[anoncoward778]

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly does the NSA do? Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen. Just a random venting from a pissed of copper-top battery.

[jMyles]

> Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen.

But was there ever any indication to the contrary? How did we as Americans convert to the myth that our government, let alone our "intelligence" agencies, have any inclination to protect us or advance our interests? That has never been their practice ever.

Our government spent the better part of a century not only allowing 3.5 million of us to live in slavery, but actively facilitating and promoting it. Even after it finally put an end to this practice de jurie, it immediately allowed us to be enslaved as "prisoners", and today 2 million of us are in that situation.

I don't mean to bring up such generic anarchism here, but I think it's sharply relevant when considering questions like, "why do the CIA and NSA behave the way they do?" They were created and charged to do it. It's their job. We can debate about how best to end that job, but I really don't think it's reasonable to suggest that they ever had some high-minded democratic purpose.

[DSingularity]

I believe they behave the way they do because this is their strategy by design. I feel that during the Cold War strategists realized that being a democracy is a vulnerability. Were the soviets actually willing to go there and exploit it by manipulating the American public? Who knows. But that’s not how military strategy is created.

[stickdogg]

The Russians and Chinese manipulate the American public every day all day. Not to mention the Americans and Western Europeans with money and influence whose interests align with theirs. How do you think we ended up with president chump?

[jrochkind1]

And likewise, the Americans do their best to manipulate the public of dozens of other countries, daily.

The shocking thing to Americans is they thought they were too powerful to ever be on the receiving end.

[amrx101]

This. After WW2 US has been doing adventures through illegal interventions in Asia and Latin America all with disastrous consequences. This is just Karma payback.

[prmths]

> The Russians and Chinese manipulate the American public every day all day

So does our media, government agencies, NGOs, Canada, Britain, Israel and many european nations. But lets scapegoat the russians and the chinese.

> How do you think we ended up with president chump?

Certainly not because of the chinese or europeans. The chinese and europeans wanted hillary to win.

Let me ask, did the chinese and russians get obama elected? I love how easily people are brainwashed by the media. They say something and the mindless just repeat it.

[Bizarro]

How do you think we ended up with president chump?

No. The alternative is a crook.

[jMyles]

...well, it's possible that that's part of the manipulation too.

[_khau]

And Trump isn't a crook? lol

[wavefunction]

It's not really an alternative if Trump is also a crook, which he is.

[mr_spothawk]

i dont think these problems started during the cold war.

much earlier... i think it began when the federal power began to chip away at the state power.

theres no vulnerability in having a friendly northern ally, no eastwest neighbors, and a subjugation economy to the south. the vulnerability is internal, to the thinkers and activists... so lets keep them chained by debt & chasing tail & feeling scared

[Tasboo]

"When the federal power began to chip away at state power"

This has been a thing since the Constitution was ratified.

[fulafel]

I think this is attributing too much agency to "government". Voters wanted slavery, and so public officials supported it. Voters wanted wars and a surveillance state after 9/11. Etc. (Same goes for the good things that the public sector does, of course)

Yes there is inertia and self-perpetuation, like in any organisations, but not overwhelmingly much.

[coldtea]

>I think this is attributing too much agency to "government". Voters wanted slavery, and so public officials supported it.

The voters vote what they're told to -- and they're told to by those in power who can pay for campaigns, have their pals in party positions, etc.

Plus, the voters get all kinds of stuff that benefit the powerful that they never explicitly asked or voted for, and that were never on any platform. Even whole wars can be promoted onto them...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/posters-sold-world-wa...

Besides, there were tons of dirt poor whites picking cotton in the South. And they had no slaves, the were closer to slaves themselves...

It's more poor vs rich, than white vs black. Even if poor whites were also racist, those plantations weren't owned by poor white folk either...

[fulafel]

Taking this view lets the voters off the hook too easily. Citizens often genuinely want things that are bad for a bunch of other people. Look at the immigration/refugee related polling for example. Or climate change inaction.

Sure the public opinion is affected by PR efforts, but people still possess facilities for critical thinking, and everyone knows to be critical about political claims rather than take them at face value.

