Hmm... you might want to make a new thread for that since it's a lot to respond to and I don't want to derail. I can explain some of the logic you are saying that is apparently contradictory. For now I'll say it's about how you use government power and resources, not about the quantity (Papa Doc of Haiti terrorised the people are orders of magnitude less spending and laws than the Hong Kong government while Sweden spends inordinate gobs of money in the government and is one of the most democratic places on the planet).
As for PRISM, whatever happened to police actually investigating?
Ideally, it appears that PRISM is supposed to be a tool the police can use for investigation. In practice, it doesn't appear to be that effective and is pissing people off.
I mean, seriously, don't be surprised when law enforcement of any level tries to use technology that's current when trying to investigate crimes. It doesn't make it any less investigation. The question is whether it's a good use of investigative resources and doesn't violate people's privacy and rights.
edited 12th Jun '13 11:08:43 PM by AceofSpades
@Morven: Actually, it would probably be more correct to say that we (the brand of "leftist" you're talking about, who are both suspicious of authority and suspicious of letting the masses act freely) simply don't trust anyone, period. I doubt it has much to do with Southern whites' mass refusal to abide by the Fourteenth Amendment.
As I understand it, the government is keeping records of everyone's calls on file, but isn't allowed to actually look through those files without a warrant. The concern is that, since the files are stored on a government server which government employees can access directly, no one outside the government can check whether they're actually abiding by the "not without a warrant" rule.
On the one hand, that does sound like a dangerous amount of trust to put in an organization that's far from immune to corruption. On the other hand, we trust the government to hold onto radioactive materials, powerful explosives, and vials of smallpox without civilian oversight, so it's not like that level of trust is unprecedented.
"...On the other hand, we trust the government to hold onto radioactive materials, powerful explosives, and vials of smallpox without civilian oversight..."
Since when has the gov't done any of that without civilian oversight?
The Congressional Hearings:
Senators press NSA director
for answers on secret surveillance program. During a tense, two-hour-plus afternoon hearing that was not intended to focus on the recent revelations about domestic surveillance, senators of both parties used General Keith Alexander's first public appearance on Capitol Hill since the Guardian's stories broke to press him for answers about how its widespread surveillance programs operate.
NSA Chief defends policy
: "The director of the National Security Agency told Congress on Wednesday that “dozens” of terrorism threats had been halted by the agency’s huge database of the logs of nearly every domestic phone call made by Americans, while a senator briefed on the program disclosed that the telephone records are destroyed after five years."
Of course, Congress is not entirely blameless here since they re-authorized the government's warrantless surveillance program
.
"...In effect, every senator was aware of dubious NSA surveillance — some had been briefed on the programs in great detail — but a bipartisan majority was comfortable with an enormous amount of secrecy and minimal oversight."
edited 13th Jun '13 6:24:57 AM by demarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Also, bringing some commentary over from the US politics thread to avoid derailing that (further).
I care less about if something can be misused than if it is misused. If there are reasonable safeguards in place to combat misuse, and they don't appear to be laughably ineffective, then I'm generally satisfied. There are definitely safeguards in place with regards to Prism. They may or may not be effective; that's actually something I'd be interested in hearing about, but no information has surfaced on that, to my knowledge.
Secrecy put in place in order to hide wrongdoing on the part of the people running the program is obviously something else entirely, but that doesn't seem to be what's going on with Prism. Secrecy in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien."Secrecy put in place in order to hide wrongdoing on the part of the people running the program is obviously something else entirely, but that doesn't seem to be what's going on with Prism. Secrecy in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing."
No, it isnt, but since we wouldnt even know about the program if it wern't for all the whistleblowers...
Very few are arguing that there should be no gov't secrecy (this isnt the Tea Party, after all). We are arguing that there has been too much for this particular policy.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.If the program had proper Congressional oversight, than that satisfies the demands of transparency, at least from an historical point of view.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""Would be"? It had Congressional oversight. They were aware of the program
and approved it. Prism was secret only in the sense that it wasn't shared with the public, not in that it was some shadowy black ops program that no one outside the people running it knew about.
Which is?
Two articles from The BBC: One the Rise of the low-level contractor with high-level access
and The Situation in the UK
.
