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Comment by diminoten | Hacker News Reader

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet.

I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side. It's paranoid delusion to think the NSA is actively out to get us - at least ostensibly, the NSA is trying to help the citizens of the US.

What we should be doing is asking for changes and modifications to how things are done. There are some not-so-big tweaks to the currently running programs which can feasibly be made without compromising these program's efficacy while also providing more insight into what's going on. We can have our cake (terrorist monitoring) and eat it too (maintain individual privacy) - it's possible.

That's what we should be figuring out, not this chicken little/us vs. them bullshit.

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> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side.

Define 'our side' please. I'm not convinced of that. And if you take the temporal element into account you might very well find that the NSA is even against 'your side' in the longer term. Information gathered indiscriminately has a tendency to concentrate on the bad parts. If I vacuum up all your communications over the last 20 years or so and pick out the bad bits while deleting the good bits you'll look like a pretty bad person no matter how saintly you are in real life.

A disputed quote (but generally attributed to Richelieu and quite applicable):

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

The potential of abuse of this data is simply too large, no matter what the potential benefits and whether or not the NSA is on 'our side'.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him...and then nobody will because everybody understands this basic principle."

The potential of abuse for guns is pretty damn large, but some would argue that the US was founded on the idea of gun ownership.

There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs.

The language of the above article seems too adversarial to be effective at getting anything done. If we continue to take this "death to the NSA" stance, we're not going to get anything that we want because, like it or not, the NSA, or someone else doing the same things, is going to have to exist on some level for the remainder of the US's existence as a representative democracy. We need to be talking scope and extent, not existence/abolishment, and this article is a little too polemic to be helpful.

'There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs.'

How can you possibly know this? In fact I would argue as much as we 'know' anything at all related to the NSA program we know that it has lead to interventions. The NSA claims this surveillance has been instrumental to stopping 'dozens' of terrorist plots, which would mean by definition people ARE being snatched off the streets because of the NSA monitoring programs.

I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it.

Ignore and refuse to participate in wild speculation until evidence appears. That's how we have to operate, lest we succumb to every conspiratorial fantasy the Internet can come up with.

What on earth are you talking about? The whole purpose of the NSA monitoring program is to provide actionable leads to enable intervention by law enforcement. You can think this is 'bad', you can think this is 'good', you can think it is highly effective, you can think it is ineffective...

but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality. The whole purpose of the program is to snatch terrorists up off the streets, the whole purpose of it being classified is to enable it to function without explicitly giving terrorists a good understanding of our ways and means...

how on earth is assuming a program is used for at least what the government claims it is used for a conspiratorial fantasy?

> but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality.

Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system?

You say it's wildly disconnected from reality and that the NSA's entire purpose is to do precisely this, and if that's the case you should be able to easily show me examples which demonstrate the 'snatchings' are a) occurring and b) the norm.

If it's not conspiratorial fantasy, then the evidence should be in abundance, right?

There is evidence of US citizens being blown off the streets by drones.

Do I just take your word for that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki

The relevant parts:

In April 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama placed al-Awlaki on a list of people whom the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was authorized to kill because of terrorist activities.[32][33][34] The "targeted killing" of an American citizen was unprecedented. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court.[32][34][35][36] Al-Awlaki was believed to be in hiding in Southeast Yemen in the last years of his life.[26] The U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft (drones) in Yemen to search for and kill him,[37] firing at and failing to kill him at least once,[38] before succeeding in a fatal American drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011.[39] Two weeks later, al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was born in Denver, was killed by a CIA-led drone strike in Yemen.[40][41][42] Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar's father, released an audio recording condemning the killings of his son and grandson as senseless murders.[43]

And US officials admitted the killing of the boy was mistake.

Ah, so not the streets of the US, which is what I said.

Got it.

You are the one that shrank the topic from 'streets' to 'US streets.' Just as you have done to others in this thread.

I'm the one who asked the question. It's already a given that the US government cares more about the rights of its citizens than it does about noncitizens. That's been true for 200+ years.

honestly? I dont understand what you are arguing. Who said anything about no arrests, trials, or convictions? I do not have classified info on what is or isnt done within or outside the justice system based on NSA monitoring.

I do know the government has claimed that this system has stopped dozens of terrorist plots. I make the assumption based on my judgement that these terrorists are not given a 'stop it or else we will arrest you' but are instead 'detained' in some way. Maybe you disagree with that, and feel these folks are issued a subpoena to appear in court at some later date. Further my understanding is this program is classified, and whatever is done with these 'detained' individuals is not a matter of public record. I guess this is an assumption as well, but seems like a pretty basic one, you don't issue gag orders and maintain top secret security and then throw on the publicaly available court dockets 'this guy was arrested due to the fact the NSA data captured he was interacting with a known foreign terrorist', this doesnt mean he wasnt tried by some secret court, I make no guesses as far as what happens once someone is 'detained'... disagree with that if you will, but its not a conspiracy theory, thats as far as i understand it the official government line on what the program is used for.

You're missing the "US citizen" part of what I said.

> Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system?

Is what I asked. Non-US citizens aren't necessarily granted the same rights US citizens are granted.

It's hardly wild speculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Use of NSA info in the manner described above is scope creep because they aren't terrorists, or foreign.

What's wrong with this?

They are using data from 'national security' databases for ordinary investigations against Americans as opposed to foreigners. And obscuring that fact. If this is allowed to continue fourth amendment rights will mean very little. Ubiquitous surveillance not for international terrorism, but every little misdemeanor. You may argue they are criminals, but they have been subjected to e.g. an illegal search to get evidence. In cases where they are not actually criminals, the illegal search and coverup is indefensible.

Here's the article linked from the wikipedia page. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

"A similar set of instructions was included in an IRS manual in 2005 and 2006, Reuters reported." [2]

Basically they use "evidence" obtained illegally, tip off the DEA and it seems the IRS.

Choice quote[1]: "Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011, described the practice of "parallel construction" as "a fancy word for phonying up the course of the investigation". It was one thing, she said, to create special rules for national security, but creating rules for ordinary crime threatened to undermine the bill of rights, set up as a check against the power of the executive."

Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's criminal law reform project[1]: He said that the concealing of information about the source of an investigation was unconstitutional because it did not allow defendants their right to confront and examine the evidence the government has against them.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/06/justice-departm...

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE...

This argument throws out the baby with the bathwater, though. "Parallel construction" is how every investigation is conducted. Investigators start with hunches, and search for evidence that proves/disproves this hunch. Parallel construction happens any time an investigator takes evidence and tells a story with it.

It doesn't matter much if you construct an investigation while being led by information obtained outside of the chain of evidence - at least it doesn't matter with any other kind of information.

You say, "basically they use evidence obtained illegally to prosecute someone" - but that's not what they're doing. They're doing exactly the opposite. They're using the legally obtained evidence to prosecute someone, and taking guidance from the other data that can't be admitted.

Based on the information from the article, 40% of the time, this illegally obtained evidence isn't any help. The data you say they are 'taking guidance from' is illegally acquired and used (at least 40% of the time, but maybe as high 100%). That's indefensible.

"Current and former federal agents said SOD tips aren't always helpful - one estimated their accuracy at 60 percent. But current and former agents said tips have enabled them to catch drug smugglers who might have gotten away."

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

Your quotation marks are out of order, because I took pains not to say "basically they use evidence obtained illegally to prosecute someone". It's more subtle than that.

In cases where the parallel construction was successful, it was probably illegal, and the convicted can appeal.

In refutation of your general thrust that all investigations are like this and it doesn't matter[2]: "Not all evidence gathered by a private investigator is legal, however. For instance if the PI breaks into a private residence, taps a phone, or uses a planted microphone or listening device in a private place, then in these cases such evidence is not generally admissible. That is because any conversations or activities done in private places, behind closed doors have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

[2] http://www.claydugas.com/legal-process/is-evidence-gathered-...

one last edit, just in case you had any doubt about the chance of successful appeal, this is legal terminology so it has a strange name but it is worth reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisoned_tree

Better article on the IRS link:

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE...

You keep begging the question by calling it "illegally obtained evidence" which ignores the fact that it's not illegal to obtain, just inadmissible. There's a difference, and entirely defensible.

You literally said "basically they use evidence obtained illegally to prosecute someone". Whether you went back and changed it later is a different story, but I copy+pasted what you wrote.

And if you think this is how fruit of the poisoned tree works, you're sorely mistaken. What you can't do is break into a home, take evidence, and use that evidence.

What you can do is, while you're executing a warrant on a home for another reason glance at your suspect's mail, notice a piece of mail is from someone you investigated prior who claimed to not know your suspect, go find another link between those two people, and then use their testimony once you've gotten them to confess to knowing the person as a link in a legit evidence chain. This isn't "fruit of the poisoned tree", and is basically what NSA tips are.

COMPLETELY different.

You are correct, I am begging the question, the DOJ are investigating the question. Maybe they will find the DEA and SOD are acting illegally. Hopefully they will. Those who would defend the use of NSA data for domestic crimes are dangerously close to advocating for a police state.

I may have written that quote and edited out because it was wrong. Sorry about that.

I doubt I am mistaken about the poisoned tree though because a source of evidence that may have exculpatory evidence is being obscured. It may also be acquired illegally but that is obscured too.

Implicit in your reply is an admission that the NSA tips are being used. "people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs." Do you still stand by this because now there's evidence presented to you that the IRS and the DEA have access to NSA tips through the SOD?

A statement from the NSA: "If the intelligence community collects information pursuant to a valid foreign intelligence tasking that is recognised as being evidence of a crime, [it] can disseminate that information to law enforcement, as appropriate."

I think your example of NSA tips is rather convoluted, I prefer the NSA's statement above as it's pretty clear and leaves little to the imagination.

You're right when it comes to the investigation. If the DOJ finds that this parallel construction is illegal, then I would accept it as such. My gut says they won't (because of the example I gave), but I accept the possibility that I could be wrong.

I still stand by what I said regarding the lack of "snatchings". If a parallel chain of evidence can be constructed that leads to an arrest, that's not "because of" the NSA's monitoring programs. That's because there is a valid reason to investigate this person. The lynchpin is not the NSA's tip, it's the ability to find evidence against a person that is obtained according to the law. A "snatching" would be attributed to the NSA if the only evidence were to have been obtained through the collection of "information pursuant to a valid foreign intelligence tasking". And that's clearly got no evidence to support it.

There's two modes of operation, you seem to have the second in mind, and I am thinking of the first:

a. NSA collects American national's "information pursuant to a valid foreign intelligence tasking". (this may be illegal, violation of fourth amendment rights, no supreme court decision)

b. NSA tip SOD (if 1. is illegal, then it follows it's illegal to pass on)

c. SOD instruct police force to stop and search for 'traffic violation' at time and place, obscure evidence trail. (DOJ investigating if this is illegal)

d. d:a) no evidence is found.

   d:b) evidence is found, parallel construction begins.

a. law enforcement agency DEA/IRS/SOD asks NSA to get foreign intelligence, because of investigation already underway.

other steps as above.

My problem is with the first mode. Given the first mode, do you stand by your earlier statement and: "If a parallel chain of evidence can be constructed that leads to an arrest, that's not "because of" the NSA's monitoring programs."

See the NSA's statement re: evidence of a crime. If the first mode leads to an arrest it is by definition "because of".

In both scenarios I have a problem with d:a) where no evidence is turned up because it seems like a very unreasonable search to me.

"I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it."

Of course there is no credible evidence when evidence is known to be actively suppressed. See: 'Intel Laundering.'

Also the US boasts that spying resulted in thwarted attempts. Where are those court cases? More importantly, where are the bodies of those involved? Sure is easy to not have credible evidence when all evidence aside from one sided snippets and meaningless statistics is never published.

edit: diminoten sure shifts goal posts around a lot. Changing persons to US persons, etc.

So you're arguing that there is no evidence because the NSA is so good at what they do, they've successfully hidden all operational evidence from the public for their entire time of existence?

