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When I worked at a certain three-letter-agency, much of the annual legal training amounted to "Here's our incredibly tortuous interpretation of every relevant t
by yxwvut 3y ago
When I worked at a certain three-letter-agency, much of the annual legal training amounted to "Here's our incredibly tortuous interpretation of every relevant term in the letter of the law. Don't like it? There's the door."
- ofslidingfeet 3y agoCool, so what kinds of people typically leave and what kinds of people typically stay?
- yxwvut 3y agoWell, I left for exactly that reason. I imagine those who stayed took an 'ends justify the means' stance that I couldn't abide. The organizations themselves are insatiable - there's no way that, left to their own devices, any three-letter-agency would ever say "Oh, this is beyond our scope, we shouldn't be allowed to access this.", and that combined with rubber stamp 'checks' allowed this surveillance creep.
- helpfulContrib 3y ago[dead]
- s1gnp0st 3y ago"Why did you create the panopticon hive-mind when you could've stopped at any point?" "Oh... I was going for promo."
- azalemeth 3y agoI think this comment deserves to be read more widely. It always seems all around the world that the three letter agencies are trying very hard to convince people to spy more and I have often wondered where the justification comes from internally and if they have any debate inside. Self selection would be one example. To be fair, when I once had a beer with someone who worked in that area before coming to academia she basically said you could work out how many intelligence officers a country had, and realise that given the amount of time effort and money it takes to properly surveil someone they were limited to a small multiple of that number of people to spy on "properly". I felt reassured by that. I can also see it being a justification for RoboCop.
- mistrial9 3y agoif a phone is tied to a govt ID, and the phone is required for interaction with benefits or protections, then the phone is a place where the spy happens, including location basically all the time. "you can turn the phone off" or "you can not take it with you" sounds OK at first, but realize that the critical parts of your life, to sleep, purchase and go to places of social importance, will naturally be included in the location tracking.
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- everdrive 3y agoYou don't want a whole bunch of analysts taking their own interpretation of FISA, either. There's the interpretation set by OGC. You're painting this as a bad thing, but it could easily go the other way: some analyst takes an overly broad or permissive personal interpretation of FISA, and ends up doing negative and abusive things. And not just abusive from the point of view of the privacy community, but abusive from the point of view of internal OGC and the law. It would frankly be insane if your three-letter agency _didn't_ work this way. Everyone needs to understand what the interpretation of the law is, what the legal guardrails are. If you disagree with this, the answer is not just do what you want with FISA.
- creer 3y agoI don't think they meant that interpretation was overly narrow. More like the interpretation was already stretching things well past the intended limit. That is, the interpretation was meant to justify what people might be tempted to do.
- withinboredom 3y agoWhen I was in interrogation school in the US Army, we were told we were only allowed to interrogate non-US citizens off US soil. However, even if a US citizen told us they were a US citizen off US soil, we were allowed to say they "were lying" (and any documents are counterfeit) and interrogate them anyway.
- yxwvut 3y agoThe point to my post was that there's no dissent allowed from the party line of 'this is definitely kosher'. If you thought the agency was overreaching in its interpretation, you better keep that to yourself, because it was a near-heretical opinion that would be eyed with suspicion, and it's not like you, a lowly rank-and-file employee, were ever going to sway things on that front.
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- salamandersss 3y ago[flagged]
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago[flagged]
- salamandersss 3y agoYou pay the tax to have someone fight it anyway, with a side of dealing with a police apparatus so powerful you can only hope to run from when they turn against you in violation of civil protections.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoSome people are temperamentally oriented to regulating or policing other people, so all you need do is ensure that the police are themselves policed, and the regulators are themselves regulated, and then you can confidently turn your strength toward the powers greater than mere humanity. A liberal democracy is better than a police state or an anarchistic state. Neither Mogadishu nor North Korea.
- dang 3y agoPlease don't delete and copy-paste flagged comments. That's abusive, and you did it a bunch in this thread. If you think a post didn't deserve to be flagged, you're always welcome to take it up with us at hn@ycombinator.com. Also, while I have you, can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments generally? I'd rather not have to ban you, but you're already close to the line if not over it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
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- gosub100 3y agoIsn't it ridiculous how they want top talent to find 'sploits or crack codes or whatever but "Sorry, pay is capped at G5, there's nothing we can do. Do it for your love of country", but when it comes to the Constitution? "Bah, don't worry about it!"
- Obscurity4340 3y agoEverybody takes shortcutz, lel