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> There is no proper oversight, not for any reasonable definition of the word. Could you elaborate on what practices you precisely take issue with? If it is r

> There is no proper oversight, not for any reasonable definition of the word. Could you elaborate on what practices you precisely take issue with? If it is regarding domestic telephony metadata collection, I am in agreement and I am glad that the USA Freedom Act restricted that. Otherwise, I don't really know how to answer you as you haven't stated any specific problem that you have. Additionally, I'm not so sure my reply is that great of a defense, I am only stating facts because I do not believe that spreading misconceptions is very helpful to discussion on this kind of topic.

grandalf 10y ago
> Additionally, I'm not so sure my reply is that great of a defense, I am only stating facts because I do not believe that spreading misconceptions is very helpful to discussion on this kind of topic. This is an interesting point. Over the past few years I've come to think that the most responsible perspective to adopt as a citizen is that officials and government are all, to some extent, bad actors who deserve a good measure of scrutiny and accountability. The biggest breakdown in the democratic process has been a lack of appreciation on the part of the public for all that we consent to by not actively dissenting and demanding answers and accountability. Frankly, the response by officials to the Snowden revelations was deeply embarrassing to our nation.
- willstrafach 10y ago
  > The biggest breakdown in the democratic process has been a lack of appreciation on the part of the public for all that we consent to by not actively dissenting and demanding answers and accountability. I agree. I don't intend to defend anything problematic. I just worry that it will be hard to demand actual changes if people are concerned about vague issues driven by a misunderstanding of how things work, versus actually being able to call up their representatives with specific changes and demands in mind. > Frankly, the response by officials to the Snowden revelations was deeply embarrassing to our nation. I think this was due to the amount of material he leaked. If it was only the metadata-related material or other material related to problematic practices, I would think there would be far more leniency. But because he had taken and leaked everything he could get his hands on, much of it unrelated to anything domestic, the disclosures were viewed very differently. I personally think it makes no sense to charge him with relation to the leaks regarding domestic metadata collection since it was already admitted that this was overreach, but it is hard to figure out why he would blindly copy and leak other sensitive unrelated material (Easy example: I do not understand how he justifies scraping the content of certain internal wiki pages and giving it to The Intercept, there are no injustices described there, just legitimate sensitive intelligence information).
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > I would think there would be far more leniency. I'm less concerned with Snowden's treatment than with the way that our leaders dealt with the revelation that crimes had been committed in the excessive collection of data. In my opinion, at least a few senior intelligence officials should have faced prison time, several more should have stepped down, and we should have seen full details disclosed about the problematic programs and seen the technology infrastructure get dismantled. But we saw nothing like this. President Obama pretended nothing had happened and things just continued on pretty much the way they had been. The key point is that the surveillance programs Snowden revealed are illegal, criminal programs and there is zero accountability for those whose misdeeds and lies led to the programs. While I have no doubt that the vast majority of intelligence agency employees are honest, law-abiding people, I am not comfortable with a massive surveillance system being built behind closed doors with no democratic oversight. The stakes are just too high. I have a number of friends who work in government and I wonder whether they feel comfortable expressing their honest opinions about the programs since for all we know there is a sentiment analysis being done on the emails, tweets, texts, and phone conversations of all government employees with security clearance. From the standpoint of preventing crimes by leveraging surveillance and data mining, of course there would be a sentiment analysis system, and the threat level posed by dissenting sentiment would be easy to monitor so that measures could be taken to prevent undesirable occurrences from happening. Can a democracy exist when there is a massive surveillance system that everyone realizes is lurking behind every web cam and ISP? I'm not sure it can. We've seen a handful of generals and public officials get destroyed by "leaks" of data that were quite likely obtained via the surveillance infrastructure. This should probably terrify us, but there is very little scrutiny of the methods used, including parallel attribution, and most government claims are taken at face value.
    - lern_too_spel 10y ago
      There was only one illegal program in the leaks — the phone metadata collection program that the GP mentioned. At the time it was leaked, its legality was unknown, but the leaks contained arguments from the government's attorneys explaining why it was probably legal. Their arguments had merit and were supported by the District Court of Judge William Pauley, who agreed that Smith v. Maryland's ruling was precedent. Only after appeal was the program ruled illegal, but by that time, the government had already stated the program would be replaced.
fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
USA Freedom act isn't reform, it's a post getting caught minor change of and extension of the Patriot act. Reporting is still voluntary for all practical purposes. Oversight of FISC matters is still the domain of the same FISC that did close to nothing to stop the rampant abuse, except maybe give cover. My biggest issue is the mixing of the NSA's surveillance power with domestic law enforcement. As for your facts you've made some very loquatious attempts. I'm skeptical as to the actual number of facts contained therein.
- willstrafach 10y ago
  I don't know if I would call it rampant abuse. It was one program which I also disagree with, and the USA Freedom Act rectified this (Or rather, it fixed the concerns that I had about it, you may disagree). > My biggest issue is the mixing of the NSA's surveillance power with domestic law enforcement. I fully agree. Serious changes are needed here in my opinion and I hope the pressure due to renewal this year will allow for some reform.

