4 ms·
Regardless of what prism is, if it's a reasonable system with oversight and consequences for those abusing their power, why is it secret? There's nothing neces
by emn13 13y ago
Regardless of what prism is, if it's a reasonable system with oversight and consequences for those abusing their power, why is it secret?
There's nothing necessarily wrong with something like PRISM (especially since we don't even know what it is), but the choice about whether it's right or wrong belongs to the people as a whole, most certainly not to a few people happened to have grabbed that power.
What's the point of democracy and accountability if it's unclear what people are accountable for nor what you're voting on? This kind of system should never ever have been introduced in secrecy.
- mpyne 13y agoIt's secret because of OPSEC, the same reason that essentially everything else an intelligence agency does is secret. Does the public go down and tell the Admirals how to staff a warship? Or what controls to use when deciding to launch weapons? Those are life and death decisions where the military essentially handles its own oversight with Congress and government civil servants involved at the higher levels to handle public interest in accountability and oversight. Yet I don't see the public up in arms about that. Now, if the people say they don't like Prism and don't want it then the NSA should gut it; that's the right of the people to decide. But I wish we wouldn't be so quick to jump to the idea that the public must personally audit and review all such government programs as a rule, because as far as I can tell from the seats I've sat in the public has never actually believed that in general at all, and are normally quite content to allow their Congressmen and our shared values as citizens (for those actually doing the work) to provide that oversight.