

Obama defends surveillance effort as 'trade-off' for security - kyle_t
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/08/us-usa-security-records-idUSBRE9560VA20130608

======
joelrunyon
terrorist - ter·ror·ist [ter-er-ist] noun 2\. a person who terrorizes or
frightens others.

It seems more & more that the people doing the most to rally up fear &
frighten us are the people we elected - not random people throughout the world
that "hate" us.

~~~
just2n
Hey guys, there are these terrorists that live over there, it's somewhere in
the middle east, but it's not really important where. They hate us, for some
reason. Probably religious reasons. You know, the extremists, not to say that
religion is bad or anything, just people who take it way too far. Well anyway,
they trained up people, hijacked some planes, and flew them into 2 US
buildings killing thousands on September 11, 2001.

These guys are bad guys. Clearly. They're our enemies. They attacked us once,
already, and it's pretty safe to assume they want to attack us more. They want
to kill you and me. They hate us. They're here, right now, and are planning
the next attack. Maybe at your local mall, on that day you head there to check
out some new arrivals and grab some grub at the food court. Have you thought
about that? Your mall could totally be bombed by one of these guys at any
time. Or the train you take to work. Or the bus that's pulling up next to you
while you walk through the streets. BOOM. Any time. Anywhere. You're seriously
screwed. You're in so much danger.

But we want to catch these guys before they blow you up. To do that, though,
we need to see all information, all the time. These guys communicate over
Facebook, they search how to blow up your mall on Google, they use e-mail just
like you. They also call each other on your phone network. We need to nail
these fuckers. So we're going to just listen to everything. Just in case. It's
not you, it's them. We need to catch them.

\--

When did we stop classifying scaring citizens into forfeiting constitutional
rights as ___terrorism_ __? Our government scares me significantly more than
anyone I 've ever seen at an airport, even the crazy ones. It scares me more
than the thought of traveling to the middle east and wearing an "IM AN
AMERICAN" t-shirt. And you want to call THEM the terrorists?

I'd be more afraid of being blown up by a drone strike while in the middle
east than being shot by some radical islamic extremist who's been taught to
hate us.

The forfeit of constitutional rights is unjustifiable.

------
kiba
Ok, since they "done so much" to protect us, why don't they tell us about the
effectiveness of their program in concrete terms?

~~~
anigbrowl
Bad opsec to tip your hand about ongoing operations.

~~~
einhverfr
So, tell us about operations from 2001 through 2008 which are no longer
ongoing.

I don't think that would help though because there isn't a reasonable way to
measure success and that's what the real problem is.

~~~
anigbrowl
I would certainly like to know more about it too, but whenever the government
(regardless of party) throws out details of such things it rarely seems to
change anyone's minds. In a different context, I'm quite interested in
financial fraud and in discussions with others I've heard over and over that
the government never prosecutes anyone in the finance sector. For a while I
got into the habit of pointing them to a DoJ website which demonstrates that a
surprising number of people on Wall Street have been successfully prosecuted
([http://www.stopfraud.gov/news-index.html](http://www.stopfraud.gov/news-
index.html)), but in the end I gave up and just stayed out of those arguments
because nobody ever seemed interested in rethinking their position.

I think most people (and I include myself in this) are much better at
rationalizing their existing position in spite of new data than they are at
re-evaluating their position. Of course this is an endemic problems at
institutions like the NSA and in Congress.

~~~
einhverfr
If you want to know why the wall st. bigshots are above the law, think about
the nature of Capitalism, namely an economy based on the idea that those with
capital buy land, facilities, and tools, and hire labor to build businesses.

Such an economy ends up essentially being owned by the financier, which ends
up being the lenders and the institutional investors. Banks end up too big to
fail because, particularly when they have investment arms. This is one reason
why building an alternate financial system is so important ;-)

~~~
tptacek
I think he just made the case that they aren't above the law.

------
dschiptsov
It is so funny to see how correct and accurate were insights of Ayn Rand,
Steinbeck, Misihma in describing how the system (corporations, banks,
politicians) works and how naive and abstract are all those political theories
compared to what was actually built.)

