
After Paris Attacks, C.I.A. Director Rekindles Debate Over Surveillance - dankohn1
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/after-paris-attacks-cia-director-rekindles-debate-over-surveillance.html
======
jacquesm
So I guess the time to politicize these attacks has come already. Pity.

But if anything the attacks prove that the whole surveillance thing isn't
effective, not that we need even more of it. After all if a bunch of lowlifes
and assholes are capable of setting this up without any triggers in spite of
some of them already being in police databases for activities related to
terrorism then clearly that approach is bankrupt. So, thanks for the
'rekindling', now please _shut it down_. And divert those funds to old
fashioned policework, which seems to have worked pretty good in the past (RAF,
IRA etc).

~~~
michael_fine

        So I guess the time to politicize these attacks has come already.
    

This complaint has never quite sat right with me. This was, fundamentally, a
political action -- a foreign "nation" (entity?) attacking another nation's
civilians. It seems a pertinent time to have the debate on what should be done
in response, as well as what preventative measures should be taken in the
future -- even if you are vehemently against certain preventative measures.

~~~
jacquesm
This statement is about a career government official cynically using the
murder of a large number of people for his own ends, just as the murderers
cynically used those people for their ends. Yes, it's both political. But it
doesn't do any good, what _would_ do good rather than using this to hasten the
big brother state to the next level would be to attack these problems at the
root. But that would require an entirely different viewpoint, one which I'm
not sure America is ready for because it would ask too many questions about
deeds in the recent past. If anything a good case could be made for a link
between the Iraq invasion and the murders in Paris, my guess is that if the
one had not happened the other wouldn't have happened either, but that's just
my opinion and not something that I can prove.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This statement is about a career government official cynically using the
> murder of a large number of people for his own ends

Which sort of takes for granted the idea that the government official's
position -- which no one doubts precedes the attacks -- is not honestly held
for the reasons presented, and that the official does not honestly believe
that the attacks represent the kind of problem that adopting the policies he
advocates would help prevent.

It doesn't seem to me that this style of argument serves much except to win
kudos from people who already agree with the ideas behind it and oppose the
policies being advocated.

~~~
fweespeech
> It doesn't seem to me that this style of argument serves much except to win
> kudos from people who already agree with the ideas behind it and oppose the
> policies being advocated.

Given France already possessed the desired legal capability and was warned by
a friendly government about one of the suspects in 2014 and again in 2015...

I'm not sure how asking for the same measures that failed is a strategy of
someone with genuine concerns. Why do you think that?

~~~
astronautjones
Very well put.

------
marricks
I just submitted a link to an article about this, but since it didn't get any
traction I'll place it here. I think it best represents the opposing side's
argument (against surveillance):
[https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-
abou...](https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-
to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/)

Here's an excerpt,

> One key premise here seems to be that prior to the Snowden reporting, The
> Terrorists helpfully and stupidly used telephones and unencrypted emails to
> plot, so Western governments were able to track their plotting and disrupt
> at least large-scale attacks. That would come as a massive surprise to the
> victims of the attacks of 2002 in Bali, 2004 in Madrid, 2005 in London, 2008
> in Mumbai, and April 2013 at the Boston Marathon. How did the multiple
> perpetrators of those well-coordinated attacks — all of which were carried
> out prior to Snowden’s June 2013 revelations — hide their communications
> from detection?

------
asquabventured
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." \-- Rahm Emanuel,
White House Chief of Staff January 20, 2009 – October 1, 2010

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." \-- Benjamin Franklin - 11
November 1755

~~~
josefresco
...said in reference to the financial crisis, on the topic of regulation and
reform. A lot less nefarious when you're talking about energy, health,
education, tax policy, and regulatory reforms.

He also went on to say "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were
long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the
opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

As for your (IMHO) cliché Franklin quote - that was in reference to a tax
dispute.

"He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly
and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony
who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family
lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the
Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was
a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he
actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn
family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General
Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it."

 _sigh_

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Genetic fallacy. That the quotes originated under particular circumstances
does not invalidate them as generalities.

~~~
CyberDildonics
But it does take the weight away from them being a window into how
politician's mind works.

Without knowing the context it sounds like a politician stating outright what
they seem to be doing all the time, which is exploiting a crisis to impose
something that benefits few at the expense of many, while the context is the
opposite.

