6 ms·

aren’t the NSA documents snowden leaked a complete rebuttal of your comment?

by hazn 2y ago

mdhb 2y ago
Not at all. I think those docs showed that they have much better capabilities and collection, targeting and delivery platforms than what people had assumed at the time but there was zero evidence that I’m aware of where they were misusing that to go after illegitimate targets. I think the most controversial thing on that front from memory was Angela Merkel and other EU heads of state which inside of an intelligence agency isn’t particularly controversial at all, that’s just doing your job.
- 0xEF 2y ago
  I don't think you actually read them.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    Well go on… enlighten me.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mdhb 2y ago
    I am going to quote your own article back to you verbatim because it says something entirely different to what you seem to be claiming. “The letter sent to Grassley reveals that there have been at least 12 recorded cases of spies abusing their powers since 2003”. So, no, the NSA is not out there abusing their powers to go after illegitimate targets. It’s also worth keeping the context that this was in a pre-Snowden era. In 2024 you can’t access a single thing without their being a log of who you are and why you are looking at it and under what legal statute that is allowed precisely to prevent something like that ever happening again. What you are implying simply isn’t true.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      You claimed there was zero evidence that the NSA was spying on illegitimate targets. Both articles emphasize there were numerous incidents of exactly this, both discovered and undiscovered. Snowden in particular emphasized the rather poor level of content auditing that was (and probably still is) going on.
      - mdhb 2y ago
        Listen, everybody can read the exact same comment I wrote and see how you are ignoring all the parts that are inconvenient to you. It’s there in black and white. We are talking about if the NSA abuses its power to go after illegitimate targets. You quoted the same single source twice but written by different people which when we got down to the heart of the claim showed that there was actual evidence of approximately 1 incident per year over more than a decade time frame. I also explained precisely how and why things had changed in the past decade since that quote was relevant so that it wasn’t possible for people to do that any longer without tripping all kinds of alarms. If you have other evidence then please share it but what you have so far doesn’t support your claim at all.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        somenameforme 2y ago
        Read the articles - they describe two very different scenarios. One is spies spying on love interest (wives, girlfriend, somebody they might want to date, etc). The other is spies collecting sexually explicit media of more random people. And the auditing systems at the NSA were obviously very poor, and there's no reason to think that has meaningfully changed. Of the very few cases they were able to "catch", a sizable chunk were from self reporting in polygraph exams or even more absurd things like a girlfriend reporting a guy who she suspected was spying on him - and he was, as well as 9 other women. In no cases were there any meaningful penalties, with the worst case being resignation. And similarly, it seems people engaging in the harvesting of sexually explicit material Snowden described were never caught, which is likely why he referred to it as something like a "fringe benefit".
- roenxi 2y ago
  > but there was zero evidence that I’m aware of where they were misusing that to go after illegitimate targets How could you claim that without (a) having insider knowledge of the secret activities of the FISA court and (b) violating some sort of legal restriction on publicising your knowledge of said court? One of the major complaints about the US surveillance program (indeed any surveillance program) is almost nobody is allowed to know who the targets are or why. > I think the most controversial thing on that front from memory was Angela Merkel and other EU heads of state And I think the most controversial target to date was actually Trump.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - roenxi 2y ago
      > The fact he happened to suddenly become a politician doesn’t mean he is suddenly in the untouchable category only that the level of scrutiny goes way up. So when you say "legitimate targets" does that include all US politicians? Or only ones that you think are a threat to your interests? Perhaps we can speed up the argument and you outline what you think the illegitimate targets would be. Because that case sounded like clear cut abuse of the spying apparatus to me. Bearing in mind that people involved in obtaining the warrant ended up being charged with related crimes of falsifying documents.
      - mdhb 2y ago
        Listen Trump was running a whole lot of policies entirely off the books that wasn’t publicly declared and was entirely inconsistent with the goals of both the US and all of their allies but was entirely consistent with personal enrichment. He had multiple people go down around him that were actively working as Russian agents and then he had Kushner working to set up a secret communications channel out of the Russian embassy that was actively designed so that it couldn’t be intercepted by US intelligence. When you do that kind of thing, no matter if you’re a politician or not, in fact ESPECIALLY if you’re a politician you should absolutely expect people to start asking questions and opening investigations. We don’t need to pretend he was some normal candidate who had a couple of whacky ideas.

aren’t the NSA documents snowden leaked a complete rebuttal of your comment?

by hazn 2y ago

aren’t the NSA documents snowden leaked a complete rebuttal of your comment?

mdhb 2y ago

Not at all. I think those docs showed that they have much better capabilities and collection, targeting and delivery platforms than what people had assumed at the time but there was zero evidence that I’m aware of where they were misusing that to go after illegitimate targets. I think the most controversial thing on that front from memory was Angela Merkel and other EU heads of state which inside of an intelligence agency isn’t particularly controversial at all, that’s just doing your job.

