
The Whole Haystack: The N.S.A. claims it needs access to all our phone records - djoldman
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/whole-haystack
======
jobu
The NSA keeps using this "54 terror plots thwarted" rhetoric, but there has
never been any information released to back up that claim.

From Sen. Patrick Leahy, after reading the full classified list:

 _“We 've heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were
thwarted” by the two programs, Leahy told Alexander at the Judiciary Committee
hearing this month. “That's plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to
members of Congress, we get it in statements. These weren't all plots and they
weren't all thwarted. The American people are getting left with the inaccurate
impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs.”_
([http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-
thwarted-...](http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-
nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence))

~~~
burke
Further, even assuming that number is correct, how many people do you figure
die in the average successful terrorist plot? Let's say 100 as a high average.

That means 300,000,000 Americans (and billions of foreigners) are having their
rights violated and wallets emptied via taxation every day to save 5400 lives
over the course of 14 years.

Admittedly, it's 55% more likely than getting struck by lightning, but...

~~~
CHY872
I'm not saying your conclusion isn't wrong, but your argument probably is -
largely because there are many costs of terrorism beyond simply loss of life -
it's an incredibly efficient way to disrupt a nation.

For example, some estimates of the cost of 9/11 (I think including the costs
of Iraq and Afghanistan) suggest that each American is out to the tune of
$10,000 [0]. If the NSA were able to prevent one 9/11 style event, they'd in
one step justify their budget for 300 years (if you ignore Iraq and
Afghanistan, it goes down to 75 years, but in many ways at least Afghanistan
was very much caused by 9/11).

[0] -
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-rec...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-
graphic.html)

~~~
jacquesm
You can't really blame the terrorists for the response. Spain, France, Norway
and Germany have all dealt with terrorism over the last decades and not a
single one of them has invaded other countries in response to such an attack.

And to say that Afghanistan was caused by 9/11 is a total reversal of what
actually happened, 9/11 happened because of CIA involvement in Afghanistan.

~~~
CHY872
Clearly different circumstances however Spain, France, Germany, Norway all
invaded Afghanistan, and Spain and Norway also invaded Iraq. Perhaps not as a
direct response, though.

To your second point, it's clearly a very complicated blame game, but trying
to distill it down to fit your own point is not helpful. We can easily follow
the chain of events backwards - for example had the USSR not invaded
Afghanistan, this might have all been avoided.

Certainly the trigger point was the Taliban refusing to hand over Bin Laden,
thus providing a safe haven for him and other like minded folk.

This all seems to be besides my original point, which was that terror attacks
clearly cost far more than the lives of the people killed, and so arguing that
the benefit of the NSA is minimal by considering only a tiny fragment of its
potential benefit is fallacious.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _and so arguing that the benefit of the NSA is minimal by considering only a
> tiny fragment of its potential benefit is fallacious._

It's indeed fallacious because there is no benefit of the NSA at all - its
current activities are the very _cost_ of 9/11 attacks. Civilian deaths are
not the goal of a terror attack, they're just collateral damage, means to an
end. The goal of an attack is to, as you wrote, "disrupt a nation" \- which is
not something that the bombs do, it's something that the nation does to itself
by having a crazy overreaction.

~~~
CHY872
That only works if you assume that there's only ever one attack. If it thwarts
another, then it's benefiting. In any case, I wouldn't really argue that the
NSA 'disrupts' the nation at all - the spending on it is only a little larger
than at the end of the cold war, and apart from the recent news stories only a
very small minority will actually be affected by it in their daily lives.

~~~
deciplex
>the spending on it is only a little larger than at the end of the cold war

I hope you realize that this means the spending on it is quite high, indeed.

------
sandworm
On principle, I have no real problem with the NSA having access to phone
records (pen register) for purposes of combating actual terrorism. I deem that
an acceptable intrusion. Besides, my phone company already has those records
and uses them for their profit.

The problem is that the NSA can no longer be trusted to confine its use to
terrorism. Drug investigations, immigration issues, even IRS investigations
are using this data. I half expect speeding to be enforced via phone metadata
(GPS). Snowden has also shown us that untold thousands of people have access
to this data with little oversight. I trust actual spies. I do not trust
thousands of twenty-somethings for whom promotion depends on finding some way
of turning my phone records into evidence of crime.

