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The point I was making is that the NSA have lost the plot and are acting completely counter to US interests by this point. Far from trying to scale them back, a

The point I was making is that the NSA have lost the plot and are acting completely counter to US interests by this point. Far from trying to scale them back, any adversary's strategic interests were best served by sitting back with the popcorn while the NSA screwed up the societal infrastructure. And worse, the NSA may yet carry the day, which will embolden said adversaries in the knowledge that the systemic failure is unrecoverable. That's the clusterfuck here, not the public leak - Snowden just shined a light on it.

Nrsolis 13y ago
Snowden did a lot of things but I'd stop short of saying that the NSA has stifled American civil liberties in any meaningful sense. What we have seen is the potential for abuse, but not any evidence of that actual abuse. I'm a pragmatist. I don't believe that the people that work at the NSA have any interest in domestic affairs unless there is a real threat to the republic. Of course, that could change which is why we need to scale back their domestic surveillance. But I wouldn't expect miracles here.
- dreamfactory2 13y ago
  tbh I think you're still missing the point here. It is highly unlikely that Snowden is the only person to have got his hands on that material. He's just shown up the flaw and at least some of the bad guys are highly likely to have it. The utter stupidity here is blindly following a 'collect everything' Pokemon strategy, which leaves you wide open to not only internal abuse from factions in intelligence, military, politics, business - but also organised crime and foreign actors. Even worse, that seems to be being stored in perpetuity thus causing a combinatorial explosion of those threat vectors. And if that wasn't bad enough, we learn of another multiplier where non-US countries were adding to that toxic heap of data. Great way to contribute to global stability. The individuals involved may mean well but you know what they say about the road to hell.

Nrsolis 13y ago

Snowden did a lot of things but I'd stop short of saying that the NSA has stifled American civil liberties in any meaningful sense. What we have seen is the potential for abuse, but not any evidence of that actual abuse. I'm a pragmatist. I don't believe that the people that work at the NSA have any interest in domestic affairs unless there is a real threat to the republic. Of course, that could change which is why we need to scale back their domestic surveillance. But I wouldn't expect miracles here.

dreamfactory2 13y ago
tbh I think you're still missing the point here. It is highly unlikely that Snowden is the only person to have got his hands on that material. He's just shown up the flaw and at least some of the bad guys are highly likely to have it. The utter stupidity here is blindly following a 'collect everything' Pokemon strategy, which leaves you wide open to not only internal abuse from factions in intelligence, military, politics, business - but also organised crime and foreign actors. Even worse, that seems to be being stored in perpetuity thus causing a combinatorial explosion of those threat vectors. And if that wasn't bad enough, we learn of another multiplier where non-US countries were adding to that toxic heap of data. Great way to contribute to global stability. The individuals involved may mean well but you know what they say about the road to hell.