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My personal opinion is we first need to release the NSA from impossible demands for perfect information. It seems like each time there's a terrorist incident p

My personal opinion is we first need to release the NSA from impossible demands for perfect information. It seems like each time there's a terrorist incident people ask how it could be prevented and why didn't we know? The answer is if course you simply can't know everything, particularly what's going on in people's minds. Since the impetus is always on NSA to gather intelligence and prevent the next disaster all they can say is "We need more data". No, they don't. No amount of data will prevent every criminal act. Instead we need to revisit the trade offs made between freedom, privacy and bringing criminals to justice.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
We don't live in a Minority Report world. We can't put people in jail for what we think they are about to do. They actually have to commit a crime to be charged. If you do prevent everything, people claim you did nothing. Your organization gets its funding cut because it isn't needed. (America has had to ramp up it's military repeatedly for new wars. We routinely shrink our armed forces during peace time, feeling it isn't needed. I strongly suspect this shrinkage has helped make us a target at times. Then we ramp back up.) Though I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  I worry that these problems are too hard. Most human groups become corrupted, or at best, complacent. Without competing forces, this goes unchecked. Hopefully some people conquer the multi-planetary challenge before we completely conquer ourselves.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
chiefalchemist 8y ago
I'm not being snarky but when did we say we expect perfection? And we want it at all cost (i.e., we'll give up liberty and freedom)? Yes, that's been the general narrative but where did it come from? Where there protests? Was there a vote? Are we getting what we want, or wanting what we get?
- andrewflnr 8y ago
  They don't say it outright, but basically everyone grieving after an attack wants the government to have been perfect enough to prevent the attack.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    ...and considering the cost of such perfection is considered tactless at best. This is why the terrorists have won on 9/11. They wanted to damage the US, erode its institutions, make it weaker and less attractive in the eyes of people, and they achieved it. Not through killing people, of course, but through the continued reaction of those who stayed alive. This makes me sad.
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    Yes, but is being in tears asking "how did this happen?" license to diminish liberty / freedom? Or simply the ideal opportunity to do so? Also, there was plenty of talk about who and where, yet close to zero discussion as to why. Why is important. The truth is, more than once, UBL warned "Get out of our neighborhood." The USA ignored those requests. That doesn't justify the attacks, but it certainly creates a case of "I'm surprised you're surprised." Yet the (American) public never got the true clear story. Instead, someone cooked up a like about WMD's, a sovereign nation was invaded in that same area, and in the end over 100,000 __civilians__ were killed. Does that solve why, or re-enforce? And still no transparency?
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  There's always been kind of a vote. Just a for instance, but I think the patriot act passed the senate 99 to 1. And we got rid of that one guy who voted against, and we replaced him with a more "law and order" type guy. So you gotta figure almost every American has at least had opportunities to vote for their senators. (We can agree that not everyone did, but the opportunities were there.) And those votes resulted in a senate where something like the patriot act could pass without more than a single vote against it.
  - uxp100 8y ago
schoen 8y ago
Do you think that spy agencies' powers and budgets are a direct response to public opinion or public demand? I find that intuition kind of strange because NSA, for example, was created by a classified executive order and operated for two decades or so before its existence was publicly acknowledged by the government at all.
mLuby 8y ago
The problem is that politicians are acutely damaged when there are successful attacks, and are not affected when surveillance is overly broad, so of course they favor less privacy. To correct this, politicians must be at least as susceptible to surveillance as the general public, if not more so. One way to do this is to make all collected information public after 25 years. Long enough to avoid compromising ongoing investigations, but short enough that politicians will be thinking of themselves.
- craftinator 8y ago
  I really like the start of your comment. I see that if something bad happens, the politicians shift blame to the Intel community for missing it. Then they put pressure for more complete information from them. Then later, when there's civil outcry over a surveillance state, the politicians shift blame onto the Intel community for being too invasive. Politicians man.
anonymous_ch 8y ago
The NSA prevents thousands of potential terrorist attacks each year...we just don't hear about it because it's classified information. Of course one or two will always slip through the cracks. No process is perfect.
- Zhenya 8y ago
  Do you have data to back this up?
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    Of course... here's a link to a classified document you can check out.
- nilskidoo 8y ago
  Never believe marketing.
- tremon 8y ago
  And here is the problem with the unaccountability of the NSA: if not even the broad outline of its operational statistics is available for public scrutiny, and we can't trust the politicians who do have that data available (assuming it is), how can we have a meaningful public debate about this?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Gpetrium 8y ago
There are implicit agreements that society has to itself and the entities that coalesce in it. A major event tends to have a disproportionate impact on the population's perception of its institutions. It is in human nature to search for something to blame, it helps people rationalize the issues at hand. I don't think people realize how many incidents are resolved before it even reaches the TV and that is a good thing. Even if society was willing to exchange more privacy for a higher number of unpredictable 'negative' incidents, the question changes from what, to how many. For example, how many incidents of X magnitude would be required for people to change their minds? What if you only need 1 incident of Y magnitude to change the shape of your society in a negative way, potentially rocking its very core? Would you take the risk for your individual's privacy? You have to remember that an event can be come in different ways such as a terror attack, a semi-natural disaster, a cyber attack, an espionage that rocks the foundation of a key industry in your country, etc. I think some of the questions society should be asking are: What is an acceptable degree of personal privacy that we should strive for? What are the blockers to ensure the material is not used for nefarious reasons? Are the right institutions in place and are they solid enough? How can society engage more and have a better understanding of the issues at hand?
m463 8y ago
I think EVERYONE doing data collection, the NSA and all the surveillance capitalists are hoarders. I think it's a rookie mistake for newly minted officers in the armed forces to delay decisions because they want perfect information. In the same way, commercial entities collecting information don't NEED it, but they're collecting it and swapping it and screwing up society by doing it. I think scaling back all this nonsense will make us all happier and healther.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

