
Keith Alexander's Statement to the NSA Workforce - mikemoka
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/speeches_testimonies/25jun13_dir.shtml
======
dkulchenko
> "Through four years of oversight, the committee has not identified a single
> case in which a government official engaged in willful effort to circumvent
> or violate the law."

I'm getting really tired of hearing this defense from U.S. officials. Just
because something's legal doesn't mean it's constitutional and/or morally
right. I don't think anyone's still arguing the legality of these programs -
we're saying that they shouldn't be there because they violate the spirit (and
arguably, the letter) of the 4th Amendment.

~~~
JulianMorrison
This is one place where I feel your constitution holds you USA types back.
Those rights had to exist before the constitution for it to be written, and
even the constitution itself doesn't try to be a closed set. But it has
largely been judicially interpreted as one. And it is entirely possible the
NSA would pass constitutional muster, with this Supreme Court.

But it is possible for a thing to be legal - and constitutional - and in
breach of rights which _don 't need to be named on any paper_ to still be
rights. Like the right to privacy.

~~~
harshreality
I think that's where constitutional "scholars" go wrong. The "rights" do not
exist in the absence of a secular social contract.

What they mean is that there's no reasonable, fair social contract they can
imagine that lacks those rights. It's perfectly possible for a social contract
to lack certain "inalienable" rights, though. All you need is a pure,
unconstrained democracy to see that.

Unfortunately, interpreting the Constitution as a living document and reading
new rights (like the "right to privacy") into the Bill of Rights and/or the
14th Amendment -- "because of _course_ the founders would ideologically agree
with us that individuals have new rights A B and C" \-- leaves the door open
not only to _good_ interpretations of rights, but _bad_ interpretations of
rights dictated by the majority against minorities, or dictated by powerful
minorities against a disinterested majority.

~~~
skwirl
The 9th amendment seems to me to protect rights not explicitly enumerated in
the Constitution by the Constitution itself. It also gives judicial power of
the courts to all cases arising under the Constitution (Article 3, Section 2).
These seem to give the courts the responsibility to protect rights retained by
the people that aren't explicitly enumerated by the Constitution. Of course,
many people do what I see as Scalian mental contortions to arrive at a
different conclusion.

There certainly have been cases where "rights" conflicted. One would be the
"property rights" of slave owners (slaves being the property in question) vs.
the innate rights of the slaves themselves. However, I see this problem of
"bad rights" as having been solved by the 14th amendment. What bad
interpretations of rights could you see that do not conflict with an existing
amendment?

~~~
harshreality
When a flexible, "living" interpretation is allowed, a religious majority
could view civil liberties and rights through the lens of their religion,
particularly when there is some connection (which they love to exaggerate)
between their religion and the country's founding principles. Hypothetically
speaking, of course.

~~~
skwirl
Yeah, I think that that is prevented pretty clearly by the first amendment.
And the 14th amendment wouldn't allow for granting one class of citizens
rights over/at the expense of another.

As for the bigger picture, in my mind the debate over whether or not the
Constitution is "living" is silly. Of course it is living. Unless you can send
every case back to 1787 you'll never know what the founders intended. You
interpret the meaning of what they wrote through the context of your modern
life. Trying to use their writings of the time for context just exponentially
increases the text that can be construed for any purpose, and you still end up
reading the context through the context of modern life. And the founders
almost certainly had different and unique interpretations of the constitution
that they all voted for.

If a religious majority took over all three branches of government, then what
can you do? The constitution won't save you. The constitution grants them the
power to look at it through their own lens. No other lens is possible. The
constitution is "living" then whether you want it to be or not.

------
pfortuny
I am always saying the same thing but...

This is the same tone the CPSU/NKVD/KGB would use to defend their tactics,
their manipulation, their ultimate power.

The "heroes" are the ordinary citizens. It is their _ordinary_ lives the NSA
is commited to defend: especially their ORDINARINESS, more and above their
lives.

You do not want to live: you want to be free. This is what motivated the
independence war, you know? People preferred dying to living under the Crown.

Nowadays nobody in the whole world is free from the NSA.

This has to end. As soon as possible.

Sorry to say but Goebbels, Beria and so on come to mind. And of course,
Mayakovski...

~~~
embolism

       This has to end. As soon as possible.
    

