
It's time to break up the NSA - privong
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/opinion/schneier-nsa-too-big/index.html
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twoodfin
_This is where the NSA overreaches: collecting data on innocent Americans
either incidentally or deliberately, and data on foreign citizens
indiscriminately._

Put aside the question of data on U.S. citizens: I don't understand how in an
era of burner phones and widespread encryption any intelligence agency can do
without some bulk foreign surveillance. Say HUMINT gets its hands on a foreign
bad guy's contact list. Odds are the most relevant information you'd be able
to extract is in the past, especially if the target knows you captured his
list.

Is it really an "overreach" if the NSA can acquire the mobile phone records of
Yemen "indiscriminately" and use the data to build social graphs for current
and future (currently unknown) targets of interest?

EDIT: I don't mean to cast Schneier's argument uncharitably. He may very well
make a distinction between "acceptable" and "overreaching" bulk surveillance,
but if so he doesn't seem to outline it in this piece.

~~~
belorn
> Is it really an "overreach" if the NSA can acquire the mobile phone records
> of Yemen "indiscriminately

Yes. You can not commit act of violence indiscriminately just-in-case.

The US army could place a bomb under every house in Yemen, just in case that
they would need to bomb it later. Would that be an overreach? If they don't
activate them, how can it be harmful?

~~~
res0nat0r
Where in the world did we start talking about bombing in the comment above? He
is talking about passive communications collection.

~~~
belorn
Passive communications collection is extremely dangerous. If data get leaked,
people are going to die left and right. If the data is somehow incorrect or
corrupted, innocent people will die.

Surveillance is violence. It is that simple.

~~~
jamesgeck0
First you mention ways in which surveillance could result in violence, then
you equate violence and surveillance.

Doesn't your own argument indicate that they are separate concepts? It doesn't
seem simple at all.

~~~
belorn
That is a very semantic way to look at it. If a bomb explode, people die. Thus
I (incorrectly?) equate violence and bombs even if they are technically two
separated concepts. Any weapon, be that information or bombs or what have you
can technically be disconnected with the violence they create, but its a very
dishonest thing to say when the army uses it in a war zone.

~~~
happyscrappy
You didn't equate bombs with violence, if you had you would have a chance of
winning your argument. You equated intel to violence.

Edit: Just to be clear so you can't try to weasel out of what you said, troops
need to be fed so food is violence. Is that clear to you?

~~~
belorn
Im commenting to "win an argument". If you want to believe that information
that direct drones where to send missiles are equal harmless to food, then
have a nice day.

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Zigurd
We have a Cold War sized security apparatus. This is what led our leaders to
think wars on the far side of the planet could be done at "only" a few tens of
billions, and why the cost ballooned to multiple trillions. Because it could.
Because we have the machinery in place.

Now we realize that machinery has put us in a panopticon. To keep us from
creating any fundamental change in government or society. That will cost us
more than trillions of dollars.

~~~
rdl
Actually most it was winding down after the cold war; it was Terror which
really brought it back. (the IC was shrinking fast; the mainstream military
had been cut in half but the rest had a long lead time to reduce beyond that.)

(EDIT: I meant "it re-inflated back to peak size; it's not like it's remained
at that size since the Cold War" \-- which is almost worse, since it means it
was a semi-conscious choice vs. just inertia.)

~~~
Zigurd
At no point was it "cut in half."

Here's a graph:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2012/11/M...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2012/11/Military-
spending-sequester.jpg)

It's barely below the peak spending, including Star Wars and all that, of the
height of the Cold War.

Cutting it in half would be a good start, along with Homeland Security.

More was spent on the recent wars than the whole Cold War. That's your
grandchildrens' debt slavery right there. People should be very very angry
about that.

~~~
rdl
The number of personnel in the Army was cut approximately in half (ok, more
like 35%) after CW and Gulf War 1; the spending (and headcount) lagged new
enlistment to a combination of inflation and Congressional protection (and the
process of separating people being slow). BRAC, etc. was quite real.
Capabilities were approximately cut in half under Clinton, too

[http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004598.html](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004598.html)
is a decent graph of headcount. Reductions in force lag 4-8 years, though.