Nor do I want my phone records used in any non-NSA security checks. I work in
a field (legal) where I do occasionally come into contact with very bad
people. It was a legal clinic. He was my client. The fact that we spoke
regularly should not follow me forever.

~~~
smtddr
_> >On principle, I have no real problem with the NSA having access to phone
records (pen register) for purposes of combating actual terrorism._

Right, if they actually _first_ determine that a person is a terrorist, _then_
they start spying, that'd be one thing. But instead, what we have now _(or at
least what they 're asking for)_ is almost like this:

[http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/DarkK...](http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/DarkKnightMontage.mov/view)

Basically, no one person/organization should have this data at their immediate
finger tips. It will be abused; it's human nature. A more acceptable way to do
this is let Apple/Google make their impossible-to-break-encryption-whatever
stuff, then when law enforcement gives a warrant for a particular phone
number, that specific phone gets pushed a firmware update or something that
disables encryption. Pre-emptively/retroactively having access to everyone's
phone data at all times is bad.

~~~
CHY872
Of course, if you wait for people to commit acts of terror before you start
spying on them, you've kinda missed the point of spying.

The fix here is access control. When we have a problem like terror, civil
liberties are the first thing to get thrown under the bus - and trying to
fight that will generally end badly. Too many people complain that the NSA has
these unconstitutional wire tapping programs - where they have next to no
chance of making even the smallest difference to the existence of those
programs.

What people should actually be doing is meeting half way and attempting to put
up firewalls on the data, to make sure it can't be abused where possible. So
no giving the data to other agencies without a warrant - monitor the people
who have access, and make sure that if they do searches for specific people,
that's logged and audited.

Most reasonable people would probably be fine with having some of their
communications monitored, were it in some way guaranteed that their data would
only ever to be considered in any detail (i.e. by a human) if they were
seriously accused of being a terrorist. Personally, I can easily accept that
there are certain cases in which I'd have to give up some of my freedoms in
the interest of the nation.

My concern is that this data might made more widely available - for example in
the DEA's parallel construction cases (or with RIPA in the UK) - where it's
clearly being used in ways against the spirit of the law. Were the NSA clearly
told - yes, you can collect this data, but you can't share it with other
branches of the government and you may only use it for finding terrorists,
that's fine in my opinion - unless I'm a terrorist I'm never even going to
find out that I've been monitored, and no one will be able to use the data
against me.

------
ingler
The excuse for this massive intrusion is terrorism but:

> Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United
> States since 9/11 featured the "direct involvement" of government agents or
> informants, a new report says.

> [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-
> agen...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/government-agents-
> directly-involved-us-terror-plots-report)

~~~
moe
Also for perspective:

3467 people in the USA have been killed by terror attacks[1] since 1970.

In the same timeframe 2091 americans were killed by lightning strike[2] and
roughly 102.000.000 died of old age.

[1]
[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=fatal...](http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=fatalities&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&country=217&count=100)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology)

~~~
0xffff2
It's probably also worth noting that 9/11 accounts for 2953, or a staggering
85%, of those terror related deaths.

~~~
Chinjut
Just to clarify where this number comes from: Wikipedia tells me the number of
deaths caused by the 9/11 attacks was "2,996 (2,977 victims, 19 hijackers)".
Where do I find 2953?

~~~
boyaka
I think he did what I did: sorted by fatalities, found the top 3 which were
9/11 and added them up. He was missing flight 93 which would bring the total
to 2997. Here are the relevant incident summaries:

[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtd...](http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110004)

[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtd...](http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110005)

[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtd...](http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110006)

[http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtd...](http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200109110007)

Wikipedia has a bunch of random news articles as sources and even it's own
entry for casualties saying 2606 at WTC, 125 at Pentagon, and "About 292
people[citation needed]" killed by "burning debris and falling bodies" on the
street.

------
flycaliguy
I feel like I'm stating the obvious a bit here to HN, but does anybody else
think this might have more to do with something completely removed from
terrorism. Like tracking the intricacies of various global markets, cultural
movements, politicians, judges, activists and other influencers in society.
Like basically an opportunity to see everybody at the table's cards (including
your friends) in order to maximize power? Basically arranging enough small
advantages through calculation in order to statistically improve success in
all manner of maneuvers. The ability to further reduce any semblance of the
democratic process by taking your average politician's polling strategy to a
much higher level?

