[geuis]

I obviously can't guess your age, but I'm gonna wager you weren't around much prior to 9/11. The world was getting on quite well without massive surveillance creep, and none of the stuff FISA has done in the last 23 years would have stopped it. The authorities already had all the info they needed back then and just didn't act on it.

[borkt]

FISA has been in existence since 1978. It did not prevent 9/11, so honestly your comment undersells how worthless the program has been in light of the constitutional freedoms we willingly cede in reauthorizing it. The fact is though it remains law and the officials we elected feel the value is worth it. I hope its being done solely based on the benefits it provides us as a whole and is not being used for self-serving purposes

[soraminazuki]

Even humanitarian groups such as the UNICEF were targets, there's no doubt now what the program is about

[tastyfreeze]

> used for self-serving purposes

That is inevitable. If there is an easier path to a goal some human will use it. It doesn't matter if the goal is against the people.

[AmVess]

These laws aren't about protecting America and its citizens, but rather as means to control them.

[mdhb]

People just toss comments like this around as though they were facts when in fact it’s completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense.

These laws work a very specific way and have very specific controls in place to prevent shit like you describe from happening which you could go and read up on if you wanted to but it’s much easier to fear monger amongst one another because it plays to your ego that somebody who is important enough to be under surveillance by an intelligence agency.

[somenameforme]

You could easily look at things like the Snowden leaks to see how well such controls end up working out. My favorite was NSA agents collecting and sharing sexual content. [1] The reason that's my favorite is not because it's the most extreme example of abuse - it's not, not by a longshot. The reason is that it really demonstrates that 'government' isn't some abstract or holistic entity. It's just a group of people, like you and I -- with the exact same vices, egos, weaknesses, and so on.

And of course this applies not only to the NSA spooks, but all the way up. You shouldn't be any more comfortable letting 'the government' spy on you, than you would be letting me spy on you. If you want another example along the same lines, spooks spying on their love interests is so common that there's a slang term for it - LOVEINT [2]. Basically, don't grant people power over other people unless it's really just completely and absolutely necessary, because it will be abused. So the benefit needs to substantially outweigh the inevitable abuses. And in this case, that obviously doesn't hold.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/us/politics/edward-snowde...

[2] - https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/loveint-how-nsa-spies-s...

[soraminazuki]

"Completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense" from the New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, Associated Press, and many others? I think not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world/middleeast/book-rev...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/20/gchq-targete...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/24...

https://apnews.com/article/b25197d5b11740b2b29681bbc521a45f

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/fbi-misused-fore...

[xanthor]

https://apnews.com/article/fisa-foreign-surveillance-fbi-3f7...

One does not have to be “important enough” if they are conducting mass surveillance and storing it in a database indefinitely.

[mdhb]

How things work in your mind and how they work in the real world are very very different things in this instance.

[xanthor]

What are the massive NSA datacenters for in the very very real world?

[AnthonyMouse]

It's a secret court making secret law. This is, by definition, both unaccountable and impossible to conclude is not being used to cover up massive abuse, because whatever is happening is being concealed from the voters.

[squarefoot]

> completely paranoid made up q-anon level nonsense.

For what is worth, I'm quite left leaning and fully agree with the parent poster. Information is power, no matter which party or in which country.

[unethical_ban]

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

2008.

[Retric]

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA)

https://bja.ojp.gov/program/it/privacy-civil-liberties/autho...

[unethical_ban]

And the components of the program being discussed are from the 2008 amendment.

[Retric]

People dislike parts of the original 1978 bill that contunued.

I take issue with this bit: FISA also established the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a special U.S. Federal court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing search warrants under FISA. Proceedings before the FISC are ex parte, meaning the government is the only party present.

When combined by foreign agents including US citizens, it’s troubling.

[soraminazuki]

Agree with the sentiment, but spying capabilities have been abused before FISA, just ask Martin Luther King Jr. So I don't think things were particularly fine before 9/11 either. It's just that technological advancements have made abuse on a mass scale possible for the first time in human history. AFAICT surveillance used to be much more targeted and labor intensive. That all changed after 9/11.

[e40]

I didn't downvote you, btw (I upvoted you). I think MLK Jr's problems with the government weren't traditional spying, they were more harassment of government employees acting on their own because they were bigots. The organized government actions that did happen, IIRC, were in places were the local government was highly corrupt and infiltrated by the KKK.

[int_19h]

COINTELPRO?

[jiggawatts]

“Apart from the widespread abuse of government power, there was no abuse.”

[verdverm]

I watched 9/11 live from my dorm

Maybe don't jump to biases so fast, people within all age groups have different opinions about the same topics.

HN is very opinionated on surveillance, as the comments on this story reinforce

[geuis]

Doesn't really matter, but I was 21 when it happened. I suspect we're basically the same age.

[chiefalchemist]

What do you mean by opinionated on surveillance? When did the Constitution become an opinion?