[coldtea]

>Taking this view lets the voters off the hook too easily. Citizens often genuinely want things that are bad for a bunch of other people. Look at the immigration/refugee related polling for example. Or climate change inaction.

Voters might want lots of things, but do they get them though, when those things don't align with what those in power want?

[stickdogg]

The truth is that not "everyone" knows to be critical about political nonsense. Plus, most people I encounter in this state of PA have no idea what the term "critical thinking" implies; let alone deliberately practice it. PA is in the dark ages compared to Seattle. It's extremely sad to see.

[dsfyu404ed]

Hate to break it to you but critical thinking is just as lacking in progressive urban areas. Seattle, Boston, Denver, NYC, (let alone the valley) are chock full of idiots who do not think about how public policy impacts anyone but themselves. You just don't judge as critically when it's your people.

[mr_spothawk]

yah, but the Steelers! did u see that game last weekend?

/s

[chii]

> voters vote what they're told to

who's "they"?

[coldtea]

I think that the syntactic structure makes it pretty clear that "they" refers to the voters.

[chii]

i think i was unclear in what i meant - who are the people telling the voters what to do?

[stickdogg]

I know that's right.

[jMyles]

This seems like a differently-worded variant of "we get the government we vote for." But that conclusion has been convincingly rejected by sound political science for quite a while now.

The policy preferences of the voting constituency in any given national election are not strongly correlated to policy results. This is shown convincingly in Benjamin Ginsberg's book, "Do Elections Matter?" I strongly recommend this book - after reading it, you will never again try to explain away an act of government by attributing it to voter sentiment.

It is a difficult-to-deny fact that, in the USA, the government frequently and quietly advances policies which do not appear to be derived from any kind electoral mandate, nor are favored by a substantial portion of the electorate.

[visarga]

Government represents the interests of capital, not of ordinary people.

[haZard_OS]

I'm interested in the concept but do you have a suggestion for a book published more recently? "Do Elections Matter?" was published almost 30 years ago.

[tsbertalan]

Well, there's [1], but see also references in this Vox article, which hedges that somewhat: [2]

[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-... [2] https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

[fulafel]

It's not exactly the same idea. But of course I would be interested in hearing if the referenced book could explain away my observations of government/popular opinion alignment in the issues discussed. Random chance is of course one possibility.

[wallace_f]

I am not so sure about that. Did voters ever vote on the surveillance state? Wars like Iraq, Vietnam, etc, were created by lies that would not exist without this agency. The WMD lies and Gulf of Tonkin lies have been well documented in respectable news outlets, so it is not like these are at all conspiracy theories.

Yesterday was May 4th, the anniversary of when the agency in government murdered unarmed, peaceful war protestors at Kent State, then 11 days later bayonetted about a dozen peaceful war protestors at University of New Mexico.

These are not things free people compelled their government to do.

[fulafel]

I'm sure we both know that voters vote for representatives, not laws, so that question is not applicable. But in general, there has been popular support for things like "patriot act", and wars, as measured in polls.

[called_it]

There has also been even more support for the opposite, so that's just more sophistry.

[fulafel]

Iraq war and patrioct act both saw more support than opposition in polls, when they happened (law passed, invasion was started).

Wars did get less popular when they went badly, so you can argue that they would have been shorter if public officials would have retreated when polls turned against them. But that's a separate discussion.

[mr_spothawk]

polls are stated in such a way ... theyre part of the control

[nasredin]

Voters wanted Iraq War when they voted Bush in 2004.

I remember those "love it or leave it" years well.

[u801e]

> Voters wanted wars and a surveillance state after 9/11.

It could be argued that voters were manipulated towards that point of view.

[stickdogg]

Watch zeitgeist on YouTube and you can discover the true story of what occurred on 9/11.

[naasking]

> But was there ever any indication to the contrary? How did we as Americans convert to the myth that our government, let alone our "intelligence" agencies, have any inclination to protect us or advance our interests?

