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> Which is worse? A government unable to take secretive (hostile) action against other states (or it's own citizens), or one in which we have mass surveillance,
by aaronem 13y ago
> Which is worse? A government unable to take secretive (hostile) action against other states (or it's own citizens), or one in which we have mass surveillance, secret (kangaroo courts), torture, and secret executions of people not deemed by a public court to be a threat?
Which is worse? A bullet in the head, or a malignant, metastatic, but slow-growing cancer? Neither is good, you understand, but if I'm forced to choose between them, I'll pick the more survivable one every time.
- the_af 13y agoI guess you're saying not being able to conduct covert action against other states (and your own citizens) is like taking a bullet to the head, in that it's fast and offers no hope, while the increase of mass surveillance is like a slow-growing cancer that you can hopefully survive. I think they are both like slow-growing cancers, and that both can be survived. Maybe overt actions are enough. I don't think the situation today is similar to WWII.
- aaronem 13y agoCertainly the situation today isn't similar to World War II. But that's not the only sort of situation in which covert intelligence is of value; how better, after all, to know what overt action to take?