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Why should our government agencies not commit crimes just because no one is looking? I'm just going to assume you were being sarcastic and move on.

• rdl 13y ago
  I'm specifically questioning "no way to run a successful organization"; it was morally wrong (and legally, but there's no legal oversight, so that doesn't matter), but in no way hindered their success at their mission. So, because it's not hurting them in terms of success to operate this way, there's a need for external controls to prevent it. If being all-collecting hurt their effectiveness, we wouldn't need any new controls, because they'd be replaced for being unsuccessful.
  • 1457389 13y ago
    It's not hurting them insofar as they can sell this kind of useless (in terms of catching terrorists) data collection to bureaucrats who will sign off on it. I would argue that it is compromising their ability to sift the wheat from the chaff, when so much of their efforts and funding seems to be dedicated to adding to the latter. Plus, the inevitable outrage generated when these tactics became public is undeniably hurting their credibility and in the long term their ability to gather information.
  • DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
    > in no way hindered their success at their mission Except that their mission is deeply compromised by their actions: they've lowered domestic cyber-security, undermined the rule of law, and deeply shaken the public confidence in the armed forces - all of which are contrary to their core mission. They seem to have lost sight of their high level goals in their quest for more power to accomplish specific secondary tasks.