Writes David Brooks:
If you live a life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society, perhaps it makes sense to see the world a certain way: Life is not embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world. Instead, it’s just the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state.
This lens makes you more likely to share the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme. You’re more likely to donate to the Ron Paul for president campaign, as Snowden did....
For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures. By deciding to unilaterally leak secret N.S.A. documents, Snowden has betrayed all of these things....
Read the whole thing. This is an excellent column, and it's related to something I was trying to say
here. In Brooks's list of what Snowden betrayed, there is:
He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else.
That's related to something I said in the comments on that earlier thread,
here. A commenter, gerry, had said:
Humanity tends to be cruel, selfish, and morally confused and weak. If geeks save our asses from collectivists and power vampires like Obama, it likely will be an accident, with all the attendant unintended consequences.
And my response was:
See, that's the kind of thought pattern I suspect is developing out there in the minds of these computer technicians. Look at the contempt, the grandiosity, and the recklessness.
Obama was elected, twice, by the American people. We studied him. We listened to him. He is surrounded by advisers and checked by Congress and the press.
[It's absurd to think] that some self-appointed altruist of the computer-fixated kind is going to save us.
It's like those movie trailers... in a world where etc etc ONE MAN...
You think that's what will save us?!
Posts
278 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 278 of 278"Because they didn't trust government."
And yet they set up govt. with checks and balances.
That reply makes as much sense as "they didn't trust their son not to drive drunk, and yet they took away his car keys". The "and yet" should be replaced with the word "so". :)
To continue the metaphor -- having taken away your drunk son's car keys, do you then say "mission accomplished! No parental oversight is needed now. Go have fun with your friends, sweetie". Perhaps you do, I dunno.
That last bit should say, govts are known to be corrupt so they shouldn't write constitutions.
That last bit should say, govts are known to be corrupt so they shouldn't write constitutions.
and by your logic cops really shouldn't uphold laws and prosecutors shouldn't try cases.
And with that particularly stupid remark I am reminded of who you are.
Blogger really needs an "ignore commenter" option, I swear.
Revenant said...
"[Simon said 'And as I pointed out above, 99% of federal criminal cases end in conviction.'] When you claimed it the first time I was willing to believe you were just confused. Repeating it after the problems with the claim have been pointed out to you, however, places you firmly in the 'pathetic liar' column."
Balfegor raised some difficulties that he had with the figure itself, and I addressed them. You subsequently raised a difficulty in comparison of the two figures, which I missed, and I now reject that too. "[C]omparing the conviction rate to the success rate of requesting warrants" would be "[a]pples and oranges" for many purposes, because they are of course different, but when the argument is that a machine is obviously rigged if it pays out 99% of the time, the differences between them are beside the point. The point is that both in fact pay out 99% of the time, which is fatal to argument that the rate at which the FISA court pays out because it then proves too much.
"Pay attention, Simon. I addressed that already."
I'm sorry—where?
@edutcher: Pretty weak comback on the B-A salary. Still waiting on the Army, ed.
I amuse myself by imagining myself in that room in the W hotel in Hong Kong, Snowden in his grandiose bullshit mode, maybe a few tears leaking--and I insist that he show me where he broke BOTH his legs.
Brooksy's just phoning it in now, cobbling together what he understands of the latest conservative meme of getting back to family, church, club and town along with a tired defense of establishment thought.
Who's he writing for? The Times commentariat? The next NPR round table with E.J. Dionne? Another book, 'Bobos At Davos'?
Revenant wrote:
And with that particularly stupid remark I am reminded of who you are.
It is a particularly stupid remark, but that is the gist of what you're arguing. IF it sounds dumb to you, perhaps it's because your argument is a dumb one.
jr565 said...
I'm not arguing that there aren't assholes In the administration. Clearly there are. But that doesn't invalidate that thse seeking such warrants are following the law.
I think you're not making enough of a set of distinctions here. Some of them seeking such warrants will clearly be operating properly and exercising their duties as approved and authorized by the enabling legislation. It's a straw man to assume that none of them would ever be legitimate.
It's also a straw man to assume that it is impossible that any of them ever would. The truth lies somewhere between those two extremes.
Some might be assholes, and some might seek to abuse their power. How, then, do we detect when that happens, stop it, and punish the offending asshole?
If you beleive a certain president lied us into war, does that invalidate all presidents ability to wage war as their primary power?
If the argument was we can't trust a president with the power of war because some president might a use that trust, then no president could ever go to war. So to with congress and the power of the purse. And god knows congress has abused that trust. But still, what's the alternative? The congress can't spend money? Ten who can? If you put power into those people hands how do we know they won't abuse the trust?
It's not either/or. Just because you can't make a system perfect, that doesn't mean you should blindly trust that nothing will ever go wrong, and construct nothing to protect against that possibility.
Who watches the watchmen? Well, who watches the people who watch the watchmen? And who watches those people?
6/11/13, 4:00 PM
Your argument seems to reduce to "that seems hard, and recursive, so we should do nothing at all instead."
One of my favorite quotes from Reagan is "Trust, but verify".
The problem with the system as constructed is that there seems to be far too little to help protect against potential abuse (and that's the best case scenario... it might help, it will never be perfect).
You act like the concept of external auditors has never been previously conceived of. It has.
It's possible to do much more to protect against abuse, without jeopardizing national security in the process. I pointed out in another thread that a set of independent, external auditors could go a long way towards accomplishing that.
