Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jjoonathan 4432 days ago
They aren't. They wouldn't even be controversial at the EFF.

The controversy stems from cost/benefit judgements on individual spy programs AND from the fact that Clapper perjured himself in front of congress and the american people. The latter is a far more clearcut issue than the former, and it's what we were talking about before the lawyer came in and changed the subject.
1 comments
bediger4000 4432 days ago
Has there been any cost/benefit analysis on any of the spy programs that Snowden's leaks have revealed? It doesn't look like it to me. For instance, it should also be uncontroversial that universal surveillance only ends up with an intimidated, fearful citizenry, and a total lack of innovation, but oh well. For those reasons alone, we should probably start out against universal or dragnet surveillance.
link
tptacek 4431 days ago
Wait, I don't understand how you can simultaneously believe that the NSA has actually built an apparatus of universal surveillance and that universal surveillance leads to an intimidated citizenry and total lack of innovation.

Which is it? Is the NSA restrained in their surveillance, or does surveillance not actually ruin innovation?

link