Is Snowden the first mistake the NSA has ever made, in your eyes, then?

No, no.

edit: Tried to respond below but have been "submitting too fast" while submitting nothing for far too long to care to wait more.

I am not saying the NSA has flawless execution, you are the one repeating it for whatever reason.

I'm saying the NSA/Administration when pushed had to put out something that showed the spying was 'working.' In response they said multiples of domestic plots were foiled. Given the lack of full disclosure as to what the US's secret laws are secretly doing, we are forced to parse the headlines and the body count of the population for information on what has happened, where people went.

Problem is there is only a handful of incidents revealed to the public. The Boston bombers don't count because even though they fit NSA criteria for observation they apparently had no clue about their actions. The Al-Shabaab money provider was explicitly mentioned, so that is one.

Since we know the US kidnaps and tortures people, then makes every attempt to have the guilty escape[1], we don't require further evidence to ask the questions:

Where are the bodies, living or dead, of the others involved in domestic cases the NSA said they helped foil? The NSA says the program is for terrorists, the US government is known to rendition their victims away to be tortured under claims of them being terrorists. This has been documented enough to appease you.

If the NSA's spying program is not meant to result in the kidnapping and torture of others, what is it for? Bringing people to court?

Again, where are those involved in the domestic incidents cited as being foiled by the NSA?

Not all in court, that is for sure.

[1] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/18/how_a_cia_off...

Then what are you saying, if not that the lack of evidence is only because the NSA is flawless in its execution?

So why, exactly, is there no evidence that US citizens on US soil are being "renditioned" or otherwise extrajudiciously held as a result of NSA data collection?

Because, if you'll recall, that's what we were talking about.

"Because, if you'll recall, that's what we were talking about."

This thread is called 'The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet.' Throughout it you have been attempting to diminish or shift the subject to "US citizens on US soil."

Please stop.

edit: I just noticed you took the subject of CIA renditions and attempted to turn it into a "US citizens on US soil" subject as you have done to the others in this thread. While completely ignoring the subject you made the response to.

What the heck, guy.

Can you point out what you're talking about? I've been responding a lot of places, and HN isn't exactly great about keeping track of conversations.

The NSA is not in the business of snatching people of the street, and they are also not in the business of revealing which cases where people do get snatched of the street by for instance CIA operatives were snatched because of leads generated by the NSA.

You are essentially asking for proof that may or may not exist but that certainly will never come to light.

I suspect signals intelligence plays a major role in just about every US operation on foreign soil, if it didn't what justification would there be for the NSA to exist to begin with.

I imagine many would say recent events demonstrate that it shouldn't continue in its current incarnation as it's doing more harm than good to national interests. Like the TSA, it doesn't need to exist, certainly not in its current form. In the UK for example, the equivalent hasn't always existed, (and going by Adam Curtis recently, may as well not have). That didn't prevent them from building an empire and dominating world trade.

I'd like to see what you've read that makes you think the majority of US citizens think the NSA shouldn't continue in its current incarnation.

Furthermore, I'd like to see what you've read that shows the TSA doesn't need to exist.

Also, what makes you think the UK hasn't had a global intelligence network since its inception?

They call it the second oldest profession but intelligence can take different shapes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Melville#Secret_Service... post-dates the British empire for example.

I didn't say anything about the majority US opinion (which is volatile of course), but it's plausible that a sufficiently large number of powerful Americans could call time out for a restructure as they see their international business interests heading rapidly towards the plughole. That could well be taking the shine off being the gatekeepers of the gov info economy for example.

As for the TSA, you may disagree but I'm sure Bruce Schneier has more intelligent things to say about it than me - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/tsa...

Bruce Schneier fails to recognize the critical role security theater plays in keeping people safe. His arguments amount to, "people would be just as safe without it" but we have no evidence to that argument, as we have no "lab" with which to test the idea.

But you didn't do what I asked. Can you show me why you think what you said was relevant to today's global and technological landscape? What does the UK's hundreds-year old behavior regarding spying have to do with the NSA today?

> as we have no "lab" with which to test the idea.

We have the years before 911. We have the various rail systems, which are vaguely similar to airliners.

And, really, the onus for providing proof of efficacy is on the people spending the money and adding time to everyone's travel.

The years before 911 are worthless, considering technological developments since then.

And while I agree, the onus is on those spending the money, this isn't your typical experiment. The people spending the money don't get to play with the variables, as the variables include the lives of others. It's a very tough question, how and where scaling back on airport security can work, and the answer isn't simple.

> Bruce Schneier fails to recognize the critical role security theater plays in keeping people safe.

Understanding that it is theater is enough. You realise nobody needed to prove the emperor had no clothes.

> What does the UK's hundreds-year old behavior regarding spying have to do with the NSA today?

Well you brought it up yourself when you said:

> Also, what makes you think the UK hasn't had a global intelligence network since its inception?

My point was simply that it would be inane to assume that any organisation is required to stay around forever, purely by dint of it existing today - let alone one that is giving every indication of careening out of control. Plenty of people are already calling for Clapper to face consequences.

> but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs.

They are being assassinated by drones overseas.

The NSA doesn't own any drones. It has no ops.

It is not material that the actual kill is done by a different part of the government.

It's of critical importance, actually. One person collects the data, "The man you're looking for is here." and another person decides what to do with that data. "We will kill him." or "We will capture him." or "We will kill him and anyone in the same room or building as him."

The NSA doesn't decide what to do, the other part of the government does. It's of absolutely critical importance to remember that when discussing the extent of what the NSA knows and does.

People wouldn't be "snatched up off the street" by the NSA either which was the original point of contention.

The potential of abuse for guns is pretty damn large, but some would argue that the US was founded on the idea of gun ownership.

Yes, and those guns were widely distributed among the general populace. It was this wide distribution that contributed to a democratic society.

Whereas, the tools of the NSA are closely held. You and I do not have access to comparable tools, not at all. This creates a power imbalance, and this power imbalance is ripe for abuse.

>us vs. them bullshit

Surely not an appropriate point to raise when defending an agency whose raison d'etre is to acquire and analyze all foreign communications. Its existence comes from a us vs. them mentality.