Rather than "trust, but verify", this administration seems to want to treat this as "trust us, because we can let anyone verify anything... terrorists, ya know. Secrets!"
It's a false choice, as Obama is fond of saying. He recently trotted out the canard that we can't have 100% security which still having 100% privacy and 0% inconvenience.
News flash: this program can't ever give us 100% security, so the rest of the statement is moot. The question is whether the program as currently constructed provides enough incremental increase in security to justify the incremental reduction in privacy and increase in inconvenience.
Yes, it's cumbersome to set up external auditing systems that are compartmentalized to help preserve national security and secrecy, and cross-checks to help detect any corruption in that system as well. That doesn't make it impossible, or make it a good reason to not do it.
Blogger really needs an "ignore commenter" option, I swear.
It would certainly make reading long comment sections more pleasant.
leslyn said...
@edutcher: Pretty weak comback on the B-A salary. Still waiting on the Army, ed.
Hate to tell ya, but I don't particularly care how much he was paid. It's a good figure for a whatever he was, nonetheless. and he could be telling the truth - toss in benefits, stock options, and whatall and it could be within range of 200 grand (of course, if it wasn't 200 Gs on the nose, leslyn still would be screaming, "Liar").
What leslyn's praying for is what he says about data collection isn't true. The old demonization machine has to be cranked up in case that's true.
Right?
Rev wrote:
"You have no factual basis for that claim.
Following the law requires that the information presented to the court be honestly and accurately represented. We already know that this administration -- and, let's face it, plenty of prosecutors and cops in America in general -- can and do lie on warrant applications.
So. We know they break the law to get warrants. The information presented to the FISA court is secret. Your basis for claiming that it was all honest and accurate is... ? :Following the law requires that the information presented to the court be honestly and accurately represented. We already know that this administration -- and, let's face it, plenty of prosecutors and cops in America in general -- can and do lie on warrant applications."
This doesn't have to be written about the NSA, this could be written about ANY law. And you've already stated that the cops and the prosectors lie.
So lets make it a case about cops issuing a warrant. If I said the cops got a warrant and followed the process therefore they were following the law, the counter would be, "well cops lie". So does that invalidate the idea that cops are allowed to serve warrants since some cops lie? YOu'd have to prove that these specific cops lied, or you'd argue as you are, that essentially cops can't serve warrants, since cops have been known to lie and we therefore cannot trust cops to serve warrants.(or judges to judge, or juorors to deliberate etc etc etc.).That is the inference of your argument.
He said he made 200k.
He only made 122k.
His stock went down in my book.
122k isn't really that great a salary for DC.
122k people are a dime a dozen and I don't care to smooze with them.
Vektor wrote:
It's not either/or. Just because you can't make a system perfect, that doesn't mean you should blindly trust that nothing will ever go wrong, and construct nothing to protect against that possibility.
BUt look at how you are skewing the argument. I never said the system was perfect. Im saying the system can never be perfect. Your side seems to be arguing because the system can't be perfect there should be no system. I don't trust that nothing could ever go wrong. Im saying that courts have not said that what the NSA is doing is wrong. THey are going to judges and getting warrants. That process is what it is.If that process is lawful, then who is this whistleblower to throw a spanner into the works simply because he doesn't like how it looks.
VekTor said...
"Again with the false dichotomies! It's not about whether the actions of Snowden "save us" or not... the question is this: Are we more likely or less likely to end up better off as a country because of his actions? Did his choice make things better, or worse?"
Good questions. Personally I am believe we are better off because of his revelations. It is impossible for the citizens to provide adequate checks on government abuse without information. Since the government officials who are guilty of abuses will label the information top secret, the only way the citizens can keep the government in check is for whistle blowers to inform them what is going on.
Revenant said...
"Simon, the existence of the NSA is itself an example of the illegitimate growth of government. It falls under none of the enumerated powers of either Congress or the executive."
Well now I've seen it all. If you want to argue that national defense is not the first and fundamental responsibility of government in the abstract, the federal government generally, and the executive branch particularly, you're going to very quickly find yourself alone; I don't think that even hardcore libertarians and strict constructionist types are going to go so far as to say that the NSA (and the CIA and FBI, which would go out of the window with it by that reading) are unconstitutional.
This kind of "fundamentalist protestant" reading of the Constitution that wrenches it out of the anglo-American tradition and reads the text in isolation is almost as bad as the whimsical make-it-up-as-you-go-along "liberal protestant" living constitutionalist blather.
The constitutional footing for such programs is in article II section 1, which vests in the President "the executive power," less those portions thereof that the Constitution elsewhere vests in other actors. Those words are not read in isolation; their original meaning is found in what the anglo-american tradition at the time of the founding understood that power to comprise. (Compare Justice Frankfurter's concurrence in Coleman v. Miller, saying precisely that in regard to the "judicial power" vested by article III.) That is why, for example, the executive branch has the power of eminent domain, a power which is limited, not created, by the fifth amendment. And the first and foremost part of the executive responsibility was, always had been, and always has been ever since, to defend the country against foreign threats, a power supported by Congress' explicitly-granted authority to tax in order to provide for the common defense and checked by Congress' various authorities.
On your theory of the Constitution, the president was an entirely new creature, something unconceived by any past generation. If we should parse "executive power" as natural language rather than as a term of art, we should conclude that the President's job is simply to execute" something—the laws, perhaps. Thus, on this theory, President Washington had nothing to do on the day he took office: He could require the opinions of his cabinet, but for what? He had nothing do to. There were no laws to execute.
