4 ms·

Apparently for Americans helping China surveil their population is insufficiently patriotic, they must help their own DoD and NSA as well

andrewjl 6y ago
It's hard to read this as anything but some form of what-aboutism. However, I'll bite, whatever you think of NSA and DoD, because of FISA, congressional oversight, and generally centuries of respect for rule of law, you can't compare them to PRCs surveillance apparatus.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  It is a shitty comparison game to get into in the first place with insane agendas. Akin yo complaining "Why does the gun shop owner sell to the one guy who shot his wife but not my abusive husband? That is totally unfair!".
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    The fact is, Google is a US company and they benefit from the security provided by those agencies. Your analogy, colorful as it may be, belies reality.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Security theater really - what does their snooping give other than the ability to say "We technically knew about it! It was right here in the pile!" afterwards? Its true purposes are self serving and to be a rhetorical justification escape hatch of National Security to ensure impunity. Bad actions are bad regardless of the flag they drape themselves in or any fallacious affinity that assumes what is liked by an actor on behalf of us is good for us. Should we be grateful that a "lobbyist" "donated" a big pile of cocaine to our senators?
      - andrewjl 6y ago
        > Security theater really Use of this phrase in this context indicates either a naive or incomplete understanding of the constitutional order, i.e. how government works in practice as opposed to as an idealism, which is the foundation for understanding constitutional governance and it's practices. Reading Hobbes as well as Montesquieu, particularly the Spirit of Laws should dispel the notion of security theater in a pejorative sense. Also, unless you have some special insight, you cannot for sure say what has been prevented. Therefore any speculation on "true purposes" is just that, speculation. > Bad actions are bad regardless of the flag they drape themselves in or any fallacious affinity that assumes what is liked by an actor on behalf of us is good for us. I'm in full agreement there. I'm grateful to live in a society where the government can be held to account, both legally and via elections. Not everyone is so lucky.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  FISA is toothless against top-level (as opposed to rogue subordinate) violations because it relies on criminal enforcement, which the executive branch controls directly.
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    FISA provides reports to Congress at least annually.[1] [1]https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1286 https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1286
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Yes, the DOJ provides annual reports on surveillance applications made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under FISA to Congress. This quite obviously does.nothing whatsoever to make the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s criminal prohibition on surveillance outside of the prescribed process enforceable against top-level executive decision makers, since there won't be any reportable applications to the FISC for such prohibited surveillance to report on, even if the DoJ was inclined to expose executive wrongdoing to Congress, and even if the DoJ was informed of the unlawful surveillance rather than it being done, e.g., entirely within NSA at the President’s direction with DoJ uninformed.
      - andrewjl 6y ago
        There is also a role in this for the IG. And, ex post facto, for WaPo, NYTimes, or some other press to report on this. The system is clearly imperfect, but and this is a big but, the presence of these safeguards is what makes the comparison made above a dishonest one.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        > There is also a role in this for the IG. I think the present administration has demonstrated the problem with viewing that as a meaningful check on unlawful policy supported from the top of the executive branch. > And, ex post facto, for WaPo, NYTimes, or some other press to report on this Yeah, if you want to differentiate the US from China on this, the First Amendment is a much better legal peg to hang your argument on than FISA.

andrewjl 6y ago

It's hard to read this as anything but some form of what-aboutism. However, I'll bite, whatever you think of NSA and DoD, because of FISA, congressional oversight, and generally centuries of respect for rule of law, you can't compare them to PRCs surveillance apparatus.

Nasrudith 6y ago
It is a shitty comparison game to get into in the first place with insane agendas. Akin yo complaining "Why does the gun shop owner sell to the one guy who shot his wife but not my abusive husband? That is totally unfair!".
- andrewjl 6y ago
  The fact is, Google is a US company and they benefit from the security provided by those agencies. Your analogy, colorful as it may be, belies reality.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Security theater really - what does their snooping give other than the ability to say "We technically knew about it! It was right here in the pile!" afterwards? Its true purposes are self serving and to be a rhetorical justification escape hatch of National Security to ensure impunity. Bad actions are bad regardless of the flag they drape themselves in or any fallacious affinity that assumes what is liked by an actor on behalf of us is good for us. Should we be grateful that a "lobbyist" "donated" a big pile of cocaine to our senators?
    - andrewjl 6y ago
      > Security theater really Use of this phrase in this context indicates either a naive or incomplete understanding of the constitutional order, i.e. how government works in practice as opposed to as an idealism, which is the foundation for understanding constitutional governance and it's practices. Reading Hobbes as well as Montesquieu, particularly the Spirit of Laws should dispel the notion of security theater in a pejorative sense. Also, unless you have some special insight, you cannot for sure say what has been prevented. Therefore any speculation on "true purposes" is just that, speculation. > Bad actions are bad regardless of the flag they drape themselves in or any fallacious affinity that assumes what is liked by an actor on behalf of us is good for us. I'm in full agreement there. I'm grateful to live in a society where the government can be held to account, both legally and via elections. Not everyone is so lucky.
dragonwriter 6y ago
FISA is toothless against top-level (as opposed to rogue subordinate) violations because it relies on criminal enforcement, which the executive branch controls directly.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  FISA provides reports to Congress at least annually.[1] [1]https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1286 https://it.ojp.gov/PrivacyLiberty/authorities/statutes/1286
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Yes, the DOJ provides annual reports on surveillance applications made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under FISA to Congress. This quite obviously does.nothing whatsoever to make the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s criminal prohibition on surveillance outside of the prescribed process enforceable against top-level executive decision makers, since there won't be any reportable applications to the FISC for such prohibited surveillance to report on, even if the DoJ was inclined to expose executive wrongdoing to Congress, and even if the DoJ was informed of the unlawful surveillance rather than it being done, e.g., entirely within NSA at the President’s direction with DoJ uninformed.
    - andrewjl 6y ago
      There is also a role in this for the IG. And, ex post facto, for WaPo, NYTimes, or some other press to report on this. The system is clearly imperfect, but and this is a big but, the presence of these safeguards is what makes the comparison made above a dishonest one.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > There is also a role in this for the IG. I think the present administration has demonstrated the problem with viewing that as a meaningful check on unlawful policy supported from the top of the executive branch. > And, ex post facto, for WaPo, NYTimes, or some other press to report on this Yeah, if you want to differentiate the US from China on this, the First Amendment is a much better legal peg to hang your argument on than FISA.