More or less what we are doing now, revealing information to the public, and having a debate over this policy. I would like to see tighter restrictions placed on the gov't, for example, but providing the public with more information is a necessary first step.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.It's important for a democratic society to know what a government is doing in order to make informed decisions about policy. I don't see how you expect to be a citizen of a country, to have the power to vote, and then I tell you "but you can't know what I'll do". What if you had an election but all the parties said their platform was secret? Does that make sense to you?
NSA doesn't need to reveal the specific details of HOW the information is collected, but they should inform you that they can/will perform a particular level of surveillance on domestic communications. What difference does it make to the nation's security? Well you can have a public discussion over it.
I do not see how the revelation of this program affects its efficacy. Terrorists still must continue to communicate electronically or by phone or otherwise. They cannot go "Oh the NSA was watching us? Gee I completely did not know that such a thing could occur because there isn't already a thing called a warrant that allows them to wiretap communications as is. We'd best start using encryption and the like!".
Additionally, remember that all government resources is opportunity cost. If you're going to the trouble of doing PRISM, you do not think about it in terms of "Oh gee, PRISM isn't so bad and you cannot prove that it is bad". How about this... I can prove that spending billions of dollars in other policing work is far more effective and far more democratic. Don't think of it as trying to have opponents prove PRISM is bad. Think of it as trying to prove PRISM is a good use of government resources versus hundreds of other things the NSA can do instead (or take it away from NSA and put it into the hands of other agencies).
Imagine for instance, you spent all that money instead on outreach programs on America's fringe societies: extremists white nationalists, isolationist groups, so-called "constitutionalists", gun rights nuts, churches and mosques across the country. Build positive police relationships and people report problems to you instead of FBI agents having to snoop around at $200/hour.
edited 13th Jun '13 11:45:14 AM by breadloaf
Nobody is arguing that the money couldn't potentially be better spent. That's not the issue. The point is that this program is both legal and constitutional by the rules as we've defined them. It may not be effective, efficient, or morally sound, but that's a separate argument. We may also need better rules and better people to make the rules, but that's what voting is supposed to be for.
PRISM is a consequence of PATRIOT, which enjoyed enthusiastic bipartisan support at both its inception and its reauthorization. It was, according to the President, known about by Congress, and the various laws that authorize our intelligence community specifically allow for "secret" programs as long as Congress is duly notified and approves.
edited 13th Jun '13 11:53:58 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Since when has the gov't done any of that without civilian oversight?
While we know the government has access to those materials, where they keep them is officially secret, so we civilians can't go and check what the government's doing with them.
Shouldn't it be the issue? I mean the defence of PRISM seems to be "you can't prove that it did bad things" or some such. That seems ridiculous to me as the focus. If the point isn't to have good government, why have government? It doing technically legal things is totally pointless. It should only be doing good things.
Maybe the government should take all the money it spends on soldiers and tanks and spend it instead on feeding and providing medical care to the poor and homeless.
We're talking realism here, breadloaf. As long as you have a military, a national security apparatus, and the perceived need for secrecy, then you'll have secret programs that do things that every citizen might not approve of. That's fact. You're off into butterflies and peace pipes territory.
And anyway, that's not what this thread is about. We're talking about privacy, government, and surveillance, not whether or not we should have tanks and spies.
edited 13th Jun '13 11:58:07 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I personally don't argue with the fact that, given what we currently expect of governments, some things do need to be secret. Some details of the armed forces' capabilities and operational methods. Foreign espionage. In-depth assessments of other nations' capabilities (not general ones, but detailed ones). Specific details of active law enforcement and counter-espionage cases.
What bothers me is the logic behind the secrecy we're talking about here, in which keeping programs secret is justified because openness might lead to a demand to close them down. Stuff should not be secret just because the government doesn't want to admit doing it.
Generalities about what kind of information the government collects & is allowed to collect should not be secret.
Also, I think this whole thing shows that once a secret court is established for a specific purpose, it's easy for the government to overstep the boundaries. Here, the secret FISA court was established so that there could be judicial sign-off on specific actions taken for specific investigations that must be kept secret, which is a legitimate purpose.
Instead, it appears the court was used to approve increases in general surveillance, not tied to investigations of specific wrongdoing. That was not what it was established to do. Increases in general surveillance should be decided in the open and with normal judicial review, not secret judicial review.
A brighter future for a darker age.edited 13th Jun '13 12:40:11 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You are aware that isn't necessarily an accurate description of that entire political culture yes?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.