I don't think this is giving public servants enough credit. Politicians are a little more self-serving than those working in the agencies, so don't paint all public servants with the same brush. The problem is that what public servants believe is in the public interest just doesn't align with what you believe is in the public interest. There's always going to be a little give and take like this, and this evolution is what makes democratic societies effective.

That said, there can't be any given and take without oversight, and that's the real problem here. No doubt NSA employees believe what they're doing is important and effective, but is it really? That's a debate we simply can't have because of the secrecy, and public trust in these institutions has eroded sufficiently, possibly with good reason, that the public can't simply have faith in the NSA.

[ndesaulniers]

A "paperclip maximizer" of sorts?

[mk89]

If your comment is meant to be sarcastic, then I am failing to see it...

Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner? So you would let a rapist free or what?

[jMyles]

No no, I'm just pointing out that the 13th amendment to the Constitution didn't outlaw slavery entirely, but instead a clause literally beginning with the word "except" - can you imagine? "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except ..." It's candor and obfuscation at the very same time.

Here's the rest of the text:

"...as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

So now, today, we have more black men under the supervision of the "criminal justice system" (which, like the NSA, is not now and have never been truly tasked with achieving its formal goals) than were enslaved in 1860.

[damon_c]

One of the most ridiculous manifestations of this is at this prison called "Angola" in Louisiana which is literally built on a cotton field and has forced prisoners to pick cotton since around 1880.

https://mic.com/articles/88461/a-modern-day-slave-plantation...

edit: another link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiary

[jMyles]

Seriously man. Imagine for a moment that Germany still had capital punishment. And they decided to use the gas chamber to administer it. I think it's the same level of insensitivity at work with the US continuing Angola as a cotton plantation in the name of administering "criminal justice." Like, have we no shame at all? Do we not care at all about what we did and the spiritual consequences of allowing its imagine to continue?

Also: good to see you. :-)

[plouc]

That doesn't seem to be true at all: Wikipedia says there was around 4 million slaves in the 1860 census while the total number of incarcerated Americans in 2010 doesnt reach 2.5 millions.

[jMyles]

I didn't say total slaves vs. total prisoners - I said black men.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander...

edit: I can't imagine why I'm being downvoted here. My statement was utterly correct, and when challenged I cited a credible source. What'd I do wrong?!

[jknoepfler]

Although I tend to see most ultra-liberal conspiracy babble as nonsense, experience with my own psychology and observation of those around has led me to believe that white male fragility is a real thing. You're being downvoted because people on HN, who are by and large financially secure, well-educated technocrats (like myself!), feel like there's something deeply irritating about your post, whether or not it is statistically accurate.

I've had enough experience doing volunteer work with people trying to complete their GED in/after prison that - despite the fact that I despise ultra-left fresh-out-of-college political babble (it's so disconnected from reality and non-constructive that it's reasonable to squash it with the rest of the noise) - I do believe that there are deep structural injustices in American society, and we really don't have a coherent story for how to fix them.

That shift in attitude was born of experience that is not universally shared, though. Most people have their hobbies and their jobs and their families and their insecurities and their resentments, and they don't take kindly to strangers telling them that the American social structure that passively benefits them and makes their lifestyle possible is built in part on some very deep nastiness.

Which isn't to point fingers, or level blame, or shame anyone. Those are the rhetorical techniques of demagogues, and they have neither truth value nor do they tend to point society in a better direction. It's just to say that the psychological landscape is complicated.

[newman8r]

The article makes the claim for the year 1850, and your claim is for the year 1860. There were more slaves in 1860 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census) than in 1850 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census)

In 1860 there were 3,953,761 slaves counted in the census.

In 2016, if you count everyone under probation and parole in addition to those in jail and prison, the number is 6,613,500 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf)

If you assume 40% of them are black, like the article claims, the number comes out to 2,645,400. This is considerably less than the number of slaves in 1860, or 1850 for that matter.

If you have a source to back up your claim then you should post it. I'm actually curious what sources the author might have been using.

I don't think you're acting in bad faith, I think you just read that huffpost article and assumed it was correct. I just wanted to reply since you were curious about what you might have done wrong.

