chris_mahan
It is legal, in the State of California, to drink alcohol as an adult. That
does not mean I have to do it, as I follow a personal moral code rather than
do whatever is allowed by the law.

Beside, I consider what they have done to be against the 4th amendment of the
United States Constitution, and, in their shoes, I would have resigned my
position rather than compromise my integrity and violate my oath of office to
uphold the Constitution.

Come to think of it, this is one of the reasons I never sought a career in
government.

~~~
tmzt
How old do you have to be to be considered an "adult" in California?

Think about your statement and potentially revise.

~~~
chris_mahan
ya, 21, but that's not relevant to the point I'm trying to make.

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elliptic
It doesn't bother me that he feels like this. I kinda want the director of
national intelligence to be a super-secretive, paranoid psycho. What's
disturbing is that his elected handlers apparently feel the same way.

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jmillikin
MIDDLE SCHOOL - The top bully in Washington Junior High has condemned as
"reprehensible" snitching revealing a secret program to collect locker
combinations from younger students and said a separate disclosure about an
effort to gather lunch money threatens "irreversible harm" to the bully's
financial security.

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mindcrime
Breaking News:

 _HN user 'mindcrime' calls Intelligence Chief "Reprehensible"_

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ethanazir
Radical right wing groups like the Tea Party are a National Security threat
and it is perfectly legal to spy on these extremist groups without consulting
the Judicial Branch because some members of the Judicial Branch are known to
sympathise with these extremist groups.

