Snowden and the NSA

[TRoaches]

@colourwheel: So now you think we should be critical of it? Earlier you described worrying about the spying as "paranoia". You are being very inconsistent.

Edited June 25, 2013 by TRoaches

[colourwheel]

 

Earlier you described this as "paranoia". You are being very inconsistent.

 

No. Because one is being paraniod when talking about "hypothetical scenarios" and "potential for abuse". ;D

Edited June 25, 2013 by colourwheel

[ginnyfizz]

@colourwheel

 

No I am talking about the UK secret courts. We have a long tradition that in the UK justice is done in public. Until recently you could wander into any law court, as a member of the public, in the land once known as the Mother Of The Free, and sit and watch proceedings. Unless it was a Family Division proceeding involving minors that is. Now we have secret courts and excessive surveillance and...all in the name of the war on terror. I can hear my grandfathers and two uncles rolling in their graves and asking what it was that they fought for (and in three cases died for) if not for freedom. Now we have none.

 

Snowden stated that the behaviour of GCHQ here in Britain is, if anything, even more excessive than what has been going on in the USA. The situation here is directly related to the situation in the USA. We all know that when the Obama administration yells at ours "jump!" the Boy David's says "How high sir?" That sounds suspiciously dictatorial to me. At least the French have the insouciance to tell them to go away (they are not prone to put it quite that politely as it happens...).

 

To loosely quote Blackstone (also rolling in his grave right now I'll be bound), it is better that twelve guilty men go free than that one innocent man be detained. And I stand by that even though guilty men have murdered some of mine, and I stand by the presumption of innocence. And it's being trampled into the dirt.

[Vagrant0]

The reality of this whole thing is this:

 

Until they start expanding this beyond terrorism, most people probably don't care too much. They are not terrorists, they have no intention of causing harm to society, they just want to go on with their lives and not have to deal with the chance that some idiot with a bomb is going to walk into their school or place of work to ruin all of it. If disgruntled teenagers can do this seemingly easy enough, why aren't the actual terrorists? Probably because these is all this secret monitoring being done and the people behind it are discrete enough about their job that it can continue. This sort of passive monitoring of people of interest is, in my book, the lesser of two evils and seems to be more effective than the body cavity searches you have to go through to get on a plane (which don't seem to have gone away no matter how much people protested).

 

So how soon till they decide to expand this to block freedom of speech, peaceful activism, or pressing charges for whatever you happen to be doing in the bedroom? Probably never. The reason being that as soon as you start incorporating more sets of data into whatever criteria you're looking for, the related systems become exponentially more complex and subsequently less capable of doing their intended job. This becomes especially true with those things that deal with that grey area where the legality of some things is up to interpretation and depends largely on context. Meaning that any attempt to use such a system to even crack down on something like pedophiles would end up being nearly impossible to manage and would have too many false positives that would render the system worthless (innocent people would be accused, information would end up in the media, guilty parties would just change their tactics). Applied to freedom of speech... They'd just have to arrest everyone.

 

If they havn't started pressuring or arresting those activists who are open and public about their discontent with the government, why would they care about you? I know most would like to think that their opinions matter, or that they are important, but really, that isn't the case. In the grand scheme of things, even those activists don't really matter. They aren't important enough to be bothered with, so unless they start planning some violent act they are mostly ignored.

 

This falls into almost the same situation of "They're gonna take away are guns" crap. Those in power, atleast for the moment, have enough sense to realize that any open action towards actually doing this would almost certainly lead to otherwise normal people either bunkering up, or storming into any government affiliated place (city halls, public schools, federal express branches, first national bank offices, ect) within driving distance and going out in a blaze of glory. Needless to say, more damage would be done because of that open action than anything it might have been to prevent. In relation to this... The same would likely happen if they started rounding up people who had spoken out against the President or anything silly like that. Paranoid people don't behave logically, so any action that hits too close to home usually ends up causing some portion of the crazies to act out.