And be replaced by what?

~~~
ihsw
Few things can replace suspicionless mass surveillance of everybody on the
face of the planet, and personally I'd rather we live in a world where that
doesn't get replaced with anything -- it's put to an end in the same spirit
that slavery is.

Yes I'm aware _everybody_ doesn't use the internet, and yes I'm aware slavery
is still quite prevalent, however my point stands -- slavery is an affront to
self-determination and so is suspicionless surveillance.

~~~
embolism
Well said. However the grandparent comment speaks as though this is unique to
the US, rather than something that most governments are doing or would like to
do.

How do we get to a state where an actual value is ever given serious political
weight? Ending slavery took a major war.

~~~
pfortuny
It needed a war in the US, man, not elsewhere...

~~~
embolism
That seems like just a distraction from actually answering the question into
anti-us sentiment.

------
whiddershins
Yeah, he is employing logical deception. He is equating "willful effort to
circumvent or violate the law" with "willful failures in the protection of
civil liberties" which aren't the same, before we even get to the point of
discussion how people could be incidentally or inadvertently violating rights.

It's almost like he WANTS us to read between the lines and realize the laws
are too permissive.

------
pvnick
This statement indicates real progress and is a fantastic step in the right
direction. While I thoroughly disagree with what Keith is saying (I'll get to
that in a minute), his acknowledgement and down-to-earth tone show that
Snowden's purpose of igniting a national debate on privacy is working.

Now on to what he actually said.

>we provided over 50 cases to both the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees that show the specific contribution of these programs

>The challenge of these leaks is exacerbated by ... little awareness of the
outcomes that our authorities yield

We see on full display the "ends justify the means" attitude that the NSA
argues. It is not an invalid argument, but it is one that I'm sure the vast
majority of the HN audience would disagree with. Hopefully this attitude is
debated in the national spotlight alongside the validity of the programs
themselves.

>Through four years of oversight, the committee has not identified a single
case in which a government official engaged in willful effort to circumvent or
violate the law

Again, there's that "willful" keyword we've heard so much. That's a loophole
you could drive a train through! If Keith is so confident in his _mens rea_
defense [1], I'm sure he welcomes the spotlight being shined on his
organization's workings.

>Leadership ... is now engaged in a public dialogue to make sure the American
public gets the rest of the story

Like I said, it is fantastic that this - the goal Snowden described - is being
acknowledged. I look forward to Greenwald's continued leaks (such as the
imminent release describing the NSA's collecting of the contents of 1 Billion
cell phone calls every day [2]).

> We need you to focus on our primary mission of defending our nation and our
> allies

Keith seems to be worried that these leaks are taking a toll on his
organization's morale. I sincerely hope that this does not impact national
security - I doubt it will - but, reading between the lines, I think he's
petrified that Snowden's heroic leadership in this area will inspire more
leaks. One can only hope.

[1]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea](http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea)

[2] [http://businessinsider.com/greenwald-nsa-store-calls-
every-d...](http://businessinsider.com/greenwald-nsa-store-calls-every-
day-2013-6)

~~~
mindcrime
_This statement indicates real progress and is a fantastic step in the right
direction_

It read, to me, like nothing but a blowhard spouting hot-air and empty
rhetoric, while desperately hoping to spike morale and discourage the next
Edward Snowden from doing The Right Thing.

I mean, it's already well established that the NSA operates with almost zero
_effective_ oversight: given that the FISA courts are nothing but a rubber-
stamp, Congress is lied to and accepts the lies - or engages in willful
ignorance - about this whole situation (well, up until it breaks to the public
thanks to Snowden), and the NSA operate under their own interpretation of the
law anyway.

There's no real judicial oversight of the NSA, there's no Congressional
oversight, so that leaves the Executive branch... and does _anybody_ trust
them to exercise restraint???

 _I think he 's petrified that Snowden's heroic leadership in this area will
inspire more leaks. One can only hope._

No doubt.