[joering2]

You didnt do nothing wrong. Welcome to 2018 hacker news! It hasnt been like this few years ago, now many times i start reading comments from the grayed out to regulars. And i upvoted all of your comments because they were right on the subject, informative, rich in facts and sources, and i genuinely learnt something new today.

[contourtrails]

They broke laws and are being punished as criminals. Many people of all races are punished in the same way.

I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed.

Also slavery was a human problem for thousands of years, it took humanity collectively waking up to the evils of slavery to abolish it. Human governments the world over supported the instition in the past, and now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past.

[mk89]

The concept of prison the way we intend it is relatively new (let's say a couple of hundred years). So I am not surprised to see that there are still some references to slavery here and there, because that was actually the punishment back then.

The reason we have more blacks than white in prison is for dozens reasons:

- legacy - cultural differences - social injustice

Etc.

Don't solve problems, ignore them, expect that people behave the way you want, wait until someone screws up here and here, let it escalate, ignore again and/or apply short term solutions, mix all this stuff, fast forward all of it, and you have the current situation.

Just be lucky to be on the right side and have good parents.

[jMyles]

I don't think a single iota of the prison disparity - not one - is attributable to "cultural differences". I also don't think that it is an accident. Drug prohibition was designed precisely - and initially sold expressly - as a way to control black and asian people, and later other people of color.

> Don't solve problems, ignore them, expect that people behave the way you want, wait until someone screws up here and here, let it escalate, ignore again and/or apply short term solutions, mix all this stuff, fast forward all of it, and you have the current situation.

I think that's pretty reasonable. That's pretty much the point I was trying to make about intelligence agencies as well.

[Clubber]

>initially sold expressly - as a way to control black and asian people, and later other people of color.

Hippies too; that's why Nixon choose to schedule pot.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...

[JasonFruit]

Got a good link on that? I'm learning some stuff today. Thanks for trading internet points for the chance to teach me.

[alistproducer2]

This should be downvoted to oblivion. The only folks I've ever heard say black people's (we're not "blacks" BTW, we are actually people) problems are attributable to our culture ate racist shitbags. In order to believe that black people have some intrinsic culture of self destruction one would have to believe that culture evolves in some sort of vacuum. This couldn't be further from the truth when talking about African Americans. Black people have never been left to our own devices in this country. The government itself encoded ways to fuck with us and or minds from the very inception of this nation.

Even after we were freed there was Jim crow and the peonage system (I'm sure you'll have to look that up). Even after Jim crow there was red lining.

You don't have to be a history major to know that what your said is beyond dumb. I seriously hope you put a little more thought into the things you believe going forward.

[basicplus2]

I had to look it up..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_economy

And in doing so I read this bit about "it may have had as much to do with spreading poverty around"

I presume that white people no longer having the black people to live off meant

A. white people had to do alot more work themselves, and

B. white people had to share much more of the available resources with black people

So that they actively participated in racism to keep more resources for themselves..

Is this a reasonable take on this?

This is the part from the Wikipedia cited above I am referring to..

"However, the African American struggle to earn economic parity, that had made progress during the first half century of the postbellum era, had largely been reversed during the second half. Legally, equality was assured, but that did little to actually promulgate equal conditions in daily life.

Some of the gains in the South's economic relation to the rest of the U.S. can be explained by population shifts to other regions; so, it may have had as much to do with spreading poverty around, as spreading wealth around."

[eloff]

There's a lot of people in prison for things that they shouldn't be, like marijuana possession. Especially blacks and latinos. The US jails about 10 times more people than other developed nations - there's something very wrong with that picture. In the land of the free you actually have the least amount of people actually living free...

[coldtea]

>Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner?

It means having 25% of the world's prison population but only 4% of the world's population.

It means being a prison state.

It means using BS reasons, like marijuana possession, to imprison a large part of your population.

It means predominantly giving long prison sentences for small offenses, just because of an "Old Testament" idea of revenge -- that is carried forward in the culture from the days of the nutty religious minorities that established the country.

It means having absurd legal constructs, like "3 strikes" laws.

