
Declassified Report Shows Doubts About Value of NSA’s Warrantless Spying - jacquesm
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/us/politics/value-of-nsa-warrantless-spying-is-doubted-in-declassified-reports.html?_r=0
======
kmonsen
Does anyone seriously think the program is actually to stop terror? It is here
to control the population in the country. Oh you want to run for president
with ideas we don't like? It would be sad if someone publishes all this data
we are sitting on.

~~~
junto
For that to be true, that would mean that the existing president would have
been campaigning to curb the powers of the NSA before he became president and
then afterwards flip flopped, changed his mind and backed off to the point of
supporting more surveillance.

No way! That actually happened! [1] my god, why aren't the American public and
press even asking these questions?

However, he must have changed his mind for some other reason, because
otherwise that would mean the NSA blackmailed the president of the USA. Which
of course is completely unrealistic!

[1] [http://www.propublica.org/article/the-surveillance-
reforms-o...](http://www.propublica.org/article/the-surveillance-reforms-
obama-supported-before-he-was-president)

~~~
kmonsen
There is also a long history of doing this, just one example:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi%20mlk](https://www.google.com/search?q=fbi%20mlk)

Another (not so clear) example is
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_scandal)
He was called "Wall Streets worst nightmare", and suddenly he has to resign
because he spent time with a prostitute.

~~~
maxerickson
Spitzer was also evading financial regulations.

Or do you mean to imply that it was a fabricated hit job? Because to me it
seems to be a real problem when a law enforcement official is giving himself
special treatment.

~~~
bsder
> Or do you mean to imply that it was a fabricated hit job?

Suspected parallel construction. They used illegal collected records in order
to find the dirt, and then dug it out using other means that were quasi-legal.

That having been said, an anti-prostitution _crusader_ who is using
prostitutes deserves exactly what he got. If he hadn't been a crusader, I
would have been sympathetic.

It just like Republican congressmen. I really don't care how or with whom
they're having sex, as long as they aren't crusading against what they,
themselves, are doing.

------
A_COMPUTER
As welcome as this is, I don't want to rely on the standard of effectiveness
in my opposition to such programs.

~~~
deafeningblow
It is unfortunate, but most people will trade their rights and freedom for
perceived security.

Providing evidence to the contrary might be the practical way to sway the
majority's opinion.

It does legitimize the means to the end though, which is never good.

------
themartorana
The worst thing that all of this spying and whatnot did is that every crazy
conspiracy theory written in sibling posts...

...doesn't really seem all that crazy or outlandish at all, and I suspect much
of the speculation is at least partially within the bounds of exactly what
happened/is happening/will continue to happen.

------
JoeAltmaier
Its irrelevant, whatever the 'value' of spying. Utilitarian ethics is a
horrifying foundation for a nation.

~~~
jacquesm
It's unfortunate but in a world where rationality on subjects like these
(forget about ethics) is hard to find pointing out that the thing the world
seems to revolve around (money) is being wasted can be used to some effect.

I agree that this is not the way the world should work but when you all you
have is eggs omelette is on the menu.

------
navait
Secrecy of a program undermined it's effectiveness. It seems clear from this
document that they completely failed to learn what the 9/11 commission blamed
the attacks on: not that we didn't have the intelligence, that the
intelligence was managed and communicated poorly.

I can't imagine as an FBI agent to investigate random phone numbers and told
they were relevant without any context, especially when most of them are
nothing. And if nobody can use this intelligence, why collect it? It sounds
like big data buzzwords gone mad.

Even worse is the secret legal memos. If judges aren't allowed access to the
legal documents about the program, how can they be expected to protect our
democratic institutions and freedoms? Even most of the Bush and Obama
administration's counsel were kept in the dark about the legal memos.

A power grab? If so, a pretty ineffective one, it seems nobody has benefited
from the stellar wind program or even has access to information from it.

------
cm2187
It's kind of like security checks at airports, I am not aware that in the long
history of terrorism, a single attack has been stopped at one of these
security checks.

~~~
tzs
That doesn't really say anything about whether the checkpoints are effective
or not.

If they are ineffective, I'd not expect any attacks to be stopped at the
checkpoint due to its ineffectiveness.

If they are effective, I'd not expect any attacks to be stopped _at_ the
checkpoint because the attackers know about the checkpoint. If they don't know
how to get past it, they will not start the attack.

We do know that before checkpoints where introduced in the early '70s there
were a lot more hijackings. In 1969 there were over two dozen hijackings to
Cuba, for example. Airline hijackings went way down after checkpoints were
introduced and made it so you had to have a more sophisticated plan to get a
gun onto a plane than simply tossing it into your carryon bag.

