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How many attacks did they provoke? How many people on the cusp of violent retaliation now feel justified to do what they only thought about before? How many p

by spodek 13y ago

How many attacks did they provoke? How many people on the cusp of violent retaliation now feel justified to do what they only thought about before? How many people who wouldn't dislike the U.S. will? How many governments who would partner with the U.S. won't trust the country? How much reason did they give people to hate them? How much did they breach the Constitution and how is that different from anyone else doing it?

tptacek 13y ago
None. Look at all politically-motivated violent attacks that deliberately or recklessly affected civilians; all of them were done by people who would be uninfluenced by any detail of due process in the US. No sane person tries to blow up an airplane over NSA surveillance. I think James Clapper should be fired, that we need to reevaluate the FISA court system, and (most radically) that NSA needs to be transitioned back into a foreign intelligence agency and be firewalled off from domestic law enforcement. I don't think we should try to get there by making arguments that 99% of Americans will immediately reject, in part because even people who are sympathetic to the problem of an overreaching NSA will disagree strongly with them.
- pvnick 13y ago
  >No sane person tries to blow up an airplane You could have stopped there.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    No, I don't think so.
    - pvnick 13y ago
      Oh hey tptacek it looks like you've shifted your opinion on this whole NSA scandal a bit over the past couple days to be less skeptical and more in line with the rest of HN. Was there any particular story that made you change your mind?
      - tptacek 13y ago
        My opinion hasn't changed at all. I don't want to make another thread about me, so if you have more questions, you can ping me via email.
- andrewljohnson 13y ago
  If the NSA is going to be the CIA, who is the CIA going to be?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    NSA is signals, CIA is analysis and human intelligence. I don't think NSA has "agents".
anigbrowl 13y ago
Without endorsing spying, there's a large moral gap between eavesdropping on someone's telephone calls and killing people.

by spodek 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

None. Look at all politically-motivated violent attacks that deliberately or recklessly affected civilians; all of them were done by people who would be uninfluenced by any detail of due process in the US. No sane person tries to blow up an airplane over NSA surveillance. I think James Clapper should be fired, that we need to reevaluate the FISA court system, and (most radically) that NSA needs to be transitioned back into a foreign intelligence agency and be firewalled off from domestic law enforcement. I don't think we should try to get there by making arguments that 99% of Americans will immediately reject, in part because even people who are sympathetic to the problem of an overreaching NSA will disagree strongly with them.

pvnick 13y ago
>No sane person tries to blow up an airplane You could have stopped there.
- tptacek 13y ago
  No, I don't think so.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    Oh hey tptacek it looks like you've shifted your opinion on this whole NSA scandal a bit over the past couple days to be less skeptical and more in line with the rest of HN. Was there any particular story that made you change your mind?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      My opinion hasn't changed at all. I don't want to make another thread about me, so if you have more questions, you can ping me via email.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
If the NSA is going to be the CIA, who is the CIA going to be?
- tptacek 13y ago
  NSA is signals, CIA is analysis and human intelligence. I don't think NSA has "agents".

anigbrowl 13y ago

Without endorsing spying, there's a large moral gap between eavesdropping on someone's telephone calls and killing people.