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>The fact that to date nobody has been held responsible lends a great deal of credibility to your conspiracy theory. Do you mind explaining why you think that?
by Nadya 11y ago
>The fact that to date nobody has been held responsible lends a great deal of credibility to your conspiracy theory.
Do you mind explaining why you think that? I do not think it makes my theory any more credible.
My concern is that checks and balances rely on oversight. Oversight relies on motivation. There doesn't seem to be any motivation to provide oversight of the NSA.
Anyone in a position to provide oversight can easily be bribed. Want to snoop on your SO or a love interest? Bam. They now have a reason to "glance over" the surveillance and use it for their own personal gain. There is zero motivation other than "integrity" for ratting on the NSA while the individual stands to benefit by keeping their trap shut.
Also because there are always the apologetic pro-authoritarian government shills out there: Yes. I firmly believe that all levels and positions of government can be corrupted or bribed. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are all corrupt. But it cannot be discounted as a possibility.
- jacquesm 11y agoIt lends credibility because if the culprits are known (and they are) and what they did was found to be illegal (and it seems we crossed that particular line long ago) then they should be in court as defendants rather than be promoted. It's not that there isn't any motivation to provide oversight, it's the exact opposite, there is a strong motivation to look the other way. If it weren't then there surely should have been a lot more fall-out from the Snowden leaks but in fact it is mostly a re-arranging and re-naming of some programs and making sure the next Snowden has a much harder time of doing it (and probably an even harder time of getting out of the US before tshtf). This has nothing to do with corruption per-se, it has simply got to do with that plenty of what goes on without our knowledge can not stand the light of day and the amount of complicity is such that no government official will want to look too hard at what other departments are up to because they're up to their necks in it themselves. And that's not just limited to the USA either, I fully expect every western democracy to be doing roughly the same thing only limited by capability to execute and budget.
- jacquesm 11y agoSad to see your comment downvoted, its not fair when you get hammered like that on a follow up question on your own comment. Bleh.
- Nadya 11y agoIt's most likely due to my last paragraph and not the follow up question itself. :) Don't worry about it.