5 ms·

The NSA today certainly has great power, but what evidence do we have that they are abusing it a way comparable to McCarthyism or the CIA in the 60's [1]? 1. h

by andreyf 12y ago

The NSA today certainly has great power, but what evidence do we have that they are abusing it a way comparable to McCarthyism or the CIA in the 60's [1]? 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensore...

scrollaway 12y ago
... are you serious? Did you not read the news at any point between 2013 and 2015?
- andreyf 12y ago
  Yes, I follow the news. Do you have something specific in mind?
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    There's one of three worlds, here. * Either you do follow the news, but you are trolling out the actual issues at hand that have been raised, making which is very unproductive * OR you do follow the news, and you purposefully blind yourself to the stories about the NSA for whatever reason (maybe you think everybody's a conspiratard, or you think all this stuff is fine, or...). * OR you are blatantly lying to me here and don't actually follow the news. I don't deal with liars. In none of those worlds is it worth replying to the question you just asked. I'll be happy to take a correction, though. So go ahead.
    - andreyf 12y ago
      I'm saying that, as far as I know after watching the news, the NSA has done nothing that's comparable to the historic examples of "secret lists of enemies of the state that public sector employers agree to not hire" or "attempting to drive a political figure to suicide". The most egregious offense I've heard of (and this is not the NSA) is the harassment of Applebaum and the like at US borders. Based on Laura Poitras' public statements, this has stopped for her. I hope it has for Jacob as well, as I think that's a really obvious move in the right direction. The rest of the news I don't find to be especially egregious violations. Perhaps we differ in world view w.r.t. the NSA and the role that it serves in our society - what do you see that role as being?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rndgermandude 12y ago
Just because they may not do it today, doesn't mean they won't tomorrow. And just because there is no reliable evidence of systematic wrong-doings to further political agendas yet (re: the new surveillance machinery, of course), it doesn't mean it hasn't been done already. E.g. if you successfully blackmail people with data you gained from your surveillance system, it is unlikely the blackmailed person will speak up immediately or even later. There already is plenty of evidence that the surveillance system was abused, although maybe not by the state itself, or at least not for nefarious purposes. Think of NSA employees (not just one or two) spying on various people "for personal use", mostly love interests: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-someti... Even before that, Echelon was abused to spy on (allied) nation states to gain economic advantages: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/6/6662/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/6/6662/1.html ... and to spy on Princess Diana for whatever reason: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/diana12.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/di... (and being a German myself, the Merkel phone story made some huge waves over here) US citizens are also affected, like the woman who researched pressure cookers online shortly before the Boston attack: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... (Given the current MO of many LEA in the US, I wouldn't have been surprised if they showed up with a SWAT team instead, at least demolishing the door and shooting their dog, if any) Then there is that Parallel Construction mess to hide the fact that evidence was first obtained using illegal, warrant-less eavesdropping: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction I'll stop listing examples of abuse and overreach now, but there are plenty more, of course.
- vidarh 12y ago
  You don't even need to use it. The mere knowledge that it likely happens (not even evidence) is sufficient to substantially affect how people act. I was involved with left wing groups in Norway in the early 90's, and pretty much everyone I knew who were a bit older than me either flat out knew, or had strong reasons to believe, they were under active, blatantly illegal, surveillance (the evidence finally came to the surface in the mid 90's after decades of insisting there was nothing going on). This included intimidation on open street (a former editor of the communist party newspaper told me how he regularly had intelligence officers walk up to him in public and recite portions of conversations he had had with his wife in their flat the previous day, in order to taunt him and make it clear to him he did not have any privacy; a trade union organiser I met whose commute had him walk past the Soviet embassy told me of how he had a too-obvious-not-to-be-intentional tail to and from work every day for years). It pushed people away, and it made many of these groups act in ways that were detrimental to their ability to carry out their political works (e.g. keeping tight security around member lists; many member who would not talk about their involvement in public etc.). It had a massively negative effect on getting these small groups to cooperate, because cooperation involved meetings with untrusted people. Etc. Overall, the mere perception of the existence of pervasive surveillance does massive damage to democracy.