grandalf 10y ago

> Additionally, I'm not so sure my reply is that great of a defense, I am only stating facts because I do not believe that spreading misconceptions is very helpful to discussion on this kind of topic. This is an interesting point. Over the past few years I've come to think that the most responsible perspective to adopt as a citizen is that officials and government are all, to some extent, bad actors who deserve a good measure of scrutiny and accountability. The biggest breakdown in the democratic process has been a lack of appreciation on the part of the public for all that we consent to by not actively dissenting and demanding answers and accountability. Frankly, the response by officials to the Snowden revelations was deeply embarrassing to our nation.

willstrafach 10y ago
> The biggest breakdown in the democratic process has been a lack of appreciation on the part of the public for all that we consent to by not actively dissenting and demanding answers and accountability. I agree. I don't intend to defend anything problematic. I just worry that it will be hard to demand actual changes if people are concerned about vague issues driven by a misunderstanding of how things work, versus actually being able to call up their representatives with specific changes and demands in mind. > Frankly, the response by officials to the Snowden revelations was deeply embarrassing to our nation. I think this was due to the amount of material he leaked. If it was only the metadata-related material or other material related to problematic practices, I would think there would be far more leniency. But because he had taken and leaked everything he could get his hands on, much of it unrelated to anything domestic, the disclosures were viewed very differently. I personally think it makes no sense to charge him with relation to the leaks regarding domestic metadata collection since it was already admitted that this was overreach, but it is hard to figure out why he would blindly copy and leak other sensitive unrelated material (Easy example: I do not understand how he justifies scraping the content of certain internal wiki pages and giving it to The Intercept, there are no injustices described there, just legitimate sensitive intelligence information).
- grandalf 10y ago
  > I would think there would be far more leniency. I'm less concerned with Snowden's treatment than with the way that our leaders dealt with the revelation that crimes had been committed in the excessive collection of data. In my opinion, at least a few senior intelligence officials should have faced prison time, several more should have stepped down, and we should have seen full details disclosed about the problematic programs and seen the technology infrastructure get dismantled. But we saw nothing like this. President Obama pretended nothing had happened and things just continued on pretty much the way they had been. The key point is that the surveillance programs Snowden revealed are illegal, criminal programs and there is zero accountability for those whose misdeeds and lies led to the programs. While I have no doubt that the vast majority of intelligence agency employees are honest, law-abiding people, I am not comfortable with a massive surveillance system being built behind closed doors with no democratic oversight. The stakes are just too high. I have a number of friends who work in government and I wonder whether they feel comfortable expressing their honest opinions about the programs since for all we know there is a sentiment analysis being done on the emails, tweets, texts, and phone conversations of all government employees with security clearance. From the standpoint of preventing crimes by leveraging surveillance and data mining, of course there would be a sentiment analysis system, and the threat level posed by dissenting sentiment would be easy to monitor so that measures could be taken to prevent undesirable occurrences from happening. Can a democracy exist when there is a massive surveillance system that everyone realizes is lurking behind every web cam and ISP? I'm not sure it can. We've seen a handful of generals and public officials get destroyed by "leaks" of data that were quite likely obtained via the surveillance infrastructure. This should probably terrify us, but there is very little scrutiny of the methods used, including parallel attribution, and most government claims are taken at face value.
  - lern_too_spel 10y ago
    There was only one illegal program in the leaks — the phone metadata collection program that the GP mentioned. At the time it was leaked, its legality was unknown, but the leaks contained arguments from the government's attorneys explaining why it was probably legal. Their arguments had merit and were supported by the District Court of Judge William Pauley, who agreed that Smith v. Maryland's ruling was precedent. Only after appeal was the program ruled illegal, but by that time, the government had already stated the program would be replaced.

fnordfnordfnord 10y ago

USA Freedom act isn't reform, it's a post getting caught minor change of and extension of the Patriot act. Reporting is still voluntary for all practical purposes. Oversight of FISC matters is still the domain of the same FISC that did close to nothing to stop the rampant abuse, except maybe give cover. My biggest issue is the mixing of the NSA's surveillance power with domestic law enforcement. As for your facts you've made some very loquatious attempts. I'm skeptical as to the actual number of facts contained therein.

willstrafach 10y ago
I don't know if I would call it rampant abuse. It was one program which I also disagree with, and the USA Freedom Act rectified this (Or rather, it fixed the concerns that I had about it, you may disagree). > My biggest issue is the mixing of the NSA's surveillance power with domestic law enforcement. I fully agree. Serious changes are needed here in my opinion and I hope the pressure due to renewal this year will allow for some reform.