I'm sure politicians have this exact thought in either case, but the quote
isn't the bullseye it might seem.

------
saturdaysaint
Few states will countenance speed limit reductions that would reduce auto
deaths that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, but we'll allow
our basic rights out the window to prevent what looks like a rounding error on
that?

This absurdity is actually what's responsible for any of terrorism's
effectiveness. It's basically a hack designed to provoke an absurd
overreaction. On that count, it succeeded with flying colors in 2001 - I'm
hopeful that we've learned enough in the intervening years (both in terms of
the war and police state) to prevent repeating our mistakes.

~~~
exstudent2
Not to mention the fact that Isis killed 224 people when they bombed the
Russian plane on Oct. 31st and no one seemed to care. When they kill 100 indie
rock fans in Paris though, it's time to repeal personal liberties as fast as
possible? Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing?

 _Neither_ incident should influence policy since as you say, while horrible,
there are a lot of other things killing orders of magnitude more people that
don't get "addressed" the same way this is.

People need to stand strong and resist the urge to be reactive.

~~~
7952
> Why is this incident different than the Russian bombing?

Well its quite well known that certain events create more "buzz" than others.

The plane crash is mostly limited in impact to the bereaved who are probably
mourning rather than tweeting. At least in the UK the travel chaos afterwards
caused more "buzz" than the actual event itself, perhaps because angry
tourists are more likely to tweet/Facebook.

The attacks in Paris directly affected thousands who will have all
communicated that experience directly to friends and on social media. It went
on for hours and was watched by million. For most people it did have more
impact, however shallow that may have been.

~~~
jacquesm
I think this is a direct effect of how large the media portray an event to be.
MH17 was a much larger 'event' in the media than the Russian plane crash
recently (probably due to a bomb placed by IS). The number of casualties were
roughly equal.

So I don't think it has as much to do with the event itself rather than with
the degree to which the media put it on the front burner and what the
nationalities of those involved are. A rule of thumb seems to be that the
further east something happens relative to Greenwich the smaller the font will
be. Ditto South of Spain. To the media some lives are fairly clearly more
valuable than others.

------
sbov
"As far as I know, there’s no evidence the French lacked some kind of
surveillance authority that would have made a difference"

This is really all that should need to be said. Opportunists will jump on any
event to push their own personal agenda, even if what they are pushing
wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference in the outcome of said event.

~~~
jfoutz
Perhaps we should donate copies of NSA software to our allies so they can
protect themselves. </snark>

------
obrero
During the Cold War Pravda said the US's military-industrial complex existed
due to America's nascent imperialism. All mainstream talking heads,
commentators etc. in the US said US military bases only ringed the world
because of the threat of teh Soviet Union. Of course, when the USSR dissolved
itself, NATO expanded east, and US bases didn't close, but open in countries
it could not have been in before. As some Russians say "Everything the
communists said about here was false, everything they said about the West is
true".

The militaruy-industrial complex has found its own form of product-market fit.
Arm Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban to eliminate Afghanistan's
seculat government. Work with the mullahs to overthrow Mossadegh's secular
parliament in Iran. Arm Islamic fundamentalists to undermine Assad's Syrian
government. Then put military bases in, and bomb in some of the countries in
which these Arab nationalists live. Well after a decade of US military
occupation of "Saudi" Arabia, and some decades of arming him against secular
threats, Osama and company attacked the Pentagon etc. ISIS just responded to
France's month long bombing campaign with bombs of their own.

Then we're told we the people have to be spied on...when I was young Nixon was
having burglars break into the Democratic campaign headquarters, then using
the FBI to cover it up. The FBI which was bugging and intefering in Martin
Luther King's campaign for all people in the US to get the freedoms which the
law said we all were supposed to have.

It's a self-reinforcing circle. What the hell does the US have military bases
all over the world for? Not for any good purpose, I have as much suspicion of
the US and French's governments intentions in Arab countries as the Arabs do.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Well after a decade of US military occupation of "Saudi" Arabia...