 

Nevermind the fact that any information gained through some secretive act would not be admissible in a civil court, so could only be used in a military court or in the case of treason. At which point, again, most of the country just isn't important enough to waste the time and resources bringing them up on treason charges.

[TRoaches]

If disgruntled teenagers can do this seemingly easy enough, why aren't the actual terrorists? Probably because these is all this secret monitoring being done and the people behind it are discrete enough about their job that it can continue.

That is a big and very loaded "probably" that is entirely based on the assumption that a terrorist group would rely on telecoms despite the obvious increased risk of detection. If the group is smart enough to never use easily monitored telecommunications then they are outside of the scope of this detection. Prison gangs are smart enough to communicate via coded letters, so I see a big logical flaw in the assumption that terrorists would be plotting via easily monitored telecom services. In other words, this surveillance would only be effective in catching the most inept and short sighted potential terrorist. Also, the accusation being made is not that the NSA is monitoring all communications, but that they are archiving all communications. To actively monitor everything for meaningful data would be a massive waste of resources, and an engineering challenge that is likely beyond current technological capabilities. Archiving everything, then searching for meaning in targeted areas as deemed necessary, is what Snowden is alleging. The image of an unknown person discussing a plot over the phone and suddenly being flagged for investigation is inaccurate, according to what Snowden, the NSA itself, and others have described.

 

 

This sort of passive monitoring of people of interest is, in my book, the lesser of two evils and seems to be more effective than the body cavity searches you have to go through to get on a plane

 

Your premise implies that we are faced with a choice between physical searches or data mining. This is a false, in that the adoption of one tactic will not preclude the other. If this is the lesser of two evils, but the greater of two evils continues in practice alongside the lesser, then there is nothing to be gained by adopting a second, lesser evil.

 

 

So how soon till they decide to expand this to block freedom of speech, peaceful activism, or pressing charges for whatever you happen to be doing in the bedroom? Probably never. The reason being that as soon as you start incorporating more sets of data into whatever criteria you're looking for, the related systems become exponentially more complex and subsequently less capable of doing their intended job.

 

All you are saying here is "Monitoring more stuff is an engineering dilemma". 50 years ago this level of data collection was "impossible". 15 years ago it was "improbable". Now it is reality. To assume that any particular engineering issue cannot be overcome given sufficient resources is to ignore the exponentially increasing trajectory of technology.

 

 

I know most would like to think that their opinions matter, or that they are important, but really, that isn't the case. In the grand scheme of things, even those activists don't really matter. They aren't important enough to be bothered with, so unless they start planning some violent act they are mostly ignored.

 

If this is the case then why is history dotted with examples of governments imprisoning activists? It seems to indicate that either activism and political expression are considered important enough threats to established power that they warrant the effort required to silence them, or that all of those governments were dumb and liked to waste resources on unimportant things. I tend towards the former belief. Also, we should consider the blurry line that exists between government and business interests. I don't think people should be afraid of "the government" meaning the bureaucracy itself, but I do see plenty of reasons to worry about the greater complexities of government employees in positions of power being subverted by corporations to achieve goals that are in the interest of the corporation, not the government or the society that it represents. If a Mcdonalds employee sells drugs out of the drive through window it does not mean that Mcdonalds is selling drugs. If a corrupt NSA agent is selling private surveillance services on the black market, for example to be used for corporate espionage or organized crime, it does not mean that the government is doing it. In either example it is an employee utilizing the access granted to them by their employment position for personal gain to the detriment of their employer, not to its benefit.

 

 

Those in power, atleast for the moment, have enough sense....

 

Assuming that a bureaucracy operates on some concept of "sense" is absurd. Bureaucracy does not possess sense, or a conscience. It does not act in the interest of any particular goal or moral compass. It is a machine, and it is only capable of whatever level of sense, conscience, or morality possessed by those who are at the controls.

