

Michael Hayden on the Effects of Snowden's Whistleblowing - aespinoza
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/michael_hayden.html

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jpdoctor
> _But it takes a special kind of arrogance for this young man to believe that
> his moral judgment on the dilemma suddenly trumps that of two (incredibly
> different) presidents, both houses of the U.S. Congress, both political
> parties, the U.S. court system and more than 30,000 of his co-workers._

Conversely, it takes a special kind of arrogance for two (incredibly
different) presidents, both houses of the U.S. Congress, both political
parties, the U.S. court system and more than 30,000 of his co-workers to
ignore the fact that 54% of people surveyed think this is a good thing.

[http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/13/new-time-poll-
support-f...](http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/13/new-time-poll-support-for-
the-leaker-and-his-prosecution/)

------
trotsky
_"...the erosion of confidence in the ability of the United States to do
anything discreetly or keep anything secret."_

An amusingly worded statement perfectly delivered in intelligence speak.
Because Mr. Hayden is so crucially aware of how improbable it is for anyone to
keep anything secret at all anymore, he's only worried about people's
misplaced confidence in secrecy being rationalized. The IC banks on people's
impression that secrecy is still practical, but certainly once you realize
that if the people most aware of the porous nature of data networks can't even
stop their secure side documents from leaking en masse nobody less focused
will consider their documents private.

It's a classic double edged sword - the intelligence community had been the
primary driver of innovation in computer and network defense strategies. But
somewhere between the beginning and the end of the development of TPM they
decided that insecure computers were so valuable as an asset that it couldn't
be risked that they might fund research that might accidentally result in some
real level of defense.

If general Alexander spent a tenth the money on defense as he does on
offensive teams and research and bugs maybe they'd actually have more advanced
strategies than air gap and pray. But once the basic judgement was made that
software quality issues appeared to make computer security np complete they
basically gave up on the problem. Thus began the race to exploit and backdoor
the world that we took an early lead in but has lead to a lot of blowback when
not everyone was as concerned as we were with not sharing the benefits with
private industry. Now the big states know more or less everything about each
other, while US multinationals essentially have to horse trade for even basic
information sharing about active intrusions on their networks. Meanwhile the
only people left in the dark are members of the public that are trying to play
by the rules.

------
diminoten
> I'm also tired of this argument:
    
    
        But it takes a special kind of arrogance for this young
        man to believe that his moral judgment on the dilemma
        suddenly trumps that of two (incredibly different) 
        presidents, both houses of the U.S. Congress, both 
        political parties, the U.S. court system and more than
        30,000 of his co-workers.
    

You might be tired of the argument, Mr. Schneier, but that doesn't mean the
argument is invalid.

When you elect people to congress, you elect their whole selves, not just a
collection of individual issues. It's things like these which make topics
other than the direct issues valid questions in a campaign - you're _trusting_
your congressperson to make decisions on your behalf. You need to know what
kind of stuff he or she is made of so when they make decisions on things
you're not aware of, you can trust them to make a decision similar to the
decision you'd make were you in their position.

~~~
rbehrends
Bruce Schneier's point wasn't that there's anything wrong with a
representative democracy, but that this claim is massively overstating things:
i.e. where a single secret court suddenly becomes the "U.S. court system" and
a few legislators that were forbidden to discuss this matter with anyone (even
where they saw problems, as Wyden and Udall did) suddenly become "both houses
of the U.S. Congress".

~~~
diminoten
Yes, because it was classified. There are a whole lot of things judges and
legislators are forbidden to discuss with anyone. The country runs on secrets,
every country does. That's why you elect representatives.

So Bruce Schneier may not have intentionally taken issue with a representative
democracy, but that's where his argument leads.

------
samstave
Any enemy of Edward Snowden is an Enemy of the People of the United States of
America.