We don't live in a Minority Report world. We can't put people in jail for what we think they are about to do. They actually have to commit a crime to be charged. If you do prevent everything, people claim you did nothing. Your organization gets its funding cut because it isn't needed. (America has had to ramp up it's military repeatedly for new wars. We routinely shrink our armed forces during peace time, feeling it isn't needed. I strongly suspect this shrinkage has helped make us a target at times. Then we ramp back up.) Though I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion.

wallace_f 8y ago
I worry that these problems are too hard. Most human groups become corrupted, or at best, complacent. Without competing forces, this goes unchecked. Hopefully some people conquer the multi-planetary challenge before we completely conquer ourselves.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

chiefalchemist 8y ago

I'm not being snarky but when did we say we expect perfection? And we want it at all cost (i.e., we'll give up liberty and freedom)? Yes, that's been the general narrative but where did it come from? Where there protests? Was there a vote? Are we getting what we want, or wanting what we get?

andrewflnr 8y ago
They don't say it outright, but basically everyone grieving after an attack wants the government to have been perfect enough to prevent the attack.
- nine_k 8y ago
  ...and considering the cost of such perfection is considered tactless at best. This is why the terrorists have won on 9/11. They wanted to damage the US, erode its institutions, make it weaker and less attractive in the eyes of people, and they achieved it. Not through killing people, of course, but through the continued reaction of those who stayed alive. This makes me sad.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Yes, but is being in tears asking "how did this happen?" license to diminish liberty / freedom? Or simply the ideal opportunity to do so? Also, there was plenty of talk about who and where, yet close to zero discussion as to why. Why is important. The truth is, more than once, UBL warned "Get out of our neighborhood." The USA ignored those requests. That doesn't justify the attacks, but it certainly creates a case of "I'm surprised you're surprised." Yet the (American) public never got the true clear story. Instead, someone cooked up a like about WMD's, a sovereign nation was invaded in that same area, and in the end over 100,000 __civilians__ were killed. Does that solve why, or re-enforce? And still no transparency?
bilbo0s 8y ago
There's always been kind of a vote. Just a for instance, but I think the patriot act passed the senate 99 to 1. And we got rid of that one guy who voted against, and we replaced him with a more "law and order" type guy. So you gotta figure almost every American has at least had opportunities to vote for their senators. (We can agree that not everyone did, but the opportunities were there.) And those votes resulted in a senate where something like the patriot act could pass without more than a single vote against it.
- uxp100 8y ago

schoen 8y ago

Do you think that spy agencies' powers and budgets are a direct response to public opinion or public demand? I find that intuition kind of strange because NSA, for example, was created by a classified executive order and operated for two decades or so before its existence was publicly acknowledged by the government at all.

mLuby 8y ago

The problem is that politicians are acutely damaged when there are successful attacks, and are not affected when surveillance is overly broad, so of course they favor less privacy. To correct this, politicians must be at least as susceptible to surveillance as the general public, if not more so. One way to do this is to make all collected information public after 25 years. Long enough to avoid compromising ongoing investigations, but short enough that politicians will be thinking of themselves.

craftinator 8y ago
I really like the start of your comment. I see that if something bad happens, the politicians shift blame to the Intel community for missing it. Then they put pressure for more complete information from them. Then later, when there's civil outcry over a surveillance state, the politicians shift blame onto the Intel community for being too invasive. Politicians man.

anonymous_ch 8y ago

The NSA prevents thousands of potential terrorist attacks each year...we just don't hear about it because it's classified information. Of course one or two will always slip through the cracks. No process is perfect.

Zhenya 8y ago
Do you have data to back this up?
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  Of course... here's a link to a classified document you can check out.
nilskidoo 8y ago
Never believe marketing.
tremon 8y ago
And here is the problem with the unaccountability of the NSA: if not even the broad outline of its operational statistics is available for public scrutiny, and we can't trust the politicians who do have that data available (assuming it is), how can we have a meaningful public debate about this?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Gpetrium 8y ago

There are implicit agreements that society has to itself and the entities that coalesce in it. A major event tends to have a disproportionate impact on the population's perception of its institutions. It is in human nature to search for something to blame, it helps people rationalize the issues at hand. I don't think people realize how many incidents are resolved before it even reaches the TV and that is a good thing. Even if society was willing to exchange more privacy for a higher number of unpredictable 'negative' incidents, the question changes from what, to how many. For example, how many incidents of X magnitude would be required for people to change their minds? What if you only need 1 incident of Y magnitude to change the shape of your society in a negative way, potentially rocking its very core? Would you take the risk for your individual's privacy? You have to remember that an event can be come in different ways such as a terror attack, a semi-natural disaster, a cyber attack, an espionage that rocks the foundation of a key industry in your country, etc. I think some of the questions society should be asking are: What is an acceptable degree of personal privacy that we should strive for? What are the blockers to ensure the material is not used for nefarious reasons? Are the right institutions in place and are they solid enough? How can society engage more and have a better understanding of the issues at hand?

m463 8y ago

I think EVERYONE doing data collection, the NSA and all the surveillance capitalists are hoarders. I think it's a rookie mistake for newly minted officers in the armed forces to delay decisions because they want perfect information. In the same way, commercial entities collecting information don't NEED it, but they're collecting it and swapping it and screwing up society by doing it. I think scaling back all this nonsense will make us all happier and healther.