~~~
embolism

       ...given that the FISA courts are nothing but a rubber-stamp
    

How is this 'given'? Do we have any evidence of this whatsoever?

~~~
mindcrime
It's been publicly revealed that they only deny something like .03% of all
requests.[1] If that isn't a "rubber stamp" then I don't know what is. Of
course they have a response to that "Well, the requests are so well done that
there are very few that there is any _reason_ to deny them" but that doesn't
pass the "smell test" as far as I'm concerned.

[1]:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=fisa+.03%25](https://www.google.com/search?q=fisa+.03%25)

~~~
embolism

       but that doesn't pass the "smell test" as far as I'm concerned.
    

So it's gone from a 'given' to 'in your opinion'.

It's easy to explain the 0.03 figure if there are a large number of routine
boilerplate small scale requests. It seems highly plausible that this is the
case.

The fact that the figure _is_ plausible doesn't rule out the possibility that
abuses _might_ be being rubberstamped, but the truth is that we don't know,
not that it's a 'given'.

~~~
mindcrime
Anything can be argued... I take it as a given that we aren't living inside a
computer generated simulation known as The Matrix. But somebody, somewhere,
could make a case that we might be. But for all practical purposes, it is a
given that we don't.

For all practical purposes, it is a given that the FISA courts are a rubber
stamp. Just because there is some amazingly-low-probability and unlikely
scenario to explain that away, is no reason not to accept the utter and
obvious truth.

~~~
embolism
So obvious to you that it would seem that you need no evidence at all, other
than your preconceptions.

~~~
ScottBurson
.03% is a disturbingly small number. I don't agree that it constitutes "no
evidence at all".

~~~
embolism
Without knowing anything about the nature of the requests it doesn't tell us
anything.

Imagine there are something like 800 actual terrorist suspects - people who
have been identified via human intelligence, e.g. Known to have met with
terrorist cells, visited training camps, etc.

Of 10,000 requests, it's easily possible that the vast majority could be
simply following up on the immediate network surrounding those people - e.g.
'Suspect X called person Y, person Y is new to us, let us check whether person
Y is linked to other suspects by phone or email'.

Requests like that would be made using a boilerplate form, and would be
_correctly_ rubber-stamped as long as they were closely connected to suspects
identified by other means. We should expect many of those kinds of requests to
be being generated every day by analysts.

The .03 needs to be put in the context of the number of _non-routine_ requests
that are being approved. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable that for every
10,000 boilerplate followups generated by desk clerk analysts, there are 10
more speculative ones generated as a result of more specific investigations,
and of these 30% are deemed overreaching.

The vast majority of requests are likely to be boring inquiries generated by
bureaucrats following procedure, rather than Jack Bauer like rogues constantly
overstepping their authority.

~~~
ScottBurson
I agree that more context is needed to really know what this number means, and
I agree that mindcrime is overstating the case by claiming that it is
sufficient to let us conclude absolutely that the FISA court is not doing its
job.

But I still think the number _probably_ indicates that there is a serious
problem. Further investigation is certainly warranted.

~~~
embolism
Definitely. My guess is that the system is much less corrupt than people think
in practice, although no less fundamentally dangerous.

The secrecy of the process is definitely harming the government's image here,
but I can also see that if the exact limits of what could be approved were
public, terrorists would be able to develop communications strategies to
counter them.

Ironically if his happened, the government would probably react by escalating
to broader approvals. So the secrecy might actually be helping to _limit_ the
scope of the surveillance.

------
indlebe
>we will remain committed to the defense of the Nation and all that it stands
for - security and liberty.

>security and liberty.

Since when did the USA stand for security? Job security? Nope. Home security?
Nope. It' supposed to be a free nation, not a secure nation.

~~~
SeanDav
I believe that the USA always thought of itself as very secure. The richest,
most powerful democracy ever.

911 was a very nasty wakeup call and to me the government reaction following
that just shows how badly shaken the USA was to that.

Who would have thought before 911 that the USA would use torture, or
surveillance of US citizens, or assassinate USA citizens - all government
approved?

Unless the USA can step away from this precipice I don't think it would be a
big stretch to say that the terrorists won and USA lost.

------
UVB-76
The official response to these leaks has been almost as embarrassing as the
leaks themselves, and this statement is a continuation of that trend.

