
Yahoo scan by U.S. fell under foreign spy law expiring next year - peterkelly
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-idUSKCN1252NR
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Someone1234
I'm going to get hammered into the ground for saying this but...

The US spying wouldn't be nearly as bad if it was more transparent about it. I
know, that sounds crazy, but let me explain. Right now we have secret
information dragnets collecting godknowswhat, with no independent oversight
(that we, citizens, can examine) and no public definition for when an item
moves from automated analysis into the realm of strangers looking at it.

Plus there's no strict definition for where the dragnet's flags begin and end.
For example is an illegal poker game a justified flag? Cheating on your taxes?
Cheating on your wife? Where is the line? Is it only when human life is
endanger? And what about the awkward subject of industrial espionage? Will the
US help US companies beat foreign ones? Will it help one US company beat
another US company? How much does the US Gov really value free capitalist
markets if they cheat?

My point is, the public themselves won't ever allow this spying to stop for
the simple reason that people value security over privacy, and they constantly
demand more security (e.g. after every terrorist attack ever "why didn't you
stop this?!"). So if it is here to stay, we need to have the most transparent
and checks-and-balances system we can.

Yes, sure, criticise me. But do you know how many US spying programs have
closed since Snowden? ZERO. So if we aren't going to close them let's at least
make them less secret, provide better oversight, and provide better controls.

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jwtadvice
You seem to be under the persuasion that these programs are intended to catch
criminal behavior.

They are not.

The NSA engage in what's known as "strategic listening". This is the
'measuring half' to strategic communication - which means propaganda.

Propaganda messaging gets tracked to see how well it penetrates target
societies and knowledge from surveillance about personal associations, trust
networks, how information generally flows through society allow propaganda
programming to be adaptively retargetted and remessaged.

Similarly, these surveillance programmes are used to give American businesses
a leg up in competition (the international oil auctions from a few years ago
are a well known example of this). Surveillance capabilities were installed by
the CIA in their fake Twitter application "ZunZuneo" because having dossiers
on potential future political activists gives US intelligence leverage over
potential future public servicepeople.

Surveillance is and has been about power and control - it's a misunderstanding
to think that the line stops with some kind of criminal behavior or other.
Therein, I think the framing of the question - as much as I like the approach
- will inevitably fall short of really addressing the issue.

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waqf
It's disingenuous to describe FISA as "expiring next year", without mentioning
that Congress is very likely to immediately reauthorize it in some form.

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act))

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mtgx
I almost wish Clinton gives Feinstein a cabinet position by then. In 2012 she
almost single-handedly pushed the FISA Amendments Act reauthorization on the
Senate floor (with some behind the scenes push from Obama as well).

But I fear it wouldn't make a difference, and she'd keep pushing for it from
whatever high position she would be given as well.

~~~
back_beyond
Why would Trump let Clinton place Feinstein on his cabinet?

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M_Grey
On one hand it's annoying that this is how our government behaves. On the
other, in this case at least, they're welcome to the records of my spam
emails. I truly wonder if anyone is using Yahoo as anything other than a spam-
catcher at this point, or for years now.

To be clear though, the underlying government behavior is reprehensible, and
needs to be curtailed. Governments and LEO's are inherently lazy, and if you
let them investigate broadly instead of forcing them to specify, they will.

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tptacek
Governments are lazy because citizens don't want to pay for them not to be. I
don't think this changes your argument much, but this is a rare case where
other-izing government actions doesn't reveal much; even the _lazy_ approach
being taken here has broad public support.

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waqf
How would you pay for a government not to be lazy?

You can't trivially turn money into good oversight, because of the agency
problem: quis custodiet?

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schoen
In the original from Juvenal, it's "quis custodiet" (future tense, 'who will
guard?'). The present tense would be "quis custodit" ('who guards?').

I don't think "custodet" is a possible form of that verb; the present
subjunctive would be "quis custodiat" ('who would guard?').

~~~
waqf
Thanks, apparently I can't spell today.

(On other days I post comments just like yours … something thematic there, I
fancy. cui custodiendum?)

