4 ms·

Ignoring the 'they won't do anything so it doesn't matter who is on it' part of things - > review government surveillance policies Because they're not needed

by mhurron 13y ago

Ignoring the 'they won't do anything so it doesn't matter who is on it' part of things - > review government surveillance policies Because they're not needed to review policy. You honestly don't need to understand technology, and therefore don't need a technology expert, for most things that happen in the world. Do you expect a technology expert on a medical review board? The doctor is after all going to be using technology ...

RossM 13y ago
One might be useful to help extract the extent of the surveillance - one might incorrectly assume certain information is untrackable for example.
jnbiche 13y ago
If it's a medical review board looking at deaths caused by software failures, then yes, I'd expect at least one technology expert on there. And to the credit of the medical community, that's usually the case. This review board is supposedly trying to establish how bad the NSA surveillance -- clearly a technologically-sophisticated system -- is. If you have people on there who don't even understand how the Internet works (i.e., most politicians), then how in the hell are they going to audit an Internet surveillance system? But yeah, I agree with you in that it doesn't matter in the long run. This is a rubber-stamp review.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
rlpb 13y ago
People who do not understand technology seem to treat technology as a magic bullet that can be adapted to implement policy. It doesn't work that way. You need to understand technology in order to understand the implications of what applying particular policy may lead to, and thus whether the policy itself is sane. In the real world, there are major implications when technology fails to implement policy because it fundamentally cannot do so. For example: in the UK, David Cameron's attitude towards Internet censorship seems to be "It doesn't work. You're smart; make it work." and completely ignores the fact that it is technically impossible to do what he would like. Yet he continues to demand it anyway.
- mhurron 13y ago
  > People who do not understand technology seem to treat technology as a magic bullet that can be adapted to implement policy Pretending you need experts in 'technology' to do anything that ever comes in the same room as a computer enforces this view, it doesn't change it. Policy should be written in such a way that it is abstracted from the implementation detail. To the point, it shouldn't matter if I am talking on the phone, writing a letter or IM'ing someone over the internet, the NSA should have to hit the same requirements to look at it. > completely ignores the fact that it is technically impossible to do what he would like. Yet he continues to demand it anyway "Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots." He has been told, many times, by 'technologists' that what he want's can't really be done. It doesn't seem to matter now, does it.
msandford 13y ago
Let's say that I work at a bank and that the bank policy is to put all the money in the vault and as a result, the money will not be stolen. Then one day, the money is stolen. Turns out that the reason the money was stolen is because the vault has no door. Just because the bank has a "money in the vault can't be stolen" policy on paper doesn't cause that vision of how the world SHOULD be to become REALITY. In order to winnow out the truth in this situation the review panel would need to have someone who knows something about security and vault construction on it. Also who perhaps would be allowed to inspect said vault to verify it's intact. This is 100% analogous to the NSA review panel as all the folks in government are crowing about how it's policy that you can't look at such-and-such without a reason, but in fact there's no technological enforcement of said policy. Analysts can look at whatever they want provided that they give (type into a text field) some kind of ostensible reason, but that reason is only for auditing purposes. A bad reason typed into a field doesn't prevent the search as there's no review of said reason prior to the search running. It's a bank vault with a door where the "lock" is a "sign in, sign out" sheet taped to the wall near the handle. And no security guard ensuring that people do in fact sign in and sign out. And definitely not checking to see that the money everyone's leaving with is in fact for the regular operations of the bank and not for their own personal gain.
- mhurron 13y ago
  Those are handled by reports via required experts. Or did you also need an architect on the policy board because it involved a building? They probably plan to print the policy out, I guess we need the engineer who designed the printer on the board as well. Just because it uses something does not mean a subject matter expert on that thing needs to be involved in every part of the policy surrounding it. On top of that, this specific group is concerned with the legality of what the NSA is doing. This is the realm of lawyers and constitutional experts. The fact that they are using a computer instead of pads of paper doesn't change that. Or did they need representatives from the paper mill before? > in fact there's no technological enforcement of said policy Oh, and policy writers are often not policy implementers and never are in government, a review board of the policy won't change that.
  - 13y ago

by mhurron 13y ago

RossM 13y ago

One might be useful to help extract the extent of the surveillance - one might incorrectly assume certain information is untrackable for example.