~~~
peteretep
Could you describe what you find to be specifically "embarrassing" about the
response?

~~~
UVB-76
The context is embarrassing. A contractor who worked with the NSA became so
disenchanted with the work they were conducting that he gave up everything he
had to bring it to the attention of the public. Now a US Army General has been
forced to justify the actions of the agency to the staff that remain, to suck
up to them, and implore them not to revolt as Snowden did.

The content is embarrassing. The constant references to 9/11 and to terrorism
more generally. People have for years poked fun at this particular proclivity
of officials, and the statement reads like a parody.

The references to "foreign intelligence" are embarrassing. To those of us who
are foreign to the United States, having widespread violations of our right to
privacy justified by the fact we are "foreigners" is despicable. It might
placate some US citizens, but this episode is a diplomatic catastrophe for the
US, and rightly so.

The very fact gross human rights violations are being justified in the name of
"security" is embarrassing. The fact officials are not in damage control mode,
acknowledging the gross misconduct they have presided over and seeking to
rectify matters, but are instead seeking to continue business as usual.

Everything about this statement is embarrassing.

~~~
res0nat0r
> and implore them not to revolt as Snowden did.

I don't have any evidence to support this, but I bet most NSA employees would
rather see Snowden brought up on charges vs. using him as a lightning rod for
revolt. The majority agree with what they are doing on a day to day basis, not
the opposite.

~~~
UVB-76
> I don't have any evidence to support this, but I bet most NSA employees
> would rather see Snowden brought up on charges vs. using him as a lightning
> rod for revolt. The majority agree with what they are doing on a day to day
> basis, not the opposite.

On the contrary, I suspect a great many recognize, as Snowden did, that the
work they are doing is morally questionable, but would rather turn a blind
eye, keep doing what they're doing and taking home fat paychecks than express
dissent and face the wrath of the state, knowing better than most the capacity
it has to destroy their lives.

~~~
res0nat0r
Maybe it could be the less of either extreme and they just quit and go work
somewhere else? If there has been a mass exodus of NSA employees the last 5
years I'd believe it, but I don't believe that is the case.

~~~
UVB-76
Granted. I suspect most NSA employees put up with it because their salaries
are considerably higher than they could hope to achieve in the private sector,
and they would rather be the spies than the ones being spied upon.

Snowden, a fairly unremarkable sysadmin, was allegedly taking home
compensation of around $200k pa.

To be honest, even I'd probably turn a blind eye if I were being paid that
much.

------
mtgx
This seems like a pre-emptive move to appeal to their "loyalty" to the agency
(and not necessarily to the country) to stop further whistleblowers from
coming out with more secrets.

I'm hoping the smart ones will see through this, and if they do know of other
illegalities/wrong doings, they come forward. If it's ever the time to do
this, it's now, when the government is most vulnerable. It would help if they
were in higher positions inside the agency.

------
mikemoka
Maybe I missed it before but this looks like the first official NSA statement
I heard of about the programs:

"To address this shortfall and protect the nation from future terrorist
attacks like 9/11, we made several changes to our intelligence efforts and
added a number of capabilities. Two of these capabilities are the programs in
the news. They were approved by the Administration, Congress, and the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court"

~~~
rocky1138
That's exactly what I thought. Just last week they put out a warning to US
service members stating that confirming the leaks is against the law. Now we
have the guy at the top saying the stuff in the news is accurate.

~~~
46Bit
> Just last week they put out a warning to US service members stating that
> confirming the leaks is against the law. Now we have the guy at the top
> saying the stuff in the news is accurate.

The decision to declassify would come from the top.

~~~
rocky1138
So if it's declassified, can we see the whole slideshow now?

:P

------
crs
"The challenge of these leaks is exacerbated by a lack of public understanding
of the safeguards in place and little awareness of the outcomes that our
authorities yield."

This is a self inflicted wound that they are refusing to accept responsibility
for. While I am against domestic data collection without cause period, when it
happens there should be informed consent, not blind trust that they won't
abuse the privilege. Furthermore, the handling of any of this data, whether
domestic or foreign by defense/security contractors should be banned. Add any
other entity that would have an economic incentive to secretly abuse said
access to that information to the list.

------
forgotAgain
The thing about trust is once you lose it, it's very difficult to get back.
These days every time I read something from the NSA, Congress or the White
House, about spying on the public (most of it pathetically self
congratulatory) I think bullshit.