What's happening is that for the USG, "them" now includes not only foreigner suspects; it includes all foreigners and many Americans—probably all Americans.

I don't expect the intelligence agencies of a dictatorship to explain to me, as a non-citizen, how they're "on my side". I wish I could have better expectations for a non-dictatorship, the US: I wish, as foreigner, I wasn't assumed to be an enemy.

So no, the NSA is not on my side, and it's probably not on most Americans' side. Also, things change, and all they're collecting will be using against you when they decide to no longer be on your side.

Okay so you're not in a dictatorship, and the NSA isn't "out to get" you.

If you're a US citizen, then the NSA is trying, at least, to prevent you from being harmed by foreign threats by gathering data on those threats and alerting other US government agencies. That's what they do. As long as the US exists, someone will have to do this.

If you're not a US citizen, then the NSA will take a look at you. Period. That's what they do, and your government will be taking a look at me in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reasons. Neither of our respective intel groups are assuming either of us are enemies, but that doesn't mean these intelligence groups aren't going to look at us. Being investigated does not mean you're an enemy. You're not a "them" just because someone looks at you, I don't know why people think this is how it is.

So no, if you're not a US citizen, the NSA is no more on your side than the British NHS will pay for my appendix removal.

As far as I'm aware, the country of which I am a citizen does not take an adversarial approach to other countries. If I learned that it's spying on people of other countries, I'd be just as concerned as I am about the NSA/the USG. None of that changes the fact that the NSA and the USG have a us vs. them mentality and it's only natural that Americans look at their government with a corresponding us vs. them view.

I can understand the USG watching a tourist, since they might commit a crime on US soil. But I'm a not a tourist. I'm not on American soil. My data is flowing through servers in the US, American-developed routers and American-developed OSes only because of the historical accident that the US loved globalization so much that its corporations now dominate the world and made the technical standards the whole world depends on.

If I could limit my exposure to the USG, I would. I want nothing from them, just as I don't expect an appendix removal from the NHS.

The line drawn between foreigners and American citizens stands on very thin ground. It's fraying. Think about it: who are the people with the greatest power to commit a terrorist act, the people who are already inside the US or the people who are outside?

Americans will be spied on. The NSA merely collects all data, and the magic of parallel construction will distribute it to the FBI or your friendly corrupt local authority.

The US has organizations which look inward for terrorists - the FBI, DEA, ATF, TSA, local law enforcement, etc. We have our own country fairly well covered, with well-establish legal precedent and rules of engagement. The NSA is an intelligence gathering organization for the parts of the world we don't have covered, and its goal is to collect global intelligence. It doesn't treat anyone adversarially, as it has no "troops" with which to engage foreigners.

It's massively near-sighted to think there are no groups in the world plotting the harm of US citizens. You might not be part of those groups, but how do we know if we don't look at you?

>it has no "troops" with which to engage foreigners.

It has no troops, but it has the CIA, who can assemble a makeshift covert "troop" in no time.

>You might not be part of those groups, but how do we know if we don't look at you?

Exactly the reasoning soon to be used to allow domestic mass surveillance. Mark my words.

That is hardly the most significant thing I wrote in my comment.

edit: US citizens already get looked at by other government orgs. What you're talking about already happens.

> it has no "troops" with which to engage foreigners.

Well, if you ignore that thing where the NSA is an part of the Department of Defense, and that its director is also the commander of a sub-unified command of the US military, sure.

The NSA is not the DoD, so yes, it'd make sense to ignore that fact.

The NSA is part of DoD.

As you should know surveillance is used for far more broadly than for preventing terrorism. It is beyond comprehension that you can ignore documented abuses, even ones that have recently been reported.

You cannot justify arbitrary powers simply by pointing to the fact that (US and ally) citizens may be safer from terrorism. Otherwise you should be advocating for more invasive surveillance.

> Being investigated does not mean you're an enemy.

No it means I lose my autonomy and therefore my freedom. It means I can never have goals that meaningfully oppose those who surveil me.

Well yes, you can never have the goal of harming US citizens. Otherwise, your autonomy is not lost, just because someone is watching you. That's malarky.

Have you ever read Sun Tzu? Knowing is way more than half the battle. Autonomy includes a balance of power and ability to defend yourself, and citizens are unable to spy back on the NSA. Even if the power is not being abused today (which I doubt), it hands over the keys completely to the next Stalin (or even just the next Nixon).

Citizens elect representatives who do the "spying back" on the NSA. If the citizenry didn't like what the representatives were doing, they'd elect different ones.

There will never be a "next" Stalin. We're past the days when such a person is possible.

> There will never be a "next" Stalin.

I find that somewhat naive, especially when Putin is enjoying wide popularity. (Not because he has anything resembling Stalin's track record of evil, but rather to demonstrate that many in the public still desire a powerful unitary executive.) There is an instinct in the human animal that craves charismatic, authoritarian power when times are tough.

But even if you're correct, I'm honestly more concerned about institutions than individuals. Institutions, whether "public" or "private", have a tendency to converge towards the survival of the institution as their only goal, and in some ways take on a life of their own; replacing any one employee or leader doesn't necessarily change the overall momentum and internal culture. This is my middle-of-the-road estimation of the danger, nestled between the unlikely extremes of "100% selfless heroes guarding us while we sleep" and "shadow government quietly pulling the strings of the world".

In other words, I'm much more nervous about "Brazil" than "1984".

> If the citizenry didn't like what the representatives were doing, they'd elect different ones.

We're working on that.

Of course it is. If they know everything about me then they can coerce me. And if not me then other officials. How can you have a government where many people are subject to powerful coercion?

> Well yes, you can never have the goal of harming US citizens.

Aren't US citizens at risk of being harmed everyday in normal diplomatic bargaining? Isn't it debatable, among US citizens themselves, as to what constitutes harm or benefit? Isn't that what political discourse is about?

