
The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni - ra
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/a-twisted-history-how-a-reagan-era-executive-order-led-to-mass-spying/
======
toyg
You can't make this stuff up. According to TFA:

1\. CIA created black propaganda in USSR linking Soviets and international
terrorists to foment dissent in Russia.

2\. Somebody picked it up from outside and wrote a book about Soviet-terrorism
links.

3\. CIA director read the book, took it seriously, freaked out, lobbied for
more powers.

4\. CIA and NSA got more powers.

It's clearly not the first time in history that an intelligence organisation
engineered a privilege escalation from fraudulent circumstances, but doing it
by accident seems almost funny.

~~~
mpweiher
As retold by Adam Curtis in the excellent BBC three-parter "The Power of
Nightmares":

3a. CIA people told new director, "er, boss, that was actually us".

3b. CIA director does not believe his own people.

And of course the whole "Team B" episode (Rumsfeld etc.), where the complete
lack of evidence that the Soviets had <weapon-of-choice> was reinterpreted to
mean they MUST OBVIOUSLY HAVE <even-worse-than-weapon-of-choice-even-if-
physically-impossible> and perfect secrecy, otherwise how could we not have
found any evidence?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares)

[http://vimeo.com/84414208](http://vimeo.com/84414208)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B)

~~~
chc
Curtis wrote also wrote a great piece about the role incompetence played in
the formation of intelligence agencies, titled "BUGGER: Maybe the Real State
Secret Is That Spies Aren't Very Good At Their Jobs And Don't Know Very Much
About the World".

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER)

~~~
mpweiher
Yep, that was also excellent. Some confirmation from the highest places:

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recounts that he _never_ read the BND
reports, because anything they wrote was tainted. He just asked other world
leaders directly instead.

[http://www.zeit.de/2013/45/nsa-abhoeraffaere-
gelassenheit](http://www.zeit.de/2013/45/nsa-abhoeraffaere-gelassenheit)

------
mikeash
This quote struck me:

"After the United States faced another existential threat in the immediate
aftermath of the September 11 attacks...."

I'm amazed at how accepting the media is of the threat of terrorism. That
statement implicitly compares al Qaeda to the Soviets. The Soviets who, if
they had had a bad day and decided to say "screw it" and wipe out capitalism
for good could have done so within an hour. A country which, at any moment,
could have pressed a button and killed a billion people. (And to be fair, the
US of course had/has the same ability.)

 _This_ is being compared to a loose organization of fanatics where the worst-
case scenario was pretty much, "What if they crashed the fourth plane into the
White House and killed the President!"

I think we need an enemy. The country is built on it. After four decades of
the Cold War, we needed something to put in the "USSR" slot. Terrorists are a
terrible fit, but it's the best we could find.

~~~
ivanca
Any given couple of days more Americans die from heart diseases than those who
died by the 911 attacks, I have yet to see someone call those "an existential
thread for America".

But we never learn. The best thing that could happen right now for the NSA and
the military in the mist of this criticism is another attack on US land, the
former will say " see! This is why we need to spy today more than ever! " and
the military would get another major money injection for decades to come and
it gets to invade any country where they think the enemy might be.

~~~
happyscrappy
I am so tired of this specious argument. Committing suicide is not the same as
being murdered.

~~~
ivanca
I'm not talking about suicide. If you eat for sake of pleasure and NOT in
order to die, it may be stupidity but it is not suicide.

------
bakhy
The same offensive narrative repeats itself.

\- The government is bulk collecting data on foreigners.

\- Meh...

\- They're also incidentally spying on US citizens in the processs.

\- SAY WHAT?!

If the USA could try to acknowledge the human rights of non-US citizens, that
would be really nice.

~~~
worklogin
And your same indignant stance will get largely ignored by me, because it
ignores a core fact: The US doesn't have imminent jurisdiction over you. You
likely aren't ever going to run for political office in the United States. The
US probably doesn't share data with local Japanese law enforcement.

In short, the practical threat is much lower for you than it is for an
American. The CIA spied on the Intelligence committee charged with the
agency's oversight. The NSA and CIA and FBI all likely have dossiers on every
state and federal politician in the country. That means a heck of a lot more
than them doing legit SIGINT on adversaries across the world.

And frankly, even if I completely agree with you, we're still talking about
the U.S. Constitution being blatantly ignored. I know canonical legal
documents of a country aren't as big a thing in other places, but here, it
tends to mean something.

~~~
bakhy
That is a good point! But the same attitude does not stop at surveillance.
Detaining people (or, should I say folks? lol), or executing them by drones,
without any trial, are also things that don't cause too much fuss in the US
public, because the targets are not US citizens... Granted, the scope of these
issues is minute compared to the scope of NSA surveillance.

But all of this together makes the famous words "all men are created equal"
sound hollow.

You also stated their abuses against your government, and I agree that those
are the truly worst offences they made, completely undermining your democracy.
But that is off topic from my comment. US media react strongly to any US
citizen being spied on, not just politicians, while implicitly condoning bulk
collection of data on ALL non-citizens, not just adversaries. I presume
adversaries are most targeted, but nobody really raises that issue or asks for
that kind of oversight. Non-citizens are just not created equal.