The NSA needs to be cleaned out and the White House does as well.

~~~
embolism
Yeah, let's replace them with someone we know can be trusted with technology.
How about Google.

------
skrebbel
Almost entirely off topic, but I was caught off guard by the following line:

> _Your dedication is unsurpassed, your patriotism unquestioned, and your
> skills are the envy of the world._

Your patriotism unquestioned! I wonder, is there any democratic country
outside the US where patriotism is so much a thing? What does it mean, really?
I love my country, so I'll do.. what? What would I do that I wouldn't do if I
didn't love my country? Are those things actually always the right thing to
do?

I'm not really getting to a point here. I'm just surprised that a term as
strong as "patriotism" is used to casually. Do common people in the US really
identify with being a patriot? Or is this just army-speak?

~~~
jhickner
> Do common people in the US really identify with being a patriot?

Patriotism originally meant you were willing to sacrifice something for your
country. Presumably the smallest measure of that sacrifice would be spending
your time developing well-founded opinions about how the country should
operate. (Just take a look at the federalist papers: 85 long, dense articles
arguing in favor of the minutest details of the constitution. And the
expectation was that people would actually read them!)

Unfortunately patriotism doesn't mean sacrifice anymore. It means something
akin to a fingers-in-the-ear, uncritical fanboyism. Just plaster everything
with flags and soaring eagles and call it good. It's not sacrificing
everything (like Snowden did), it's something you do instead of sacrificing
_anything_, even the time it would take to educate yourself on what your
country is doing. And as a bonus you get to flaunt that very ignorance as an
additional point of pride.

And yeah, common people here in the US definitely do embrace it to a
nauseating degree.

~~~
bambax
> _Patriotism originally meant you were willing to sacrifice something for
> your country_

Yes. That's why Snowden is a patriot, not fat bald men sitting around in a
climate-controlled building in Utah, listening to mp3s of private
conversations (and posting them to Youtube -- we're certainly not very far
from this).

Those NSA characters don't sacrifice anything. They probably look like Newman
of Seinfeld fame. Calling them "heroes" is hilarious (as well as Orwellian,
but we're used to that).

~~~
mpyne
> They probably look like Newman of Seinfeld fame.

So it is not possible to be fat and bald and still be willing to sacrifice for
your country?

------
m52go
"...we will remain committed to the defense of the Nation and all that it
stands for - security and liberty."

That's the ENTIRE issue here: security is being placed _before_ liberty.

This document just confirms that.

------
D9u
The words of a liar... He lied about NSA capabilities, instead of simply
saying "No comment." Now we're supposed to just overlook the past lies?

They knew that what they've been doing is wrong and this is in no way
believable when one considers the amount of lies coming out of the US
government these days.

Secret judges. Secret courts. Secret police. Extrajudicial assassinations.
Torture.

Sounds like a Nazi regime.

------
ferdo
> "We need you to focus on our primary mission of spying on our nation and our
> allies."

------
grandalf
Any statement that begins with the equivalent of "We're at war" completely
destroys credibility.

If you have to pretend we are at war to make a convincing argument, you've
already lost (war is obvious).

------
lispm
German ally here. Note to Keith Alexander: we are prepared to defend ourselves
and to decide ourselves how we want to be defended.

Best Regards,

Germany

------
leot
What is unclear is what qualifies as a "national security" issue, and what
doesn't. It would be nice to see its scope clearly defined.

9/11 without question hurt America as a nation. But in the case of the Boston
marathon event -- was _national_ security threatened in that instance? If so,
was national security threatened by the various mass shootings that happened
in the year preceding the Boston marathon?

Similarly, perhaps one could argue that Bradley Manning, because of his
disclosures, threatened national security. But does Julian Assange?

A foreign enemy shooting you on the battlefield: sure. But a guy recording
himself making pro-Jihad speeches?

Russian moles probably count. But sympathizing free thinkers?

------
syjer
>NSA's staunch commitment to protecting and upholding the privacy and civil
liberties of the American people

yup, no problem at all violating the data from foreign people. No problem at
all. This will help american based business.

Welcome to the balkanisation of the web.

------
arbuge
Those allies he talks about in the last paragraph are pretty miffed with him
right now by the look of things...

------
michaelwww

        I like to think
            (it has to be!)
        of a cybernetic ecology
        where we are free of our labors
        and joined back to nature,
        returned to our mammal
        brothers and sisters,
        and all watched over
        by machines of loving grace.
    

