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Comment by sillysaurus2 | Hacker News Reader

Why? Because the government doesn't deserve to have any secret programs whatsoever? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Even if leaking XKeyscore and PRISM was morally justified, leaking the intelligence budget or leaking other programs is probably unwise. Remember that when we talk about leaking, we're talking about weakening the American government. We should at least think about the implications.

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I imagine these arguments usually come from a perspective that the US should be as weak as it would be with all its cards on the table; possibly coupled with the idea that if we're spending $500b/yr on defense, going down a few rungs on the power ladder still leaves us above everyone else. It's a very populist idea--that we can trade tactical power (the kind you get from having secrets) for strategic power (the kind you get, supposedly, by having the average voter participating in the decision-making process.) Let alone that the military isn't under congress...

>weakening the American government.

There are some who believe that wasting incredible resources on military / defense is actually weakening the country in light of the fact that we have no superpower enemy with even the remote potential to match our military. This leaves us vulnerable to other novel attacks, as well as just spending ourselves into oblivion. You know, the same way we 'overcame' the USSR's military threat via the arms race when their economy could not match the pace of ours.

Yes, the US gov't should be weakened by any account; given the degree which it has overstepped its stated bounds.

Leaking the intelligence budget was probably the most justified leak. Even if you want a geopolitically strong American government, the intelligence budget tells the public how much effort the USG puts into covert programs. So without it you can not have a meaningful debate about the size of the intelligence agencies. But on the other hand, I do not believe that other agencies can infer much from it, since everybody already knows that there is a quite big budget. So even in a real politics interpretation, the budget tells other intelligence agencies, how nice the chess board is, not what strategy is played.

The American government is collecting as much data about as many humans as it can, which I find morally repugnant. I support efforts to make that more difficult, even if it weakens the American government.

Government strength is relative. Weakening the American government is equivalent to strengthening other Governments. Would you mind telling us which ones you prefer and why they are morally superior?

Weakening the American government is equivalent to strengthening other Governments.

No, building petabyte-scale data centers to spy on you and me is what's weakening the American government. We're not the problem, right?

The NSA is like the drunk who looks for his lost keys under the lamppost, "because that's where the light is." Not only does the American government's idea of a hypersecure state not make us any more free, there's vanishingly little evidence that it accomplishes its purpose of making us any more secure.

The lack of evidence isn't surprising given that they are a spy agency. They may not be protecting the US from terrorism, but there are major geopolitical adversaries at work who have no scruples about using cyberwarfare techniques. There is something akin to the Cold War in play, and the NSA is a significant part of the US's position in that war.

Sorry, 1% of America's GDP is too much to pay for a suit-and-tie version of Anonymous.

How do you know?

We could take a 9/11 in the shorts every year, for what we spend on the tiger-proof rocks sold by the Intelligence Community.

That sounds like a fair trade considering the cost in human lives... except that there's no evidence we're "trading" anything but our own treasure and freedom.

Several wise men have pointed out the potential foolishness of trading liberty for the pursuit of security. It's not that other countries are morally superior. It's that the government is committing morally dubious acts in my name, and I object.

http://youtu.be/ZmwRgTSqT9U

Except no - do you really think that prism and the budgets are really secret? Give some credit to the US adversaries.

I suppose that Snowden leaks were not a great surprise to the foreign governments.

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