It means exploiting prisoners for free labor, and having private prisons, and other such practices, and being the shame of the western world (and large part of the developing world) in this area.

It means people casually joking of people getting raped or attacked in your prisons.

It means still having the death penalty in 2018.

And other such things...

[s2g]

Prisoners are allowed to be slaves under the 13th amendment.

You don't have to free them to stop allowing slavery in prison.

[jMyles]

I suspect that if prisoners are meaningfully unenslaved (ie, enjoy basic rights to body, fair wages, etc) that the system will suddenly realize that drugs aren't so bad after all.

As I matter of legislative priority, however, I think it makes sense to work in the direction direction, ie, to work toward ending drug prohibition with an aim to making a substantial dent in what slavery remains in the USA.

[galazzah]

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

[blitmap]

I sincerely doubt the argument that dragnet surveillance has no effect. I wish as soon as the information could be de-classified the NSA would publish about attacks it stopped. Doing so can expose sources and methods used to collect the information, so not everything would become known - but it would certainly help to benefit the agency and its credibility in the eyes of the governed.

That said, I don't want to live in a country that looks over my shoulder as I grow and mature my reasoning about the world. We need the ability to formulate our own opinions without feeling watched (because this leads to self-censorship!). Discourse is necessary for society to evolve. We wouldn't have things like interracial marriage without people taking unpopular ideas to market.

I just wish we could see the full benefits of both sides in this argument.

[dpwm]

> I sincerely doubt the argument that dragnet surveillance has no effect.

It almost certainly does. Whilst congress makes some pretty ludicrously predictably bad decisions, there must be some reports of the NSA's effectiveness. It's just whom it benefits that's in doubt. Let's face it: the number of homicides in general absolutely dwarf the maximum potential of terrorist attacks without NSA intervention.

I would argue the purpose of the NSA as a system is what it does, not what it is claimed it does. It seems extremely unlikely to me that the NSA is even remotely about preventing terrorist attacks. With a more complete understanding of the state and its origins, it seems far more likely that the NSA is about protecting the state than the people. If it is protecting people, it is the people the state is there to protect.

I live in the UK where we get some limited news about attacks stopped by dragnet surveillance. We also have a culture where many are supportive of the security services no matter what they are doing and anybody who challenges this must be a terrorist or more recently a russian bot. Many of the cases that have been stopped seem incredibly unlikely to have yielded a viable attack. State press releases here are almost Verhoeven-esque propaganda, but in this case I really can't see what they stand gain by downplaying the allegedly plotted attacks the security services allegedly thwarted. Plus we will never know how many of these attacks were constructed by the state by means of entrapment.

If the NSA is not about preventing terrorism and never was, what is it about? Let's look at what it does: it surveils people and receives and shares information with other countries agencies. We know it attempts to render as much information transparent as it can, exploiting defective cryptosystems. Viewed from the perspective that it is a defence force for the state, it is effectively military. If you really believe the military is to protect you, and not the state, you've obviously never given much thought to the perversity of conscription.

[naasking]

> I live in the UK where we get some limited news about attacks stopped by dragnet surveillance.

But there's no way to verify this, correct? Like, they could have used human intelligence and simply reported that dragnet surveillance was the source.

[mirimir]

> With a more complete understanding of the state and its origins, it seems far more likely that the NSA is about protecting the state than the people. If it is protecting people, it is the people the state is there to protect.

Yes, indeed.

[mr_spothawk]

i self censor because of dragnet surveillance

[pfortuny]

Looking at the benefits is the wrong way to solve a problem because it prioritizes the wrong thing: ends become an excuse for bad means.

[blitmap]

I do agree that the negatives of dragnet surveillance disproportionately harms society - much greater than the net-positives. I just don't feel like we have enough transparency to correctly scale that bar graph.

[stickdogg]

How much more transparency do you desire? Personally I don't need any chart or measuring stick to show me what's dangerous.

[blitmap]

I fully believe dragnet surveillance is dangerous. My point is, I can't just say "Dragnet surveillance is dangerous." A well-formed argument has citations and metrics and something to show relative scale. The people pushing for dragnet surveillance (those people in positions of authority) feel like they're keeping us safe and doing what needs to be done - and that we just don't understand. We need to KNOW exactly how much surveillance harms us - we cannot argue with blanket statements.

