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There are an absurd number of things that it makes sense for the government to keep from the public and not divesting that information but keeping the people wh

There are an absurd number of things that it makes sense for the government to keep from the public and not divesting that information but keeping the people who have that information accountable is what elections are for. You want to know what officers are working under cover in the police force? Who are informants on terrorist organizations working against the state? The home phone numbers and addresses of all public employees? Their emergency contact numbers? Medical histories relevant to their jobs? One can go on and on. Demanding better of elected officials makes sense, crippling the capacity of government to do kinds of work that it has to do does not.

md224 13y ago
How about a middle ground where information private to the government is allowed but there is no NSA or CIA, or at least no intelligence operations beyond keeping an eye on the military movements of other countries? Honest question: What danger would that put us in? My instinct says a moderate amount, but I guess none of us know for sure, which makes it a little scary to imagine.
- sneak 13y ago
  Honest follow-up question: How much danger would it need to put us in for you to think it's a bad idea? What if what they're not telling us is that FISA collection orders and analysis has kept people from nuking Manhattan a half-dozen times?
  - betterunix 13y ago
    So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants? What if the government claimed that they needed to put cameras in everyone's livingroom, because by doing so they could stop a major terrorist attack? The problem with your argument is that it basically allows the government to do anything it wants, and then claim that there is secret information that proves that what they are doing is necessary to save lives. In my view, there is a need for government secrets. Diplomatic cables need to be secret. The names and locations of informants and spies need to be kept secret (I will not deny the need for such agents). During times of war, the locations and planned movements of troops must be kept secret. On the other hand, the existence of diplomats, the existence of spies, and the existence of the military absolutely should not be kept secret.
    - sneak 13y ago
      > So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants? Whoa, you've just gone all straw-man on me. Stop presuming and just answer my question. Somewhere between "nothing happens" and "vaporizes the whole planet" is a consequence that makes the loss of privacy an acceptable option. Where is it? I didn't make an argument one way or the other.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    >How much danger would it need to put us in for you to think it's a bad idea? There is no number high enough to make me think getting rid of government secrecy is a bad idea. The reason is that there are other methods to deal with these kinds of problems. If other countries want to nuke us, it's probably a better idea to find out why they want to nuke us then to become a police state. >What if what they're not telling us is that FISA collection orders and analysis has kept people from nuking Manhattan a half-dozen times? What if they've also kept the big fight between Godzilla and King Kong from us? This is nonsense, they have not stopped anything like that. Pretty much everything terrorists have actually tried to do, they've succeed (or were foiled by their own incompetence). The cases where the government actually managed to "stop" a terror attack were very clear cases of entrapment. If they're actually out there like Jason Bourne saving the US in the last second all the time, why would they chose to show us clear cases of entrapment as their success stories? But if you really believe they're keeping us safe, then I'd like to give you a great offer on my anti-Godzilla rock. Godzilla has not so much as inconvenienced me on the way to work since I have this rock. I'm willing to make you a great deal on it, $1B. That's less than you're paying for the other charade.
    - CamperBob2 13y ago
      If other countries want to nuke us, it's probably a better idea to find out why they want to nuke us What will your next step be, when you learn that the answer to your question is "Religion"?
      - flyinRyan 13y ago
        I'm confident that that will not be the answer. That and "hate us for our freedoms" are popular for war mongers because there is apparently no solution besides continuing to bomb them. But is it possible they have legitimate grievancences? Is it possible that they're human beings who are pissed off about something we're doing or have done? The saddest part is, we appear to have learned literally nothing since our handling of native Americans. It's disgusting.
        13y ago
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  There is no middle ground. As soon as you give the government the right to secrets (and even if you don't!) they're going to use it to build things like NSA and hide them from you.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    This is a bizarre claim when phrased as an absolute: Eisenhower should have published the Normandy invasion plans?
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      This is different and you know it. The Normandy invasion is one specific operation of one specific group. Cops doing a raid would be a similar thing. In both cases, their activities are isolated to that one specific area and they only need be secret for a relatively short period of time. Contrast this with things like NSA: no end date, literally global scope, etc. Surely you can see how these things are different.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        So intelligence services in general are out?
        flyinRyan 13y ago