 

 

Nevermind the fact that any information gained through some secretive act would not be admissible in a civil court, so could only be used in a military court or in the case of treason.

 

There are plenty of other potential extralegal uses for the data being gathered, such as the hypothetical scenario that I described earlier. If I could dream that up in two minutes imagine what the entirety of the business world, including organized crime, could come up with. The only thing preventing that from happening is the hope that the agent who is offered the payoff is happy enough with his current salary that he can turn down such a massive amount, or that he is morally incorruptible. I would not bet the fate of a nation on either of those being true for any given individual. An FBI agent would have a much more difficult time performing such a service on the side because of the oversight that exists over what the FBI does, and such oversight is lacking at the NSA. I'm not arguing that the whole Prism program should be dismantled, but at the very least it needs something akin to the FISA court to prevent abuse.

[colourwheel]

 

Snowden stated that the behaviour of GCHQ here in Britain is, if anything, even more excessive than what has been going on in the USA. The situation here is directly related to the situation in the USA. We all know that when the Obama administration yells at ours "jump!" the Boy David's says "How high sir?" That sounds suspiciously dictatorial to me. At least the French have the insouciance to tell them to go away (they are not prone to put it quite that politely as it happens...).

 

Dictatorial? To my understanding in a dictatorship any rebellion leads to punishment and/or death. If the French "tell them to go away" sound more accurate that the UK is acting more like an obedient pet or pee-on.

Edited June 25, 2013 by colourwheel

[Vagrant0]

 

First off, I'm sure that hypothetical situation already happens. With or without monitoring. Corporate espionage isn't anything new, neither is paying off officials. About the only limitation on this end is the fact that higher court judges tend to be payed very well due to their appointment, and have their finances heavily scrutinized so paying off a judge usually doesn't amount to anything good. No judge in their right mind would take a bribe simply because it would cost them their position as well as probably render every case they've ever ruled on open for immediate appeal. Organized crime wouldn't waste their time paying off judges... Paying off law enforcement or local bureaucracy just works better.

 

Google and Facebook also archive pretty much everything you've ever searched for, looked at, written in an e-mail, commented on, and they clearly sell this information to others (including government agencies)... So it's a little late to protest about some data being recorded about your activities online.

 

For everything else, it's more than just an engineering dilemma. It's a serious logistic one as well as a major waste of resources in almost all other cases than terrorism. Terrorism costs money because it damages property, claims lives, and disrupts business. Little else within the scope of what might be monitored has the same civil costs. There simply isn't any benefit to trying to impose a police state since this would have ridiculously high costs to maintain and essentially cripple most business and free commerce rendering any such system non-sustainable for any length of time.

 

I would imagine that most of the people who actually have any say in how this system is being used are not your usual bureaucrats, and probably aren't even elected officials. On one side, this may mean that they can operate without regard to public opinion. But on the other, they are less swayed by their own agendas and can focus on using the system for what it is intended to do.

[TRoaches]

First off, I'm sure that hypothetical situation already happens. With or without monitoring. Corporate espionage isn't anything new, neither is paying off officials.

 

Perhaps, but it does not happen without any risk of getting caught. That is the difference between the NSA and FBI as far as the potential for corruption. An FBI employee would be under intense scrutiny from other branches of law enforcement, legislative and executive auditing bodies, as well as internal scrutiny from within the bureau. Even the FBI director or other extremely high ranking official would not be able to surveil for profit with impunity. They would either have to break the law, thus opening themselves up to legal prosecution, or they would have to gain authorisation through FISA or something similar. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but it does mean that it is a difficult and/or risky thing to do. In contrast, the NSA is not accountable to a court or auditor that we know of, and if people like Snowden and Tice are correct in their allegations it would be relatively easy for an NSA agent with appropriate access to surveil for profit with impunity.

 

 

Google and Facebook also archive pretty much everything you've ever searched for, looked at, written in an e-mail, commented on, and they clearly sell this information to others (including government agencies)... So it's a little late to protest about some data being recorded about your activities online.

