4 ms·

> highly classified court order Boy does that sound like a concept which needs to die. Justice does not tend to occur behind closed doors.

mindcrime 13y ago
Indeed. There is, as far as I can tell, no reason for this order to be secret at all, since it's so indiscriminate. I can understand (grudgingly) the argument for sealing the court order during an active investigation, since you don't necessarily want to tip off the suspect that you're "onto them". But if you're saying "give me everybody's data" then it won't be tipping anybody off. And weighed against the idea that our government, which we created, to serve us needs to be almost 100% transparent in order to be accountable to us, I just can't see any reason for this being kept secret. If We The People are to police our government, we need to know what it's doing. And when it does something wrong, we need to smite it mightily.
- DanBC 13y ago
  In theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but I'm aware that GCHQ / CESG / etc have pretty rigorous scrutiny. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw. Far too much stuff is classified as top secret or secret when it just doesn't need to be.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    In theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. In theory, yes. I, for one, don't consider that an acceptable form of oversight / accountability. We need to be able to see inside the box, and know damn near everything that's going on, end to end. There is, IMO, very little which truly needs to be classified: Launch codes for the nuclear missiles, things of that nature. Most of the rest, not so much.

4 ms·

> highly classified court order Boy does that sound like a concept which needs to die. Justice does not tend to occur behind closed doors.

by jpdoctor 13y ago

mindcrime 13y ago
Indeed. There is, as far as I can tell, no reason for this order to be secret at all, since it's so indiscriminate. I can understand (grudgingly) the argument for sealing the court order during an active investigation, since you don't necessarily want to tip off the suspect that you're "onto them". But if you're saying "give me everybody's data" then it won't be tipping anybody off. And weighed against the idea that our government, which we created, to serve us needs to be almost 100% transparent in order to be accountable to us, I just can't see any reason for this being kept secret. If We The People are to police our government, we need to know what it's doing. And when it does something wrong, we need to smite it mightily.
- DanBC 13y ago
  In theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but I'm aware that GCHQ / CESG / etc have pretty rigorous scrutiny. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw. Far too much stuff is classified as top secret or secret when it just doesn't need to be.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    In theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. In theory, yes. I, for one, don't consider that an acceptable form of oversight / accountability. We need to be able to see inside the box, and know damn near everything that's going on, end to end. There is, IMO, very little which truly needs to be classified: Launch codes for the nuclear missiles, things of that nature. Most of the rest, not so much.