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Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. It gets conflated with an anti-authoritarian mindset. I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by re

by asher 9y ago

Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. It gets conflated with an anti-authoritarian mindset. I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. Some key points: * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others. * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors. * The focus has moved from RF to cyber. Giant antennas are far less important and giant datacenters are the new stars. Vacuuming up packets is less alarming when you understand we've been vacuuming up radio and telephone signals for decades. When comsats were important, NSA was vacuuming up their downlinks. When international telegrams were punched on paper tape, NSA's predecessors picked up the tape each day. * The US has tried going "NSA-less". It happened in 1929 under the slogan "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". That noble slogan led to the US operating at a disadvantage in the lead up to WWII. It doesn't pay to fly blind. * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-matter-faq https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat...

skrebbel 9y ago
Trendy or not trendy, your argument boils down to "we should trade liberty for security in this global surveillance arms race".
sametmax 9y ago
It's like saying peace is trendy and we should not try to go weaponless. That makes no sense. We all want peace. We all know that peace is not there yet and that without weapons the other countries would take advantage of it. Yet we all know that the weapon oriented society the US has become is a major issue. It's not contradictory, just being honest with yourself.
- dom0 9y ago
  > We all want peace. I don't think that's true, there are clearly many people bent on fueling conflicts and wars, both in- and outside the US.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    *In HN. I don't think many people on this forum are war lords. Anyway "we all" is always false, and is just another form of "most people". You must be really lacking of ideas to nitpick on that.
    - mowenz 9y ago
      I don't think he is nitpicking at all. The US has too many conflicts, incl wars. 26,000 bombs dropped last year. Extremist fighters funded by the US Gov't (Syria, Iran Contra, and who knows what else has yet to be proven). We have 7 cities with higher murder rates than any country in Africa or the Middle East, including Afghanistan. Largest prison population, a publicly known torture camp... I could go on. But I think a lot on HN are obviously absorbed in their comfortable occupations--they're challenging, interesting and demanding, and also rewarding. It's easy to get lost in this and forget what less fortunate are dealing with.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > It's like saying peace is trendy and we should not try to go weaponless In physical warfare, the only way to increase your defensive (i.e. deterring) military advantage, relative to an adversary, is to add better materiel. (The other option is to reduce the adversary's material, i.e go to war, which itself requires a military advantage to make sense.) In "cyber," that's not the case. A hoarded vulnerability may end up being used against your own country. Adding vulnerabilities to your stockpile increases your offensive capability while simultaneously forcing you to leave an opening in your defenses unrepaired. We don't have a good analogy for this in meatspace, which is why it's hard to debate at the political level. I don't think all vulnerabilities should be automatically extinguished. At the other end of the spectrum, the NSA hoarding bugs in the software that runs disproportionately American infrastructure systems is patently silly.
justicezyx 9y ago
Your argument is in the same vein as why us has the largest military force. I don't think it's irrational, but I would say it does not address the new security threats.
- 3131s 9y ago
  I was trying to put a word on it too. It's irrational if minimization of harm is the goal. And it's totally blind to the externalities of pouring massive amounts of money into the surveillance industry and really the war industry more generally, as these two are highly interconnected. The arguments are almost insidiously constructed. > Vacuuming up packets is less alarming when you understand we've been vacuuming up radio and telephone signals for decades. No. > Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA Leading with an ad hominem. > The US has tried going "NSA-less". It happened in 1929 Didn't something else happen in 1929 that impacted the overall stability and thereby war readiness of the US?
eksemplar 9y ago
It's not the role of a democratic and free government to use mass surveillance against its own citizens. It's something you do in a tyranny to weed out dissidents and quill rebellions before they happen. I'm sure you can put up a lot of good points as to why he NSAs of the world help, but the simple truth is, that we are not free when we live under a surveillance state.
- walshemj 9y ago
  And in what "democratic and free" state are there not bad actors who do need investigating? Hanson, Philby etc.
  - eksemplar 9y ago
    Safety is a common argument, but mass surveillance doesn't seem to be keeping us safe. https://goo.gl/images/ciNqLM https://goo.gl/images/ciNqLM
hutzlibu 9y ago
"In cyber, offense and defense become the same" More details pls. Because it sounds like bs. It is a difference to secure a network and maybe find out who a attacker is - and then attack back - than to just hack everyone you can and build as much hidden botnets as possible. Which would be "offense" "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". It is indeed a noble statemt. And I'd like to see claims, how that led to US disadvantage in WW2. Because when you have Nazis e.g. they are clearly not gentlemans anymore and can (and were afaik) be spied on. The statement means, that you only spy on enemys. "We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's" You are the still the superpower number one. And for once you lead by example. And you do indeed(or try to) impose restrictions on everyone else all the time. If you would really stop to spy on everybody in the world and really only on your enemys ... this alone would make a huge impact. But you as a empire does not really want to. The more you know about the worlds secrets, the more you can controll it. And no, I am not saying that the smaller empires like china or russia are any better (not at all). But you are the power number on. You have the choice of leading by fear, violence and intimidating - or by sticking to your old values of respecting your peoples and others freedom(as long as it is mutual) and providing a base for a voluntary coorporation of any kind. If you do this, you stay in leadership. If you just become one more lame empire, using any means necessary to stay in power, you will just fall like any of those empires, as history and current trend shows.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  It's an obvious consequence of the action. They're not getting others' secrets. Their enemies are still getting theirs. So, their enemies will know their plans but not vice versa. Definitely not a smart way to wage war.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    So you are saying the whole world is the enemy of the US, including their own population? (I never said something against spying against enemys)
