[anologwintermut]

Sure.

Lets suppose it actually was a valid defense. But what does that have to do with going through the Facebook and personal email of individual employees to know who to target. That was done up close, in personal, by hand. By any definition, those people had their privacy specifically and intentionally violated by actual human analysts.

[Kalium]

Intelligence is one of the few rare fields based wholly upon the idea that the ends justify the means. There are no easy answers there.

[delluminatus]

The end in this case being the ability to decrypt cellphone traffic. And what will that capacity be used for? Spying on foreign nations? Halting nonexistent terrorist plots? Further secret surveillance of American citizens?

If we judge the means by the ends, I do not believe that their end provides sufficient justification for their means. They appear to believe otherwise, however they fail to offer any evidence for their perspective; as an American, I am feeling ever more alienated from the organizations which were theoretically founded for our benefit.

[Kalium]

Decrypting cellphone traffic is also a means. It's a means towards information and human connections and so on. That's the sort of stuff that can make or break an operation.

Did it? Has it? Unknown.

The trouble with intelligence is that it's only effective when done with secrecy and fairly broad latitude to operate. There are few easy answers here.

[delluminatus]

A fairly broad latitude? If the ends justify the means and yet the ends themselves are kept completely hidden, then the latitude, as you put it, is completely unconstrained. An intelligence agency operating under those principles can literally do anything claiming that it is for the greater good.

In short, it sounds like you are advocating for an agency which can take arbitrary extralegal action at its own discretion, without providing reason or explanation, and without providing any demonstrable benefit to anybody, because it's secret.

Frankly, I find the idea terrifying. I understand that intelligence agencies need some quantity of secrecy and some degree of latitude. Like you have repeatedly stated, there are no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask the question. What the hell are these people doing, and should we let them continue? What is growing in our intelligence sector -- is it an institution that will be found to have brought the world benefit, like Bletchley Park, or will it be seen to have become a thin facade over a malignant, self-interested organization, potentially culminating in something like a secret police?

[abecedarius]

We have a secret police now: what else do you call an organization that secretly collects information against the nation's own citizens to be secretly passed along for 'parallel construction'? That kept this policy itself a secret? Theoretically it's as a byproduct of foreign intelligence-gathering, not a primary function, but this frog feels the pot to be plenty hot already.

[mirimir]

I agree, except for "now". That's clear from Bamford's books. For example, federal charges against the Weather Underground Organization were dropped in late 1973 after a screwup in parallel construction. In 1973, hardly any civilians had ever heard of the NSA (aka "No Such Agency") and they wanted to keep it that way.

[Kalium]

You misread me. I am not advocating for anything. I am commenting on the constraints and issues of the problem space.

[un1xl0ser]

Can you please provide your definition of intelligence?

I would argue that theoretically, a government (or other entity) could use intelligence but use it within a set of moral and/or ethical guidelines that uses a system of checks and balances.

[Kalium]

Intelligence is the dirty-but-necessary stuff that makes it possible to accurately guide diplomacy, economic policy, trade, and military action to achieve the desired goals of a nation-state for a minimum of cost. It includes internal security.

Generally, intelligence cannot operate openly, even under a strict set of guidelines. Further, there will always be situations where efficacy runs into guidelines and something has to give. Would you be willing to violate the privacy of one person to prevent an attack that would kill five thousand? How about a dozen people's privacy? A hundred? A thousand? A million?

As I understand it, those aren't purely theoretical questions in the world of intelligence.

[moe]

Would you be willing to violate the privacy of one person to prevent an attack that would kill five thousand?

Why don't we skip the suggestive "thought experiments" and look at some facts instead.

A grand total of 3467 people in the USA have been killed by terror attacks since 1970[1].

In the same timeframe 2091 americans were killed by lightning strike[2] and roughly 102.000.000 died of old age.

Please explain how these numbers justify the NSA's yearly budget of $75 billion dollars, and their documented, ongoing violation of millions of people's privacy.

[1] http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=fatal...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology

[3] http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillanc...

[4] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-ci...

[nitrogen]

Generally, intelligence cannot operate openly, even under a strict set of guidelines.

Can this claim be substantiated with evidence?

[mike_hearn]

No. Otherwise police departments would be unable to do anything and would cease to exist. Police operations vary in secrecy but even the most secret eventually stop being so, as there is a need to actually prosecute.

The idea that "spys gonna spy" is one we need to start collectively challenging. Why do we need these organisations at all? If NSA/GCHQ were wound up and their technical specialists re-allocated 80% to domestic law enforcement for computer forensics purposes, and 20% to a new dedicated counter-intel-only organisation, would the sky fall? I doubt it.

[Kalium]

Have you examined your proposal for drawbacks?

[throwaway150219]

Would you be willing to violate the privacy of 6 million people to commit genocide?