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This past week a woman yelled loudly about stabbing Mitch mcconnell in the neck outside his house as part of a large crowd. It became a hot-button topic but no

This past week a woman yelled loudly about stabbing Mitch mcconnell in the neck outside his house as part of a large crowd. It became a hot-button topic but no one fell out of an 8th story apartment window. The NSA does not have a mandate to do what you’re describing, they face extensive civilian oversight and programs like their metadata collection were extensively debated in public. Are there exceptions? Yes; but they don’t have the same mandate or the same powers of control as some of these other nations, so the effect is vastly different.

paganel 7y ago
>This past week a woman yelled loudly about stabbing Mitch mcconnell in the neck outside his house as part of a large crowd. Presumably people protesting against Putin or the people from Tiananmen Square weren't all asking for peaceful elections, I bet there were some protesters among them who were literally asking for Putin's or Deng Xiaoping's heads, that's what I meant with "vigorously protest". It's understandable that some people in the US would want to "vigorously protest" against people who they think are directly liable for other's people deaths, as I presume that lady thinks of the likes of Mitch Mcconnell. As per the NSA mandate and the "civilian oversight", that's what I meant with "right at this moment". I think what you're describing was generally true until 2 or 3 years ago (yes, even after the Snowden leaks), but I'm afraid things are not the same in the current political climate.
DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> they face extensive civilian oversight and programs like their metadata collection were extensively debated in public Most democratically elected representatives don't know what the NSA is up to. The Director of National Intelligence directly lied in his public testimony when asked about NSA collection. It took a whistleblower to reveal even the basic outline of the NSA's massive surveillance powers, which the civilian population was unaware of. That whistleblower now has to live in Russia, or else he'd be rotting away in jail, or worse. The metadata program was only extensively debated after those revelations, and we civilians are still in the dark about what the NSA does. I don't trust that they've stopped their mass surveillance of Americans. A massive organization that acts with such little oversight is a danger to democracy, regardless of what it claims in public.

paganel 7y ago

>This past week a woman yelled loudly about stabbing Mitch mcconnell in the neck outside his house as part of a large crowd. Presumably people protesting against Putin or the people from Tiananmen Square weren't all asking for peaceful elections, I bet there were some protesters among them who were literally asking for Putin's or Deng Xiaoping's heads, that's what I meant with "vigorously protest". It's understandable that some people in the US would want to "vigorously protest" against people who they think are directly liable for other's people deaths, as I presume that lady thinks of the likes of Mitch Mcconnell. As per the NSA mandate and the "civilian oversight", that's what I meant with "right at this moment". I think what you're describing was generally true until 2 or 3 years ago (yes, even after the Snowden leaks), but I'm afraid things are not the same in the current political climate.

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago

> they face extensive civilian oversight and programs like their metadata collection were extensively debated in public Most democratically elected representatives don't know what the NSA is up to. The Director of National Intelligence directly lied in his public testimony when asked about NSA collection. It took a whistleblower to reveal even the basic outline of the NSA's massive surveillance powers, which the civilian population was unaware of. That whistleblower now has to live in Russia, or else he'd be rotting away in jail, or worse. The metadata program was only extensively debated after those revelations, and we civilians are still in the dark about what the NSA does. I don't trust that they've stopped their mass surveillance of Americans. A massive organization that acts with such little oversight is a danger to democracy, regardless of what it claims in public.