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
benchaney 9y ago
> * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others. So? > * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors. Does this hold even when your "offense" involves hoarding vulnerabilities (instead of responsibly disclosing them) and then leaking them? > * The focus has moved from RF to cyber. Giant antennas are far less important and giant datacenters are the new stars. Vacuuming up packets is less alarming when you understand we've been vacuuming up radio and telephone signals for decades. When comsats were important, NSA was vacuuming up their downlinks. When international telegrams were punched on paper tape, NSA's predecessors picked up the tape each day. I don't see how "we have been doing this for a long time" makes it less bad. > * The US has tried going "NSA-less". It happened in 1929 under the slogan "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". That noble slogan led to the US operating at a disadvantage in the lead up to WWII. It doesn't pay to fly blind. The US did pretty ok in WWII. > * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.... Those things are both issues, and we can discuss them both.
- walshemj 9y ago
  urm no there was stupid inter service rivalry that lead to bizarre things like the army and navy working on decrypting intercepts on alternate days instead of having one organisation like BP and GCHQ
morsch 9y ago
Cyber? Really?!
- pokemongoaway 9y ago
  Ya he probably eats up their literature :P
freeflight 9y ago
This isn't meant as an attack on the OP, but I have a hard time taking anybody seriously who's using the word "cyber" in such an inflated way. Always reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/sehnaoui/status/643972826802688000 https://twitter.com/sehnaoui/status/643972826802688000 I also think it's quite troublesome how this very real issue, IT security, is being misused to stage yet another "War on something" even if there isn't anything concrete to wage a war on. If there's such a thing as the MIC, it seems to have found a new business field with "cyber". IT security works on cooperation, even more so on international cooperation. It does not work when international players are constantly trying to shaft each other over by collecting 0-days, like this is some kind of war which has to be won by pummeling the opposition into submission with "cyber weapons". In that regard agencies like the NSA, and their foreign equivalents, are doing everybody a giant disservice by making the problem worse, not better. We are already at a point where these government agencies tools are being sold to the highest private bidders: https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/shadow-brokers-scylla-hacking/ https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/shadow-brokers-scy... As a fan of dystopian cyberpunk fiction, I'm not sure if I should geek out over this or just be depressed.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Like it or not the "cyber" is now the term that is used
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    People don't just make fun of "cyber" because it sounds stupid, they also make fun of it because it is stupid. The media literally portrays the threat as Tron, when it's actually that critical systems have remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. The only real solution is to find the vulnerabilities before the bad guys do so we can close them before they're exploited. Hoarding vulnerabilities in secret is the exact opposite of the solution.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      as is the way "hacker"'s meaning has changed from its original usage some times you have to accept that meanings change
type0 9y ago
NB! Cyber Warning: Please, you Sir, no one knows what the heck you're talking about
mtgx 9y ago
> Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. Yes, that tends to happen when the NSA abuses its power to illegally spy on its own citizens for its own gain and profit, and also when it tends to compromise security of networks in 99% of the cases for its own surveillance benefits.
pokemongoaway 9y ago
You seem to accept "the ends justify the means" on such a deep level. Have you considered that human history on earth is quite brief - and that our level of experience and confidence in our methods are mismatched? Another question would be: why do you have confidence in authorities while their objectives, desires, names, and alliances are opaque?
jimnotgym 9y ago
I recommend a very health disrespect of organisations like the NSA. This article was shared recently on here apologies for stealing it http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-... It really made me laugh, and think about the pointlessness of the whole organisation of British Intelligence. Are we really clear that MI5/6, NSA, GCHQ etc have any benefit at all. Isn't it just a matter of of an arms race, where each country keeps raising the stakes? It is already clear that the NSA have produced dangerous cyber weapons which have escaped into the wild. The secrecy is the perfect excuse for empire building. You can imagine they are filled with paranoid idiots who want every bit of information going, but never analyse it into anything useful. RE WW2 it is not clear at all that the USA was at a disadvantage due to lack of intelligence. In the UK we love to celebrate our great code breaking efforts, whilst simultaneously the Germans were breaking ours...
fweespeech 9y ago
> Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. It gets conflated with an anti-authoritarian mindset. I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. Some key points: > * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others. > * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors. Reducing domestic surveillance doesn't substantially impact that mission. > * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.... The CIA/NSA can't hold onto its intelligence as shown by various security breaches, whistleblowers, etc. Not gathering domestic surveillance data in the first place avoids that problem. The NSA can keep an eye on China, Russia, etc. all they want.
43224gg252 9y ago
>Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA Because they make us LESS SECURE. They are an anti-security organization.
1001101 9y ago
> I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. All smart people, or those that disagree with your findings from reading two books?
someguydave 9y ago
The NSA might have more credibility if there were some basic policy discussions about its purpose after the Cold War ended and indefinite wars on terror/drugs began.