Is there a book on this that anybody recommends? Is this what Art of War is
about or something?

~~~
rhino369
It is a misconception that the NSA is an anti-terrorism agency.

It is a general signal intelligence agency. It's job is the gather as much
foreign intelligence as possible. And that sure includes:Like tracking the
intricacies of various global markets, cultural movements, politicians,
judges, activists and other influencers in society. Like basically an
opportunity to see everybody at the table's cards (including your friends) in
order to maximize power?

Where you go wrong is assuming that means they have some dastardly plan to
subvert global democracy.

The government just really wants good intel. They want to know if Russian
sanctions are working. They want to know if N. Korea is really just
bullshiting or do they mean it. They want to know how much longer with Germany
prop up Southern Europe. They want to know if Cuba is serious about opening up
trade. They want to know if some French scientist is about to develop software
that beats US electronic warfare defenses on their AEGIS destroyers.

~~~
flycaliguy
Great response, thank you. You're right, it's hard during this current media
push to remember that these organizations aren't just fighting terror. I
suppose that is the easiest way to market them to keep the public from getting
to concerned over it.

What if they are using the intel they are gathering in order to influence the
public's opinion as effectively as possible? It's that sort of power
consolidation that worries me and makes me question when an allegiance to the
democratic nation that created them starts to fade away.

How does a free nation effectively control an intelligence agency like this to
prevent it from slowly usurping all the seats of power? It seems to me that
with the expanding technological capabilities of our modern age, we are
feeding our guard dog a new super food and it's going to bite our neck if we
try to slow down the input and tighten it's leash.

~~~
rhino369
It's possible, but there is no indication that the US security agencies "go
rouge." The NSA might be stretching the 4th Amendment but it does so at the
command of the President and it does within the bounds of the law.

When Obama had the CIA kill a US citizen, they wrote a legal memo about it.

The rule of law is still worshiped in the US.

It helps that the leadership of these agencies are political appointees and
then rank and file are just regular bureaucrats.

The guys at the NSA aren't some secret cabal. It's the nerdy dood you play
Settles of Caatan with at a game club in DC.

I also think controlling public opinion is a lot harder than you are
imagining. Even in N. Korea the people generally know their country is
bullshiting them.

~~~
flycaliguy
I hope you are right. Ultimately I'm not opposed to American intelligence
agencies. I'm aware that there are big threats beyond terrorism and it's
important for us to have the best team with the best resources. If things
escalate with China for example I'm willing to accept that sacrifices will
have to be made to our concept of privacy as a wartime measure. If we have to
pull pages out of Art of War to win this thing then I guess that's that.

I just worry that they have in fact gone rouge and have lost track of their
real duty. Snowden's critique of citizen surveillance aside, his critique of
America's ability to protect ourselves from China after crippling our nation's
encryption efforts is what really bothers me. I'm worried that the agency, in
an attempt to tighten it's grip on the western world's communication, is
missing the important window to instead begin locking things down. They are
missing our chance to get our corporations, institutions and infrastructure
encrypted properly to protect civilians from cyberwar fallout. Protecting us
from a modern war modelled in part on America's WWII strategic bombing
campaign of German civilians in an era when we no longer have the geographical
advantage of two oceans keeping us safe.

I think they got a taste of the power that comes with total information (not
unlike the advertising world is with leaders like Zuckerburg [but thats
another post...]) and are not willing to give it up and smarten up.

------
joshstrange
This covers what I see as one of the biggest reasons for stopping the
collection: It simply does not work. We are "winning" the war on terror just
like we are "winning" the war on drugs in that we aren't making a dent at all
and some argue that our actions in both fields actually spur on the exact
activities they are meant to curb/destroy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't trust them with the data in the first place but
even if I did it's been proven again and again that our privacy is being
invaded and no positives are coming out of it. The NSA would have a much
stronger position if it was "Yes, you have no privacy but there is also no
terror" instead we have no privacy and terror attacks abound.