We did have a massive ramp-up post-9/11 -- not arguing that. I'm arguing that
in the 1990s the military was on a downward trajectory, which was good, and it
was cut substantially and in-line with previous cuts.

Personnel count is a more inflation-insensitive way to measure defense
spending, IMO. Part of that is due to increased contractor use, but that
really didn't kick off until ~2001. The US military in the 1990s was
objectively declining in size, capabilities, and mission, as it _usually_ did
after a war, until they developed the "perpetual war on a tactic" innovation.

The _IC_ was the area which was cut a lot, though. CIA under Clinton was
basically dumping ground for incompetent liberal artists starting their
careers, with political motivations -- sort of like a third-string law school
-- which was fine since there was ~no mission. The Cold War era people were
essentially either of retirement age, or shifted to the commercial world. NSA
wasn't growing much, either. NRO, I believe, was in sustainment mode. The
problem is they ramped up the IC post-9/11 and did it with _those people_ ,
and then bringing in trigger-puller types, including lots of "crusaders"
(super-religious, relatively uninformed, un-nuanced understanding of any of
the issues) people. It's kind of amazing we didn't end up actually invading
Iran or whatever.

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jobu
_" Second, all surveillance of Americans should be moved to the FBI."_

This sounds like a great idea in theory, but in the current age of global
communications I'm concerned that it's impossible to separate surveillance
into "American" and "foreign". This gray area is what the NSA currently uses
to circumvent the US Constitution, and I don't see how any other agency would
handle it differently.

~~~
whatevsbro
" _This sounds like a great idea in theory, but in the current age of global
communications I 'm concerned that it's impossible to separate surveillance
into "American" and "foreign"."_

I've got an even better idea: _No surveillance at all!_

What do Americans gain from the all-encompassing, algorithmic surveillance?
-Why _precisely nothing_ , of course. On the contrary, they suffer massive
losses in privacy.

So why is it done, then? -Not for the people's benefit, that's for sure.

~~~
dllthomas
"No surveillance at all" wouldn't just exclude "all-encompassing, algorithmic
surveillance". It would also exclude warranted tapping of phones in connection
with a murder investigation, and similar. I would be hugely leery of asserting
that we gain precisely nothing from that.

~~~
whatevsbro
You know what I was referring to.

~~~
dllthomas
No, I don't. I have a few guesses, but no clear picture of which you mean,
since none of them is particularly close to what you said.

~~~
whatevsbro
I was referring to NSA & Google monitoring everything anyone in the world does
online. It's pointless to "refute" what I said with a "but what about criminal
investigations?!" .. Well yeah, what abou them?

You don't need to monitor _everyone everywhere_ to solve crimes. You know
that, so you shouldn't be confused about what I was referring to.

~~~
dllthomas
_" You know that, so you shouldn't be confused about what I was referring
to."_

I'm a fan of the principle of charity, but it only extends so far if we're to
actually engage in meaningful discussion. If I always take what you wrote and
assume you mean something I agree with, I might not actually be engaging with
the ideas you are trying to convey. This wasn't a case of ambiguity, but
(apparently) of hyperbole that I failed to recognize as such. Even recognizing
it, I'm still not entirely sure how far you intend it backed off.

~~~
whatevsbro
Nevermind.

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taybin
I think the photo they picked to go with the article subtly undermines it. I
wonder if that was deliberate.

~~~
pit
Yeah, that's awful.

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avoutthere
It's good to see a piece like this on cnn.com, but I doubt that anything will
come of it.

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ck2
Right after the military industrial complex and its pseudo "jobs program".

~~~
vixen99
its

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xpda
No need to break them up. They just need their virtually unlimited budget cut
to the neighborhood of 1995 levels. A gas expands to fill its container. A
political organization expands to fill its budget.

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MrZongle2
"It's time to bell the cat," the mice agree.

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spoiledtechie
First, I am really surprised to see this on CNN....

