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Comment by alan_cx | Hacker News Reader

I'll say it again: we don't know if the security services blackmail politicians, and other influential or powerful people.

When I say black mail, simply knowing that one is routinely snooped on makes people more compliant. The implication can be enough. Had a few joints at college? Want to be a politician? Well, behave and be nice to security issues then, just in case... Very much the Soviet trick. Have every one assume they are spied on.

Not a US problem as such, one for the any relationship between security and politicians (and other powerful people), regardless of country or political system. And all because security insists on secrecy, which I am not convinced is required in a vast majority of cases.

To my mind, the lack of any real reaction to the NSA revelations, both in the US and here in the UK, increase my suspicion that this implied blackmail is rife, perhaps standard practice.

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We know exactly how they are being blackmailed: if they don't cooperate, they will be outed as unpatriotic and anti-American via the media, and their political careers will be destroyed as their peers duck for cover.

The threat is so clear and obvious it never needs to be expressed.

That's what the American doctrine of "patriotism" is all about, and it will remain that way until Americans start recognizing this is not just a word describing the normal love for ones own country most people around the world share, but an extremist ideology aimed at silencing dissent and enforcing conformity.

> we don't know if the security services blackmail politicians, and other influential or powerful people.

It doesn't need to be so one-sided, some Senate and House members may in fact be benefiting greatly from the NSA's spying (eg: manipulating the stock market by using their exclusive access to private information), and in exchange the NSA continues their work with impunity and without oversight. It's a symbiotic relationship where they're benefiting from each-other.

Very good point. Carrot and stick. Even more reason to try to secure more openness.

> A 2004 study found that stock sales and purchases by Senators outperformed the market by 12.3% per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Insider_trading...

You forgot to add the [citation needed] at the end of that sentence.

On the other hand, why wouldn't they try to protect themselves by trying to defund the NSA programs by proposing a new bill? There's public outrage which they can use for their own benefit and they could easily frame this as defending the American citizens while covering their own asses, but they're not doing that either. In fact, the amendment that was proposed to defund the NSA phone surveillance didn't pass, so what's going on?

Also, blackmail isn't that easy. If something embarrassing is revealed about a politician who seemed to be critical of the NSA, you think people wouldn't start pointing fingers to the NSA and accusing them of blackmail?

Its always easier to not upset the apple cart. And as another poster rightly said, this could easily be a two way process. A given politician likely doesn't need a NSA crusade for votes, if (s)he has already won a seat, jobs already done. No need for public out rage to generate quick votes.

As for your blackmail not easy point... no, its not. You are correct. But while there is this sort of hidden balance, out right blackmail and reveal threats are not necessary. If this is happening, it would be far more subtle and nuanced than a black and white situation. Heh, just like the situation we are all in now, a perception of all reaching surveillance leafs us to cowering fear. We are all, including politicians and NSA types, are human.

I'm reminded of Brezhnev's niece Luba, who was beaten when she was pregnant by the KGB, to the point of inducing miscarriage. It seemed as much a signal to Brezhnev as to Luba that even he couldn't protect her.

Interesting. It being the KGB it's also post-Stalin, as in the period after which the nomenklatura agreed they wouldn't use Leninist/Stalinist terror against each other. Yet per her Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luba_Brezhneva) she was a member of it, e.g. she describes the two-tier system of shops which kept the people extra busy (the counterrevolutionary devil finds work for idle hands) and the nomenklatura in tall cotton.

We don't know they do blackmail, either. What is this fearmongering bullshit? We also don't know unicorns don't exist, and these rocks I'm holding here will ward off tigers.

Although I suspect you didn't actually read what I posted fully.....

Yes we do know they do blackmail. Its one of the things we know very well. It is what happened through out the cold war. Blackmail is a tried and tested method, as old as it gets in intelligence and espionage.

BTW, have to ask. Would this have been your reply if a year ago I told you the NSA were spying in a comprehensive, industrial way on the American public? Would you have claimed it was fear mongering "bullshit", and banging on about mythical creatures?

Do you have evidence that the NSA is blackmailing members of congress into continuing to fund the NSA's projects?

And the "fear mongering bullshit" I referenced earlier has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the NSA is spying on US citizens, and everything to do with the fact that you're lying about having knowledge that the NSA is blackmailing congress.

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