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Comment by ofslidingfeet | Hacker News Reader

No they're not. If our bloated "national security" apparatus could possibly justify its existence, it would. The reason they keep such justification secret is because it doesn't exist. It has nothing to do with "sources and methods." It has nothing to do with "civil unrest."

The reason we can't see the justification is because it doesn't exist.

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They don't tell you because they don't feel the need to justify it to you. They do tell some of it individuals with the proper clearances who hold some level of power over them (comittees etc).

Here is a small list of the ones that were publicized. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsuccessful_terrori...

> they don't feel the need to justify it to you

Yes, that is the primary problem with spy agencies - that they don't feel accountable. They SHOULD be.

What does accountability look like for those agencies or other government agencies in general? How can we achieve that?

The current paradigm is that agencies generally are accountable to congressional committees and the courts. I'm not sure how we would make them accountable to the public when there's very little accountability for elected representatives even.

Laughable. This list substantiates my point.

What is laughable about that list?

It doesn't really speak to or against your point. You're not going to justify an entire national security system on a subset of one of its many functions.

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