4 ms·

It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I wonder how realistic this goal is. Forcing states t

It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I wonder how realistic this goal is. Forcing states to pass legislature to ban offering help in any way to the NSA? Million dollar contracts down the drain, because a local government official turns off the water tap, turning data centers into ghost towns? Seems like a very long shot. Secondly I wonder how the pro's and con's weigh up. I think even the staunchest supporters of (internet) freedom would, at least to some extend, agree that intelligence gathering and spying is a current necessity for a world power like America. It would probably put their entire military in danger for intelligence efforts to drop to zero. That "the people" in general want things to change is clear and efforts to create such change are mostly noble. I think a balance can be found where the NSA acts within bounds, with oversight and transparency. Where companies can disclose the numbers on information requests. None of these secret court shenanigans anymore. Versus an NSA that does what it is made to do, does its job well (hiring proud academics included), and generally works in the interest of all American people (and their allies). There should be a balance between boundless spying and no spying at all.

naterator 13y ago
>It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I doubt anyone thinks that, realistically. From what I gather this is essentially protesting, although a protest that actually causes those in power some discomfort. The NSA would have to start sourcing/generating it's own power and water. Anyone who works there will become persona-non-grata. In my opinion, this actually has the chance of doing something. Much better than 500,000 people marching down Broadway, then going home at the end of the day (Iraq war protest, anyone?). And I don't think anyone wants to see the NSA go away completely either. I believe that if the Snowden documents revealed that everything the NSA was doing was outside the nations borders (or just not targeted at US citizens), no one would give two shits. They would even be pleasantly surprised, probably. But that's not what we found out. We found out that the NSA and it's secret court take the most liberal reading of the laws in place to do whatever they want, and with no good controls over who has access to what information, or when. In short, this is a different form of protest, hopefully a more effective one.
- malandrew 13y ago
  This. Furthermore, it shows employees of the NSA that many American citizens consider their current M.O. unconstitutional and therefore unpatriotic. At the end of the day the NSA is made up of Americans and it's important to remind those in this ivory tower that America values freedom and liberty over any security measures that will come at the cost of freedom and liberty. When a state bars the NSA from doing business within its borders, its sending a message to all NSA employees that the NSA currently does not represent the vision for America it believes in.
lostcolony 13y ago
It's a question of comparative damage. What's worse, shutting down the NSA (remember, the FBI, CIA, etc, are still completely operational), or leaving it functioning with the damage it does to our democracy? Given that the NSA has lately been justifying its existence by all that terror it stops, and then has been able to give exactly one case where its investigations have led to something (i.e., that one guy who was sending $8k to a terrorist body), and there is zero transparency into anything else it does...I'm extremely okay with it shutting down their data centers until such a time as the court system stops giving them a pass.
- tptacek 13y ago
  The CIA relies on NSA for SIGINT, and NSA on CIA for human intelligence.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    The CIA should not be relying on NSA intercepts for domestic subjects, since they (the CIA) are not even supposed to operate domestically. I see no reason in the world to let these people continue to violate their own charters as well as the Fourth Amendment with total impunity. Cut off their air supply as well as their water supply, and I'll take my chances with the terrorists.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I agree that the CIA shouldn't be doing domestic intelligence work, but that's not relevant to the argument upthread, which suggests that the NSA could be shut down without crippling foreign intelligence because the CIA would continue to operate.
    - BrainInAJar 13y ago
      > The CIA should not be relying on NSA intercepts for domestic subjects, since they (the CIA) are not even supposed to operate domestically. Yeah, they should go back to the old days when CSIS & MI6 spied on Americans and shared the knowledge with the CIA, and vice-versa
exelius 13y ago
I think that the idea is not to force the NSA to completely shut down, but rather to force them to reassess their programs in order of importance given resource limitations. A program that doesn't yield much useful intelligence but consumes a very large amount of resources (such as the mass data collection programs) would get cut in favor of something less demanding yet more fruitful (likely targeted surveillance and data gathering.) The NSA has operated for years under a total lack of resource constraints; which is a bad thing for any government agency. I would posit that the NSA mass surveillance efforts, in addition to being a troublesome invasion of privacy, are a textbook example of government waste. They're not effective, yet the bureaucrats keep expanding them because if they didn't, they and their contractors would be out of a job.

naterator 13y ago

>It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I doubt anyone thinks that, realistically. From what I gather this is essentially protesting, although a protest that actually causes those in power some discomfort. The NSA would have to start sourcing/generating it's own power and water. Anyone who works there will become persona-non-grata. In my opinion, this actually has the chance of doing something. Much better than 500,000 people marching down Broadway, then going home at the end of the day (Iraq war protest, anyone?). And I don't think anyone wants to see the NSA go away completely either. I believe that if the Snowden documents revealed that everything the NSA was doing was outside the nations borders (or just not targeted at US citizens), no one would give two shits. They would even be pleasantly surprised, probably. But that's not what we found out. We found out that the NSA and it's secret court take the most liberal reading of the laws in place to do whatever they want, and with no good controls over who has access to what information, or when. In short, this is a different form of protest, hopefully a more effective one.

malandrew 13y ago
This. Furthermore, it shows employees of the NSA that many American citizens consider their current M.O. unconstitutional and therefore unpatriotic. At the end of the day the NSA is made up of Americans and it's important to remind those in this ivory tower that America values freedom and liberty over any security measures that will come at the cost of freedom and liberty. When a state bars the NSA from doing business within its borders, its sending a message to all NSA employees that the NSA currently does not represent the vision for America it believes in.

lostcolony 13y ago

It's a question of comparative damage. What's worse, shutting down the NSA (remember, the FBI, CIA, etc, are still completely operational), or leaving it functioning with the damage it does to our democracy? Given that the NSA has lately been justifying its existence by all that terror it stops, and then has been able to give exactly one case where its investigations have led to something (i.e., that one guy who was sending $8k to a terrorist body), and there is zero transparency into anything else it does...I'm extremely okay with it shutting down their data centers until such a time as the court system stops giving them a pass.

tptacek 13y ago
The CIA relies on NSA for SIGINT, and NSA on CIA for human intelligence.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  The CIA should not be relying on NSA intercepts for domestic subjects, since they (the CIA) are not even supposed to operate domestically. I see no reason in the world to let these people continue to violate their own charters as well as the Fourth Amendment with total impunity. Cut off their air supply as well as their water supply, and I'll take my chances with the terrorists.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I agree that the CIA shouldn't be doing domestic intelligence work, but that's not relevant to the argument upthread, which suggests that the NSA could be shut down without crippling foreign intelligence because the CIA would continue to operate.
  - BrainInAJar 13y ago
    > The CIA should not be relying on NSA intercepts for domestic subjects, since they (the CIA) are not even supposed to operate domestically. Yeah, they should go back to the old days when CSIS & MI6 spied on Americans and shared the knowledge with the CIA, and vice-versa

exelius 13y ago

I think that the idea is not to force the NSA to completely shut down, but rather to force them to reassess their programs in order of importance given resource limitations. A program that doesn't yield much useful intelligence but consumes a very large amount of resources (such as the mass data collection programs) would get cut in favor of something less demanding yet more fruitful (likely targeted surveillance and data gathering.) The NSA has operated for years under a total lack of resource constraints; which is a bad thing for any government agency. I would posit that the NSA mass surveillance efforts, in addition to being a troublesome invasion of privacy, are a textbook example of government waste. They're not effective, yet the bureaucrats keep expanding them because if they didn't, they and their contractors would be out of a job.