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I am not American, and I would agree with you if most of the operations were things like Stuxnet or Bin Laden's killing. But many of the most atrocious things c
by cambalache 7y ago
I am not American, and I would agree with you if most of the operations were things like Stuxnet or Bin Laden's killing. But many of the most atrocious things committed by the CIA were totally gratuitous not helping one iota to the safety (perceived or real) of the American populace.
- Kalium 7y agoThe trick with intelligence agencies is that the general public only ever hears about a small number of operations. A large intelligence apparatus undertakes a great many, most of which succeed or fail in relative silence. This makes it impossible to generalize fairly about "most of the operations". You're working from a data set so heavily filtered as to be useless for that.
- fit2rule 7y agoThe corruption of government starts with its secrets. A truly free people keep no secrets.
- EpicEng 7y agoThat is just not in any way practical.
- sneak 7y agoThe government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. Consent cannot be given if not informed. There is no way a government with a million people with Top Secret clearances is operating with the consent of the governed.
- EpicEng 7y agoSo, specifically, you think that literally all information maintained by the government should be public? At som point, your vague philosophical statement has to be turned into real policies.
- sneak 7y agoInformation is not maintained by the government. It is maintained by human beings working in a government capacity, and those human beings have no right to secrecy or privacy whilst working in that capacity. What I said was not vague.
- EpicEng 7y agoWell, that's one way to avoid answering. So what's your policy on classifying information as secret?
- fit2rule 7y agoIf your government is keeping secrets from you, you are not able to be informed about the actions that government is taking in your name and you therefore cannot inform yourself about your own governments activities - thus it is not enforcing your freedom with secrets, but rather guaranteeing your subjugation.
- EpicEng 7y agoOk. So how would you deal with information that would be dangerous if made public? Weapon specifications, names/locations of military or other clandestine operation personnel, the names of intelligence sources, records of ongoing investigations, etc etc etc?
- depr 7y agoThe ones we know about is enough
- nexuist 7y ago>many of the most atrocious things committed by the CIA were totally gratuitous not helping one iota to the safety (perceived or real) of the American populace I'm not entirely sure about that. I believe the CIA has committed atrocities, but I find it difficult to believe that you could not justify every action they took in the name of national security - all the coups of communist / non-Western-aligned nations especially. In fact, almost anything that may harm the federal government (regardless of impact to the general population) can be designated as a matter of national security (perhaps by design). The point I am making is that it is easy to spin atrocities as necessary undertakings to agents with good intentions, all the way up to the top even (Operation Northwoods for example). Evil people are not necessary to build an evil organization.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago> In fact, almost anything that may harm the federal government (regardless of impact to the general population) can be designated as a matter of national security (perhaps by design). The general population is something that can harm the federal government, are you fine with the CIA ruining your life to ensure that doesn't happen?
- nexuist 7y ago>(perhaps by design) That was my point.
- monocasa 7y agoWe're pretty sure that stuxnet was NSA and Mossad fwiw.