Titus said...
He said he made 200k.
He only made 122k.
His stock went down in my book.
122k isn't really that great a salary for DC.
Except that he was working in HI.
Again, it's not all-or-nothing, yet you keep acting like everyone else is claiming it is.
The claim that we know that members of this administration, and cops and prosecutors, can and do lie on warrant applications is not
a claim that every single one of them does so every single time.
It's an "existence proof". It's establishing that it happens sometimes, and that means that reasonable systems should be in place to help detect when they do, and bring such abusers of the public trust to justice.
No one that I am aware of is claiming that every single one of them is illegitimate every single time, yet you continue to argue as if they are claiming that. WHY?
It's all about "sometimes". Can you try constructing your counter-arguments from the assumption that everyone else is claiming that it happens sometimes, instead of always?
"We can't make it perfect, so we should do nothing at all, and just live with it" is not a very convincing argument, in my book.
This has all been a wonderful thing for Obama. Libertarian foam-mouthers have forgotten all about Benghazi, the IRS, the immigration bill, Sebelius soliciting funds from health outfits she will regulate with the IRS.
A superb "Look, a squirrel" moment that enthralls the chasing dogs to ignore all else. (Even though these Dbase arguments and previous programs like Echelon have been know to people for years...even the Paulistas)
Perhaps the baying libertarian dogs will want to loop back to the IRS or far more serious things that do target law-abiding citizens directly...or true coverups like Benghazi...but the media and general public could well have "moved on".
Then Obama wins.
Of course, even Obama scandals buried with unwitting connivance by hysterical libertarians in the lead - could accumulate and form some "critical mass" where people beyond the ideologues in Paulista land or the extreme right think Obama is a creep.....but Obama's inner circle is betting that they won't.
And it is a great way to further riven the Republican Party by pitting conservative national defense and security people against the libertarian wing that sees every security system we have as a "slippery slope" soon to hit innocent Americans with squads of jack booted storm troopers coming for them and their precious body fluids.
He said he made 200k.
Did he? The passage from the Guardian article is:
He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000
"A very comfortable life" is a quote. The "roughly $200,000 salary" isn't; that's the reporter writing. The Guardian, not Snowden, claimed he made that much.
Maybe the reporter wrote down "122k salary" and forgot what currency that was in -- 122,000 pounds converts to roughly $200k.
Libertarian foam-mouthers have forgotten all about Benghazi, the IRS, the immigration bill, Sebelius soliciting funds from health outfits she will regulate with the IRS.
Further evidence that Cedarford doesn't actually know, read, or listen to any libertarians outside of his own fevered imagination. :)
Rev wrote:
"Following the law requires that the information presented to the court be honestly and accurately represented. We already know that this administration -- and, let's face it, plenty of prosecutors and cops in America in general -- can and do lie on warrant applications."
Assume that they did follow the law when getting a warrant to monitor phone calls. Would you be ok with it?
edutcher said,
What leslyn's praying for is what he says about data collection isn't true. The old demonization machine has to be cranked up in case that's true.
Right?
No, ed. Wrong. I'd like to see a full and open debate of at least the kind that is happening now and should have happened as far back as 2002, when Thinthread was dropped for Trailblazer. I'd like to see more debate on the infringement of our freedoms in the so-called "Patriot Act." I'd like to see some movement about Guantanamo.
I'd like to see the American people debate whether we should continue to act in the guise of the world's policeman.
And I'd like to see elected representatives represent the interests of the people who put them there, instead of the deep pockets who keep them there.
But it's not Christmas, so I'm not putting my stocking out.
Well now I've seen it all. If you want to argue that national defense is not the first and fundamental responsibility of government in the abstract, the federal government generally, and the executive branch particularly, you're going to very quickly find yourself alone
That's right, Simon. Give that straw man a good kicking!
What I stated was that the NSA is not allowed by any of the enumerated powers in the Constitution. The Constitution provides for the common defense -- duh, read the preamble -- but does so via the military, not via domestic espionage agencies.
Vektor wrote:
's an "existence proof". It's establishing that it happens sometimes, and that means that reasonable systems should be in place to help detect when they do, and bring such abusers of the public trust to justice.
No one that I am aware of is claiming that every single one of them is illegitimate every single time, yet you continue to argue as if they are claiming that. WHY?
Because they are inferring that. At least as per the NSA program. And they are using the other examples of corruption to show it in an attempt to invalidate the program in its entirety.I"m simply applying the same logic to other examples that they've brought up to show that the logic is in fact dumb.
As per the reasonable systems in place, how do you know there are not? Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they are there. They have to go before a judge. The Intelligence committee is given briefings on it. Why do you think you as a lay person should have access to that knowledge absent a security clearance? But just because you don't doesn't mean that you should. It's covert for a reason. If you know, so do the people we are tracking.
DO you know where our armed forces are going to bomb? or what the operations are going to be? Geraldo got in big trouble for broadcasting where we were going on the news because that is not information you are supposed to know and he, certainly was not the person to divulge the information.
jr565 said...
BUt look at how you are skewing the argument. I never said the system was perfect. Im saying the system can never be perfect. Your side seems to be arguing because the system can't be perfect there should be no system.
Please give me a reference to a single post on this thread that says that. I don't think it exists.
I believe that they have been saying that the program as currently constructed shouldn't be left in place if no modifications are made, but that's not at all the same thing.
