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Unpopular opinion ahead: I find myself unbothered by these NSA "revelations", and I feel most are just pretending to be. It's all far from unexpected, and othe
by uuyyk 12y ago
Unpopular opinion ahead:
I find myself unbothered by these NSA "revelations", and I feel most are just pretending to be. It's all far from unexpected, and other governments have cynically latched onto these leaks to further their interests.
I don't care about for the heightened focus on privacy tech and policy, it's boring.
The NSA did bring it on itself though by allowing this stuff to leak out, which is the only difference between it and other nations' intelligence bodies.
- TheCondor 12y agoThe disengenuousness of it is what upsets me. I could find great national pride in this if it was used on terrorists as they claim. Fact is they aren't stopping domestic terrorists like the sandy hook shooter or the batman gunman or the boston marathon bombers. And "real terrorists" aren't Americans or generally even in America. If they tracked everybody and then dismissed the law abiding citizens and released their data as they added them to a white list or something, I could get with that. This approach to fighting terrorism is just fishing in the wrong pond though.
- DanBC 12y agoYou list a bunch of terrorist actions performed in America by Americans (and there are many more), and then say that real terrorists are not American or in America? Europe has a problem of citizens leaving to travel to Syria who become more radicalized. Terrorists are not all foreigners.
- logn 12y agoAgreed. However, even if they successfully targeted domestic terrorists, I think that's still a job for the FBI and not the NSA. And that's a job that requires search warrants for an individual person and not a large cross-section of the population.
- balls187 12y agoSeems like a slippery slope. I'd classify a lot of these domestic mass shootings as lack of mental health support in the US, rather than a lack of willingness on the NSA. There isn't much that comes out of these mass shootings that indicate a series of coordinated digital events, that typically occur for foreign groups looking to attack US interests. Instead it's the work of a single, mentally disturbed person.
- jjoonathan 12y agoIt's like Bruce Schneier said: Espionage vs Surveillance. One isn't bothersome at all to me (there's a reason why the NSA exists) but one of them is. Yes, the media breathlessly and indiscriminately complain about both, but the needs of the 24-hour news treadmill are not an excuse to ignore the NSA's growing role in surveillance and pretend that it isn't an issue. There's a reason why we don't replace the police forces across the USA with undeployed units from the US Army, even though it would dramatically cut costs and probably wouldn't have any immediate terrible effects. Similarly, there's a reason why you should care that the NSA is expanding their jurisdiction. In fact, their loud protests that (contrary to released evidence) they are doing nothing of the sort should be evidence enough that it's a troubling direction for them to be moving in. > the heightened focus on privacy tech and policy, it's boring That's your complaint? You know what else is boring? Health care policy, campaign finance reform, gerrymeandering, lobbying, and every other major administrative pathology of our society. You are correct that these things are boring but they are also the most important things to care about and to try to get other people to care about. > The NSA did bring it on itself though by allowing this stuff to leak out, which is the only difference between it and other nations' intelligence bodies. That, ~~~SCALE~~~, the extent to which they exert overt and underhanded influence over our political system, the extent to which they impose a chilling effect by expanding into US law enforcement, and the extent to which they can use secret courts and gag orders to order you to do god knows what.