 

This simply cannot be true. Neither Google nor Facebook have the ability to access a comparable mass of communications. They are only able to archive what they process for their customers, or what they purchase from other companies. In contrast the NSA is able to access ALL domestic communications under the guise of national security. They also are able to operate with relatively little concern for budget, whereas Google and Facebook must weigh the benefits of data archiving with the overhead associated with maintaining the archive and keep their budget above water. The NSA does not require monetary profit to justify its existence.

 

 

Terrorism costs money because it damages property, claims lives, and disrupts business.

 

If you really think about it terrorism has caused very little damage to property, claimed very few lives, and disrupted very few businesses. Government policies executed in the name of ANTI-terrorism, by comparison, have claimed millions of lives, caused many billions of dollars in property damage, and destroyed the economies of entire nations.

 

 

There simply isn't any benefit to trying to impose a police state since this would have ridiculously high costs to maintain and essentially cripple most business and free commerce rendering any such system non-sustainable for any length of time.

 

The bill for running a police state has already been paid. It would not require higher expenditures than the current levels being spent on law enforcement and the military. The infrastructure and personnel are already in place, what Snowden referred to as "turnkey tyranny". The force that prevents a true police state from developing is not a lack of necessary funding, but the checks and balances that exist in our government. This is why any threat to that balance represents a much greater danger to our society than any terrorist attack ever could be, and why it is imperative that steps are taken to ensure that domestic spying cannot be used for political purposes or for the corruption or undermining of the various organs of government who keep each other in check and maintain that balance. As of right now there is no protection against that sort of corruption that we know of. If such a check exists it does so in secret, and a secret audit done by a secret auditor is useless.

[colourwheel]

 

Terrorism costs money because it damages property, claims lives, and disrupts business.

 

If you really think about it terrorism has caused very little damage to property, claimed very few lives, and disrupted very few businesses.

 

I have to disagree... Just the 911 attacks alone cost over $3.3 Trillion, about 2,996 people died, including the 19 hijackers and who knows how many unofficially have died after in result of the 911 attacks from health issues related to the attacks. Just imagine if we had a 911 attack once every year... :ohdear:

 

You are also neglecting other countries under Terrorism attacks, The British and other countries get attacked exponentially more from terrorism than the U.S.

Edited June 26, 2013 by colourwheel

[TRoaches]

I have to disagree... Just the 911 attacks alone cost over $3.3 Trillion, about 2,996 people died, including the 19 hijackers and who knows how many unofficially have died after in result of the 911 attacks from health issues related to the attacks. Just imagine if we had a 911 attack once every year... :ohdear:

Now compare those statistics with the statistics derived from our anti-terrorism response. They are dwarfed by the casualty counts and expenditures in the Afghan war, which was a direct response to 911. In fact, those numbers are similar to the ANNUAL statistics in that conflict, which means that the people in that country do not have to "imagine if they had a 911 attack once every year". It is their reality. My premise was that our anti-terrorism response has been much more costly in terms of blood and money than the terrorist attacks themselves. Your statistics, when viewed next to the civilian casualty statistics from Afghanistan alone, only support my claim. Now consider that, when calculating the aggregate "cost" of such a war you also have to consider all of the displacement, the creation of refugees, and other health care problems caused by that anti-terrorism response, then consider that the Afghan war is only one piece of a statistical puzzle that also includes the Iraq war, DHS, ICE, CBP, ATF, NSA, CIA, FBI, grants to local and state law enforcement, and so on and you can see how small the 911 statistics start to look when viewed next to the greater "war on terror" statistics.

 

It is clear that the response is much more costly, in blood and treasure, than the incident it is intended to prevent. Coupled with the well-grounded theory that our anti-terrorism response has itself lead to increased radicalization within certain groups it begins to all look like a very bad idea with almost no benefit.