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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Yes, because you can't have anything but a staunchly civil-libertarian point of view without being a sell-out who is receiving kickbacks from private contractors...

Has it maybe occurred to you that e.g. Pelosi and Hoyer, whose lives were defined by the Cold War, have maybe a different view on life than the HN readership, who were mostly children when the Soviet Union collapsed?

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My family arrived here as refugees after the war, and I grew up acutely aware of the threat of the Soviet Union. Maybe that's why I am also aware that no threat that's within three orders of magnitude of that exists today.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

The folks looking to increase their power at the expense of the citizenry are relentless. They spend their nights and weekends thinking up new ways to be more dominant. As citizens, we can't expect to combat their never-ending efforts with luke-warm responses or apologetics for our favorite political leaders.

When it comes to privacy/liberty/freedom, the only reasonable response to government incursion is a strong and unequivocal one.

NSA programs similar to the latest (broad interception of specific types of communications) were defunded and shut down during the height of the cold war. They had more to be afraid of than we do and still weren't willing to give the NSA this much power.

Also, before we go there, yes I am aware they also did a lot of other horrible things, but we're talking about the NSA and their activities as related to the fourth amendment right now.

Source?

I prefer mine Open.

It was featured here previously on HN. I'll dig for it, and update this comment with an edit when I find it.

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK

It does appear as though it was shut down the moment it came under scrutiny before a proper debate could be had about the legality of it.

Pelosi and Hoyer, whose lives were defined by the Cold War

Then I'd expect they appreciate the view that any government that perpetrates pervasive surveillance upon the populace at large with no notification & no recourse is the embodiment of Evil Communism™ and the antithesis of core American values, totally violating the US Constitution.

Why would they think that? They grew up in an era when the FBI was keeping close tabs on guys like MLK. They entered politics at a time when there was zero oversight of the NSA (not even by the "rubber stamp" FISA court), and at a time when the CIA was actively engaged in political assassinations abroad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11905).

And yet, things turned out fine. The Soviet Union was defeated, America survived, and our biggest problem today, from their point of view, is not civil liberties but an ailing economy.

I can totally see how someone like Pelosi might think along the following lines:

1) The world is scary and the CIA/NSA serve an important purpose in protecting national security;

2) By and large government officials are trustworthy, and won't abuse their power (remember, she's a Democrat);

3) The NSA has shown colorable attempts to stay within the bounds of the Constitution (only collecting metadata, or only targeting non-US persons).

You may not agree with any of these points, but I think it's ridiculous to say that only bribery could make you agree with these points.

it's ridiculous to say that only bribery could make you agree with these points.

I didn't.

That was essentially the premise of the top level post.

And this makes it reasonable for them to want to introduce Stasi/KGB-style tactics to the US?

That's ridiculous hyperbole. The stasi didn't spy on internet communications, while lots of governments in liberal democracies do. So the only thing you have to link the Stasi to the NSA is the fact that they are intelligence organizations.

The Internet wasn't a thing. The link isn't in terms of the specific things they do, it's the attitude. The Stasi were known for wanting to know everything about everyone and using questionable tactics to do so. That is exactly what the NSA seems to be moving toward.

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