        Yes probably. Anything that can't be held accountable publicly is just begging for abuse. Governments draw dangerous people to want to work for them so they will be creating illegal secret structures in any case. We shouldn't be making it even easier for them.
mkmkmmmmm 13y ago
You are correct. But also there is not much an election can do when they have rigged the elections with Gerrymandering and first across the fence voting. There's a district in one state that goes out to sea and back. Corrupt as fuck.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  More importantly, it mean we just have one more person saying "trust us" - we have no means of telling how good a job they're doing in any secret oversight role. I'm sure your congressperson is fantastic, but the notion that congress broadly will reliably serve our interests over those of potential donors with more access is far fetched.
jaekwon 13y ago
If this guy had leaked that kind of information, he wouldn't be in the news like he is now. PRISM is not the kind of work that government has to do.
nano111 13y ago
JamisonM--
Zigurd 13y ago
Almost all confidential informants are engaged in the Drug War. There is a pretty strong argument that whole thing is counterproductive. There is no global existential threat that is anywhere near as grave as the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union once was. So, where is secrecy really needed? Is it more than 5% of the secrecy we have?
drewcrawford 13y ago
This is surprisingly easy to fix. What you have to do is 1. Any agency can designate a document as classified, a designation which remains in play for four years. This dovetails nicely with the election cycle. Also, the majority of police, etc. undercover operations are shorter than this period. Above this you are in "major case" / RICO / terrorism / etc. territory. 2. Extending the classification beyond four years requires a motion to show cause before a bona fide judiciary, where the agency must show by clear and convincing evidence that the classification falls into an enumerated exemption criteria. The classification can be extended indefinitely, but only in increments of 12 months and only upon the approval of the judicial branch. A proposal like this addresses most people's objections. The real problem with the current classification scheme is A) like Mickey Mouse's copyright, it expires on paper but not in real life, and B) the agencies are all essentially self-policing and nobody really checks in on them to see if the classification decisions are correct. The thing about this proposal is that it requires all three branches to sign off and say "yes, this should stay classified" and it also limits the number of secrets you can have, because there are only so many lawyers and so many judges, and now you have to decide if you want to allocate time in the budget to make motions for the next 50 years. There are legitimate secrets that are worth that kind of hassle, and then there are the other 90% of stuff that the alphabet soup of agencies does.
- jussij 13y ago
  I would add to that, any company bidding for government contracts has to accept that all bids in that tender process, including the winning bid, are to be made public after the tender process is complete. Here in Australia too many governments agencies spend tax payer’s money, issuing big contracts to private companies and the all the contract details remain secret. One example was a company awarded the right to build a cross city tunnel toll way. The contract included a $100 million payout to a government body in exchange for massive road closures designed to divert traffic into the (toll paying) tunnel. All the road closures did was create traffic chaos and the secret collusion was only revealed when the tunnel company went broke.
Zarathust 13y ago
Clearly, this doesn't work so well. Obama was first elected around this "change" and to be frank, not much has changed. At the risk of being overly pessimistic, I fail to see how the next president will be any different. He/She will be trapped in the same continuity of secrets and money. Maybe the democrats will be ousted from power, but so were the republicans
baddox 13y ago
> You want to know what officers are working under cover in the police force? I don't think that there need to be undercover police officers. > Who are informants on terrorist organizations working against the state? I don't think there need to be informants on terrorist organizations. > The home phone numbers and addresses of all public employees? Their emergency contact numbers? Medical histories relevant to their jobs? I wouldn't classify (teehee) this as "government secrets." If they're public employees, then obviously their names should be public, but I don't see their personal information as a "government secret." > crippling the capacity of government to do kinds of work that it has to do does not. People disagree about which kinds of work have to be done by government.
- sneak 13y ago
  I generally agree with you, but to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Would not having planes invisible to radar (B-2), or those that could fly faster than missiles (SR-71) be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you?
  - baddox 13y ago
    > Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Really? You or they must be using the term "anarcho-capitalism" in a non-standard way. In the standard usage of the term, the whole point is to be distinguished from pro-government libertarians and minarchists who believe that there are a few legitimate functions of the state. I've never heard anyone use the term to refer to an ideology that accepts any legitimate functions of the state.
    - sneak 13y ago
      I think that the capitalist part of anarcho-capitalist implies minarchism, as how can you have capitalism without private property?
flyinRyan 13y ago
Everyone always goes back to this stupid under cover cop example. It would be possible to allow under cover sting operations (of course, once you legalize drugs the need for most of those goes away) while not allowing the government to spy on the whole internet. Come on.