I don't trust that nothing could ever go wrong. Im saying that courts have not said that what the NSA is doing is wrong. THey are going to judges and getting warrants. That process is what it is.If that process is lawful, then who is this whistleblower to throw a spanner into the works simply because he doesn't like how it looks.
Your argument reduces to "the way it is currently constructed, even any abusive actions would be technically legal, so it can't possibly be improved or additional safeguards added to make it better protect the rights of the citizenry". After all "it is what it is".
Just because "it is" doesn't mean it "should be" without additional safeguards.
"Going to judges and getting warrants" would seem to have been a reasonable set of protections against abuse. We've all seen now that this sort of protection is insufficient, precisely because of the Chicago Way machinery and corruption that throws the rights of the citizenry on the bonfire of the administration accomplishing their goals.
When the current administration shows a willingness to lie to judges to get warrants, "they went to a judge and got a warrant" is not much of a protection.
So rather than living with "it is what it is", why not support the notion that the program shouldn't exist unless better protections are put in place to detect and root out such corrupt practices?
Who benefits from not improving detection of abuse? Only those who would seek to abuse the system and get away with it.
I contend better protections are possible. Do you disagree?
If they are possible, why would we want the system to continue without those better protections in place? Because we trust this administration?
leslyn said...
What leslyn's praying for is what he says about data collection isn't true. The old demonization machine has to be cranked up in case that's true.
Right?
No, ed. Wrong. I'd like to see a full and open debate of at least the kind that is happening now and should have happened as far back as 2002, when Thinthread was dropped for Trailblazer. I'd like to see more debate on the infringement of our freedoms in the so-called "Patriot Act." I'd like to see some movement about Guantanamo.
A "full and open debate" just like the one Choom says he wants?
Of course, we have to decide which Choom we're going to support:
The one who denounced this stuff when he was gearing up to run for Messiah...
or the one that announced PRISM isn't going anywhere.
Carl Sagan liked to say that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Why not "extraordinary data gathering requires extraordinary protections"?
Gathering the personal data of virtually every American on a more-or-less constant basis would certainly seem like a system with vastly greater potential for harm if it were abused.
Why not then approach it from the perspective that, if we are convinced that nothing less than this will serve to help protect against terrorism, that such a system should have much more stringent and in-depth protections against abuse... precisely because the potential scope of harm is so great?
Is there something unreasonable about that argument?
Because they are inferring that.
I don't think you know what the word "infer" means, from your usage of it.
You might think they implied it, but that's precisely what I was pointing out... that they didn't in fact claim that, but instead you inferred it from what they wrote.
Perhaps the inference you drew was wrong.
Re: Simon:
Balfegor raised some difficulties that he had with the figure itself, and I addressed them.
Not persuasively, I think, though this is really a side-show to the main argument here.
When both parties before the court are in agreement (a plea agreement), the court isn't meant to serve as any kind of check. Plea agreements, whatever their defects, are permissible in the US. And in the end, the criminal defendant wants to plead guilty (even if only because he's afraid of what DOJ will do to him if he doesn't). What is there to check? If you don't like plea agreements, that's a matter for the legislature, not the courts (unless you also think it's unconstitutional or something).
The FISA court is quite different. Like grand juries and court approval of GJ subpoenas and all that, it's theoretically part of a completely different system of checks that's intended to protect people from executive branch officials like prosecutors. Of course, in practice grand juries just do whatever the prosecutors tell them to, and the judge rubber stamps it (much like with the FISA court), but the original point of grand juries and FISA courts in our system was precisely to serve as a check on executive power.
In other words, you're comparing a situation where the court isn't serving as a check because that's not it job with a situation where maybe the court isn't serving as a check even though that's it's job. (Or maybe it is serving as a check but all the requests are totally valid). Apples and oranges. It's a little apples and oranges to compare with criminal trials too, but at least in a criminal trial there's some sense in which the court is supposed to check the power of the government. And courts do.
Vektor wrote:
Why not "extraordinary data gathering requires extraordinary protections"?
Gathering the personal data of virtually every American on a more-or-less constant basis would certainly seem like a system with vastly greater potential for harm if it were abused.
What extraordinary protections do you have in mind. Keep in mind that this information has already been gathered by the phone companies,so it's not the govt gathering said data.
As the link from David Simon showed, back in the 80's as a cop doing drug related surveillance in Baltimore, he dealt with this kind of stuff on a smaller scale all the time and it was approved by judges. They would monitor all the calls from certain phones to see who those phones were calling. And there was no privacy issue because they didn't listen to the calls. What special protections were required then? It was perfectly legal.
This is on a larger scale using more records but is essentially the same. But rather than tracking all the calls that are going out from a certain line to another line (and those lines to other lines) they are using an existing database so can get the info in real time.
OMG, this story just gets better and better.
Snowden's girlfriend has described herself as "a pole-dancing superhero" typing on a "tear-streaked keyboard."
"Surely there will be villainous pirates, distracting mermaids, and tides of change in this new open water chapter of my journey...." CNN.
She might have a future writing bodice-rippers if the pole-dancing doesn't work out.
This story just keeps getting better and better. :D
That should have said:
But rather than constructing a database by tracking all the calls that are going out from a certain line to another line (and those lines to other lines) they are using an existing database so can get the info in real time.
Simon - "Well now I've seen it all. If you want to argue that national defense is not the first and fundamental responsibility of government in the abstract, the federal government generally, and the executive branch particularly, you're going to very quickly find yourself alone."
Revenent - That's right, Simon. Give that straw man a good kicking!