This is overly ideological. Agreed that the NSA probably doesn't control the Internet, however the argument that the government does or doesn't control the Internet cannot be assumed either way at this point. We do know the government has desired/requested control of the internet before, the kill switch initiative is well documented. Whether this has actually panned out for the Gov in any concrete way we do not know, and if it did pan out it would probably be classified.

As for 'the little people' being the good guys, that's kind of fundamentally what a democracy implies. Now whether the paranoid HN types really represents the people, or the soccer mom who would scream bloody murder if their family was injured because a terrorist plot went off that 'could' have been stopped with widespread snooping without warrants really represents the people is an entirely different question.

I really appreciate your reasonable argument, but if the past few weeks have been any indication, there isn't any room for that here. HN has gone from interesting tech discussions to extremist, us-vs-them political rhetoric, and anyone who takes a different stance is jumped on and downvoted — as you can tell from your post having more replies than the entire rest of the thread.

Of course, you won't see the story about a federal judge ruling NYPD's stop-and-frisk was illegal[0], despite it being a much graver offense to individual rights, because it doesn't affect rich, white techies. But an email service you never used shut down and cited "NSA did it!" as its reason? Put that shit all over the front page!

[0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-pr...

I am black and not rich, and I think that NSA/Lavabit stories are more relevant to HN than stop-and-frisk stories, because they are about techies and technology. Call me crazy.

For what it's worth, I agree from the perspective that HN is (I thought) primarily concerned with tech and innovation, etc.

The stop-and-frisk program doesn't really have anything to do with technology and is a social issue about race and expectation. Technology can't even begin to fix that one - it comes from some other place inside us.

It worries me that HN seems to be turning into more of a sub-reddit than anything.

There are many lines that one could draw to divide this whole mess into two sides. Who's the 'us' and who's the 'them'?

I can think of quite a few lines to divide up the power-centers and sociological groups, and the intelligence community/military-industrial complex is almost always on the wrong side.

How about Congress vs. the Executive? The people in congress, our elected representatives, have been asking serious questions about these programs behind closed doors, and they have been lied to. They have been lied to by the representatives of the intelligence community (IC) in open court. Representatives of the IC continue to lie and dissemble on national TV, getting softball questions from sycophantic 'journalists'.

How about the IC vs. the Internet community as represented by open standards bodies and the rest of the international internet? The IC has been involved in numerous plots to undermine the basic security of the Internet both by engineering military-class viruses and trojans (Stuxnet), and inserting their hardwired and software backdoors in critical infrastructure - all unilateral decisions done w/o consultation of any of the open governing bodies of the Internet.

I could go on. These are critically important actions and concepts being debated here. The IC has given absolutely no indication that they are willing to compromise or work with the rest of the world, and almost every positive step towards openness has required civil disobedience.

How is this not an 'us vs. them' battle on almost every front one could draw?

Because every group you've named has the same overarching goal - to keep people free and safe.

Pretending like the intelligence community is some kind of evil monster is a great way to get ignored by the intelligence community, and for good reason.

> Because every group you've named has the same overarching goal - to keep people free and safe.

This statement sounds hopelessly naive to me. Sure, those groups say they work to keep people free and save, but their track record with those goals is tragically abysmal. In fact, there is mountainous and credible evidence that their activities are accomplishing the exact opposite of their stated goals (see the history of intelligence activities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the rest of the Americas and familiarize yourself with the phenomenon of 'blowback').

Additionally, even if we take them at their words, their efforts at secrecy prevent us as citizens from any kind of meaningful oversight.

> Pretending like the intelligence community is some kind of evil monster is a great way to get ignored by the intelligence community, and for good reason.

Given that the intelligence community ignores the questions and objections of the very powerful - our Senators and Represenatives - how is anything I say going to effect who they ignore or pay attention to? Oh noes, they're going to ignore us even harder! What are we going to do?!?!

The intelligence community doesn't ignore senators and representatives. That isn't happening except in a political fantasy world where being opposed to the NSA is beneficial.

What's naive is believing that you have enough information to make a decision about whether or not the NSA is effective at what it does, or that you have enough information to determine that US foreign action is why we're being threatened.

You elect representatives because there is no possible way to inform you about everything. This is not a direct democracy for many very good reasons.

> The intelligence community doesn't ignore senators and representatives. That isn't happening except in a political fantasy world where being opposed to the NSA is beneficial.

You are ignorant of basic historical information necessary to have an effective discussion on this topic. If you were up to date, you would know about our elected representatives that sit on the security council being stonewalled, ignored, and lied to by the representatives of the intelligence community which are supposed to inform them. They are supposed to inform them of what they are doing so that they can do their jobs as our representatives. If our representatives are ignorant, how can they possibly do their jobs as our representatives?

Clapper LIED to Congress. This is not a disputable fact. He lied. This is Federal offense - why is he not in jail? The US Government is issuing the most bizarre, hypocritical, carefully parsed statements about everything relating to this fiasco - are you cool with this kind of behavior from the most powerful organization in the world?

I'm not advocating direct democracy or direct knowledge of what the NSA does. What I am advocating is that the IC follow the goddamn law - both the statutes and the Constitution: 'social contract' which keeps our society running.

I also note you skipped the entirety of my first point.

Well they certainly aren't on my side, and I don't want to be on their side. They aggregate and analyze data used to conduct drone strikes, spy on the world indiscriminately, and assist brutal agencies like the DEA in destroying the lives of millions of innocent Americans.

Is it a paranoid delusion if you're a drug dealer to think that the NSA is out to get you? Not anymore. What about a drug user? What about a file-sharer? A child porn viewer? You might not be any of these things, but a huge portion of the American citizenry is, and I'd argue they're not doing anything wrong. Sorry but I'm not going to just take it on faith that the NSA is on 'our side'.

You'd argue that a child porn viewer isn't doing anything wrong?

Your opinion officially doesn't matter any more. Sorry, I have a 10 yr old sister and I simply can't abide folks who won't even do the research to understand what it means when they say things.

Yes I said that without doing any research on the subject ever.

And yes one opinion of mine invalidates every other opinion I have, how true.

You win, good arguments.

Edit: For a more serious reply, there is evidence that countries that have decriminalized viewing child pornography (not production) have seen decreased rates of child sex abuse.