0xEF 2y ago
I don't think you actually read them.
- mdhb 2y ago
  Well go on… enlighten me.
somenameforme 2y ago
[flagged]
- mdhb 2y ago
  I am going to quote your own article back to you verbatim because it says something entirely different to what you seem to be claiming. “The letter sent to Grassley reveals that there have been at least 12 recorded cases of spies abusing their powers since 2003”. So, no, the NSA is not out there abusing their powers to go after illegitimate targets. It’s also worth keeping the context that this was in a pre-Snowden era. In 2024 you can’t access a single thing without their being a log of who you are and why you are looking at it and under what legal statute that is allowed precisely to prevent something like that ever happening again. What you are implying simply isn’t true.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    You claimed there was zero evidence that the NSA was spying on illegitimate targets. Both articles emphasize there were numerous incidents of exactly this, both discovered and undiscovered. Snowden in particular emphasized the rather poor level of content auditing that was (and probably still is) going on.
    - mdhb 2y ago
      Listen, everybody can read the exact same comment I wrote and see how you are ignoring all the parts that are inconvenient to you. It’s there in black and white. We are talking about if the NSA abuses its power to go after illegitimate targets. You quoted the same single source twice but written by different people which when we got down to the heart of the claim showed that there was actual evidence of approximately 1 incident per year over more than a decade time frame. I also explained precisely how and why things had changed in the past decade since that quote was relevant so that it wasn’t possible for people to do that any longer without tripping all kinds of alarms. If you have other evidence then please share it but what you have so far doesn’t support your claim at all.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        Read the articles - they describe two very different scenarios. One is spies spying on love interest (wives, girlfriend, somebody they might want to date, etc). The other is spies collecting sexually explicit media of more random people. And the auditing systems at the NSA were obviously very poor, and there's no reason to think that has meaningfully changed. Of the very few cases they were able to "catch", a sizable chunk were from self reporting in polygraph exams or even more absurd things like a girlfriend reporting a guy who she suspected was spying on him - and he was, as well as 9 other women. In no cases were there any meaningful penalties, with the worst case being resignation. And similarly, it seems people engaging in the harvesting of sexually explicit material Snowden described were never caught, which is likely why he referred to it as something like a "fringe benefit".
roenxi 2y ago
> but there was zero evidence that I’m aware of where they were misusing that to go after illegitimate targets How could you claim that without (a) having insider knowledge of the secret activities of the FISA court and (b) violating some sort of legal restriction on publicising your knowledge of said court? One of the major complaints about the US surveillance program (indeed any surveillance program) is almost nobody is allowed to know who the targets are or why. > I think the most controversial thing on that front from memory was Angela Merkel and other EU heads of state And I think the most controversial target to date was actually Trump.
- mdhb 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > The fact he happened to suddenly become a politician doesn’t mean he is suddenly in the untouchable category only that the level of scrutiny goes way up. So when you say "legitimate targets" does that include all US politicians? Or only ones that you think are a threat to your interests? Perhaps we can speed up the argument and you outline what you think the illegitimate targets would be. Because that case sounded like clear cut abuse of the spying apparatus to me. Bearing in mind that people involved in obtaining the warrant ended up being charged with related crimes of falsifying documents.
    - mdhb 2y ago
      Listen Trump was running a whole lot of policies entirely off the books that wasn’t publicly declared and was entirely inconsistent with the goals of both the US and all of their allies but was entirely consistent with personal enrichment. He had multiple people go down around him that were actively working as Russian agents and then he had Kushner working to set up a secret communications channel out of the Russian embassy that was actively designed so that it couldn’t be intercepted by US intelligence. When you do that kind of thing, no matter if you’re a politician or not, in fact ESPECIALLY if you’re a politician you should absolutely expect people to start asking questions and opening investigations. We don’t need to pretend he was some normal candidate who had a couple of whacky ideas.