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Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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>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.

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