by asher 9y ago

skrebbel 9y ago

Trendy or not trendy, your argument boils down to "we should trade liberty for security in this global surveillance arms race".

sametmax 9y ago

It's like saying peace is trendy and we should not try to go weaponless. That makes no sense. We all want peace. We all know that peace is not there yet and that without weapons the other countries would take advantage of it. Yet we all know that the weapon oriented society the US has become is a major issue. It's not contradictory, just being honest with yourself.

dom0 9y ago
> We all want peace. I don't think that's true, there are clearly many people bent on fueling conflicts and wars, both in- and outside the US.
- sametmax 9y ago
  *In HN. I don't think many people on this forum are war lords. Anyway "we all" is always false, and is just another form of "most people". You must be really lacking of ideas to nitpick on that.
  - mowenz 9y ago
    I don't think he is nitpicking at all. The US has too many conflicts, incl wars. 26,000 bombs dropped last year. Extremist fighters funded by the US Gov't (Syria, Iran Contra, and who knows what else has yet to be proven). We have 7 cities with higher murder rates than any country in Africa or the Middle East, including Afghanistan. Largest prison population, a publicly known torture camp... I could go on. But I think a lot on HN are obviously absorbed in their comfortable occupations--they're challenging, interesting and demanding, and also rewarding. It's easy to get lost in this and forget what less fortunate are dealing with.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> It's like saying peace is trendy and we should not try to go weaponless In physical warfare, the only way to increase your defensive (i.e. deterring) military advantage, relative to an adversary, is to add better materiel. (The other option is to reduce the adversary's material, i.e go to war, which itself requires a military advantage to make sense.) In "cyber," that's not the case. A hoarded vulnerability may end up being used against your own country. Adding vulnerabilities to your stockpile increases your offensive capability while simultaneously forcing you to leave an opening in your defenses unrepaired. We don't have a good analogy for this in meatspace, which is why it's hard to debate at the political level. I don't think all vulnerabilities should be automatically extinguished. At the other end of the spectrum, the NSA hoarding bugs in the software that runs disproportionately American infrastructure systems is patently silly.

justicezyx 9y ago

Your argument is in the same vein as why us has the largest military force. I don't think it's irrational, but I would say it does not address the new security threats.