What I stated was that the NSA is not allowed by any of the enumerated powers in the Constitution. The Constitution provides for the common defense -- duh, read the preamble -- but does so via the military, not via domestic espionage agencies.
=====================
Gaaa, this is getting tedious...yes Revenent...the Sacred Parchment does not enumerate many specific things that WE the People through our elected representatives, determined were needed to protect our security. Things that were not anticipated 230 years ago - things like an Air Force, a CIA, a way to have communications security and cybersecurity.
Each fucking day we are impacted by a thousand things "not specifically" on the minds of men in powdered wigs and trudging through horse droppings to "enumerate " them in a document establishing the Federal gov't and what it can and cannot do.
Most of this is wasted, of course. There is no way to really debate and make a foaming at the mouth ideologue see reason.
Be it a Taliban Islamist, a Paulista libertarian, a Code Pink member..or love-betsotted female Obamite.
I'd like to make a pun on the precarious future of James Clapper and "what is the sound of one hand clapping," but I can't quite figure it out.
Again, from CNN (it's on my desktop):
In March, [Democratic Senator Ron] Wyden asked Clapper whether the NSA collects "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
"No sir," Clapper said.
On Saturday, Clapper told NBC News that he "responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner."
I tell ya, this is better than going to the circus.
Man, I have to go to the Booz Allen site and see how a high school dropout can get hired in at 120,000 a year and move to Hawaii.
I have friends with college degrees on top of managing to graduate high school - that would love that gig. I used to have Top Secret clearance in the AF. My nephew served in Iraq and has a 42,000 a year job right now. Maybe Booze Allen can work out for him, triple his pay.
That is one of the most fascinating things...how did this joker end up with that plum job?
The going theory is he's fronting for somebody with the real goods.
"Man, I have to go to the Booz Allen site and see how a high school dropout can get hired in at 120,000 a year and move to Hawaii."
There's something more to this guy.
I assume he's a cats paw.
@Cedarford:
Maybe there's a rabbi, but he still has to get past the background investigation. Different people from different agencies do that.
However, he could have been hired on a false resume that included a BA or BS (Booz Allen requires it), pendinng the outcome of the background investigation. Those investigations can take--guess what--right around three months.
So he'd have known (interviews and such) that the investigation results were about to come down, and it's time to boogie.
The timing fits.
BTW, have your nephew get computer science security certifications (CISSP, etc) and yeah, he could jump right in there.
I say this with no trace of irony: the government is looking for computer security specialists.
(OK, HAHA, but it's still true.)
Leslyn--thanks for your kind reply to my question re Arnold, Ellsberg and Felt---Thought your answers were very good. And as I have said before, Leslyn is such a beautiful name.
jr565 said...
Keep in mind that this information has already been gathered by the phone companies,so it's not the govt gathering said data.
No one phone company has the ability to compile an all-encompassing view of my activities by combining phone records, Internet traffic and credit card purchases, all enabled down the point of one rogue individual being able to compile such a dossier on someone just because he thinks the target might be sleeping with his wife, for example.
This set of systems revealed recently more closely resembles the Panopticon than anything else.
jr565 said...
What extraordinary protections do you have in mind.
That's what I'd like to see publicly debated, but from my perspective, given the tremendous power that would arise from such a system if abused, I would want to construct a series of safeguards designed to prevent as much as possible the ability for any one bad-actor to use the system to "troll" for data on someone, along the lines of the example I gave above.
How would I go about that? In a series of steps. First, I would strongly decouple the custodial nature of the gathered data from any existing espionage or law-enforcement agency per se. Control of the repository should rest with a completely independent and very heavily audited agency, both internal and external. The point of those audits would be to ensure that only duly-authorized queries are made, and nothing else... that the scope of the query is very tightly delineated to what is written on the court order.
Further, I would decouple the underlying gathered data points from the external identifiers themselves, and instead use a separate "indexing" system where the keys to the data are not tied directly to the external identifiers (like phone numbers), and have the related indexes managed by an entirely separate organization, with the same sort of auditing.
For extra security, a rolling set of identifiers could be used for any given key.
How would it work in practice? The phone companies forward the metadata to the indexing bureau, who then uses their database to transform those records into using keys instead of phone numbers, and then transfers those modified records to the storage bureau, which can add those records to the archival database. The indexing bureau then needs to produce auditable logs showing that they destroyed their copy of the metadata after transfer and addition to the archive.
When the NSA wants to see everything tied to a cell phone from Yemen, they go and get a court order where the requesting officer tells the secret FISA court what phone number they want queried, and why. Pass a law that anyone shown to be misrepresenting the nature of such a request faces a mandatory minimum 15 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole, pardon or clemency.
The FISA court then makes a request to the indexing agency to generate a query on that individual number. The indexing agency looks up the key translations, and passes a separate (and auditable) request to pull the associations for the keys from the archive. The results come back to the indexing agency, who attaches phone numbers back to the set of returned results, and passes that back to the FISA court, who determines whether it's appropriate for the requesting agency to see the results.
No one party can troll such a system for petty revenge or political advantage, and the vast majority of American citizen data will never be queried against, and the reports of external auditors can be publicly reviewed to ensure that only the authorized number of queries were ever made, and that no additional non-responsive data was handed over.
Likewise, a hacking attempt that leads to someone stealing database records doesn't expose anyone's data directly to the hackers, including foreign nationals, because both independent databases are required to make sense out of the results.