Excerpt from All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967) by Richard
Brautigan

About the BBC TV series by the same name: "The Californian Ideology, a techno-
utopian belief that computer networks could measure, control and self-
stabilise societies, without hierarchical political control, and that people
could become 'Randian heroes', only working for their own happiness, became
widespread in Silicon Valley...but that the Californian Ideology had also been
unable to stabilise it; indeed the ideology has not led to people being
Randian heroes but in fact trapped them into a rigid system of control from
which they are unable to escape."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_\(TV_series\))

------
SapphireSun
The tone sounds slightly panicked. I wonder what's going on over there;
especially with the way he bolded the fact that people should keep working. I
wonder if that's just his writing style (military folk love urgency), if it
betrays a growing rift within the organization, or both.

------
scotty79
Too many secrets. Why they don't operate in the open? This might be additional
deterrent to terrorist plots if would be terrorists were aware of how much
surveillance they are exposed to.

~~~
primitur
The true fact of the matter is that any secret kept by the US military, which
must not be revealed to the public in order to maintain public order, and
which nevertheless _does_ induce _Terror_ in the receiver of the secret ..
well folks: this is Terrorism being used on your Government by infiltrating
agents whose true purpose is the destruction of the US, itself, and the
establishment of a new world order. Of people, governments, corporations,
armed with psychological processes designed with specific purposes,
weaponized.

The Terror Meme is A Weapon, Gone Loose.

Anyone alive today, who is making a daily business of the commitment to ideas
such as that populations must serve Terror, must be immediately taken off
their positions of power.

The only possible hope is that the American people realize just how much
responsibility they have to take in order to de-Throne their new masters. If
you are not willing to burn the curtain, not just look behind it, then you
must take responsibility until you are willing, citizen.

The right of the true enemy to keep secrets must be revoked. The absolutely
certain result will be more peace, because Peace happens when people reveal
secrets to each other with the intention of making Peace. To Make Peace,
Communication: and destroy all barriers to doing so.

The US has to have a serious look at its secrecy policies, and there must be a
serious attempt, by the People, to demonstrate to the world that Peace itself,
has still yet a chance to prevail. Make no mistake: on the other side of US
Military Secrets is a reason for the US Military to be removed from post.
Always.

------
askimto
And if you do start doubting our mission, keep your mouth shut, because we'll
ruin your life no matter who you are (that's why they're going after a retired
four star general right now over leaks).

That's also why Obama administration has been so hard on leakers and
whistleblowers in general. To serve as a clear message to those who would talk
about what's been happening at the NSA: we will punish you. The reason for
clamping down so hard is because the scope, both in the amount of surveillance
and in the sheer number of people who knew (in the military, government
employees, contractors, and private companies NSA is collecting data from) had
gotten so out of control.

The questions in my mind are:

How much of a systemic change has this program caused to the federal
government already (e.g. clamping down on whistleblowers)?

How often have the capabilities of NSA been used to track down whistleblowers
of any kind already (ironically employing what's causing the problem in the
first place as part of a "solution")?

Have these capabilities been used to settle political scores already? I'm
thinking of Petraeus. Interesting how those dots were connected. Interesting
also that by then both Obama and Hillary Clinton had reason to be upset with
him.

------
hypertexthero
> Another cause of dullness is imitation. You are made to imitate by
> tradition. The weight of the past drives you to conform, toe the line, and
> through conformity the mind feels safe, secure; it establishes itself in a
> well-oiled groove so that it can run smoothly without disturbance, without a
> quiver of doubt. Watch the grown-up people about you and you will see that
> their minds do not want to be disturbed. They want peace, even though it is
> the peace of death; but real peace is something entirely different.

> When the mind establishes itself in a groove, in a pattern, haven't you
> noticed that it is always prompted by the desire to be secure? That is why
> it follows an ideal, an example, a guru. It wants to be safe, undisturbed,
> therefore it imitates. When you read in your history books about great
> leaders, saints, warriors, don't you find yourself wanting to copy them? Not
> that there aren't great people in the world; but the instinct is to imitate
> great people, to try to become like them, and that is one of the factors of
> deterioration because the mind then sets itself in a mould.

> Furthermore, society does not want individuals who are alert, keen,