P.S. Constitutions are a big thing in many other places, not just in the US. I
hope your phrasing was just an accidental mistake, because you sounded as if
you think no other country respects it's constitution...

------
higherpurpose
Figures that the cause for one of the biggest government abuses in history is
the extension of the president's power. It's like humans never learn. Never
give a single man too much power.

AUMF is just as bad, too. Did you know US is effectively still in a "state of
emergency", today? - and will probably continue to be for long, long, LONG
time, if nobody does anything about it.

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/60-words-and-a-
war-w...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/60-words-and-a-war-without-
end-the-untold-story-of-the-most#2028b1w)

~~~
lukifer
What's interesting is that the "office" of president has grown into countless
agencies and sub-agencies, each with their own motives, political will, and
desire for survival. It's like Daenerys with her dragons: completely under
command, yet good luck ordering them not to eat the local children.

------
daigoba66
I recommend that anyone interested in the topic watch this film:
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-
sec...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/)

It's incredibly detailed, though focusing primarily on executive action post
2011.

~~~
simplemath
That two part documentary should be required viewing. For everyone.

------
Padding
The real issue here is that the public has no control over the spying. Imho,
many would probably be fine with other people listening in on their phone
calls, or going over their browsing history, if the only effect of that would
be terrorists getting caught.

The problem is that currently there is too much potential for the surveilance
data to be comercialized or abused for trivial legal matters.

I think much of the debate could be settled by alowing the public to
scrutinize the surveillance process, and putting any abuse of the data (i.e.
its usage in non-terror-related situations) under extordinarily humiliating
punishments (like denationalization).

------
lasermike026
End to end encryption for everything. Anonymizing technology especially when
you need it. Governments always tap everything.

------
andrewljohnson
Reminds me of the spy novels that led the British to create MI5.

[http://graemeshimmin.com/william-le-queux-and-british-
spying...](http://graemeshimmin.com/william-le-queux-and-british-spying/)

------
coldcode
There is no room in a supposedly democracy (republic) for law by fiat. Either
the people are ultimately in charge or we live in a dictatorship. The
Constitution is not an option.

~~~
happyscrappy
This is the real problem, you cannot have secret laws. Period. Wasting time
wishing nations would just not spy is foolish.

------
duncan_bayne
Interesting article, but it's a pity they chose to lead with weasel words.

"One thing sits at the heart of what many consider a surveillance state within
the US today."

~~~
Dolimiter
If you're wondering why you are being downvoted...

The readership at Hacker News firmly believes that the US is a surveillance
state. Stories are chosen and upvoted which confirm this worldview. Dissenting
opinions are downvoted. If you're looking for a reasoned evidence-based
discussion of the NSA, then choose a different website.

~~~
duncan_bayne
That was actually my point - it _is_ a surveillance state, but the author of
the piece lacked the balls to say it directly.

------
Dolimiter
Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on
evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex-
employee.

However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums
here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

~~~
lotsofmangos
How would you find any information on the internals of the NSA that isn't
hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee?

Current employees who are happy and fulfilled in their work in the security
services don't tend to say all that much to the press.

~~~
XorNot
The structure of every single one of these stories is a single slide or page
or quote, containing maybe less then 50 words maximum.

From there, wild speculation then goes on to breathlessly exclaim about what
this _really_ proves, while failing to actually support any of the assertions.

For good measure toss in some wilful blindness about the point of
surveillance, mechanics of law enforcement, collective action problems or the
fundamental differences between one's own government and a foreign government
(hint: foreign governments _don 't_ have a monopoly of violence over the
citizens of foreign countries).

The people who keep yelling about how nobody cares enough need to consider
that just maybe they're not very good at arguing their point.

Cue downvotes.

~~~
shiven
Pray, share it if you have anything that can disprove the _wild_ speculation.

Hysterical speculation is to be expected when dealing with the doings of an
arm of the government that is willfully shrouded in secrecy. The leaks so far
have only confirmed what was being called "tin-foil hattery" until pre-
Snowden.

If you are so concerned about subduing rampant speculation, how about showing
up with proofs to the contrary instead of ad hominems and downvote baiting?

~~~
XorNot
Because if you don't tow the party line on HN you'll be downvoted no matter
what. Frankly, go check my post history on the matter if you want. The _only_
topic on which I manage to accumulate downvotes is Snowden/NSA related.

Doesn't much matter what the content or argument or tone is or was.

Though I do chuckle at "disprove the speculation".

~~~
Dolimiter
_" The only topic on which I manage to accumulate downvotes is Snowden/NSA
related."_

Indeed, I got -40 karma on this story. Dissenting opinions are not tolerated
on NSA stories.

Therefore people who do not agree with the HN consensus "self-censor", and a
vicious circle is created, with only a single narrative displayed.

~~~
coldtea
> _Dissenting opinions are not tolerated on NSA stories._

Tell me about it. Plus all my proofs for perpetual motion machines and the
flat earth get downvoted too.