But hey, that's just what I came up with in about 30 minutes of thinking about it. I'm sure better and safer systems are both possible and desirable if we want to allow this kind of data trove to exist.
Roger J, it's a pleasure responding to an intelligent (non-vituperative) inquiry.
Gaaa, this is getting tedious...yes Revenent...the Sacred Parchment does not enumerate many specific things that WE the People through our elected representatives, determined were needed to protect our security.
You do realize that you just conceded the programs are illegal, right?
Hm. No, probably not. Self-awareness was never your strong suit. :)
He obviously had certain talents that made him warrant that compensation.
I have hired hundreds of UNIX Sys Admins and Network Engineers in the low $100's. Most graduated from college. But some, who are incredibly talented, and have been programming since they were 12, don't need the education.
The background checks from the feds only verify that the contractor is a citizen, has no felony record, and doesn't lie about who they are, where they lived, or what they have done in their life. Once they pass they have quite a bit of access. Think SS#'s, medical records, just about anything.
All contractors need to sign a confidentiality agreement. If they break it they could likely be in big trouble, like Ginger is currently.
I am glad he did it, but once they catch him, he is going to suffer the consequences big time. Many elected tards and pubes are going to see to that.
Expanding AJ Lynch's scandals list of 03 June 2013...we have a winner in Prism! Prism, as postulated by Wee Eddie, takes the stage and no hook can drag it off...pay attention...ignore that other mundane stuff, no worries. Melodrama works! Prism is a success beyond all expectations...
o-PRISM!! Hoo Hah!! Shazam!
o-EPA releasing private information to environmental groups.
o-Credit Card transaction recording.
o-Verizon
o-Associated Press
o-Benghazi
o-Green Energy grants to friends
o-Fast & Furious
o-Fox News & James Rosen
o-IRS- tea parties
o-IRS - audits of conservatives
o-Pigford
o-Sebelius soliciations of insurers
o-Turning off credit card edits to accept foreign campaign donors
o-Philadephia NBP Party poll watchers.
Note...minor scandals where Americans actually died as a direct result are also highlighted in bold...BUT pay them no mind. Focus!
PRISM!!
I'm terribly sorry that we actually are spending a couple of days talking about something other than what you personally think is most important, Aridog. I assure you it was an unfortunate oversight on our part. The new guy in the scheduling department totally forgot to give a rat's ass about your priorities. :)
Revenant .... I think it's pretty funny you think days of discussions on this Prism topic is going to made a diddly squat's difference. Sorry to interrupt the kubuki show.
"Obama was elected, twice, by the American people. We studied him. We listened to him. He is surrounded by advisers and checked by Congress and the press."
That sentence is hilarious.
Maybe this would be more accurate.
Obama was elected twice, the first time in a fit of BDS and the second in what may turn out to be a tainted election. We deified him. We listened to him read quite well from a teleprompter. He was surrounded by advisers from the school of Chicago political thuggery not a few of which were red diaper babies and checked by a sycophantic Democrat congress and a press that lied, spun and covered for him until this very day (the leading example being the NYTimes).
Posts like this are why I use the Instapundit Amazon portal.
So this all means...
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was another ultimate unmediated man.
He tried to assassinate the constitutionally and democratically elected leader of his country, who was also his lawful commander-in-chief.
"For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures."
How exactly do you trust "common procedures" when such procedures are secret? Additionally, shouldn't these "basic levels of trust" run both directions? How much trust can I place in an institution that has so little trust of me?
The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed.
Brooks is 100% wrong; I believe argue that the founders created the United States EXACTLY so a 29-year-old could expose corruption. Look through the constitution, take it apart, put it back together and you won't find shit about "not exposing" secrets.
I'm not amazed that those in power and those who make a living off that power are circling the wagons.
Above all, the press needs to wake up and realize that if they don't start exposing this nonsense, they will be essentially shut down in short order. Unfortunately, I suspect most of the press don't actually believe in free speech at all.
Does Brooks have the same contempt for Zola and "J'accuse"?
Do you, Ann?
Ann, really, you ought to go and read "The God that Failed".
Srsly.
Meet the new God, same as the old God.
"You may well laugh at the deficiencies of the checks on the president, but the self-appointed superhero is a worse bet."
How is someone reporting a crime to the public a "superhero".
Government needs to monitor all of our communications and transactions because government policies were to leave cockpits of passenger planes unlocked, keep captains unarmed, and instruct the people to sit still and hope they weren't killed by hijackers.
William said to Revenant:
I worked three blocks from ground zero. If, in order to prevent a repeat of that day, it is necessary for the govt to have access to my porn browsing records, then so be it.
I have no beef with that. Revenant probably has no beef with that. I believe you spoke honestly. But I wonder whether it would have been in a sense -more- honest if you had said
I worked three blocks from ground zero. If, in order to prevent a repeat of that day, it is necessary for the govt to have access to your porn browsing records, then so be it.
I was unaware that the CIA gives college dropouts access to secret information.
I was unaware that the CIA gives college dropouts access to secret information.
David,
Have you heard of Bill Gates?
Or: I was unaware that you thought finishing a college program had any dispositive bearing on whether one was competent to do intelligence work. Whoever taught you that?
"Obama was elected, twice, by the American people. We studied him. We listened to him. He is surrounded by advisers and checked by Congress and the press."
Remember election night, when conservatives the country over — and Romney himself — became increasingly flabbergasted about how bad the Republican candidate was doing?
It turns out that Obama was elected with the help of a double-standard-wielding media, along with, it is becoming increasingly clear, with help from places such as the FBI and the IRS.