> revolutionary, because such individuals will not fit into the established
> social pattern and they may break it up. That is why society seeks to hold
> your mind in its pattern, and why your so-called education encourages you to
> imitate, to follow, to conform.

> Now, can the mind stop imitating? That is, can it cease to form habits? And
> can the mind, which is already caught in habit, be free of habit?

— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Think on These Things (This Matter of Culture), Chapter
16, Renewing the Mind -
[http://books.google.it/books?id=IsldnzHkxpsC&printsec=frontc...](http://books.google.it/books?id=IsldnzHkxpsC&printsec=frontcover&hl=it#v=onepage&q&f=false)

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jetblackio
Maybe I'm a little more trusting than I should be, but I can totally
understand how a program like this would be justified in the minds of agents
and agencies trying to do better at their jobs. They probably truly believe
that this program is for the greater good of the nation and that it WILL save
lives. I can get all of that, and I sympathize.

But power granted is not easily revoked. I'm not as worried about the current
administration and their motives. However, the future can be predicted by no
man, and where this nation is in 10-30 years, no one knows. This power can
easily be used for not just subjugation of this nation, but possibly the
world. In the wrong hands, this could be a tool of unfathomable power. And
that is something I'm absolutely NOT okay with.

If revoking these programs, we open truly open ourselves to more attacks, so
be it. That is the price to be paid for limiting of government power.

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mwfunk
People need to stop trying to turn this into a cartoon. This isn't some good
vs. evil, heroes vs. villains BS, and continuing to present it in that manner
ends up making your opponents look way smarter than they have any right to be.
This is absolutely something people should be up in arms about; I've been
deeply disturbed by the weakening of the concept of civil liberties going back
to Patriot Act. This isn't anything new, this stuff has been going on for a
long, long time. This is the consequence of people buying into the War on
Terror, among other things.

All of this stuff happened for a reason, and that reason was not that the NSA
chief or Obama or Bush or anyone else was an evil person drunk on power who
just couldn't help themselves because they're just that bad (or stupid, or
whatever). This stuff happened because the electorate and the media and
politicians went apeshit after 9/11 trying to point fingers and figure out why
none of the intelligence services were able to "connect the dots" and prevent
9/11 from happening. Absolutely everyone was convinced that it was such an
eminently preventable catastrophe, and everyone was blaming everyone else to
deflect blame from themselves or make it look like they're on the ball.

The electorate demanded it, ate it up, and demanded more. This is why we have
Gitmo. This is why we have torture. This is why we have the Patriot Act and
why we have to take our shoes off at the airport and why we've had so much
more domestic wiretapping in the past 12 years. None of this stuff is news,
and if it is news to anyone they haven't been paying attention. Like, at all,
on any level. If any of the Snowden stuff is revelatory to you, you have been
woefully oblivious to current events for like the past 12 years and are part
of the problem.

The thing is, none of this stuff is the product of individuals so much as it's
the product of the system and the electorate. If people were half as vocal
about civil liberties as they've been about perceived security then we
wouldn't be in this situation. Demonizing the people in charge is a natural
response, but for the most part they're just people trying to do their jobs to
the best of their abilities. The real problem is the system itself (meaning,
pressures within the government and between the government, the media, and the
electorate) and the general lack of focus on, or understanding of, the
importance of civil liberties among the population.

If the outcome of this is nothing more than a bunch of people get pilloried or
lose their jobs, but the core legal framework that allowed this to happen
remains in place, then all of this will have been a huge waste of time. It
doesn't bother me that the NSA exercised powers that they were given and were
instructed to use, it bothers me that all of the lawyers who went over this
stuff with a fine-toothed comb concluded that this was all perfectly OK given
current interpretation of constitutional law.

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enraged_camel
Looks like the NSA sympathizers on HN flagged this story. It's sitting on page
2 despite having 152 votes.

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socrates1998
This all a bunch of newspeak.

"People who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary security deserve
neither."

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ambassador451
Wow this is basically an excerpt from Mein Kampf.

The head of the NSA should consult with us here on reddit and HN before doing
anything since we actually understand geopolitical realities.

~~~
peteretep
Could you explain the similarity you see between this message and "Mein
Kampf"?

