
NSA admits rare willful surveillance violations - naterator
http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-admits-rare-willful-surveillance-violations-211422017.html
======
advice4u
We have reached a point where, no matter how few violations occur and no
matter how innocuous they may be, the average person will always believe the
NSA is doing things that are much more extreme than what is reported. The
secret nature of the NSA (and all intelligence gathering) simply means
rational people will always be able to justify fears of conspiracy, tyranny,
and Big Brother (now that the Snowden revelations have come to light).

What would it take for people to stop fearing an encroaching surveillance
state? The complete dismantling of NSA and the government-intelligence
complex? Even then, intelligent people would have reason to doubt that secret
facilities did not exist somewhere.

I cannot see how any of this can be resolved.

EDIT: I'd like to add another "meta" remark about NSA discussion on the
internet.

Anyone who frequents HN, or reddit's r/technology, or similar boards, will be
familiar with the universal bashing of NSA and rampant speculation of what
they may be doing. Invariably, snarky and profoundly cynical comments are at
the top: these do not help. Instead, they react to the new sensationalist
headline about how "NSA has done something else!!" by bashing the NSA,
American government, Obama, or all three. In effect, every thread about the
NSA is our version of the daily "Two Minutes of Hate", the ritual from
Orwell's 1984 where workers get up and scream, releasing their ire and
accomplishing nothing but self-pacifying catharsis.

We do not need that. Instead of beating the dead horse to make ourselves feel
better and go back to "normal" life, we need to do something productive. Let's
say something new and thoughtful, rather than cynical witticisms.

~~~
jgg
You constantly defend authority and yell at anyone who speculates negatively,
and yet here
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5870726](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5870726))
you rather cynically jumped on the "Snowden is a Chinese spy" bandwagon, when
really the spying accusations make no logical sense, and of course, there's no
evidence of that at all. That makes you a hypocrite.

I'm not sure what else you expect other than blind cynicism - the NSA
constantly does pedantic backflips, lies or invokes "national security" to
prevent from telling anyone what they're doing, even when it's clear they're
violating any sensible ethical guideline. What should we talk about, and
what's wrong with speculation?

Also, the idea that we need to "see the good" in the NSA is fallacious. The
NSA is a party made of volunteers who work for a government who have chosen to
not only exercise authority authority over me, but to abuse it gratuitously,
all while the tax dollars of myself and others fund them to do so, when most
of us never asked them to. Under what moral philosophy do I have to live to
ignore that context to have a peaceful discussion about the merits of a
completely-broken system? On a personal note, foreign intelligence is great,
which the NSA has clearly not limited themselves to in any capacity, based on
the information that we actually do have.

If there's a direction the discussion should move in, perhaps you could start
by leading that discussion, instead of sitting on the sidelines and
complaining about other people and trying to control their thoughts and minds.
As I'm sure you know, actions, intuition and insight are better teachers than
whining and exercising authority.

I do agree that more critical thought (and less blind cynicism) is a good
thing.

Finally, I can't help but note that your role reversal of the _1984_ example
is an extremely-ironic case of "Doublethink", since under no circumstance are
the masses hating on the government blindly remotely applicable to the novel.

------
lawnchair_larry
Didn't Alexander just state to BlackHat in no uncertain terms that there have
been _zero_ incidents, and that's a fact? Looks like the heckler who shouted
bullshit was right.

~~~
dlinder
"You know, and I think you can hear it from some of the comments that we’ve
gotten here. (Inaudible) – see, think about people who are willing to go
forward to Iraq and Afghanistan to help insure our soldiers, sailors, airmen
and Marines, so they can get the intelligence that they need. I believe these
are the most noble people that we have this country. They are willing to put
their lives on the line for their fellow – their fellow soldiers and fellow
Americans, and other countries. And 20 of them lost their lives. And when you
think about that, the issue is these same people who take that same oath to
uphold and defend the Constitution (are?) the ones that run these programs.
And we get all these allegations of what they could be doing. But when people
check, like the intelligence committee, they found zero times that’s happened.
That’s no bullshit. Those are facts." \- General Alexander, 31 July 2013,
Blackhat 2013

[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/T...](http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/Transcript_of_GEN_Alexanders_Black_Hat_Speech_31_July_2013.pdf)

"That guy's a fuckin' liar" \- ioerror, 29c3, "Not My Department"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl5OQz0Ko8c&t=24m15s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl5OQz0Ko8c&t=24m15s)

------
nsxwolf
The mere existence of PRISM et al are the real violations. These admissions
are an attempt at misdirection.