------
sml0820
Several powerful trends have aligned to profoundly change the way that the
world works. Technology now allows stateless groups to organize, recruit, and
fund themselves in an unprecedented fashion. That, coupled with the extreme
difficulty of finding and punishing a stateless group, means that stateless
groups are positioned to be lead players on the world stage. They may act on
their own, or they may act as proxies for nation-states that wish to duck
responsibility. Either way, stateless groups are forces to be reckoned with.

At the same time, a different set of technology trends means that small
numbers of people can obtain incredibly lethal power. Now, for the first time
in human history, a small group can be as lethal as the largest superpower.
Such a group could execute an attack that could kill millions of people. It is
technically feasible for such a group to kill billions of people, to end
modern civilization—perhaps even to drive the human race to extinction.

I encourage anyone to read a relevant paper linked below by Nathan Myhrvold.

[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290382&d...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290382&download=yes)

~~~
badsock
The forces you describe have been in effect for more than half a century, and
during that time the actual damage we've seen from stateless actors has been
miniscule compared to what has been visited on people by their own
governments, governments that have been granted too much power out of fear.

We don't need more dragnet surveillance, we need courage and perspective. Yes,
there is a possibility that a stateless actor could end the world. There's
lots of other ways the world could end too.

~~~
sml0820
There is a trade off between the collective rights of the innocent citizenry
and the rights of the victims of the crimes that can be avoided. At some point
the cost of civilian lives will exceed the cost of strain on civil liberties.

Technology progress and, ultimately the potential magnitude of destruction, is
expanding at an exponential rate. Therefore looking at the past 50 years is
synonymous with driving by looking through the rear view of the car.

Your civil liberties will begin to erode. Even if a bill is passed that
revokes the rights of the NSA, at some point in the next few decades a
destructive event due to technology innovation and commoditization of
knowledge will cause these civil liberties to be eroded.

~~~
nitrogen
What evidence exists that terrorism has reached or will soon reach such a
scale? I see a lot of fear in your comments but not a lot of facts. How will a
stateless actor kill billions of people? How will they even come close to
matching the terrorism of second hand smoke or car crashes?

Hand-wavy extrapolations of technological progress are far from sufficient
justification for giving up civil liberties. We need actual, public evidence
of a sizable threat, actual public proof that the agencies asking for this
invasive power can be trusted, and most importantly, _actual public proof that
these invasive powers will solve the problem they purport to solve at less
social and financial cost than any other approach_.

~~~
sml0820
Let's state the facts: There are biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons
that can kill millions of people today owned by state organizations. Some of
these states have questionable long-term motives whether driven by power or
resources.

There are stateless organizations that would use those weapons in a moment's
notice against the entire population of the United States.

What you are suggesting is that there is no current evidence of weapons of
mass destruction being moved or the knowledge and capital required to make
such weapons being from a state to a state-less organization. I disagree:

Number of terrorist groups that have demonstrated interest in acquiring a
nuclear weapon: 4

Al Qaeda, Chechnya-based separatists, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Aum Shinrikyo

Number of terrorist groups that may be capable of acquiring and using nuclear
weapons: 5

Al Qaeda, North Caucasus-based separatists, Lashkar-e-Tayyib, Hezbollah,
Taliban

Number of known groups that have attempted to buy nuclear material on the
black market: 2

Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaeda

Even if so, there is evidence of weapons of such scale in questionable states
such as Syria. In addition there is evidence of weapons transfer, albeit not
chemical, biological, or nuclear, to stateless organizations.

Millions of people do not have to die to have a substantial impact on a
nation. For you what is that number? Is it in a nominal amount of deaths that
reach above the amount of second hand smoke or car crashes?

Regardless, from a perspective of economic cost giving up the civil liberty of
driving as a result of deaths is not parallel to giving up the civil liberty
of someone checking your phone records.

