[arkem]

The National Security Agency is a cryptolgic agency tasked with gathering foreign signals intelligence and providing information assurance services to the United States Government (especially the military).

The Ministry for State Security was a secret police / intelligence service tasked with a broad range of powers focused in keeping the party strong as evidenced by their motto "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Sword and shield of the Party). They were primarily responsible for internal surveillance of people that were deemed enemies of the party and the personal protection of party leaders.

It's pretty clear that a catch all secret police / security intelligence agency is different to a foreign signals intelligence agency.

[straight_talk]

Isn't it obvious that the official task of a totalitarian agency can be different from the actual job it's doing??

[arkem]

I am comparing the official missions of the Stasi and NSA which are significantly different.

If your argument is that the NSA is not acting in accordance to its mission, or that abuses are taking place, or that the NSA is acting like the Stasi that's something else entirely, completely separate to what I'm discussing.

I'm pointing out that these are different agencies with different roles and responsibilities, and trying to draw parallels between an NSA data center and a Stasi archive is not really useful.

[straight_talk]

>> that's something else entirely, completely separate to what I'm discussing.

Aha I see. The NSA and Stasi are collecting vast amounts of data on everybody living in their countries. Data that was and will be abused to ruin innocent lives. But you prefer to discuss in this topic something "entirely, completely separate".

[arkem]

This is a discussion on an article that compares an NSA data center to the Stasi archives. I chose to discuss how I find that comparison fallacious.

I am arguing that the NSA is not like the Stasi. They had different goals, different authorization, and different modus operandi. You're arguing that the NSA is bad (because they are like the Stasi). Whether the NSA is bad or not is orthogonal to my discussion.

To directly answer your reply:

1. The Stasi doesn't collect vast amounts of anything any more.

2. Has the NSA used data to ruin innocent lives? Have you any evidence that they will do so in the future?

[embolism]

Isn't it obvious that anyone can accuse anyone of anything? Usually it's more meaningful when they have evidence.

[edit: since this is receiving downvotes - clearly we have evidence that the NSA is dangerously overreaching and should stop. We have absolutely zero evidence that it is their mission to keep an elite in power 'at any cost']

[straight_talk]

“All it takes for evil to succeed is for a few good men to do nothing...”

[embolism]

Why don't you actually present a single piece of evidence, rather than just irrelevant innuendo?