"We studied him. We listened to him."
Did we study Obama and listen to Obama? Or did we study and listen to the MSM's take on Obama (along with their takes on Romney, Bush, Cheney, etc etc etc…)?
And how about those computer nerds who somehow devised algorithms to help Obama win? Any chance that they had help in developing those programs from, say, IRS honchos?
"that's the kind of thought pattern I suspect is developing out there in the minds of these computer technicians. Look at the contempt, the grandiosity, and the recklessness."
I am 100% — one hundred percent — against Snowden; at the same time, do not confuse him with those who support him: there are times when contempt is the natural response to those in power and when, indeed, it is outright called for…
The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed.
See, this is where Brooks' inner fascist comes peeping out. He's got it exactly backwards. That is precisely what the Founder's intended. We are, each and every one of us, expected to understand and interpret the Constitution according to our best judgment (and, of course, accept the consequences should practical events prove us terribly wrong).
It's not a fucking sacred scripture, written in Latin, interpretable only by high priests (the FISA Court, shall we say, or the nine ancients on the SCOTUS) and their slobbering fellators (Brooks and our intellectual aristoi generally). We are Americans. We are sovereign. We do not accept the notion that there exists a class of "betters" -- however selected, by birth or election doesn't matter -- who are alone capable of explaining our government to us, how it works, what it permits and does not, what precisely our liberty entails and does not. That is not a republic.
That's why Madison wrote the thing in very plain English, in short sentences, on one big page. That's why it speaks at length about what government can't do. That's why it is very specific that the real genuine power resides with the people, that in cases of a tie in meaning, the tie is broken in the direction of individual liberty and individual rights and the governance of individual conscience (not some God-damned crypto-Marxist oxymoronic "collective" individual right).
This is, after all, very much in agreement with their personal philosophy and culture. They were steeped in a culture that revered the individual conscience, in part because Protestant tradition said this was the only conduit to the mind and will of God. You will not learn what is truly right from your elected leaders, from the the bishops and the deacons, from polls and the votes of the masses in the town square -- but only from how God speaks to you directly, through your own conscience.
They were different men than us. We are much more akin to medieval scholastics, who believed of course the individual should never claim sovereign status for his individual conscience. That way lies anarchy, evil, the triumph of the Antichrist! (If you say it in medieval Latin it comes out "the terrorists win," I think.)
No, no, no: clearly it was the duty of the individual to subordinate his conscience to one more refined, educated, informed, pious. His priest, say, or his bishop. In this era the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope is a natural development -- just the way we practitioners of modern moral feudalism find it quite easy to argue for the infallibility of the Supreme Court, say, or more precisely, just as it would've been to the medieval monk, the practical necessity for an infallilibity doctrine with respect to that Court: you may argue all you wish until the decision is made, and then all good men must accept it and abide by it. No individual conscientious objection!
We've only really swung away over the past 100 years from our 17th century Protestant roots towards the 15th century attitudes that preceded it. It seems likely, unless history compresses itself, we have at least a century or more to go before some Martin Luther once again challenges us to think for ourselves and pledge our conscience to no lord in exchange for the fief of a peaceful life and orderly expectations of civil society.
Another thing, in 3 months on a new IT job, by that time in a heavily locked down environment, you have just about found where the bathroom is and how to use your keycard on the copiers. Not to mention you are under scrutiny as in a probationary period like all new hires. It just stinks on ice that this guy could have dine what he did by himself. It beggars belief. Even on the X-Files it took nine seasons to become fugitives from the alien conspiracy.
Attention must be paid.
However, attention must also be paid to the rest of the web of lies and treachery spun by this wax-moth Administration. And this, while alarming, MAY indeed be necessary and legal, if on the edge of legality, and MAY be redeemable with reforms. If we're to have another Church Committee to deball an arm of government, let's castrate the IRS first.
Let's have a flat tax that you can fill out on a postcard, and fire 95% of them, and give the rest no time for political advocacy. EPA, anywhere there was this kind of actual demonstrated use of government power against the people, let's decimate them, or what is the Latin to kill 90% rather than 10%, before we willy-nilly strip ourselves of actual armor against foreign enemies.
What a terrible column.
Brooks laments the loss of trust in our institutions. Left unsaid by Brooks is why we should still trust our institutions when they are all rotten to the core.
Brooks also doesn't think that "they" - the atomized, unmediated individualists - know how to knit "others" together for the common good. I'd like to know who Brooks thinks the knitters and knitted are, and what he would do with those who don't wish to be knitted.
Is Brooks such a knitter? I don't see any evidence that he is. Its hard to knit while wringing one's hands and gazing at one's navel on the op-ed page of the NY Times.
Presumably Brooks thought Obama would be the knitter. After all, a man of such self-evidently superior intellect and finely creased pants must know a thing or two about knitting. Brooks thought Obama would make a fine Knitter-In-Chief. But with each passing day, and each new scandal, Obama's finely creased pants are looking more and more like the Emperor's new clothes. Well, how is the sweater looking now, Mr. Brooks?
Left unmentioned in Brooks' laundry list of entities betrayed by Snowden is Obama himself. I have no doubt that if Snowden had come forward during the Bush administration Brooks would have applauded his individualism. But by coming forward now, Snowden has betrayed the man with the finely creased pants in whom Brooks has so foolishly placed his trust.
If Brooks really wants to restore trust in our institutions, he and the NY Times should be exposing the massive corruption of this administration instead of covering up for it. Brooks and the NY Times are part of the problem he laments. Ed Snowden is part of the solution.
