4 ms·

I call bull. The government has a strong incentive to prove to us that they are doing an effective thing, and obama and various other officials have been quoted

by hobs 11y ago

I call bull. The government has a strong incentive to prove to us that they are doing an effective thing, and obama and various other officials have been quoted saying from 54 down to various numbers of attacks, and their claims have been shown to be bogus. This argument is actually subject to Russel's Teapot, if you cant prove or disprove anything the burden of proof is on proving the thing. I have yet to see any evidence.

rnovak 11y ago
What incentive is that? The only people they have to prove their worth to are the people that have the power to shut them down. We as a society do not have that power, and that should be obvious by now. When a court decided what they were doing was illegal, less than a day later (probably the fastest anything has EVER happen in the legal system), another bench decided that what the NSA was doing was TOO BIG TO STOP. Like seriously, their argument for not stopping something UNCONSTITUTIONAL was that they were doing too much of it. You and I, and every other civilian who actually understands what they're doing have ZERO power to stop them, so they have ZERO incentive to convince US what matters. You know who they DO have to convince? The exact people that keep voting to KEEP THEM IN POWER. I don't care what Obama and his administration claims, like I said, they have no incentive to prove anything to the American public.
- msutherl 11y ago
  I don't entirely disagree with you, but how do you explain that the former director of the NSA is seemingly fully engaged in explaining and justifying their activities? It would appear that they do have at least some incentive, no? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hayden https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hayden
Tomte 11y ago
As usual, arguments depending on an arbitrary ordering or arbitrary negation are nonsensical: "Is mass surveillance useless? Unless you can prove it, it's obviously useful. See Russell's teapot." (Russell's teapot doesn't apply anyway, because the thing to prove is falsifiable: governments /could/ release information about thwarted attacks, in case there are any.)

by hobs 11y ago

rnovak 11y ago

What incentive is that? The only people they have to prove their worth to are the people that have the power to shut them down. We as a society do not have that power, and that should be obvious by now. When a court decided what they were doing was illegal, less than a day later (probably the fastest anything has EVER happen in the legal system), another bench decided that what the NSA was doing was TOO BIG TO STOP. Like seriously, their argument for not stopping something UNCONSTITUTIONAL was that they were doing too much of it. You and I, and every other civilian who actually understands what they're doing have ZERO power to stop them, so they have ZERO incentive to convince US what matters. You know who they DO have to convince? The exact people that keep voting to KEEP THEM IN POWER. I don't care what Obama and his administration claims, like I said, they have no incentive to prove anything to the American public.

msutherl 11y ago
I don't entirely disagree with you, but how do you explain that the former director of the NSA is seemingly fully engaged in explaining and justifying their activities? It would appear that they do have at least some incentive, no? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hayden https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hayden

Tomte 11y ago

As usual, arguments depending on an arbitrary ordering or arbitrary negation are nonsensical: "Is mass surveillance useless? Unless you can prove it, it's obviously useful. See Russell's teapot." (Russell's teapot doesn't apply anyway, because the thing to prove is falsifiable: governments /could/ release information about thwarted attacks, in case there are any.)