md224 13y ago

How about a middle ground where information private to the government is allowed but there is no NSA or CIA, or at least no intelligence operations beyond keeping an eye on the military movements of other countries? Honest question: What danger would that put us in? My instinct says a moderate amount, but I guess none of us know for sure, which makes it a little scary to imagine.

sneak 13y ago
Honest follow-up question: How much danger would it need to put us in for you to think it's a bad idea? What if what they're not telling us is that FISA collection orders and analysis has kept people from nuking Manhattan a half-dozen times?
- betterunix 13y ago
  So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants? What if the government claimed that they needed to put cameras in everyone's livingroom, because by doing so they could stop a major terrorist attack? The problem with your argument is that it basically allows the government to do anything it wants, and then claim that there is secret information that proves that what they are doing is necessary to save lives. In my view, there is a need for government secrets. Diplomatic cables need to be secret. The names and locations of informants and spies need to be kept secret (I will not deny the need for such agents). During times of war, the locations and planned movements of troops must be kept secret. On the other hand, the existence of diplomats, the existence of spies, and the existence of the military absolutely should not be kept secret.
  - sneak 13y ago
    > So because there might be bad people, somewhere, planning to do bad things, we should just let the government run wild and do whatever it wants? Whoa, you've just gone all straw-man on me. Stop presuming and just answer my question. Somewhere between "nothing happens" and "vaporizes the whole planet" is a consequence that makes the loss of privacy an acceptable option. Where is it? I didn't make an argument one way or the other.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  >How much danger would it need to put us in for you to think it's a bad idea? There is no number high enough to make me think getting rid of government secrecy is a bad idea. The reason is that there are other methods to deal with these kinds of problems. If other countries want to nuke us, it's probably a better idea to find out why they want to nuke us then to become a police state. >What if what they're not telling us is that FISA collection orders and analysis has kept people from nuking Manhattan a half-dozen times? What if they've also kept the big fight between Godzilla and King Kong from us? This is nonsense, they have not stopped anything like that. Pretty much everything terrorists have actually tried to do, they've succeed (or were foiled by their own incompetence). The cases where the government actually managed to "stop" a terror attack were very clear cases of entrapment. If they're actually out there like Jason Bourne saving the US in the last second all the time, why would they chose to show us clear cases of entrapment as their success stories? But if you really believe they're keeping us safe, then I'd like to give you a great offer on my anti-Godzilla rock. Godzilla has not so much as inconvenienced me on the way to work since I have this rock. I'm willing to make you a great deal on it, $1B. That's less than you're paying for the other charade.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    If other countries want to nuke us, it's probably a better idea to find out why they want to nuke us What will your next step be, when you learn that the answer to your question is "Religion"?
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      I'm confident that that will not be the answer. That and "hate us for our freedoms" are popular for war mongers because there is apparently no solution besides continuing to bomb them. But is it possible they have legitimate grievancences? Is it possible that they're human beings who are pissed off about something we're doing or have done? The saddest part is, we appear to have learned literally nothing since our handling of native Americans. It's disgusting.
      - 13y ago
flyinRyan 13y ago
There is no middle ground. As soon as you give the government the right to secrets (and even if you don't!) they're going to use it to build things like NSA and hide them from you.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  This is a bizarre claim when phrased as an absolute: Eisenhower should have published the Normandy invasion plans?
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    This is different and you know it. The Normandy invasion is one specific operation of one specific group. Cops doing a raid would be a similar thing. In both cases, their activities are isolated to that one specific area and they only need be secret for a relatively short period of time. Contrast this with things like NSA: no end date, literally global scope, etc. Surely you can see how these things are different.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      So intelligence services in general are out?
      - flyinRyan 13y ago
        Yes probably. Anything that can't be held accountable publicly is just begging for abuse. Governments draw dangerous people to want to work for them so they will be creating illegal secret structures in any case. We shouldn't be making it even easier for them.

mkmkmmmmm 13y ago

You are correct. But also there is not much an election can do when they have rigged the elections with Gerrymandering and first across the fence voting. There's a district in one state that goes out to sea and back. Corrupt as fuck.