3131s 9y ago
I was trying to put a word on it too. It's irrational if minimization of harm is the goal. And it's totally blind to the externalities of pouring massive amounts of money into the surveillance industry and really the war industry more generally, as these two are highly interconnected. The arguments are almost insidiously constructed. > Vacuuming up packets is less alarming when you understand we've been vacuuming up radio and telephone signals for decades. No. > Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA Leading with an ad hominem. > The US has tried going "NSA-less". It happened in 1929 Didn't something else happen in 1929 that impacted the overall stability and thereby war readiness of the US?

eksemplar 9y ago

It's not the role of a democratic and free government to use mass surveillance against its own citizens. It's something you do in a tyranny to weed out dissidents and quill rebellions before they happen. I'm sure you can put up a lot of good points as to why he NSAs of the world help, but the simple truth is, that we are not free when we live under a surveillance state.

walshemj 9y ago
And in what "democratic and free" state are there not bad actors who do need investigating? Hanson, Philby etc.
- eksemplar 9y ago
  Safety is a common argument, but mass surveillance doesn't seem to be keeping us safe. https://goo.gl/images/ciNqLM https://goo.gl/images/ciNqLM

hutzlibu 9y ago

"In cyber, offense and defense become the same" More details pls. Because it sounds like bs. It is a difference to secure a network and maybe find out who a attacker is - and then attack back - than to just hack everyone you can and build as much hidden botnets as possible. Which would be "offense" "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". It is indeed a noble statemt. And I'd like to see claims, how that led to US disadvantage in WW2. Because when you have Nazis e.g. they are clearly not gentlemans anymore and can (and were afaik) be spied on. The statement means, that you only spy on enemys. "We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's" You are the still the superpower number one. And for once you lead by example. And you do indeed(or try to) impose restrictions on everyone else all the time. If you would really stop to spy on everybody in the world and really only on your enemys ... this alone would make a huge impact. But you as a empire does not really want to. The more you know about the worlds secrets, the more you can controll it. And no, I am not saying that the smaller empires like china or russia are any better (not at all). But you are the power number on. You have the choice of leading by fear, violence and intimidating - or by sticking to your old values of respecting your peoples and others freedom(as long as it is mutual) and providing a base for a voluntary coorporation of any kind. If you do this, you stay in leadership. If you just become one more lame empire, using any means necessary to stay in power, you will just fall like any of those empires, as history and current trend shows.

nickpsecurity 9y ago
It's an obvious consequence of the action. They're not getting others' secrets. Their enemies are still getting theirs. So, their enemies will know their plans but not vice versa. Definitely not a smart way to wage war.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  So you are saying the whole world is the enemy of the US, including their own population? (I never said something against spying against enemys)
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago

benchaney 9y ago

> * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others. So? > * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors. Does this hold even when your "offense" involves hoarding vulnerabilities (instead of responsibly disclosing them) and then leaking them? > * The focus has moved from RF to cyber. Giant antennas are far less important and giant datacenters are the new stars. Vacuuming up packets is less alarming when you understand we've been vacuuming up radio and telephone signals for decades. When comsats were important, NSA was vacuuming up their downlinks. When international telegrams were punched on paper tape, NSA's predecessors picked up the tape each day. I don't see how "we have been doing this for a long time" makes it less bad. > * The US has tried going "NSA-less". It happened in 1929 under the slogan "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail". That noble slogan led to the US operating at a disadvantage in the lead up to WWII. It doesn't pay to fly blind. The US did pretty ok in WWII. > * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.... Those things are both issues, and we can discuss them both.

walshemj 9y ago
urm no there was stupid inter service rivalry that lead to bizarre things like the army and navy working on decrypting intercepts on alternate days instead of having one organisation like BP and GCHQ

morsch 9y ago

Cyber? Really?!

