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There are very few cases of the CIA torturing or killing US citizens (foreigners, yes) There is legal and congressional oversight over the CIA, intelligence age

There are very few cases of the CIA torturing or killing US citizens (foreigners, yes) There is legal and congressional oversight over the CIA, intelligence agencies can be held accountable by American voters through the democratic process. There is no similar venue for oversight and accountability over the tech industry, which almost certainly holds more sensitive data on the American public.

wutwutwat 2y ago
The CIA wouldn't really be good at what they do if the assasinations or other illegal things they do were well documented and available to the public. There's a reason the things they do are done in places where US laws don't apply... > CIA black sites systematically employed torture in the form of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees, most of whom had been illegally abducted and forcibly transferred. Known locations included Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites Then there's GITMO
sneak 2y ago
There is zero meaningful congressional oversight of the CIA. They broke major laws and tortured people, hacked the computers of the congressional oversight group to delete evidence, got caught hacking, lied about it, and nothing happened anyway. The mental model you have where the CIA is in any way constrained by the law is an utter fiction. They would summarily execute Snowden in a millisecond if they could.
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  Why haven't they, then? Your model of intelligence agencies as sinister and omnipotent is at odds with all the available evidence. This is who is lurking behind the curtain, petty, fallible humans just like everywhere else: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-case-of-a-cia-hackers-revenge https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...
  - sneak 2y ago
    They are sinister and competent; nobody said anything about omnipotent. The question was why should we be more concerned about government data access than private industry. The answer is because the government claims a monopoly on violence, up to and including murder and assassination; Google does not.

wutwutwat 2y ago

The CIA wouldn't really be good at what they do if the assasinations or other illegal things they do were well documented and available to the public. There's a reason the things they do are done in places where US laws don't apply... > CIA black sites systematically employed torture in the form of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees, most of whom had been illegally abducted and forcibly transferred. Known locations included Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_black_sites Then there's GITMO

sneak 2y ago

There is zero meaningful congressional oversight of the CIA. They broke major laws and tortured people, hacked the computers of the congressional oversight group to delete evidence, got caught hacking, lied about it, and nothing happened anyway. The mental model you have where the CIA is in any way constrained by the law is an utter fiction. They would summarily execute Snowden in a millisecond if they could.

ForHackernews 2y ago
Why haven't they, then? Your model of intelligence agencies as sinister and omnipotent is at odds with all the available evidence. This is who is lurking behind the curtain, petty, fallible humans just like everywhere else: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-case-of-a-cia-hackers-revenge https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...
- sneak 2y ago
  They are sinister and competent; nobody said anything about omnipotent. The question was why should we be more concerned about government data access than private industry. The answer is because the government claims a monopoly on violence, up to and including murder and assassination; Google does not.