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Comment by EA-3167 | Hacker News Reader

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I literally just posted a dismissal of your claims in a sibling comment.

You owe it to yourself to think critically about what you think you want out of intelligence services, being secretive is one thing, not permitting any oversight is not ok and being in direct violation of the law is also not ok.

It's not a hypothetical situation, people were using these tools to stalk women for crying out loud, you can't defend that. Those tools shouldn't have even existed in the first place, it was a flagrant violation of authority.

The reason in the UK police are charged with harsher sentences than ordinary criminals is because they have authority and an enormous capacity to do harm. So do these agencies.

There isn't a system in the world which isn't subject to abuse, every police force in the world for example suffers from it. Some people such as yourself take that to mean they need to be torn down, the rest of us just think it means there needs to be more controls to minimize those abuses.

It's not as though MOST of the activity of these agencies is stalking women, and it's profoundly disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

> Some people such as yourself take that to mean they need to be torn down, the rest of us just think it means there needs to be more controls to minimize those abuses.

Yeah. some oversight would be nice.

Shame that this is exactly what I am advocating for and not at all for tearing down intelligence services… Shame that this is not happening and this was the entire problem.

But where are the countless, or at least fragmentary, stories where they did much, or any good?

Secrecy and transparency and democracy just don't mix well, imo, if you want an absolute state that's fine.

I can also agree that some rare situations may require absolute secrecy for some services, but that then must be limited and fully disclosed for later oversight, control and consequences.. 10 years is already a lot, 20 years absolute max, in my opinion. But almost nothing ever is, except what's leaked, that is shocking.

How is anyone to say what most of the activity of these agencies are without any oversight. That’s why the leaks happened in the first place, it was the only way to say ‘hey we need more controls on this stuff’. Unless you’re suggesting that was going to happen anyway somehow?

They have enormous oversight, just not by the general public.

That's hard to believe when Clapper literally perjured himself before his oversight and faced no consequences.

Yeah he should've martyred himself when those who actually ran these programs got away with it completely. And it's amazing that you attack Russia for being what it is, an authoritarian country ran by its intelligence agencies... While using the exact same rhetoric that is always used to justify authoritarianism. Actually, you might very well be surprised by how much you'd agree with the Russian government if we go by your last sentence.

I hope you realize that all of this was justified because of the war on terror. It had nothing to do with Russia. They weren't going against a super power (which you could at least argue might justify the means), they were trying to find boogeyman terrorists that may or may not have existed in the US. If as you said they did their damn job, they wouldn't need to cast such a wide net like they did with their surveillance. And we would also have had more example of said surveillance actually saving lifes or leading to results.

What we do have instead is countless example of suspects being listed as at risk but nothing being done since the lists are so huge and impossible to act upon. it's not even a form of survivorship biais either; authorities are very very happy to announce that they thwarted some terrorist plot before it happened. Its just that it happens very rarely.

This is such a ridiculous take. The fact that Snowden did not somehow martyr himself enough for you has no bearing on the important information that he leaked. He could have easily kept his mouth shut and enjoyed his cushy job in Hawaii like so many others do. Instead he threw it all away and is now stuck in Russia. Now you’re saying that we shouldn’t look at anything he revealed because he’s not willing to speak out against Putin and get thrown in the gulag? What would be a sufficient level of martyrdom for you? Should he have set himself on fire on the steps of the Capitol?

He didn't just ran to Russia, he went to China first.

It would be lot more believable he did it for the greater good, if he only took documents related to internal spying (and not bunch of other stuff) and if he didn't take the documents on joyride through territories of biggest ideological enemies of his home country.

But now he has to live in Russia, which I guess is punishment enough.

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