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Comment by maeln | Hacker News Reader

They are not toothless, they put them in those positions of power and do so gladly.

Remember that Snowden always said he was ready to come back to the U.S and be trialled, as long as the trial wouldn't be a secret trial. Those who created the laws for those secret trial where not the CIA or the NSA, it was politician.

The same way they made it so that it is forbidden to talk about the programs of certain agencies, even for law maker, meaning they approve programs without debate, with only a few senator knowing what the program is even about.

They created those laws, not the NSA, not the CIA, they could choose as easily to remove them. But it is too useful for them. The NSA can create a massive surveillance network that serves them without having to ever disclose it to the public.

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> They created those laws, not the NSA, not the CIA, they could choose as easily to remove them. But it is too useful for them.

This is true, but it's not the entire truth either. Most congressmen don't have access to the really sensitive intelligence that comes from these surveillance operations, so it can't be that useful to many of them.

A legislator's primary goal is to get reelected, and working to remove powerful operations like this deeply threaten a legislator's political viability during elections. Remember, there's an incredible amount of money changing hands in the military-industrial complex, and money plays a huge role in winning elections.

>Remember, there's an incredible amount of money changing hands in the military-industrial complex, and money plays a huge role in winning elections.

This, to me, is the heart of the issue. American politics are fundamentally corrupted by campaign financing

I don't know, I feel like

> A legislator's primary goal is to get reelected

is the more pressing problem to issue first. Is their "primary goal" not to legislate first? Pandering to the court of public opinion in order to secure re-election seems like it would also cause all sorts of conflicting incentives.

I respectfully disagree; we want them accountable to the public. The simplest way to have politicians accountable to public opinion (without violence) is by making them have to care about elections. That's the entire point of democracy.

The public are only given a reflection of the candidate and even that is mediated by the media. Why worry about being accountable when you can spin the truth to suit your party agenda while half the media or more go merrily along with it. The public don’t see truth surrounding our leadership but a reflection that’s often far removed from reality. And it’s been this way since the beginning.

How do you use the democratic process to hold someone accountable for weakening the democratic process? That’s like running barefoot to catch someone who stole your shoes.

I don’t think elections themselves, or manipulating what people care about, is the “simplest way” to do anything. It will make a giant mess, but there are simpler ways to do that too.

I don’t know the simplest way, but my guess is that it includes breaking down the current few large non-self-sufficient communities with poorly-defined value systems and weak social fabric into many small self-sufficient communities with well-defined value systems and strong social fabric, each of which will have less internal turmoil and therefore be better-equipped to be a healthy member of the ecosystem.

> I respectfully disagree; we want them accountable to the public. The simplest way to have politicians accountable to public opinion (without violence) is by making them have to care about elections. That's the entire point of democracy.

Having them care about getting reelected is one thing, having them care primarily about funding their campaign (because, while the deepest pockets may not always win, that is usually the way to bet) is quite another.

> This, to me, is the heart of the issue. American politics are fundamentally corrupted by campaign financing

British politics is not; the scale of our financial political scandals would make a DC lobbyist giggle at the quaintness of it. This is also true of the other Five Eyes, and yet all of them are trying to be just as aggressive as each other, there’s just a difference in scale of the parent country.

I’m not arguing for or against anything here, just noting that intelligence agencies in similar countries which aren’t beset by campaign finance woes are doing exactly the same thing.

Even our most powerful political leaders are actually afraid of intelligence services as Senator Schumer once explained.

> Schumer: “Let me tell you. You take on the intelligence community. They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at ya.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rH0EBAyhnA

>This is true, but it's not the entire truth either. Most congressmen don't have access to the really sensitive intelligence that comes from these surveillance operations, so it can't be that useful to many of them.

Pretty easy fix is to make it illegal for them to not have the info. Then again I would prefer laws entirely removing the idea of sensitive information from the government. It is like a gun. A useful tool, very important for defending yourself, but those who have abused it in the past lose the right to it no matter how useful it is. The government has abused secret information in the past and as such should no longer be alloweed to have it. I rather we didn't have spies than to have the same laws protecting spies also cover up and enable child sexual abuse.

Far as I understand the first director the FBI J. Edgar Hoover had blackmail on a lot of federal politicians. Which is why he left his position feet first. When Hoover died Nixon replaced him with someone with no previous ties to the agency.

The CIA has deep ties to the American upper classes. And probably serves their interests over the states. Or their own interests. Aldrich Ames was living well beyond is means for years. A good supposition is people at his level routinely trade intel to 'friendly' government an corporate interests.

Right. Look at the din over the Epstein stuff, due to covering/blackmailing/etc over the misbehavior by a small group.

Then imagine a single entity that has every domestic text, phone call, and email ever sent, searchable and indexed, on any politician, judge, or candidate. It's far, far, more power than merely spying on foreign powers.

The security services have to do some unpleasant stuff in order to attempt some control over people. Whats the oldest profession in the book, then ask yourself what is the second oldest profession in the book? Would that be blackmail?

> The CIA has deep ties to the American upper classes

That’s hardly unique to the US. Other nations’ intelligence agencies tend to attract the aristocracy, e.g. all the Oxbridge alum at MI6/GCHQ.

Joining the intelligence services was basically the way the British upper class avoided combat service in ww2

You can level a lot of shit at the British upper classes, but being war-shy isn’t one of them. Until about 50 years ago, the entirety of the officer corps was picked from the gentry, and it’s not _that_ different today. Junior officers are just as much cannon fodder as other ranks.

I'm pretty sure junior officers were actually one of the hardest hit sections of the Army in WW1 and WW2.

I read a book recently about a young (19!) year old tank commander in WW2 and he was told by his CO when arriving in Normandy that his life expectancy was 10 days.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Action-Armoured-Commanders-194...

No, they actually serve the country and the government. This conspiracy theory has no basis. Ames was a double agent, not a great example.

Which part of the parent are you saying "has no basis"?

Where's the evidence the CIA serves the country and government? There's not a lot of evidence that it is effective at protecting the American people from anything.

There is a lot of evidence that the CIA is doing whatever it can to ensure that the %1 of American society get their way with the world, however. That's not the same as 'serving country and government', by any stretch of the imagination.

I don’t think there is any evidence that they are doing whatever they can to serve the 1%.

There is in fact a lot of evidence that they serve the country.

Trials are secret because they don't want to reveal further secrets. On the other hand you hear people saying: "If you are doing everything right, you have nothing to hide."

The difference is that in a democracy you should be responsible for the actions of government and you need to be able to audit governmental action, not the other way around.

I am surprised that they really have zero cases where mass surveillance helped. I would have thought they would make some up at least, but that got probably too hot.

Of course there is a massive amount of secret cases where it did help, but they just cannot tell you about...

It is a bad excuse that can be used to justify anything. Instead the case for secrecy needs justification.

If you have nothing to hide, it's only because there's nobody trying to hurt you right now.

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