Also, the definition of child pornography is so broad that we have a lot of people rotting in jail for looking at a naked picture that a 14 year old took of themselves in the mirror. Once in jail, these people become targets for violence and ironically sexual abuse.

The topic is not black and white, and when you try to shut down conversation the way you did, it's not helping anyone, children included.

Are you seriously trying to defend child pornography?

I am defending certain people convicted under child pornography laws, yes. I am also trying to engage in a serious discussion, ideas from which might reduce harm done to children, but you seem to have no interest in that.

Either way, you can strike "child pornography viewers" from my original comment and replace it with "prostitutes", "on-line gamblers", or any other person guilty of a moral crime. The point is that it's us vs. them because a large number of "us" are at risk of being targeted and incarcerated by "them". I have friends in jail for drug offenses, and it's very possible a lead from an intelligence agency was instrumental in their arrest. My own apartment was raided not that long ago, and I can't help but wonder if it's due to some text messages sent back in my college days, so speak for yourself when you say that they're on "our side".

> and it's very possible a lead from an intelligence agency was instrumental in their arrest.

So you have no clue, do you?

The NSA is on your side when it comes to international threats. If you decide to break the law, and they find out about it, that's a different ball game.

Pro tip: don't break the law.

I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old and I can't abide by folks who are so bad at statistics that they'd happily ruin the world for fear of some statistical implausibility to become true in their lives.

I understand that you're taking this position with the best of intentions but 'child porn is bad' does not equate with 'a surveilance state is good because it gets rid of child porn or its viewers'.

Fear is such a bad counsel.

And I can't abide by folks who take pictures of children for the sake of their own sexual gratification. But at no time did I say a surveillance state was okay for this reason. Don't put words in my mouth.

I've always had this weird observation. What makes child porn different than a parent having photos of their naked child? Porn isn't just sex acts.

There are clear distinctions, yes, but this line can get extremely blurry real quick. I often wonder at what point a police state would get the wrong idea and arrest a parent for their own perfectly innocuous photos.

It just always fascinates me when morality can be subjective like this and completely up to individual interpretation.

the NSA does not have control.

How do you know? The Internet backbone was developed using US government funding. How do you know that the US government did not put backdoors there? It did in the case of the long-distance telephone network.

We can have our cake (terrorist monitoring) and eat it too (maintain individual privacy)

I agree that this could be done in theory; I'm not sure it can be done in practice.

I don't know in the epistemological sense, but there's just no reason to believe such a thing to be true.

Aside from the details that show the NSA having employees in companies install monitoring hardware worldwide? Or those that assist in providing data in return for some themselves?

None of that counts to you because "there's just no reason to believe such a thing." You are essentially saying you don't believe anything you may have read in the past few years counts as control.

What IS control then, other than the ability to control others, which the US/NSA has attempting to keep on top of since the shift in data traffic trends in the 1990s.

Did you just ask "What is control, other than the ability to control others"? Do you honestly not recognize the shell-game you're playing with that question?

You're responding to all of the things I said with tricks and games. You don't want to talk facts, so I don't want to talk with you. I'm done, unless you want to stop drawing conclusions and start painting a real picture.

Could you acknowledge how having control is indeed having control? These installations didn't just trip and fall into place.

There is also no reason to believe it's not true, no?

Correct. Just like there is also no reason not to believe in ghosts or magic or bigfoot or unicorns.

there's just no reason to believe such a thing to be true

No reason to believe what to be true? The US government's placing of backdoors in the long-distance telephone network is historical fact. That historical fact is a reason to believe that what the US government has done once, it could do again. It may not be a reason you want to accept, but it's still a reason.

The NSA can't stop you from visiting Hacker News. That's what control means, the ability to alter your behavior or the course of events. The NSA does not have the ability to do this.

So no, this is not historical fact.

That's what control means, the ability to alter your behavior or the course of events.

When it became public knowledge that the US government had backdoors in the long distance telephone network, that did alter people's behavior and the course of events. Similarly, the public knowledge that the NSA is spying on the Internet is altering people's behavior and the course of events.

I agree the NSA can't stop people from visiting HN, but they can certainly change the incentives faced by people using the Internet. Perhaps this doesn't meet your definition of the word "control", but you still seem to find it significant.

this is not historical fact

What isn't? Are you saying that you don't believe the US government put backdoors into the long distance telephone network? Or that you don't believe the NSA is spying on the Internet? Or are you just saying you don't care, because you can still visit HN? That doesn't change the historical fact; it just means you don't care about that particular historical fact.

Wrong kind of alter. You're talking about practical changes, but in no way was anyone forced to change their behavior. In this instance, 'alter' would be something the NSA did which literally changed an outcome. As in, block access to Hacker News, or redirect gmail.com to gmail.nsa.gov. The NSA does not have this power, nor has the US government ever done this.

So again no, it is not historical fact.

it is not historical fact.

What isn't? You're not saying the stuff I mentioned isn't historical fact; you're just saying that the historical fact doesn't meet your definition of "alter" or "control". Right?

If so, I'll be glad to adopt your definitions of terms for the purpose of this discussion. Then my question is: is "control" by your definition the appropriate threshold at which to be concerned? If so, why? If not, what is the appropriate threshold?

(If you're just objecting to the word "control" because Schneier used it, that's an argument about words, not about substance. Maybe Schneier should have used another word; but that doesn't change the substance of what he said.)

This is an argument about words, because words matter, dammit, and I refuse to pretend they don't.

The word used was control. The NSA does not control the Internet. The US has not commandeered the Internet - frankly, they've always had power over the Internet because it was invented and is still maintained in the US.

As for where concern begins, concern should never leave us. We should always be concerned. It is fundamentally different, however, to claim someone or something can monitor a thing vs. manipulate that thing. It is an entirely different scenario and set of conversations that get had when someone monitors something vs. when someone controls that something.

The US has not commandeered the Internet - frankly, they've always had power over the Internet because it was invented and is still maintained in the US.