[jrochkind1]

// A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.

“It was, ‘Huh, hello? What are we doing here?’” said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, in an interview with NBC News. “The results were very thin.” //

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nsa-program-stopped-no-te...

"U.S. Mass Surveillance Has No Record Of Thwarting Large Terror Attacks, Regardless Of Snowden Leaks"

https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-ha...

[mirimir]

> What exactly does the NSA do?

It's a military signals-intelligence organization.

> Whom are they protecting?

It's hardly monolithic. Imagine Catch 22 on steroids. Likely each power center is primarily protecting itself, and its funding. Overall, they're protecting the military-industrial complex. The 1%. The powers that be.

Edit: Whoever pays the bills.

[stickdogg]

Good breakdown.

[moat]

I don’t like the data collection either, but it’s impossible to know the untold disasters that it may or may not have prevented.

“Assume that a legislator with courage, influence, intellect, vision, and perseverance manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect and employment on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high costs to the struggling airlines)-just in case terrorists decide to use planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. I know this is lunacy, but it is just a thought experiment... The legislation is not a popular measure among the airline personnel, as it complicates their lives. But it would certainly have prevented 9/11.

The person who imposed locks on cockpit doors gets no statues in public squares, not so much as a quick mention of his contribution in his obituary. "Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease." Seeing how superfluous his measure was, and how it squandered resources, the public, with great help from airline pilots, might well boot him out of office.”

-Quote from Taleb

[joering2]

> I don’t like the data collection either, but it’s impossible to know the untold disasters that it may or may not have prevented.

This is probably the most irresponsible and reckless statement a citizen of free of oppresion country can say.

Follow me here; taking your reasoning further here is my honest statement: i can bet my chopped off head that if we would have installed cameras and microphones in every single room in every single american househould, we would have avoid “intold disasters” that i can guarantee you, including but not limited to: burglaries, kidnappings, abductions, ilegal arms/drugs dealings, prostitutions, child trafficking and domestic abuse. At least! I really guarantee you that! Push the switch and count saved lives in tens of thausands!

I would rather live without my head than in such military orwellian state! Those who want temporary safety by giving away freedom.. so did one smart man said.

[wu-ikkyu]

>it’s impossible to know the untold disasters that it may or may not have prevented.

We do know, however, the type of disasters that mass data collection has created in the past.

IBM's mass data processing technology was crucial to the operational efficiency of the Holocaust.

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

[willstrafach]

It is not impossible to know, at least partially. The Intercept has been publishing batches of their internal newsletters which includes examples of success stories.

[chocolatebunny]

Your message sounds kind of ominous but I'd like to point out hanlon's razor. The NSA sounds like another public sector organization that just tries to spend us much money as it can to justify itself getting so much money. The problem is when people with access to that information try to use it for their own personal gain, or when they use this information against anyone who speaks out against the NSA's ridiculous budget because they think that anyone who speaks out against the NSA obviously is a threat to National Security.

Both those things might have happened already.

[chrischen]

I think it’s much simpler. They’re just trying to do their job and make it easier. A bigger budget is the means.

[e12e]

You might want to review William Binney's Hope9 talk:

https://archive.org/details/Hope9KeynoteByWilliamBinney

Or:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FOFtQ6n3WR4

[aflagatopamoon]

You need a brutish thug in your tribe/gang/Pantheon which you can count on to do dirty jobs. That's why the connection between organized crime and intelligence agencies has always been solid.

Too much oversight/rule-pushing muzzles the potential of these guard dogs to act or intimidate. If you don't have these thugs in your gang, then other gangs that include them can take advantage of you. They are protecting the interests of the Gang-leader. They are not there to help old ladies cross the WWW. They are there to wiretap entire countries to capture contract fraud before it can damage the US economy (which impacts the average citizen). They capture gang infiltrators before they can do too much damage to the defensive and offensive capabilities of the gang. They make infrastructure to annihilate the communication capabilities of other gangs, should this need arise.