jnbiche 13y ago

If it's a medical review board looking at deaths caused by software failures, then yes, I'd expect at least one technology expert on there. And to the credit of the medical community, that's usually the case. This review board is supposedly trying to establish how bad the NSA surveillance -- clearly a technologically-sophisticated system -- is. If you have people on there who don't even understand how the Internet works (i.e., most politicians), then how in the hell are they going to audit an Internet surveillance system? But yeah, I agree with you in that it doesn't matter in the long run. This is a rubber-stamp review.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

rlpb 13y ago

People who do not understand technology seem to treat technology as a magic bullet that can be adapted to implement policy. It doesn't work that way. You need to understand technology in order to understand the implications of what applying particular policy may lead to, and thus whether the policy itself is sane. In the real world, there are major implications when technology fails to implement policy because it fundamentally cannot do so. For example: in the UK, David Cameron's attitude towards Internet censorship seems to be "It doesn't work. You're smart; make it work." and completely ignores the fact that it is technically impossible to do what he would like. Yet he continues to demand it anyway.

mhurron 13y ago
> People who do not understand technology seem to treat technology as a magic bullet that can be adapted to implement policy Pretending you need experts in 'technology' to do anything that ever comes in the same room as a computer enforces this view, it doesn't change it. Policy should be written in such a way that it is abstracted from the implementation detail. To the point, it shouldn't matter if I am talking on the phone, writing a letter or IM'ing someone over the internet, the NSA should have to hit the same requirements to look at it. > completely ignores the fact that it is technically impossible to do what he would like. Yet he continues to demand it anyway "Idiots doing idiot things because they're idiots." He has been told, many times, by 'technologists' that what he want's can't really be done. It doesn't seem to matter now, does it.

msandford 13y ago

Let's say that I work at a bank and that the bank policy is to put all the money in the vault and as a result, the money will not be stolen. Then one day, the money is stolen. Turns out that the reason the money was stolen is because the vault has no door. Just because the bank has a "money in the vault can't be stolen" policy on paper doesn't cause that vision of how the world SHOULD be to become REALITY. In order to winnow out the truth in this situation the review panel would need to have someone who knows something about security and vault construction on it. Also who perhaps would be allowed to inspect said vault to verify it's intact. This is 100% analogous to the NSA review panel as all the folks in government are crowing about how it's policy that you can't look at such-and-such without a reason, but in fact there's no technological enforcement of said policy. Analysts can look at whatever they want provided that they give (type into a text field) some kind of ostensible reason, but that reason is only for auditing purposes. A bad reason typed into a field doesn't prevent the search as there's no review of said reason prior to the search running. It's a bank vault with a door where the "lock" is a "sign in, sign out" sheet taped to the wall near the handle. And no security guard ensuring that people do in fact sign in and sign out. And definitely not checking to see that the money everyone's leaving with is in fact for the regular operations of the bank and not for their own personal gain.

mhurron 13y ago
Those are handled by reports via required experts. Or did you also need an architect on the policy board because it involved a building? They probably plan to print the policy out, I guess we need the engineer who designed the printer on the board as well. Just because it uses something does not mean a subject matter expert on that thing needs to be involved in every part of the policy surrounding it. On top of that, this specific group is concerned with the legality of what the NSA is doing. This is the realm of lawyers and constitutional experts. The fact that they are using a computer instead of pads of paper doesn't change that. Or did they need representatives from the paper mill before? > in fact there's no technological enforcement of said policy Oh, and policy writers are often not policy implementers and never are in government, a review board of the policy won't change that.
- 13y ago