So basically, the US hasn't "commandeered" the Internet because it didn't have to? It already has power over the Internet, so it didn't have to take any? I don't see how that in any way opposes the point Schneier was making in his article. He wasn't talking about "control" in the sense of the NSA dictating who can visit what website: he was talking about "commandeer" in the sense of the NSA being able to commandeer whatever information it wants, whenever it wants, from any provider of an Internet service.

Congress and the NSA believe it is both constitutional and acceptable to collect and store any data they can get their hands on. They supposedly draw a fuzzy line to exclude most Americans when searching the stored data, but storing the communications of Americans is blatantly unconstitutional and dangerous for our democracy. It just takes one bad actor with access to that information to control elections and entire lives.

The idea that there are "not-so-big tweaks" that could be made to these programs is false if preserving privacy and democracy matters to you.

> storing the communications of Americans is blatantly unconstitutional and dangerous for our democracy

Is it?

> The idea that there are "not-so-big tweaks" that could be made to these programs is false if preserving privacy and democracy matters to you.

So I'm either wrong or unamerican? Right.

No need to interpret ill will here. I clearly think you're wrong. The conditional there was to highlight the values I aim to protect that you likely share.

I was asking you to elaborate on why you think the storing of some of the communications of some Americans is a) blatantly unconstitutional and b) dangerous for our democracy. I'm also asking you why you think anyone who believes there are small changes we can make for the better is unamerican, or as you put it, "preserving privacy and democracy matters to you"?

A plain reading of the Fourth Amendment clearly prohibits this sort of mass surveillance. Constitutional arguments tend to degenerate into semantic ones, so let's ignore that argument for now.

The threat to privacy and democracy is that anyone with access to this data can blackmail anyone. The NSA is storing as much data as possible for as long as possible. This means they have the communications (metadata or otherwise) of every potential politician, and thus the ability to blackmail them to distort their decisions. We're told that there are safeguards in place to prevent such abuse, but those safeguards are secret, and I can't imagine any safeguards being foolproof. The best safeguard to protect our democracy is to not allow such a system to be built.

True.

The "Us-vs-Them" rhetoric directly feeds our pack-animal drive for tribalism, from which nothing good ever emerged.

However, it does make for some amusing rabble-rousing.

Now that the rabble has been roused, so to speak, we need to move the debate onto a more mature phase:

1. We need to work out how to live our lives in a state of total surveillance - when our lives are transparent not only to the NSA but also to innumerable other state & non-state security services.

2. We need to work out how to maintain the balance of power between the individual and the state.

3. We need to work out how to maintain business & personal relationships in an era of total transparency.

4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.

>1. ... > 4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.

5. We need to become familiar with what are the functions of the new Fort Meade agencies, having to be recently created to supplement the NSA. The NARUS moniker goes "See Clearly, Act Quickly". NSA's `Unbounded Awareness' et al, gets repeated discussion day after day, this is brought about by Snowden's leaks. The `Intelligence Made Actionable' side of the scale has not even been `tin-foiled' yet.

It is believable McCain's poking Putin's eye is no idle threat, or even possibly Russia will be coerced into extraditing Snowden back to US by orchestrated `Action'. This new `Parallel Construction', Bruce's `NSA Creep' is all I've seen suggesting this `Act Quickly'. Who are these new unknown silent baddest alpha predators --without peer-- being fashioned to be released onto the unbounded wild, to take action, or manufacture outcomes whatever USG wants?

>> We can have our cake (terrorist monitoring) and eat it too (maintain individual privacy)

Until the definition of a "terrorist" grows to include people who engage in activities previously considered harmless and private.

So we're ready to convict the government of thought-crimes?

Just because they can, doesn't mean they will. Gun owners could all go out and harm innocent people, but they generally don't, do they?

At least we don't convict them before they do.

Gun owners typically shouldn't get to decide who is innocent and who is not. They're not judge, jury and executioner.

So whenever they do hurt someone it's a case for an actual judge to figure out what happened and if we class it as self defence or not.

Gun owners harm innocent people more often than not.

Does the US government prosecute people for potential murder, simply because they have the means to commit this murder?

Whoa, slow down there - where do I mention convicting the government of thought-crimes? My point is that granting the federal government powers (because, under the constitution, they have no power that isn't explicitly granted to them) under the umbrella of counter-terrorism initiatives is inevitably going to expand in scope and usage, and will still be labelled as "counter-terrorism".

Where do you mention convicting the government of thought-crimes? In the very next sentence! You are not capable of predicting the future, you don't know what is going to happen if we grant the federal government additional powers.

Except for the fact that the NSA already cited the PATRIOT Act to justify PRISM, and law enforcement agencies have already used vaguely worded wire tapping legislation to prosecute unrelated things like video taping the police. Emphasis on past tense. Kill the hyperbole, dude. I'm arguing against granting additional powers to the government or looking the other way on abuse of existing powers. Where you see "convicting the government of thought crimes" in that is beyond me.

Where have I been hyperbolic? Show me literally one instance in our conversation where I've been hyperbolic, please.

What I'm asking is why you insist on assuming the US government is going to abuse all of the power it has. If that were true, wouldn't the US military be in charge? The idea that the US is absolutely and irrevocably corrupt is demonstrably false, and frankly I'm getting sick of the insinuation.

I don't "insist on assuming the US government is going to abuse all of the power it has", and I haven't stated that "the US is absolutely and irrevocably corrupt" - so there's your hyperbole. I suggested that in the government, as in any political organizations, scopes tend to expand. I've pointed out several examples of this, including an example in the very issue we're discussing. You also equated this with "convicting the government of thought crimes" - and I still have no idea how you made that hyperbolic connection. You're obviously incredibly upset about this so let's just drop it. It doesn't even seem like we're speaking the same language because I have no idea where you're getting these ideas about what I've said.

Keith Alexander believes that terrorists live amongst us, trying to implement Sharia and create a Caliphate. To fight this, he needs to "Collect it all".

It's just as important to understand his motivation as it is to understand ours, and assess the reasonableness of each in comparison to the other, comparing our current situation to others in history that were similar, and the result they had.