by andreyf 12y ago

scrollaway 12y ago

... are you serious? Did you not read the news at any point between 2013 and 2015?

andreyf 12y ago
Yes, I follow the news. Do you have something specific in mind?
- scrollaway 12y ago
  There's one of three worlds, here. * Either you do follow the news, but you are trolling out the actual issues at hand that have been raised, making which is very unproductive * OR you do follow the news, and you purposefully blind yourself to the stories about the NSA for whatever reason (maybe you think everybody's a conspiratard, or you think all this stuff is fine, or...). * OR you are blatantly lying to me here and don't actually follow the news. I don't deal with liars. In none of those worlds is it worth replying to the question you just asked. I'll be happy to take a correction, though. So go ahead.
  - andreyf 12y ago
    I'm saying that, as far as I know after watching the news, the NSA has done nothing that's comparable to the historic examples of "secret lists of enemies of the state that public sector employers agree to not hire" or "attempting to drive a political figure to suicide". The most egregious offense I've heard of (and this is not the NSA) is the harassment of Applebaum and the like at US borders. Based on Laura Poitras' public statements, this has stopped for her. I hope it has for Jacob as well, as I think that's a really obvious move in the right direction. The rest of the news I don't find to be especially egregious violations. Perhaps we differ in world view w.r.t. the NSA and the role that it serves in our society - what do you see that role as being?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rndgermandude 12y ago

Just because they may not do it today, doesn't mean they won't tomorrow. And just because there is no reliable evidence of systematic wrong-doings to further political agendas yet (re: the new surveillance machinery, of course), it doesn't mean it hasn't been done already. E.g. if you successfully blackmail people with data you gained from your surveillance system, it is unlikely the blackmailed person will speak up immediately or even later. There already is plenty of evidence that the surveillance system was abused, although maybe not by the state itself, or at least not for nefarious purposes. Think of NSA employees (not just one or two) spying on various people "for personal use", mostly love interests: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-sometimes-spy-on-love-interests/ http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/23/nsa-officers-someti... Even before that, Echelon was abused to spy on (allied) nation states to gain economic advantages: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/6/6662/1.html http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/6/6662/1.html ... and to spy on Princess Diana for whatever reason: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/diana12.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/dec98/di... (and being a German myself, the Merkel phone story made some huge waves over here) US citizens are also affected, like the woman who researched pressure cookers online shortly before the Boston attack: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police-terrorism-pressure-cooker http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/new-york-police... (Given the current MO of many LEA in the US, I wouldn't have been surprised if they showed up with a SWAT team instead, at least demolishing the door and shooting their dog, if any) Then there is that Parallel Construction mess to hide the fact that evidence was first obtained using illegal, warrant-less eavesdropping: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction I'll stop listing examples of abuse and overreach now, but there are plenty more, of course.

vidarh 12y ago
You don't even need to use it. The mere knowledge that it likely happens (not even evidence) is sufficient to substantially affect how people act. I was involved with left wing groups in Norway in the early 90's, and pretty much everyone I knew who were a bit older than me either flat out knew, or had strong reasons to believe, they were under active, blatantly illegal, surveillance (the evidence finally came to the surface in the mid 90's after decades of insisting there was nothing going on). This included intimidation on open street (a former editor of the communist party newspaper told me how he regularly had intelligence officers walk up to him in public and recite portions of conversations he had had with his wife in their flat the previous day, in order to taunt him and make it clear to him he did not have any privacy; a trade union organiser I met whose commute had him walk past the Soviet embassy told me of how he had a too-obvious-not-to-be-intentional tail to and from work every day for years). It pushed people away, and it made many of these groups act in ways that were detrimental to their ability to carry out their political works (e.g. keeping tight security around member lists; many member who would not talk about their involvement in public etc.). It had a massively negative effect on getting these small groups to cooperate, because cooperation involved meetings with untrusted people. Etc. Overall, the mere perception of the existence of pervasive surveillance does massive damage to democracy.