[Someone1234]

And let's assume for a second that they did introduce actual reform. All that would happen is that they would go back to pre-9/11 spying on Americans. Let me explain how that worked...

So pre-9/11 the NSA wasn't allowed to spy on Americans (in most cases), so instead they paid the UK's GCHQ to spy on Americans for them and then relayed the intelligence to the NSA for analysis. This was and still is a perfectly legal loophole. There are no limits on cooperation with other intelligence agencies. When 9/11 happened the NSA got effectively a blank cheque and asked to increase intelligence gathering significantly, so instead of continuing the GCHQ misdirection they simply expanded spying within the US and then legalised it (via executive order at the time, law later).

So the NSA was spying on Americans in the 1990s, they just had to do more legal maneuvering to do it. It just got significantly worse in the 2000s and they dropped even pretending that they weren't. Even if a stronger law outlawed spying on Americans, you'd just see them go back to the GCHQ way.

PS - A lot of Americans seem to want the NSA spying on "foreigners" without realising that that effectively opens the door to the NSA spying on Americans. That way a call between a US citizen and anyone from abroad can be listened in on.

PPS - Don't even get me started on the NSA's spying on behalf of US corporations, that's a whole other can of worms.

[fixermark]

Cooperation between GCHQ and the NSA certainly didn't end post-9/11.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/04...

[munin]

> This was and still is a perfectly legal loophole

no it isn't, EO12333 disallows the intelligence community from asking someone else to do something that they cannot do

[themeek]

But if they don't have to ask, were it to happen, it would be legal.

It's like the recent Smith-Mundt reforms. You no longer have to prevent propaganda from reaching the American public. You just have to not intend for it to reach the American public.

[munin]

what? "if they change the law so that it would be legal then it would be legal" is I think how laws work?

oh you mean if material spontaneously appeared? yeah... good luck explaining that one

[themeek]

I'm confused by your response. I do not understand the point you are trying to communicate.

[munin]

the law doesn't work the way you think it works

[higherpurpose]

That's why such reforms need to be accompanied by appropriate reductions in NSA's budget. If the NSA required $5 billion a year to sustain the bulk collection of phone metadata of most Americans, then its budget should be cut by $5 billion, if it's now supposedly "ended".

If the budget remains the same or even increases the following year, then clearly something is not right there and the NSA will just use that money to "keep" the program in some other place and through some other methods.

Unfortunately, since the "Defund the NSA" bill that almost passed the House after the first Snowden revelations, I haven't seen any discussion about doing that. The civil liberties organizations should've pushed for a similar law within 3 months afterwards and ensure it passes then.

[joesmo]

So just because we can't have zero spying, we should accept incredible levels of intrusion rather thank working to put more roadblocks in NSA's way?

That's not a rational argument.