4 ms·

As an engineer, what I want to see is metrics. Bar charts for events the surveillance program helped with: y = count of terrorist plots stopped, x = time buck

As an engineer, what I want to see is metrics. Bar charts for events the surveillance program helped with: y = count of terrorist plots stopped, x = time bucket y = cost of surveillance programs, x = time bucket y = count of petty crimes caught, x = time bucket y = count of total analyst caught abusing power, x = time bucket y = count of total Americans profiles, x = time bucket y = count of total world wide profiles, x = time bucket y = count of illegal immigration caught, x = time bucket

geodel 3y ago
I am pretty sure if one wants metrics one will get metrics. Law enforcement, like corporate management nowadays, is big on metrics. After all, the big enshittification of internet which is popular topic here is based on metrics of ad networks effectiveness.
Minor49er 3y ago
What's to stop them from just making up numbers?
- tenacious_tuna 3y ago
  this was a plot point of The Wire, where the mayor ran on a campaign of reducing murders. The murder rate dropped--but a zillion other stats came up, because the officers were fudging the classifications of the crimes to try and achieve the metric goal. Fictional, but it makes a poignant point about needing to deeply understand how metrics are collected and recorded to be confident in the conclusions drawn from them.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    Like Idiotacracy, I believe the Wire is more Truth than fiction
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    David Simon discusses this point specifically in a 2008 lecture at UC Berkeley titled "The Audacity of Despair": <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw https://yewtu.be/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw> The statistics discussion begins at about 8 minutes, and continues for much of the discussion and Q&A. I'd seen that long before watching The Wire itself, and in fact the lecture was a large part of the reason I wanted to watch the series. (Poor quality audio and a very distracting speaking manner. Still very much worth listening to.)
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  They already do. Entrapment then reclaim they prevented a threat they came up with. Claim on a daily basis that they’ve prevented “hundreds” of 9/11 equivalents and no one presses for proof. Or when a new reporter that doesn’t know the rules does ask for proof, they get “classified for national security reasons.” So, no. Please don’t give me BS charts and graphs to make it easier for fed-apologists to point and play security theater.
  - geodel 3y ago
    Absolutely. Their metrics generating and promoting departments will have field day with this. Endless reports, case studies etc, a whole industry will pop up gorging on tax payer dollars for this "metrics" task.
raincom 3y ago
Because of metrics, easy tasks in scrum/agile are transformed into monstrous little tasks, spanning five months. Same thing with law enforcement: they find some mentally deranged person in KS, lays a trap to ensnare him in terrorism charges. Yes, 'our dragnet' captured this many number of terrorists (that is, y).
- psunavy03 3y ago
  This is not how Scrum, Agile, or metrics work. Incompetent management doesn't need to be generalized into some sort of indictment of things beyond incompetent management.
  - raincom 3y ago
    That’s how every response to this sort of criticism: when people criticize capitalism, response is “that’s not a true capitalism”. When people criticize policies of communist regimes, defenders of communism say that these regimes are not instances of real communism. When majority instances are not supposedly true instances of whatever-is-in-dispute, then one should stop coming up with it-is-not-true-X.
    - psunavy03 3y ago
      Well when what you're criticizing is a caricature and a strawman, it's perfectly reasonable to point out that you're in fact criticizing a caricature and a strawman.
    - 65a 3y ago
      Specifically, this is the no-true-scotsman fallacy. It should be noted a fallacious argument doesn't mean that a non-fallacious argument doesn't exist for the same claim.
- sassy_quat 3y ago
  [dead]
efsavage 3y ago
While I'm always in favor of accountability and transparency, measuring success by counting things that didn't happen is very difficult even under the most benign circumstances. Mix in politics and careers and it's almost certainly guaranteed to misrepresent the goals and work being done.
umbtg 3y ago
Same

geodel 3y ago

I am pretty sure if one wants metrics one will get metrics. Law enforcement, like corporate management nowadays, is big on metrics. After all, the big enshittification of internet which is popular topic here is based on metrics of ad networks effectiveness.

Minor49er 3y ago

What's to stop them from just making up numbers?

tenacious_tuna 3y ago
this was a plot point of The Wire, where the mayor ran on a campaign of reducing murders. The murder rate dropped--but a zillion other stats came up, because the officers were fudging the classifications of the crimes to try and achieve the metric goal. Fictional, but it makes a poignant point about needing to deeply understand how metrics are collected and recorded to be confident in the conclusions drawn from them.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  Like Idiotacracy, I believe the Wire is more Truth than fiction
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  David Simon discusses this point specifically in a 2008 lecture at UC Berkeley titled "The Audacity of Despair": <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw https://yewtu.be/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw> The statistics discussion begins at about 8 minutes, and continues for much of the discussion and Q&A. I'd seen that long before watching The Wire itself, and in fact the lecture was a large part of the reason I wanted to watch the series. (Poor quality audio and a very distracting speaking manner. Still very much worth listening to.)
ComputerGuru 3y ago
They already do. Entrapment then reclaim they prevented a threat they came up with. Claim on a daily basis that they’ve prevented “hundreds” of 9/11 equivalents and no one presses for proof. Or when a new reporter that doesn’t know the rules does ask for proof, they get “classified for national security reasons.” So, no. Please don’t give me BS charts and graphs to make it easier for fed-apologists to point and play security theater.
- geodel 3y ago
  Absolutely. Their metrics generating and promoting departments will have field day with this. Endless reports, case studies etc, a whole industry will pop up gorging on tax payer dollars for this "metrics" task.

raincom 3y ago

Because of metrics, easy tasks in scrum/agile are transformed into monstrous little tasks, spanning five months. Same thing with law enforcement: they find some mentally deranged person in KS, lays a trap to ensnare him in terrorism charges. Yes, 'our dragnet' captured this many number of terrorists (that is, y).

psunavy03 3y ago
This is not how Scrum, Agile, or metrics work. Incompetent management doesn't need to be generalized into some sort of indictment of things beyond incompetent management.
- raincom 3y ago
  That’s how every response to this sort of criticism: when people criticize capitalism, response is “that’s not a true capitalism”. When people criticize policies of communist regimes, defenders of communism say that these regimes are not instances of real communism. When majority instances are not supposedly true instances of whatever-is-in-dispute, then one should stop coming up with it-is-not-true-X.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    Well when what you're criticizing is a caricature and a strawman, it's perfectly reasonable to point out that you're in fact criticizing a caricature and a strawman.
  - 65a 3y ago
    Specifically, this is the no-true-scotsman fallacy. It should be noted a fallacious argument doesn't mean that a non-fallacious argument doesn't exist for the same claim.
sassy_quat 3y ago
[dead]

efsavage 3y ago

While I'm always in favor of accountability and transparency, measuring success by counting things that didn't happen is very difficult even under the most benign circumstances. Mix in politics and careers and it's almost certainly guaranteed to misrepresent the goals and work being done.

umbtg 3y ago

Same