4 ms·

You elect representatives and executives who are given security clearances and the right to great transparency and openness. When or if those elected officials

You elect representatives and executives who are given security clearances and the right to great transparency and openness. When or if those elected officials are found to have abused the public trust, you punish them, their associates and their successors at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion. It's not a great process but I don't see a better way for a democracy to have an internationally competitive intelligence apparatus. And without such an apparatus we are exposed to attacks on our democratic integrity, military effectiveness, deliberative privacy and much more.

vthallam 9y ago
That'd work in an ideal world, not here. In a 2 party system which are increasingly polarizing you'd have the pressure to stick to the party line.
- drusepth 9y ago
  Even in our current world, some issues' importance outweighs sticking to the party line. Luckily, we have more than two parties to vote for, so it's not quite as black and white as that.
  - tambienben 9y ago
    >Luckily, we have more than two parties to vote for Not to most americans--especially when it comes time to vote.
    - drusepth 9y ago
      There's a real catch-22: the multiple other parties we (in the US) are capable of voting for will never have a chance at winning if we don't treat them as real alternatives to the entrenched two. There's a reason both D's and R's repeat the lines "voting for a third party is a wasted vote" and play the polarizing "if you vote third party, you're voting for <opposite party>" card each election season. It may be partially true at the time, but also implies there are only two parties that can actually win -- which is something that can easily change, especially as D's and R's both move further towards the end of their respective spectrums.
      - mraler 9y ago
        I think the key is to vote third (alternative?) party in smaller elections (mayor, state senate), and then work up. Voting third party for congress is mostly a waste of time for now, and it doesn't seem likely that we're going to see a massive enough shift in voter participation to change that all in one go, but I think with enough effort to build up non-D/R party support at the local level that could change a lot faster than most people think. I'm less optimistic about the presidency, really. I doubt the reigning parties will let that slip out of their hands.
zipwitch 9y ago
We are currently paying the costs (both monetary and otherwise) for the apparatus you describe, but looking at the last decade, the benefits appear to be absent. Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that an organization like the NSA just isn't worth having?
- drusepth 9y ago
  By nature of the secrecy required by how the NSA operates, many of the benefits would likewise not be made public (to avoid sharing unnecessary information on how they operate), so I'm not entirely sure it's fair for any of us out of the know to weigh the benefits versus the costs in this way. Our elected members privy to the actual costs and the actual benefits should be the ones making the decision on whether the NSA is worth having or not.
- bradyd 9y ago
  In fact organizations like the CIA and NSA are more of a threat to the American people than the people they are supposedly protecting us from.
  - williamdclt 9y ago
    Not necessarily disagreeing but: facts? numbers? source?
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I suspect it's like inoculation: some people die from inoculations, but on the whole the herd gains valuable protection. The TLA may be terrible for particular individuals, or small groups with a shared characteristic, but politicians should nonetheless advocate for them to protect the "way of life of citizens". It's a "do you keep a guard dog that you know might maul a child" type of question.
- willstrafach 9y ago
  Your comment shows why some more open-ness would be great for everyone. Working in secret means nobody will know of the genuine successes, only the allegedly problematic aspects which leak out. It might not be simple, but I am sure that it would be possible to remove classified details from certain “wins” (whether counterterror, counterproliferation, or other) and let the public know what their tax dollars are going toward.
volkk 9y ago
Sure, that's sort of what I meant in terms of openness. I don't expect them to leak their secrets in some public memorandum, but I expect them to be fully transparent with the representatives that we elect. However, the question is--are the representatives doing the best job representing us given this sensitive information they're privy to? Who's to say the NSA isn't asking, "just write that we're doing well in this report, its for the better of this country long term." And how do we catch/stop this?
- aeorgnoieang 9y ago
  This may be the most extreme version of the principle-agent problem. Without leaking or sharing at least some information, it's impossible for the public to hold them accountable. This seems like a fundamental impossibility; not just a matter of the 'wrong' people being privy to the same secrets. For one reason, there's no way we can know if our representatives are even privy to all the information to which they're entitled. Hell, even with a lot of information being leaked it still seems basically impossible to hold them accountable!
- willstrafach 9y ago
  The HPSCI and SSCI do seem like reasonable checks. Ron Wyden especially has a good track record of calling out things he sees as problematic.
merpnderp 9y ago
James Clapper lies to senate intelligence committee and is outed only days later. On March 13th the statue of limitations runs out on prosecuting this crime. This data is misused and no one is punished, even for the overtly blatant crimes.
- cmurf 9y ago
  This is specious, and exposes deep naiveté about the law as well as protocol at hearings. The director was put into the position of either lying to Congress or disclosing state secrets. Insofar as the law is concerned, exposing state secrets is a far worse offense. That's just the way it works, and if you don't like it, this particular instance isn't the moment to get into a pissing contest about what public policies you don't like, and all the dumb secrets the government keeps from us, but insists we keep on paying for. You should have been more proactive a long time before this, because this moment was being set up over a decade before it happened in public. Clapper lying is an inevitable outcome of a hyper-survellience state, which is an inevitable outcome of a servile and paranoid society. The senator should not have asked the question in an open session if the idea was to get an honest answer. If you're a senator on the intel committee, you ask this sort of question in an open session if you're trying to make a public case that we have too many secrets. And that's exactly what that whole sequence exposes, but per usual, someone from the ignorant mass wants to hang a single person out to dry for the decisions society has made.
  - merpnderp 9y ago
    Ignorant? You mean like the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is supposed to have classified oversight of America's spy agencies? Maybe you should bone up on the details yourself, before slandering others as ignorant. Never mind Clapper could have simply refused to answer the question. But yes, please continue to cover for spies dodging their legal responsibility to comply with full Congressional oversight.
roywiggins 9y ago
Another option is, in addition to trustworthy elected officials, you can have some sort of independent oversight that isn't partisan and is independent of whoever is in charge of the executive. The UK has something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Reviewer_of_Terrorism_Legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Reviewer_of_Terror...