For now you will not be willing to give up your civil liberty since the
probability of you being hit by a terrorist attack is low ( I would be willing
to wager you to do not live in major metropolitan city). Given the current
pace it is a function of time before a stateless organization increases its
death count. At that point you will be willing to give up some of your civil
liberties.

~~~
nitrogen
_At that point you will be willing to give up some of your civil liberties._

This is unlikely. Let's assume for the sake of argument that you have
satisfied requirement #1 (proof of a threat). #2 (proof of trustworthiness)
and #3 (proof of efficacy and best approach) remain unsatisfied. How is
reading my email and leaving vulnerabilities in my software going to prevent a
non-state group from buying a WMD?

If we ever reach that point it will be a sign that we have totally failed to
build a global enlightened society. I remain unconvinced that universal
snooping will even help with that at all, let alone be the most effective
approach.

------
bhhaskin
What ever happened to being innocent until proven guilty? Once you give up
freedoms they are almost impossible to get back.

~~~
dangerboysteve
This is my take on things. The NSA, via it's domestic spying on US citizen has
massive dirt on US Senators and Congressmen which they hold over them. How do
you explain the constant watering down of legislation to resolve these issues?

~~~
LLWM
Easy. The NSA does what the government tells them to. Why would the government
choose to limit its own power if its hand were not forced?

------
stillsut
Kinda bad analogy but I'll make it:

do you really need to be storing GB's of log files because you might have a
bug in the future?

Yes, to maximize your chances of making the most robust response to a bug or
hack, "all the information" needs to be there.

To bring this back to terrorism, it's not about never having another incident
like Paris, but being able to recognize the extent of the problem after the
fact (who's talking to who?), and being sure your solution solves the problem
as far is it can be traced.

Downvoted, but not replied to...unacceptable.

~~~
rsync
"Downvoted, but not replied to...unacceptable."

Do not digress from a thread to discuss the scoring system.

Write your post, have your discussion, but do not inject meta-scoring chat
into your posts.

------
disposition2
it's pretty insane that the conclusions reached after 9/11 were that we had
the information to thwart the plot but the information we had wasn't being
properly shared between agencies and 14 years later it sounds like while these
agencies have unfettered access to even more information, it still isn't being
properly shared between agencies. In the mean time American citizens have some
of the dust left over from our 4th Amendment rights while non US citizens have
less than zero in regards to 4th Amendment rights.

~~~
csdrane
Would you really want all the information the NSA collects to be shared freely
between agencies?

~~~
disposition2
Oh no, of course not.

I would much prefer the 4th Amendment rights be honored, and the laws that
allow for this catch all surveillance be removed. Instead, allow for
exemptions (which might already be /have been for some time in place) where
law enforcement can use surveillance and some times go beyond the normal scope
when it pertains to an actual investigation and when a impartial judge has
signed off on it.

It is my view that the changes that were made in the past make us no safer
today and the original problem (agencies not sharing information when
pertinent) doesn't seem to be solved and most likely worsened due to the
abundance of (irrelevant) information they now have. I think a good analogy of
the situation is you've had agencies sifting through piles of needles
(somewhat organized) and rather than giving said agencies tools to better
organize the needles, we've just dumped a truckload of more needles on top of
what we already had.

------
sp332
Remember, the NSA is already recording all cell phone calls in the Bahamas
[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-p...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-
pirates-caribbean-nsa-recording-every-cell-phone-call-bahamas/) and
Afghanistan. [https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-
mass.html](https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-mass.html) The
recordings are kept for at least 30 days, or longer if they are interesting.

------
spaznode
Maybe they should have said "our mathematical models need X coverage of
population to <observe> reliably".

At least people could have a slightly more informed sense of outrage then.

------
JumpCrisscross
Call your Congressmen and Senators [1]. If you write to them, do not use a
form letter.

In one or two sentences, explain who you are and why your opinion on this is
relevant. Ask for their position on the issue. Then, conservatively state your
views. Avoid extreme or outraged language.

Last week, I reached out to my senators and Congresswoman about the CISPA bill
[2]. The issue found a place on one Senator's evening agenda and prompted a
follow-up from the Representative. An upside to this country's low democratic
participation is the undiluted return on making the effort to reach out.

[1]
[http://whoismyrepresentative.com/member/view/M000087/](http://whoismyrepresentative.com/member/view/M000087/)

[2] [http://gizmodo.com/the-new-cispa-bill-is-literally-
exactly-t...](http://gizmodo.com/the-new-cispa-bill-is-literally-exactly-the-
same-as-the-1679496808)

------
linuxhansl
I realize that articles is biased...

Am I the only one who read "sending eighty-five hundred dollars" as "eighty-
five _million_ dollars"; only then to skip back to read it as "hundred".