dllthomas 13y ago
More importantly, it mean we just have one more person saying "trust us" - we have no means of telling how good a job they're doing in any secret oversight role. I'm sure your congressperson is fantastic, but the notion that congress broadly will reliably serve our interests over those of potential donors with more access is far fetched.

jaekwon 13y ago

If this guy had leaked that kind of information, he wouldn't be in the news like he is now. PRISM is not the kind of work that government has to do.

nano111 13y ago

JamisonM--

Zigurd 13y ago

Almost all confidential informants are engaged in the Drug War. There is a pretty strong argument that whole thing is counterproductive. There is no global existential threat that is anywhere near as grave as the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union once was. So, where is secrecy really needed? Is it more than 5% of the secrecy we have?

drewcrawford 13y ago

This is surprisingly easy to fix. What you have to do is 1. Any agency can designate a document as classified, a designation which remains in play for four years. This dovetails nicely with the election cycle. Also, the majority of police, etc. undercover operations are shorter than this period. Above this you are in "major case" / RICO / terrorism / etc. territory. 2. Extending the classification beyond four years requires a motion to show cause before a bona fide judiciary, where the agency must show by clear and convincing evidence that the classification falls into an enumerated exemption criteria. The classification can be extended indefinitely, but only in increments of 12 months and only upon the approval of the judicial branch. A proposal like this addresses most people's objections. The real problem with the current classification scheme is A) like Mickey Mouse's copyright, it expires on paper but not in real life, and B) the agencies are all essentially self-policing and nobody really checks in on them to see if the classification decisions are correct. The thing about this proposal is that it requires all three branches to sign off and say "yes, this should stay classified" and it also limits the number of secrets you can have, because there are only so many lawyers and so many judges, and now you have to decide if you want to allocate time in the budget to make motions for the next 50 years. There are legitimate secrets that are worth that kind of hassle, and then there are the other 90% of stuff that the alphabet soup of agencies does.

jussij 13y ago
I would add to that, any company bidding for government contracts has to accept that all bids in that tender process, including the winning bid, are to be made public after the tender process is complete. Here in Australia too many governments agencies spend tax payer’s money, issuing big contracts to private companies and the all the contract details remain secret. One example was a company awarded the right to build a cross city tunnel toll way. The contract included a $100 million payout to a government body in exchange for massive road closures designed to divert traffic into the (toll paying) tunnel. All the road closures did was create traffic chaos and the secret collusion was only revealed when the tunnel company went broke.

Zarathust 13y ago

Clearly, this doesn't work so well. Obama was first elected around this "change" and to be frank, not much has changed. At the risk of being overly pessimistic, I fail to see how the next president will be any different. He/She will be trapped in the same continuity of secrets and money. Maybe the democrats will be ousted from power, but so were the republicans

baddox 13y ago

> You want to know what officers are working under cover in the police force? I don't think that there need to be undercover police officers. > Who are informants on terrorist organizations working against the state? I don't think there need to be informants on terrorist organizations. > The home phone numbers and addresses of all public employees? Their emergency contact numbers? Medical histories relevant to their jobs? I wouldn't classify (teehee) this as "government secrets." If they're public employees, then obviously their names should be public, but I don't see their personal information as a "government secret." > crippling the capacity of government to do kinds of work that it has to do does not. People disagree about which kinds of work have to be done by government.

sneak 13y ago
I generally agree with you, but to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense? Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Would not having planes invisible to radar (B-2), or those that could fly faster than missiles (SR-71) be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you?
- baddox 13y ago
  > Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state. Really? You or they must be using the term "anarcho-capitalism" in a non-standard way. In the standard usage of the term, the whole point is to be distinguished from pro-government libertarians and minarchists who believe that there are a few legitimate functions of the state. I've never heard anyone use the term to refer to an ideology that accepts any legitimate functions of the state.
  - sneak 13y ago
    I think that the capitalist part of anarcho-capitalist implies minarchism, as how can you have capitalism without private property?

flyinRyan 13y ago

Everyone always goes back to this stupid under cover cop example. It would be possible to allow under cover sting operations (of course, once you legalize drugs the need for most of those goes away) while not allowing the government to spy on the whole internet. Come on.