A gang without rule-skirting all-seeing thugs, Tricksters, and Peeping Toms will not stay on top.

[rhizome]

Seeing the world in terms of who is "on top" is a big part of the problem.

[stickdogg]

That said. It is the way the world has always operated. Until one can separate themself from their ego, they will continue to be run by their ego.

[rhizome]

As a matter of fact, the world has not "always operated" on Freudian terms, and my understanding is that those terms are essentially the COBOL of psychology by now anyway.

[Chriky]

> That's why the connection between organized crime and intelligence agencies has always been solid.

What do you mean by this?

[BigChiefSmokem]

It was created to work on code-breaking during World War II and then formalized by Harry Truman as an official agency.

It was made to serve the military and in turn the American people but over time their mission has been perverted for the sake of security theater.

[JustSomeNobody]

> And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US.

The "War on Terror!"[0] is yet another way to funnel money to rich corporations. It is a money making machine and that's really all it is. More people die from choking in the U.S. each year than died from terrorism in at least the past 5 years. And yet, we've spent 100's of billions. The NSA is just a piece of that machine.

[0] I know you were being more general in your comment, I'm just pointing out a single reason.

[mc32]

And not only agency vs civilians but apparently the agency vs politicians in all areas of govt.

[contourtrails]

>"What does the NSA so? Who are they protecting?

You're comitting a logical fallacy. You think just because bad things sometimes do happen to US citizens that the NSA clearly isn't doing anything....

Clearly faulty logic. I'm glad the NSA exists because there are bad actors out there and we need informed law enforcement to protect us.

[jstanley]

You're committing exactly the same logical fallacy.

You think just because it sometimes helps against bad actors that the NSA is a net force for good.

[ataturk]

You're not the only one. What hurts the most for me is that I wrote my doctoral thesis on privacy back in 2003 and I touched on a number of these issues. 9/11 ruined my career, though. After 9/11, nobody wanted privacy or to even talk about privacy. I knew all this was going to happen. David Brin knew all this was going to happen, and so did a lot of other writers and pundits. And here we sit now, wondering what to do now that we have empowered a monster that without much more work is going to get us all killed.

[ModernMech]

> After 9/11, nobody wanted privacy or to even talk about privacy.

Yup! And not only did the NSA turn into a monster, but so did the TSA (or more aptly, that monster was created), the biggest theatre troupe on the planet, because that's all it is.

The most eye opening thing happened just recently to cement this in my mind. After the Superbowl parade in Philadelphia this year, I caught a ride from PHL to SFO. Basically everyone else in the world was leaving the same time as me, so there were lines stretched around the airport to get through security. The line for my terminal began in the parking structure.

So you know what they did? Of course you do. They relaxed all the rules and let everyone through metal detectors. Shoes on. Belts on. Liquids? Bring em through. Laptops and tablets, leave them in your bags. That giant invasive scanning machine? What do we have that for anyway? Step on through the metal detector, I don't have time to grope you today. It was the most fun I've had in an airport since 2001.

So let me get this straight. For years, I've been disrobing in public and subjecting myself to groping on the off-chance that someone might have a bomb tucked under their scrotum, yet on the BUSIEST DAY EVER it's okay to throw all those security protocols out the window.... why??

But no one questioned it then, in 2001 and the years thereafter, and no one is questioning it now.

Oh, and for anyone who's wondering, after processing a record number of passengers for that airport with absolutely no security screening, a total of zero (0) airlines were taken down that day.

[21]

> So let me get this straight. For years, I've been disrobing in public and subjecting myself to groping on the off-chance that someone might have a bomb tucked under their scrotum, yet on the BUSIEST DAY EVER it's okay to throw all those security protocols out the window.... why??

I get your point, but you are making a logical mistake here.

If a building shuts down it's fire warning systems and blocks the fire exits for a week because of some construction work, that doesn't mean that they should just be removed because obviously they are not needed.

[krapp]

>If a building shuts down it's fire warning systems and blocks the fire exits for a week because of some construction work, that doesn't mean that they should just be removed because obviously they are not needed.