Alexander actually sounds like J. Edgar Hoover in that regard, which is pretty disturbing.

Firstly, does he seriously believe that, or are you just demonizing him because it'll get you agreement? If he said something to that effect, that's concerning, but if he hasn't, can we stick to things which have actually happened?

And secondly, is not the motivation to stop terrorists in the US from harming US citizens a noble goal, in theory? Now granted, we shouldn't have to sacrifice our privacy to get that done, but it's not like Keith Alexander is trying to harm the US. He wants to help, and depending on who you ask, may be misguided, on the money, or completely wrong in how he plans to help.

It'd be more useful to correct than to abolish, because abolishment of the NSA and it's surveillance programs is never, ever going to happen, nor should it. ZERO surveillance (this might be arguable, I suppose) results in US citizens dead on US soil. Unacceptable.

Very few movers and shakers in the history of the world are intrinsically 'evil' in their own judgement. Whether Alexander is purposefully trying to harm the US or not is immaterial.

Agree with you on the charicterization going on here, its one thing to feel his motivations are a given way, another to imply he has public made statements indicating this to be fact.

I don't much care what Alexander judges himself to be, I'm talking about his actions and motivations for those actions. He's not trying to destroy the US, he's trying to keep it safe. He is possibly misguided or flat out wrong about how to do that, but it's not as if he's actively working to harm US citizens, as many people here would claim.

Why do you keep stating such things as "he's trying to keep it safe" or "NSA is trying to help the citizens of the US."

Do you have information on this or do you keep on stating your opinion as fact?

Do I really need to show you the NSA's charter?

http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/Key_escrow/Clipper/nsa.charter

I'm not interested in getting into an emotional mud-slinging contest with you.

Source?

Black Hat Conference, a week and a half ago:

"Terrorists driven by a desire to 'create a caliphate' of sharia law in the middle east continued to plot attacks. 'Terrorists live among us,' he said"

GP conflates these statements to imply that those among us want to create Sharia or whatever among us, but Alexander did say the words.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-keith-alexa...

Thanks Rhizome.

I'd like to add,

The Gulf States are already under Sharia, and have been since their founding almost a century ago. The Taliban copied Saudi Arabia, even using the exact same names for bureaucracies. [2] Relations with them were excellent before 9/11.

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Promotion_of_....

But, as Iraq showed, there's no need to understand elementary facts about their culture before you invade and engage in a massive social engineering project, or engage in an global, eternal, "war on terror".

there's no need to understand elementary facts about their culture before you invade

I can guarantee you that the people who directed the Iraq Wars knew full well the elementary facts about their culture before invading and engaging in a (partially) global war on terror. They know that you can't win a war against a technique, and they know that going to war in these areas attracts terrorists who want to fight against you. The only question was where the game board was going to be placed, and that question was answered over 20 years ago.

It was only in the portrayal to the taxpayer and the invaded that these were left as unknowns.

Was that statement paired with a declaration of needing to "collect it all"? It seems more like we're stretching to fit a nefarious plot on top of what started as a largely benign effort and has since expanded into a system that has been abused in the past and could be abused to great effect in the future.

Well, no, since the government has taken pains to say that they don't "collect it all." For instance, spam email. What they have done is say they need to collect what they think they need to collect. As the leaks have illustrated, this can indeed be expanded to "it all" if they want it.

He believes that Islamist terrorists are trying to institute Sharia law and establish a Caliphate in the Middle East, and that terrorists live among us, and he's absolutely correct.

You are wrong to suggest that he believes that there is an imminent threat to American government itself from Islamists living in the USA. Some people do believe this, but he is not one of them, based on his own words.

> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side.

Like hell it is. The NSA is part of the US Government, which is on its own side, and is only on "our side" to the degree that it depends on us for tax revenue and political legitimacy.

And that's if you're from the USA. If you are not then the NSA isn't on your side, period.

The US government is on the same side as the US citizenry. I realize how unpopular that statement is on this website, but it's demonstrably true in hundreds of thousands, millions, of examples.

Once you have information, you have control. We now have given them control, by behaving differently, because we now know they have our information.

Its the same thing with implied political blackmail. Politicians know the NSA has all their data, so best not annoy the NSA.

Maybe the adversarial approach is needed to make the point. His post is a communication to an audience that, I suspect, will be more likely to respond if words are chosen with that audience in mind.

> That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done.

I agree. I've actually been having trouble deciding whether or not this us vs them mentality has been deliberately cultivated by people who don't want things to get better or not. It would not surprise me to be told that there's an NSA program intended to do that; after all, the FBI sent in undercover cops to suspected terrorist groups who ended up being overzealous, so it's not like such false flagging is unknown.

"No one has "control" over the Internet."

Aside from the people who control the hardware, and the NSA/others seem to have control over those people, getting them to install monitoring hardware.

"I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric"

I am able to be prosecuted for creating "hacking tools" while Endgame Systems has the NSA pay them a million+ a year to access data from those "hacking tools."

'There are even target packs for democratic countries in Europe and other U.S. allies. Maui (product names tend toward alluring warm-weather locales) is a package of 25 zero-day exploits that runs clients $2.5 million a year. The Cayman botnet-analytics package gets you access to a database of Internet addresses, organization names, and worm types for hundreds of millions of infected computers, and costs $1.5 million.[1]'

In this environment of immunity granted to profiteers while my friends and I are prosecuted, it is "us vs. them."

Stop attempting to blow out meaningless opinions like "The NSA is on our side" in response to articles showing the opposite.

[1] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems

wiki.echelon2.org, huh?

The US military uses weapons citizens are not allowed to own or create on a regular basis. Is Lockheed Martin or Boeing not on our side because they make fighter jets that only the US government can buy?

It's only "us vs. them" in your head. You're why we can't get jack shit done in congress - people like you get time of day from congressmen and women and then when someone like me wants to talk the same conversation (except, you know, rationally), I get lumped in with crazies like you.

"You're why we can't get jack shit done in congress - people like you.."

Well you turned rather insulting.

You're uninterested in a dialog, so I'm uninterested in being nice.

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