It is a good moment to re-read Atlas Shrugged. And Orwell, of course.

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untog
It'll be interesting to see how this flies. To be entirely honest, while the
tech and journalistic circles are utterly outraged about this, the general
public has yet to display any real care or regard for data privacy.

I know a number of people that are quite happy with the idea of invasive
airport scans in order to get better security. It's a hard mindset to change.

~~~
joonix
The general public agrees with Obama for the most part. And no, the general
public's consensus cannot be seen by reading internet blogs/news comments.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"The general public agrees with Obama for the most part."

Evidence?

~~~
anigbrowl
Opinion polls on government's performance, priorities etc., suggest that
people are primarily concerned with economic issues. If you're expecting
protest marches on DC over this I think you're in for a disappointment.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Being primarily concerned with something else doesn't constitute agreement.

~~~
untog
True, but I think the point still stands. The nature of government means that
we don't like everything they do, we just protest the things that matter most.
If this doesn't matter, it'll be allowed, and will be forgotten.

------
philippelh
”Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.”

~~~
tzs
If you were trying to quote Ben Franklin, you botched it. He said "Those who
would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety", which is significantly different.

~~~
tptacek
We're not even sure he said it. He denied authorship of the compilation that
the quote originally appeared in.

~~~
brymaster
He said it, or at least the original thought (or variation of the words) was
his, according to the sources on Wikiquote
[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Quotes](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Quotes)

------
summerdown2
Here is a very interesting and cogent article from David Foster Wallace from
2007 about this very thing:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-
ask...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-
asking/306288/)

The truth is that Obama may be correct: it might be a valid trade to give up
some freedom for security. But in a democracy it would be better to have that
debate openly and let everyone have input into it.

The main issue here, IMO, is the lack of democracy or accountability over this
particular level of surveillance. Even those representatives who knew about it
and wanted to have a public debate about it were kept quiet.

------
lignuist
"You can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy
and zero inconvenience,"

So he is offering us (well, actually just U.S.) 100% security. Interesting...

YES WE SCAN.

------
olgeni
> "We're going to have to make some choices as a society..."

Apparently, "society" didn't know much about this.

------
mtgx
Great article from HuffingtonPost about why this is a false choice. Please
read it. It might change your mind if you're thinking the trade-off may be
worth it:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/a-childs-
guide...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/a-childs-guide-to-why-
nsa_b_3403714.html)

~~~
slacka
Thanks for the link. Some great points there like:

* Since 9/11 we have not had a mass-scale terror attack. We can say 9/11 was a one-off, an aberration, and cannot be a justification for everything the government wishes to do.

* If domestic spying is for our own good, the government should be proud to tell us what they are doing for us, instead of being embarrassed when it leaks. If you're not doing anything wrong then you've got nothing to hide, right?

* The system completely missed the Boston bombers, two of the dumbest, least sophisticated bro' terrorists in the world.

* If instead of spending trillions and trillions of dollars on spying and domestic surveillance we spent that same money on repairing our infrastructure and improving our schools, wouldn't that more directly create a stronger America?

All are valid points to consider in this discussion. But for me, it all boils
down to the risk terrorist pose to America vs risk of government abusing its
power. No contest. I'll take my chances with the "terrorists" any time, any
place, any day.

Let us not forget the sacrifice made by our founding fathers to give us
liberty. Our freedom came at great price that shouldn't be taking lightly.
Only after an open national discussion, with the consensus necessary for a
constitutional amendment, should the government be given this power over us
that they are taking now in secret.

------
RexRollman
I suspect that a vast majority of people are going to be okay with this. It
was been my observation that people are far more interested in safety than
freedom.

------
cinquemb
I have a better chance of overdosing on pharmaceuticals than I do being killed
by "Terrorists".

And lets not pretend that we are suddenly more vulnerable after 9/11\. Maybe
our perma-pandering leaders are more vulnerable as more people start to see
they aren't wearing any clothes…

~~~
angersock
Not to worry, citizen--great strides are being made in the pricing of
medication and health services so even that opportunity for harm will elude
you!