Having a base in a foreign country is not the same as an occupation -
especially when the base is there with the permission of the foreign country,
because they want your support against other foreign countries.

~~~
obrero
The "permission of the foreign country" is the puppet dictatorship that the US
put in to rule that country. A country which is named after the puppet
dictators family.

It was as clear an occupation as you can have.

Obviously the 15 Saudis who flew planes into the Pentagon and World Trade
Center had different ideas from you about the US's former military occupation
of their country. Which resulted, within two years after 9/11, with the US
ending military occupation of "Saudi" Arabia.

------
makecheck
If "secure" communication schemes are made insecure, other methods will be
used. For example, while it may be inconvenient for two people to drive
halfway across town and meet face-to-face in a dark warehouse, they'd have no
problem doing that if it was the only way to ensure secret communications.
Especially when they're planning events that might take weeks or months to
unfold, what's an extra 30 minutes of driving?

If you invest billions in surveillance, you will only achieve two things:
having spent billions, and making sure that criminals communicate in some
other way. You will have stopped no crimes, except the people who are stupid
enough that they would have been caught anyway.

~~~
jacquesm
Apparently they used playstations...

------
carsongross
Like many modern movements, the surveillance state thrives on its failures,
which makes it nearly impossible to defeat.

~~~
x1798DE
I think it is a bit dangerous to consider this a failure of the surveillance
state. One fundamental problem is that intelligence agencies are seen as
having been given or having taken on the impossible task of preventing any
political violence.

While it's understandable to think that they have failed at this, given that
the task is impossible, it's probably not a good idea to last the failure at
their feet.

------
davidf18
The French should consider consulting the Israeli's who have probably the most
experience combatting Islamic terror. The Israelis are good at both hi-tech
and HUMINT and doubtless other countries could benefit from their expertise,
if they don't already.

However, it is noteworthy that in the end, the Israelis had to build a
security fence around their country in order to combat terror. But this was
for combating terrorists from outside the country.

Several of these French terrorist were French citizens and as such the Israeli
the French could benefit from Israeli assistance.

------
ChuckMcM
This isn't really too surprising, nearly all Law Enforcement agencies have
been using these as a pretense to undermine civil rights. And the argument is
just as broken for crypto as it is for guns, people who are going to use a
tool for ill, will do so regardless of laws disallowing such use. And while it
would be possible to force vendors to put back doors in phones, it doesn't
prevent anyone from sideloading a crypto app.

One of the best counter factuals for this debate is that our terrorists are
using high explosives in suicide belts and fully automatic AK47's in their
acts. Both of those things are supposed to be "impossible" to get by non-
authorized personnel and yet they are. Those physical things have to move
through channels that the authorities already have the right to search and
seize (trans-border crossings) so why not fix _that_ problem?

It is a sad situation, and I mourn for the people of Paris and all the people
and in the future who have been and will be killed by extremists. But that
pales in comparison to how much I mourn for the death of a free and equal
society with guaranteed human rights.

------
Guthur
Unless the French intelligent services were picking on people at random they
already had information on the people they should be watching as evidenced by
the immediate sweeps in the aftermath.

In many of these attacks the individuals are well known to the police and
security services as they often have criminal backgrounds and have been in
prison or custody of some kind. So either they are some sort of criminal
masterminds, which I doubt, or the security services are completely inept even
when they have a wealth of information or something more sinister.

So in my mind more intrusive intelligence is not really the answer.

------
seibelj
All the encryption tools needed are public and open source. Putting backdoors
into Skype, iOS Messages, etc. isn't going to get terrorists.

------
Elizer0x0309
Short term good, catastrophic long term.

Much rather we tackle social issues foreign and domestic.

For one, let's stop using violence to solve other people's problems. Violence
is only justified in defense, as they're invading us.

Everything else should be through discussion in order to foster understanding
and more importantly: empathy.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Violence is only justified in defense, as they're invading us.

How about when they're shooting up our cities _without_ invading us?

------
narrator
It's like a big linear regression. He is arguing for a higher surveillance
coefficient to the societal equation. There are hidden variables though.
Machine learning taught me a lot about politics.

------
ccvannorman
Saying that surveillance doesn't stop all terrorists so we should stop
surveillance is like saying police don't stop all crimes so we should get rid
of police.

~~~
jacquesm
Not all surveillance is bad but dragnet style surveillance of each and every
person (abroad, because of course nobody would ever spy on American citizens)
is apparently in-effective. Targeted surveillance could be an extremely
effective tool against terrorism. As would be the more old-fashioned style
operations (but with much more personal risk for those involved).

