Hacker News Reader

Comment by CamperBob | Hacker News Reader

If they weren't using all that power to spy on US citizens, it might be a bit more palatable. You can make a case for being nosy when it comes to people who aren't covered by our own Constitutional guarantees, but when it comes to US citizens, due process is something I consider awfully important. (And no, "national security letters" are not what I consider due process.)

Obviously not everything the NSA does is a problem from a Constitutional standpoint, but still... the odds of being ordered to do something I would find grossly unethical are too high for me to want to work there.

Worse still, I could see myself modifying my own ethics over time for the sake of staying in my employer's good graces. How many people can honestly say they would never fall prey to that temptation?

A shame, too, because I'll bet they still have some of the coolest toys around, even in the present age of commoditized supercomputing.

View on HN

The NSA is relatively careful not to do blanket spying on US citizens, at least not directly, outside of specific legally approved programs (the NSLs, combatants, those engaged in communications with a foreign power, etc.). I agree the NSA and military/intelligence overreaches, but the people within NSA do make some effort to obey the law. The right place to change this is with the legislature (and judiciary) -- if there were stronger laws against domestic spying, the NSA would follow them.

It's also quite reasonable (and I'd say honorable) to not work for them, if you think either they're doing something immoral, or it would negatively affect you. I support a lot of the NSA's mission (cyber defense for the US and USG, specific international activity against enemies of the US), but certainly would like to see greater privacy protections in the US, and to protect private citizens (vs. governments) globally.

The problem, Ryan, is that when you have a huge super-secretive military government organization whose people "make some effort to obey the law", there's absolutely nothing stopping them from, one day, with no fanfare, choosing to start ignoring the law when and where convenient.

There are no checks or balances on their power and the potential abuse thereof. They operate in a legal vacuum, with carte blanche to do whatever they decide is necessary. Even THEIR BUDGET is classified information. We're not even allowed to know how many tax dollars they're spending to do illegal shit they're not telling us about.

You can support their mission 100% (I do), and still think that they should be entirely disbanded for this reason alone.

Only criminals would operate in this sort of LEGAL environment.

You've obviously never worked for a government agency if you think anything could 'just happen' one day. It's hard enough to get things done that you ARE legally allowed to do, let alone anything remotely questionable.

I think you're confusing government agencies that have oversight of some kind with those that operate unchecked, like the military intelligence services (NSA, CIA, etc).

They have decades-long histories of doing illegal shit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...

At no point did I say they weren't doing anything illegal. Just that it doesn't 'suddenly happen'. They're huge, and very, very slow moving.

Tell that to a country that has had a military coup, or similar. One day the military obeys civilian orders, the next day they don't. Same could happen with NSA. One day they obey the law, the next day they don't.

Wouldn't have to be the whole agency, just some small, but connected, group. They could sell information to foreign countries or, maybe more likely, companies or do all sorts of other socially destructive but personally profitable things.

Of course it doesn't literally happen overnight. But would we know about it if NSA/CIA and similar started going rogue? Seems to me that the government would cover up any extra-legal activities that were discovered so we'd never know until it was too late.

  You've obviously never worked for a government agency if 
  you think anything could 'just happen' one day. It's hard 
  enough to get things done that you ARE legally allowed to 
  do, let alone anything remotely questionable.

That's pure BS. I know of a couple of companies which had done work for gov't agencies which were screwed by powerful individuals in said agencies doing blatantly illegal things. In both cases, the companies involved refused to go along, and paid the price. 7 years down the road, they were "cleared", but the companies' owners had suffered great financial and personal devastation. Nothing happened to the gov't individuals save promotions.

There was a scandal when the NSA's high-volume tap at AT&T came to light. Such a tap at a core router counts as blanket spying. The reaction to it, increased powers and retroactive immunity, speaks volumes.

The very idea that something like “retroactive immunity” can protect someone from the consequences of breaking the law is a bit mind-bending. Whoever comes up with this stuff, it is to protect a culture of unaccountability and disregard for the law.

Out of interest - why do you consider it more unethical to spy on people from one arbitrary geographical area as opposed to people from another? What if they agree not to spy on anyone from Utah and only spy on those suspicious people from other states?

Aren't we all people?

Domestic spying might allow the agency to co-opt its own supervision.

So you might not allow spying of NSA personnel above a particular sensitive grade or something.

And if you're worried about families of NSA personnel being spied on, they might not come from your arbitrary geological area and so are currently fair game.

As oposed to working for Goldman Sachs? Google probably is a bigger threat to an indvidulals privacy than the NSA

So you would be quite happy that All American Terrroists are safer than forign Actors?

> So you would be quite happy that All American Terrroists are safer than forign Actors?

Maybe it goes without saying, but yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of everyone in the United States, whether citizen, immigrant, or undocumented, whether law-abiding or terrorist. It specifically guarantees a right to trial, and forbids government searches without a warrant based on probable cause.

The founders knew that government can eat away at vague promises of freedom, and so they guaranteed not only "due process of law" and security from "unreasonable searches and seizures," but also specific mechanisms for protecting those rights from the government. They guaranteed those rights to everyone on our shores.

Personally I hope for a day when everyone in the world is entitled to the same rights. But until that happens -- yes. The law demands that all human beings will be safe on our soil, unless and until they are punished by due process of law. May we find the courage to live up to that demand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com