I'm glad to know that we managed to deal terrorism a death blow by making sure
these $8500 never reached the Somali militia. Oh wait, we have not even
stopped the $8500 to get there.

Seriously, if we want save lives, why not invest all this money where it
actually, uhm, saves lives. For example health care. But, hey, that is somehow
unamerican.

Or since lightening strikes kill more people than terrorism does, I suggest we
also spend all this money to build giant metal-wire tents over all major
cities.

It's hard to keep the sarcasm in check with so much paranoia involved.

------
Quequau
If they're asking for it, they're already doing it and now looking for a legal
cover.

------
DanielBMarkham
Citing Section 215 of the Patriot Act is an unusual choice here, as there are
many cross-covering legal authorities. (In the article's defense, it points
this out).

Assuming folks stayed in for the entire tick-tock of the Somalia example,
we're left with the impression that Section 215 hasn't really paid off that
much. But where does that really lead us? If we get rid of 215, we still have
warrantless collection of both metadata and data.

I think we're looking at this the wrong way. The thing I want to know is this:
_as an American citizen who is supposed to be in charge of these well-meaning
but ill-led folks, how do I stop them from collecting data on myself and other
citizens?_

We debate these policies one at a time as each law or provision is discussed,
but nobody seems to be wrapping it all up into a package or proposal that I
can support or vote for.

------
stef25
Living in Brussels with soldiers in the streets now, I wonder - would I mind
free govt access to my phone and email if it would have prevented all the crap
that happened in Paris?

~~~
oleganza
Even if you wouldn't mind, there is your neighbor who would've. Should someone
then put him in prison for having another opinion?

~~~
stef25
Sorry I don't follow, why would that happen?

------
tessierashpool
the real danger with the NSA is Moore's Law. you can't do a greal deal with
this data at the point of collection, but collecting it for a few decades,
while Moore's Law ramps up, will put you in an incredible position of
overwhelming power at the end of that time.

look at how J. Edgar Hoover obsessively spied on American politicians, and
imagine him doing so in 2035, backed up with decades of data, plus computing
power as superior to ours as ours is superior to 1995's.

~~~
LLWM
Indeed. It'd be foolish not to do it.

------
spiritplumber
"sure, you can have mine if i can have yours."

~~~
thwarted
Actually make _everything_ collected _actually fully public_ , with no
exclusions on who is collected from. If it's collected, it's public. After
all, the collection was paid for with public monkey. No need to put in FOI
Requests for this data, since it would be public. Crowd source the the mining
of the data. A completely transparent society.

Nobody in power would actually be for this (but they expect everyone to be),
since it would reveal way more than their claims of what they are searching
for/using it for. If we, the public, are expected to trust these agencies and
those in power with our data, then we should be able to trust each other.
Unfortunately, we'd still here rhetoric about how some people, often those in
power, are _more_ trustworthy than others.

Really, the same response works for "I have nothing to hide". If the goals of
the surveillance are so morally and ethically pure, and the public can be
trusted not to abuse the data, then there revealing all the data to the public
would confirm the pure motives and actions.

------
pvaldes
I wonder what is the purpose of all those comics included each few paragraphs
for all the text extension... To make the people distracted and thinking in
happy talking animals whereas his lives are scanned?

------
pbreit
If there were some independent/third party responsible for the sifting that
took requests from NSA, I could maybe see accepting it.

------
monokrome
Why these writers think that they need to paint the canvas with the entire
history of the NSA for these types of stories is beyond me.

------
bengrunfeld
Maybe instead of revoking every global citizen's right to any type of privacy,
the government should address the issue behind the terrorism: namely, radical
Islam being allowed to proliferate freely and metastasize.

~~~
ingler
The US government wants their allies the Saudis to keep funding and producing
radicals so that it has an excuse to continue with its global surveillance
plan.

It's a great scam. People seem to fall for it.

------
mystique
"All men are created equal" except if they happen to be non-americans

~~~
pmorici
As a practical matter privacy from ones own government should be a higher
priority than from a foreign government who has less direct control over you.

~~~
jobu
Arguably true, but only the U.S. government has the ability to drop a bomb on
you in many (if not most) countries.