Do fire alarms have a 95% failure rate? Because the TSA does.

[4ad]

Going on a tangent here...

I don't know the failure rate of building file alarms, but the damn ceiling alarms seem to have a failure rate of 99.99%. We don't use those in Europe, and every time I travel to the US I get frustrated beyond belief how they scream at me every time I cook or take a shower.

[orf]

We use them in the UK, but they are sensitive to only smoke particles in the air and not heat.

[ModernMech]

I don't think it's quite the same as your analogy.

The reason we have to go through scanners and take off our shoes and get groped is because once upon a time, some bad actors got through security with contraband. We then decided we just had to spend millions upon millions of dollars, train thousands of people, and inconvenience and embarrass millions of passengers because if we didn't, more bad actors would get through with said contraband using the same methods.

So we closed a security hole. Except that same security hold is opened up again if enough travelers inundate the airport. Not just one security hole, but almost all of them. The entire purpose of the TSA. Conclusion - if you want to get contraband through security, just wait for the right day and the TSA will let you walk right through.

[komali2]

Arguably, the longer lines created a greater security risk, as we have learned in the middle east time and time again.

Lines are great targets.

[taurath]

People question the TSA all the time. No politician wants to touch it for fear of being “responsible” for an attack.

[c22]

Were there dogs running up and down the lines? [0] This happened to me during the holidays and I, too, was surprised until I looked it up.

[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/21/tsa-dog-teams...

[joering2]

I'm surprised it took you all the way till the Superbowl.

I recall one of my first times through high security seeing a guy with lunch box getting thru next to metal detector. I quickly called TSA officer and told them there was a man going thru with a box. "Oh that's fine that's one of us". That was the whole reasoning; because some dude you don't even know his last name is "working for the agency" it means he is saint and would never harm the country. It blew my mind that day! That day I realized its all a carnival ponies show and another way to take away more tax payers funds.

[ModernMech]

> I'm surprised it took you all the way till the Superbowl.

Heh, yeah. I mean, I've been skeptical and critical of the TSA for a long time, but that event just seems like an very blatant admission from the TSA themselves that their entire existence is to act as a stone in water, diverting the flow but ultimately not blocking anything.

[make3]

Facebook is reviving your career

[21]

For a second I thought you were talking about Google. Food for thought.

[aje403]

Thankfully, I’m not sure if this remains the case, I’ve read NSA salaries cap out around $150k for devs, so they might not have anybody competent enough to do anything with the data. I consider this a valid hypothesis

[sahil-kang]

I don’t know if that salary cap is true, but these agencies have the option of hiring well-paid contractors from private firms.

[twothamendment]

There is always someone willing to do a job, but that is one where it doesn't matter how much they want to pay me. No thanks, I don't want to know what goes on if I can't talk about it.

[aje403]

There is, but if that person is doing the job and enough people say to them "hey I like your resume please let me double your salary" then the company isn't going to have great retention

[lern_too_spel]

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]).

According to all the documents published so far, the NSA does none of these except monitoring public social media posts.

[bonestamp2]

You're right, although anecdotally speaking... every time I've turned on my Samsung TV for the past 10 months, it lists the USB port as the most recently used source on my TV. It never did this before.

That is extra strange since I've never used the USB port on my TV, and the TV has been installed rather high on a wall behind my desk since the day it arrived so it would be nearly impossible for my wife or small children to get at the USB port, let alone plug in a valid source... unless it was being used as an exploit by some software in the TV.

I'm not suggesting that is what is happening, however, it is suspicious as hell.

[dabber]

>According to all the documents published so far, the NSA does none of these except monitoring public social media posts.

From the first paragraph of the article linked here:

>The U.S. National Security Agency collected 534 million records of phone calls and text messages of Americans last year, more than triple gathered in 2016, a U.S. intelligence agency report released on Friday said.

[lern_too_spel]

That doesn't support any of GGP's statements now, does it? They merely collected the call times and numbers of a tiny fraction of the "billions" of calls placed per day in the US.