~~~
cm2187
Then you can justify any vexation to passengers with this logic. If I am
forcing all passengers to strip naked, and for 20 years I do not catch any
terrorist like that, it means I am doing a good job!

~~~
tzs
Using the lack of terrorists caught at a checkpoint to justify the checkpoint
would be invalid, just as using that lack to say the checkpoint is not
stopping attacks is invalid.

My point is that "attacks stopped at checkpoint" is not a useful measure,
because it has little if any connection to the effectiveness or lack thereof
of the checkpoint.

------
logicallee
I had the exact opposite reaction to Snowden's revelations about the NSA that
everyone else did. Prior to that, I had thought it is a ridiculous
infringement on people's privacy. I thought it was terrible what the NSA was
doing. I advocated heavily for anyone thinking about heading in that direction
to rethink their life, and work on something constructive.

Snowden revealed so much more data collection than anyone could have imagined
was going on. People's thoughts as they were evolving, the NSA could watch
someone and know what they were doing before they did! But compared to this
level of surveillance, which was WAAAAAY beyond anything the Stasi or Gestapo
ever did. And did people think that they were living under a police state? Did
people have to watch what they said and wrote? No.

Because the NSA treated that data with an _incredible_ amount of
responsibility. They were, quite literally, a black box:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+building](https://www.google.com/search?q=nsa+building)

And you were hard-pressed to find irresponsibility there. They actively denied
their capabilities, hid from the public, remained completely hidden. This is
great: it's the opposite of living under a dictatorship. It's great that they
hid so well. I gained enormous respect for them. In addition, I thought that
that data would have the most amazing historical significance of anything
humanity has _ever_ recorded.

One of the greatest insights into the past that we have is at Pompeii, where
Vesuvius erupted and covered a city in ash, freezing everything just as it
was, in the middle of conversations. Blackboards were filled with crude
insults to the teacher. People left graffiti everywhere. It gave us an
incredible amount of information.

Can you imagine in the year 3,000, when the NSA's documents are ancient
history, what kind of insight into the human condition, machinations, good
guys, bad guys, plans, history, humanity can gain by seeing every single
person's complete activity down to the second, down to when they were
composing their thoughts?

I believe that history can be a huge lesson, and not only "those who do not
learn from history are doomed to report it", but that it's better to learn
from somebody else's mistakes. In the year three thousand, humanity can learn
so much from a complete black-box recording of everything that has ever
happened today.

Compared to this level of access - which is illegal, which they denied, which
they still do not acknowledge - about the only abuses someone can name is that
a general had a sexual affair (which most people would consider immoral) and
they manufactured a back story for how they learned this. That's the worst
thing I've ever heard about them.

Why do they have to exist at all?

Some people suck. A free society means people are free to do and think
whatever they want. Some of them will choose to pursue great ideas and ideals,
set up huge disruptive businesses where they generate billions of dollars in
true value for society, that never existed before. The easiest way to be a
millionaire is to make something great, and let people buy it.

Other people will look at a millionaire, and make an elaborate scheme to
blackmail and extort them. They think that the easiest way to make money is
through theft, scamming, blackmail, extortion. What should happen if Larry
Ellison's wife is kidnapped? What if a virus writer encrypts your files and
illegally blackmails you to decrypt them?

In the latter case, the person should be brought to justice. And this should
happen: [https://noransom.kaspersky.com/](https://noransom.kaspersky.com/)

Everybody knows what happens under an anarchy, or a complete lack of rule of
law: people spend their energies arming up personally, as opposed to building
relationships, products, ideas, or being productive. People don't trust each
other. Might makes right.

How much better than that is the fact that if you concoct an elaborate
kidnapping or terrorist plan, the appropriate agency can get the black box to
spit some facts out about this?

Since learning the extent of the information the NSA has siphoned up, and the
incredible responsibility that they've treated this with, I would not have a
problem if they had a a multi-petabyte database with every thought, action,
keystroke, of everyone on the planet. If anything it is too bad humanity is
not quite in a position to be united into a single world government that this
is a part of.

I support the NSA in siphoning off all the data, treating it responsibly,
hiding, cowering from oversight, denying what they are doing (even from other
agencies), withholding data, and being the black box that they are. I don't
mind if readers here work for them.

This is just about the opposite of what I thought about the NSA before the
Snowden revelations!

Their very existence keeps people honest. When people online happen to be
talking about how to do something destructive, they joke about being added to
some list. But by the same token, they wouldn't even think about actually
concocting such a plan.

EDIT: I want to reiterate that they should not admit any of this and
vehemently deny it. That is the difference between living under a
dictatorship, or living under complete freedom from surveillance and
government oversight, while enjoying protection from kidnapping and ransom.

~~~
_cipher_
I'm sitting in front of my keyboard for like 10 minutes trying to find where
to start from... Honestly, I cannot.

> Can you imagine in the year 3,000, when the NSA's documents are ancient
> history, what kind of insight into the human condition, machinations, good
> guys, bad guys, plans, history, humanity can gain by seeing every single
> person's complete activity down to the second, down to when they were
> composing their thoughts?

Yes, it will be very pleasant - and exciting at the same time - to be able to
view - and perhaps enjoy the same - activities of a person that searches for
tentacle/eel porn.

~~~
patcon
Ditto. My first thought was to rage at the rationale behind that post, but I'm
glad I stepped back to let it percolate. Scares the shit out of me that
presumably normal and respectable and intelligent people see the situation
that way...

~~~
jacquesm
It's the little helpers that are the problem, _not_ the NSA per se, all those
presumably normal, respectable and intelligent people that see nothing wrong
with this are the heart of the matter.

Here in nl with some regularity the 'if you have nothing to hide you have
nothing to fear' bull-shit gets trotted out and it is really aggravating but
at the same time it helps to have a window into the minds of those that would
be happy to live in a world like that.

Me, I'd rather see whole generations of criminals walk free than to see the
world lose all those things that were hard-won not all that long ago.

Every thread like this eventually converges on comparisons with the former
Third Reich and we tend to shy away from that comparison because obviously the
differences are legion but at the same time you have to really worry what a
future political powershift could do with the data they would have at their
disposal. At a guess any resistance would be dead before they even got to
first base.