pokemongoaway 9y ago
Ya he probably eats up their literature :P

freeflight 9y ago

This isn't meant as an attack on the OP, but I have a hard time taking anybody seriously who's using the word "cyber" in such an inflated way. Always reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/sehnaoui/status/643972826802688000 https://twitter.com/sehnaoui/status/643972826802688000 I also think it's quite troublesome how this very real issue, IT security, is being misused to stage yet another "War on something" even if there isn't anything concrete to wage a war on. If there's such a thing as the MIC, it seems to have found a new business field with "cyber". IT security works on cooperation, even more so on international cooperation. It does not work when international players are constantly trying to shaft each other over by collecting 0-days, like this is some kind of war which has to be won by pummeling the opposition into submission with "cyber weapons". In that regard agencies like the NSA, and their foreign equivalents, are doing everybody a giant disservice by making the problem worse, not better. We are already at a point where these government agencies tools are being sold to the highest private bidders: https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/shadow-brokers-scylla-hacking/ https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2017/06/22/shadow-brokers-scy... As a fan of dystopian cyberpunk fiction, I'm not sure if I should geek out over this or just be depressed.

walshemj 9y ago
Like it or not the "cyber" is now the term that is used
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  People don't just make fun of "cyber" because it sounds stupid, they also make fun of it because it is stupid. The media literally portrays the threat as Tron, when it's actually that critical systems have remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. The only real solution is to find the vulnerabilities before the bad guys do so we can close them before they're exploited. Hoarding vulnerabilities in secret is the exact opposite of the solution.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    as is the way "hacker"'s meaning has changed from its original usage some times you have to accept that meanings change

type0 9y ago

NB! Cyber Warning: Please, you Sir, no one knows what the heck you're talking about

mtgx 9y ago

> Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. Yes, that tends to happen when the NSA abuses its power to illegally spy on its own citizens for its own gain and profit, and also when it tends to compromise security of networks in 99% of the cases for its own surveillance benefits.

pokemongoaway 9y ago

You seem to accept "the ends justify the means" on such a deep level. Have you considered that human history on earth is quite brief - and that our level of experience and confidence in our methods are mismatched? Another question would be: why do you have confidence in authorities while their objectives, desires, names, and alliances are opaque?

jimnotgym 9y ago

I recommend a very health disrespect of organisations like the NSA. This article was shared recently on here apologies for stealing it http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-... It really made me laugh, and think about the pointlessness of the whole organisation of British Intelligence. Are we really clear that MI5/6, NSA, GCHQ etc have any benefit at all. Isn't it just a matter of of an arms race, where each country keeps raising the stakes? It is already clear that the NSA have produced dangerous cyber weapons which have escaped into the wild. The secrecy is the perfect excuse for empire building. You can imagine they are filled with paranoid idiots who want every bit of information going, but never analyse it into anything useful. RE WW2 it is not clear at all that the USA was at a disadvantage due to lack of intelligence. In the UK we love to celebrate our great code breaking efforts, whilst simultaneously the Germans were breaking ours...

fweespeech 9y ago

> Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA. It gets conflated with an anti-authoritarian mindset. I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. Some key points: > * All the great powers have NSA equivalents. Meaning they play offence and defense in crypto, RF, and cyber. We (USA) can impose restrictions on our NSA but not on anyone else's. Our exploit-riddled networks are a playground for American, Russian and Chinese cyber warriors - and probably many others. > * In cyber, offense and defense become the same. Kaplan's book covers this. So a smart country seeks cyber-superiority. The more we hamper NSA, the more we empower foreign cyber-warriors. Reducing domestic surveillance doesn't substantially impact that mission. > * Fear of an overreaching state is always justified; however we should focus that fear more on how NSA shares data than how it acquires it. For instance fusion centers: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/why-fusion-centers-mat.... The CIA/NSA can't hold onto its intelligence as shown by various security breaches, whistleblowers, etc. Not gathering domestic surveillance data in the first place avoids that problem. The NSA can keep an eye on China, Russia, etc. all they want.

43224gg252 9y ago

>Seems like it's trendy to hate the NSA Because they make us LESS SECURE. They are an anti-security organization.

1001101 9y ago

> I wish smart people would gain some perspective - I got some by reading Bamford's books and a new one by Fred Kaplan - Dark Territories, about NSAs painful move to cyber. All smart people, or those that disagree with your findings from reading two books?

someguydave 9y ago

The NSA might have more credibility if there were some basic policy discussions about its purpose after the Cold War ended and indefinite wars on terror/drugs began.