------
ck2
What worries me most is Hillary is going to give all these agencies a blank
check.

We might not find out what horrors they've done to "protect us" until late
next decade.

------
norea-armozel
Didn't the Iraqi government warn the French government that there was a plot
to attack them a day before? I swore I read that on Google News.

~~~
CardenB
Afaik, there were warning signs that authorities were aware of, but they
didn't really have any idea what to actually expect.

That's just what I've heard. Id appreciate if someone could come by with more
info or a source.

------
theklub
Obviously the world will be 100% monitored in everything we do. Unless there
are big changes in the government there is no stopping it.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not ready to concede that just yet, just like I'm not ready to concede
that even though it is trivial for a bunch of people to acquire arms and to
commit mass murder that there is nothing that can be done to put a spanner in
their works _long_ before they are even aware of that particular possibility.

Because if we do not solve this problem Europe will have a major civil war on
its hands somewhere in the next two decades.

------
benevol
He couldn't have been cheaper. This is how you make voters feel like stupid
little kids.

------
mhurron
Never let a crisis go to waste.

~~~
mhurron
My goodness, has no one else ever heard that before?

[http://www.perc.org/blog/rahms-rule-never-let-serious-
crisis...](http://www.perc.org/blog/rahms-rule-never-let-serious-crisis-go-
waste)

And further -

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an
opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

Rahm Emanuel

Before the bodies were cold, multiple mouth pieces were blaming encryption for
the attacks. This is exactly what the quote was talking about.

[https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-
abou...](https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris-
to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/)

------
Jerry2
It's next to impossible to have privacy in societies where there are large
swaths of population who want to do others harm.

This is why privacy is doomed in "multicultural" societies.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I assert that it is possible to have a multicultural society _without_ having
large swaths of population who want to do others harm.

~~~
Jerry2
There isn't a single one in the history of the world that lasted for long
time.

There's so much research out there that shows that multiculturalism is the
root of conflicts. For example [0] and see references too.

Just look at the current French republic and how that worked out for them. [1]

[0] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1409](http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1409)

[1]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1199...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11995821/Paris-
attacks-have-put-a-dagger-through-the-heart-of-liberal-Europe.html)

~~~
cryoshon
What about the US, then? We have a form of multiculturalism where minorities
are on average oppressed, but integrate rather than lash out (usually).

I'm not saying we're a shining model or anything, but we have a ton of
different cultures living together more or less harmoniously, even taking into
account the habitual blacks vs whites squabble.

~~~
soylentcola
Humanity also has a pretty extensive history of conflict, even in more mono-
cultural societies. Hell, you could take any mass of people, all from the same
background, race, ethnicity, religion, etc (take your pick), put them on an
island for a hundred years or two, and you'll get factions.

You'll get people fighting over how they think the place ought to be run.
You'll get people fighting over who gets what and why these guys have all this
stuff and we have less stuff. If nothing else, it comes down to availability
of resources and numbers of people (along the lines of Dunbar's number and all
that).

Sure, ethnicity, race, and religion are convenient signifiers of groups of
people and usually when you have two or more groups with significantly
different cultures, you've probably got two or more groups with some level of
inequality and power imbalance so you're already halfway there. But even if
you don't start out with cultural differences, they'll pop up eventually.
Groups of people over a certain size will always have a harder time avoiding
conflict when things get tough. It's almost in our nature to split into "us"
and "them" just to manage it all.

~~~
vlehto
Europe is currently pretty much ordered itself into nation states. It required
some bleeding over the centuries. If you look at Swiss and Germans, they can
hate each other and be internally fine. Both are using 2% of their GDP in
defense to fend of each other proactively. There is balance of power, which
result very little violence.

Now _if_ both countries would import so much people from middle east that they
would constitute something like 30% of the population of each country. Now
ethnic Germans and Swiss seem to be "the same group" compared to Muslims. If
shit hit's the fan, there is new pressure to readjust the borders. And move
the people. Usually that stuff causes bleeding.

You could say that "if" is completely unrealistic right now. I agree. Nothing
that has happened in Europe during past 15 years really warrants any policy
change regarding immigration. The point was largely theoretical, just like
your island.

