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Comment by awakeasleep | Hacker News Reader

A better article could have been written about how an unwritten rule is broken when the state uses its security apparatus to investigate and discredit its own elected officials.

Crossing that line destroys the plausible deniability surveillance enjoys. You can't make the 'necessary for terrorism' argument when the surveillance directly subverts the domestic government. And of course thats what we were all worried about, and it's the most arresting sort of example for everyone. And how did that 'unwritten rule' become a thing in the first place?

A lot of the wide appeal and scary implications that could be written about gets lost when gloating about how lemmings 'flip-flopped' after they walked into that machine that rips off their heads.

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  You can't make the 'necessary for terrorism' argument 
  when the surveillance directly subverts the domestic 
  government.

What prevents a member of the domestic government from being a terrorist, or having ties to terrorists?

> What prevents a member of the domestic government from being a terrorist, or having ties to terrorists?

Mostly semantics (depending on how one defines "terrorist" and "ties").

Elected officials represent the will of the people in a democratic government. Their policies are the legitimate policies of the government. The security and defense wings of the government are strictly subservient to the policies of elected officials, or it's no longer a democratic government.

Huh? That the police investigate criminal wrong-doing by elected officials is obviously consistent with the police force being under control of ("strictly subservient to") the elected officials. Why would national security be any different?

While I agree with the principle, and have severe objections to the security services being allowed to engage in that kind of surveillance because of the significant threats it poses - I would rather take the risk of extra terror as I see it as far smaller -, this does still not preclude elected officials from being terrorists or having close contact with terrorists.

Nothing says that terrorists, or their supporters, never represents the will of at least a sufficient part of the people to gain representation.

In fact, we have many prominent examples where terrorists or people with close associations with terrorist groups have been elected to public office. Some you might sympathise with, others not so much: IRA's ties to Sinn Fein, which has seats in the UK parliament, for example. Or the ANC, whose armed wing used to carry out bombings targeting civilians. Or Hamas. Or most prime ministers of Israel (most of whom were parts of terror organizations like Irgun or Haganah in their youth).

In the US, a republic, our system of checks and balances can and does cause situations where security personnel who are subservient to some elected officials can and does conflict with and enforce rules against the policies and/or actions of other elected officials.

This is true only in aggregate.

> Elected officials represent the will of the people in a democratic government.

Only if you assume that the voter is rational and informed.

No, they always represent the will of the people. Even if the will is irrational.

>What prevents a member of the domestic government from being a terrorist, or having ties to terrorists?

That's a good question. I would say that nothing does. But that's the wrong question.

Imagine that the NSA found a conversation between a member of Congress and a foreign intelligence agent. However, because that Congressperson supports the NSA, they leave it alone. On the other hand, they see another member of Congress talking to the same intelligence agent. This Congressperson already hates the NSA, so the NSA won't lose any supporters by checking them out.

Then, because of the information revealed about the second Congressperson, they lose their next election, and the next Congressperson is perhaps more friendly to the NSA. The NSA looking at Congress can distort decisions made about the NSA.

I feel nervous about the NSA spying on Congress for exactly the same reason I would feel nervous if the NSA were spying on the FISA court judges. It's a separation of powers issue.

I would guess that more terrorists have been created, funded and supported by the US government than by any other group of Americans by a long shot. Dealing with terrorists aren't even particularly historic, with the early days of the civil war against Assad being supported and look what that turned into.

Indeed, many in the house claim affiliation to a party that has a stated mission of being anti-government and backing people who say radical things. That we don't categorize "preppers", christian fundamentalists and separatists as terrorists is a matter of national convention.

My Palestinian friends would argue that this is precisely whom they were spying on.

What a convenient question.

Of course, that makes it undeniable that the spying program is about internal politics, not external threats.

The hypocrisy happens because doing mass domestic surveillance is enough to make it clear that the program is about internal politics. But those politicians are reacting only after they discover they are not immune to it.

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