vthallam 9y ago

That'd work in an ideal world, not here. In a 2 party system which are increasingly polarizing you'd have the pressure to stick to the party line.

drusepth 9y ago
Even in our current world, some issues' importance outweighs sticking to the party line. Luckily, we have more than two parties to vote for, so it's not quite as black and white as that.
- tambienben 9y ago
  >Luckily, we have more than two parties to vote for Not to most americans--especially when it comes time to vote.
  - drusepth 9y ago
    There's a real catch-22: the multiple other parties we (in the US) are capable of voting for will never have a chance at winning if we don't treat them as real alternatives to the entrenched two. There's a reason both D's and R's repeat the lines "voting for a third party is a wasted vote" and play the polarizing "if you vote third party, you're voting for <opposite party>" card each election season. It may be partially true at the time, but also implies there are only two parties that can actually win -- which is something that can easily change, especially as D's and R's both move further towards the end of their respective spectrums.
    - mraler 9y ago
      I think the key is to vote third (alternative?) party in smaller elections (mayor, state senate), and then work up. Voting third party for congress is mostly a waste of time for now, and it doesn't seem likely that we're going to see a massive enough shift in voter participation to change that all in one go, but I think with enough effort to build up non-D/R party support at the local level that could change a lot faster than most people think. I'm less optimistic about the presidency, really. I doubt the reigning parties will let that slip out of their hands.

zipwitch 9y ago

We are currently paying the costs (both monetary and otherwise) for the apparatus you describe, but looking at the last decade, the benefits appear to be absent. Perhaps we need to consider the possibility that an organization like the NSA just isn't worth having?

drusepth 9y ago
By nature of the secrecy required by how the NSA operates, many of the benefits would likewise not be made public (to avoid sharing unnecessary information on how they operate), so I'm not entirely sure it's fair for any of us out of the know to weigh the benefits versus the costs in this way. Our elected members privy to the actual costs and the actual benefits should be the ones making the decision on whether the NSA is worth having or not.
bradyd 9y ago
In fact organizations like the CIA and NSA are more of a threat to the American people than the people they are supposedly protecting us from.
- williamdclt 9y ago
  Not necessarily disagreeing but: facts? numbers? source?
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I suspect it's like inoculation: some people die from inoculations, but on the whole the herd gains valuable protection. The TLA may be terrible for particular individuals, or small groups with a shared characteristic, but politicians should nonetheless advocate for them to protect the "way of life of citizens". It's a "do you keep a guard dog that you know might maul a child" type of question.
willstrafach 9y ago
Your comment shows why some more open-ness would be great for everyone. Working in secret means nobody will know of the genuine successes, only the allegedly problematic aspects which leak out. It might not be simple, but I am sure that it would be possible to remove classified details from certain “wins” (whether counterterror, counterproliferation, or other) and let the public know what their tax dollars are going toward.

volkk 9y ago

Sure, that's sort of what I meant in terms of openness. I don't expect them to leak their secrets in some public memorandum, but I expect them to be fully transparent with the representatives that we elect. However, the question is--are the representatives doing the best job representing us given this sensitive information they're privy to? Who's to say the NSA isn't asking, "just write that we're doing well in this report, its for the better of this country long term." And how do we catch/stop this?

aeorgnoieang 9y ago
This may be the most extreme version of the principle-agent problem. Without leaking or sharing at least some information, it's impossible for the public to hold them accountable. This seems like a fundamental impossibility; not just a matter of the 'wrong' people being privy to the same secrets. For one reason, there's no way we can know if our representatives are even privy to all the information to which they're entitled. Hell, even with a lot of information being leaked it still seems basically impossible to hold them accountable!
willstrafach 9y ago
The HPSCI and SSCI do seem like reasonable checks. Ron Wyden especially has a good track record of calling out things he sees as problematic.

merpnderp 9y ago

James Clapper lies to senate intelligence committee and is outed only days later. On March 13th the statue of limitations runs out on prosecuting this crime. This data is misused and no one is punished, even for the overtly blatant crimes.

cmurf 9y ago
This is specious, and exposes deep naiveté about the law as well as protocol at hearings. The director was put into the position of either lying to Congress or disclosing state secrets. Insofar as the law is concerned, exposing state secrets is a far worse offense. That's just the way it works, and if you don't like it, this particular instance isn't the moment to get into a pissing contest about what public policies you don't like, and all the dumb secrets the government keeps from us, but insists we keep on paying for. You should have been more proactive a long time before this, because this moment was being set up over a decade before it happened in public. Clapper lying is an inevitable outcome of a hyper-survellience state, which is an inevitable outcome of a servile and paranoid society. The senator should not have asked the question in an open session if the idea was to get an honest answer. If you're a senator on the intel committee, you ask this sort of question in an open session if you're trying to make a public case that we have too many secrets. And that's exactly what that whole sequence exposes, but per usual, someone from the ignorant mass wants to hang a single person out to dry for the decisions society has made.
- merpnderp 9y ago
  Ignorant? You mean like the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is supposed to have classified oversight of America's spy agencies? Maybe you should bone up on the details yourself, before slandering others as ignorant. Never mind Clapper could have simply refused to answer the question. But yes, please continue to cover for spies dodging their legal responsibility to comply with full Congressional oversight.

roywiggins 9y ago

Another option is, in addition to trustworthy elected officials, you can have some sort of independent oversight that isn't partisan and is independent of whoever is in charge of the executive. The UK has something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Reviewer_of_Terrorism_Legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Reviewer_of_Terror...