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> What's to stop the Combatant Commander in charge of USNORTHCOM from taking over the government by force? Are you serious?! The US armed forces are comprised

> What's to stop the Combatant Commander in charge of USNORTHCOM from taking over the government by force? Are you serious?! The US armed forces are comprised of AMERICANS. They're hardly going to turn against their own democratically elected government, it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect. That is what is stopping it, not some regulatory checks and balances.

mpyne 13y ago
So is Russia running the NSA or am I missing something then?
- Amadou 13y ago
  You are missing the limits that simple practicality has on each scenario. There is an enormous difference between a military coup and the kind of risks the NSA databases create. A military coup requires tens if not hundreds of thousands of military to agree that potentially killing their neighbors and maybe even own family members is a necessity. For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. Not unlike the FBI tried to do with their surveillance tapes of Martin Luther King.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. And what if it takes more than a handful? Would such a system be safe then?
    - Amadou 13y ago
      Get it up to a couple of hundred and we'll talk. But if you think you can do that simply through process rather than physical design, we won't talk - process can not address the problem of turnkey tyranny.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. This is a baffling comment. Are you aware of the background checks that NSA do on staff? And the audit-trails on access to various bits of data?
    - Amadou 13y ago
      You mean like the background checks and audit trails that prevented Snowden from absconding with all those documents? Background checks don't stop people who think they are righteous and audit trails are only as good as (a) the audit policies and (b) the auditors. Snowden was pretty explicit with his claims that putting down any half-assed justification was enough to satisfy the auditors.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
And in your view, the US army hasn't already been asked, and complied, to shit all over those things, repeatedly? Some soldiers speak out, a whole lot kill themselves, but where is the resistance you speak of? > it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect Of course this is true for many people. But for all? How many people go to the army because it's a job, or paid for education? How many people could make more in another way, but chose to join the army because they, as you say, so strongly believe in defending their countrymen and the constitution? I don't mean to say there aren't many brave people who joined the army for all the right reasons. It doesn't even matter what the army is used for, I still respect those people even when they're misled. But exactly because of that I also have to acknowledge the sadists in their ranks, the people who want to be with the invincible team etc. Those exist, and with good enough indoctrination and good enough technology, those are all you need. Also, the conscience can be routed around by deception just fine; yeah, there's all these idealistic people signing up for the army... and then they get drilled, and some of them start considering civilians as something else entirely pretty fucking soon. And then there is the not minor fact of increased automatization and focus on robotics. In my worst expectations, the job of the American soldier of today is mostly to keep "the establishment" afloat for long enough until it can kick out the ladder under itself for good.

mpyne 13y ago

So is Russia running the NSA or am I missing something then?

Amadou 13y ago
You are missing the limits that simple practicality has on each scenario. There is an enormous difference between a military coup and the kind of risks the NSA databases create. A military coup requires tens if not hundreds of thousands of military to agree that potentially killing their neighbors and maybe even own family members is a necessity. For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. Not unlike the FBI tried to do with their surveillance tapes of Martin Luther King.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. And what if it takes more than a handful? Would such a system be safe then?
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Get it up to a couple of hundred and we'll talk. But if you think you can do that simply through process rather than physical design, we won't talk - process can not address the problem of turnkey tyranny.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. This is a baffling comment. Are you aware of the background checks that NSA do on staff? And the audit-trails on access to various bits of data?
  - Amadou 13y ago
    You mean like the background checks and audit trails that prevented Snowden from absconding with all those documents? Background checks don't stop people who think they are righteous and audit trails are only as good as (a) the audit policies and (b) the auditors. Snowden was pretty explicit with his claims that putting down any half-assed justification was enough to satisfy the auditors.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

And in your view, the US army hasn't already been asked, and complied, to shit all over those things, repeatedly? Some soldiers speak out, a whole lot kill themselves, but where is the resistance you speak of? > it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect Of course this is true for many people. But for all? How many people go to the army because it's a job, or paid for education? How many people could make more in another way, but chose to join the army because they, as you say, so strongly believe in defending their countrymen and the constitution? I don't mean to say there aren't many brave people who joined the army for all the right reasons. It doesn't even matter what the army is used for, I still respect those people even when they're misled. But exactly because of that I also have to acknowledge the sadists in their ranks, the people who want to be with the invincible team etc. Those exist, and with good enough indoctrination and good enough technology, those are all you need. Also, the conscience can be routed around by deception just fine; yeah, there's all these idealistic people signing up for the army... and then they get drilled, and some of them start considering civilians as something else entirely pretty fucking soon. And then there is the not minor fact of increased automatization and focus on robotics. In my worst expectations, the job of the American soldier of today is mostly to keep "the establishment" afloat for long enough until it can kick out the ladder under itself for good.