First point: Brooks's column gets close to what so many insiders are calling Snowden's actions: treason. Of course some logical reasoning bears out a certain problem with calling his actions treason. You have a program created by the governing class with no oversight and/or input from the American people,a program designed to and does in fact target the communications of the American people, and an ultimate disclosure of the secret program to the American people for their review. Effectively, the powers that be, by calling his actions treasonous, are identifying the 'enemy' aided and abetted by the disclosure as the American people themselves. Is this really the tact that the apparat wants to take right now?
Second point: Brooks's column laments the loss of trust in moral authority. But he seems to presume that the highest moral authority is the dictates of the government. This is an inversion of our system which was designed to protect the inalienable rights of the governed. In other words, the highest moral authority, with which one can be conversant, is the governed themselves. But, of course, due to confidentiality of the program's existence, its capabilities, targets, implementation, judicial review (which is a joke BTW as the FISA court has only declined 11 out of more than 30,000 requests), even statutory authority was never presented to the governed for review...until Snowden's disclosure.
I am not shocked, saddened or disheartened at Snowden's disclosure of the program...I am shocked that we, as a country, have raised so many little Eichmanns that he was the first and only to make such a disclosure. He chose the higher morality and it is a stain on all those who disparage him that they cannot see it.
People let's agree the meme of Obama and his administration is and will forever be SHEER INCOMPETENCE.
A 3 month employee has access to top secret data and protocols? SECURITY INCOMPETENCE.
The Stimulus fell flat and cost $800 Billion. ECONOMY INCOMPETENCE.
Fast & Furious, Benghazi, James Rosen, Associated Press, Energy Dept Green Boondoggles. SHEER INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION.
Obamacare- let's fuck with everyone's health insurance plans in order to provide coverage to 10% of the population. OVERREACH IN ADORATION OF BIGGER AND BIGGER GOVERNMENT. INSANE INCOMPETENCE.
What has he done competently except get elected?
The progressive left has spent a century seeking to subvert that same series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, as potential rivals to the all powerful state.
That Brooks did not recognize Obama as an exemplar of that process leaves him little credibility in discussions on social mediation.
You may well laugh at the deficiencies of the checks on the president
Laugh? Laugh? Do you see anyone here really laughing? ...
other than at you, dear. Believe me, other than at you.
[It's absurd to think] that some self-appointed altruist of the computer-fixated kind is going to save us.
Right: our saviors ought to be regulated and licensed, with renewal of license dependent on the completion of continuing education.
Didn't the NYTimes publish some revelation on George's watch that revealed to terrorists that their communications were being intercepted? That was OK, but Snowden's is not OK. Why?
AJ Lynch said:
A 3 month employee has access to top secret data and protocols? SECURITY INCOMPETENCE.
Here's the link to the 2012 report on the number of security clearances in the government, and how long they take to perform.
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/2012%20Report%20on%20Security%20Clearance%20Determinations%20Final.pdf.
tim kr said,
I am not shocked, saddened or disheartened at Snowden's disclosure of the program...I am shocked that we, as a country, have raised so many little Eichmanns that he was the first and only to make such a disclosure.
But he wasn't. NSA workers Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, Ed Loomis, and Thomas A. Drake, along with House Intelligence Committee staffer Diane Roark (an expert on the NSA budget) complained to the NSA IG in 2002 that the NSA data collection system "ThinThread" should not be abandoned for a new system called "Trailblazer," because ThinThread had more privacy protections. Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, Ed Loomis, and Thomas A. Drake, quit NSA over concerns about the legality of the agency's activities
Even though ThinThread had been tested and found to be reliable, the NSA went ahead with Trailblazer because it was the desire of Michael Hayden, a retired Air Force four star who was appointed Director of the NSA in 1999, a position he held until 2005, when he was appointed CIA director.
Hayden oversaw NSA surveillance of technological communications between persons in the United States and alleged foreign terrorist groups, which resulted in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.
The IG report came out in 2004. The New York Times published a story about Traialblazer in 2005. The Baltimore Sun carried a series about it from 2006-2007.
The Patriot Act and the Authorization for Use of Military Force (passed shortly after 9/11) were used by the GW Bush administration to bypass FISA to spy on "terrorists." This included domestic surveillance. The program was known as "Solar Wind" and was publicized by the New York Times and the Washington Post in 2006.
At least one Congressional hearing about it was held in January 2006. Sens. Leahy (D-VT) and Kennedy (D-MA) introduced Resolution 350 to the Judiciary Committee that purported to express a "sense of the Senate" that the existing law "does not authorize warrantless domestic surveillance of United States citizens". Resolution 350 was never reported out of committee.
In introducing their resolution to committee, they quoted Justice O'Connor's opinion that even war "is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."
In February 2006 the American Bar Association denounced the NSA spying as an unConstituional warrantless domestic surveillance program. This was followed by a letter to Congress signed by numerous prominent legal scholars, and which was published in the New York Review of Books.
...and Glenn Greenwald argued that the program was unConstitutional in 2006.
The question you have to ask is not why were there no other disclosures? but, Why did we not pay attention?
Leslyn asked ...
The question you have to ask is not why were there no other disclosures? but, Why did we not pay attention?
Because no one previously employed bodice ripper theatrics and most importantly...the wee *hero* was not being pursued by Triad gangsters! :-)
If (the general) you:
a) are against what Snowden did, and so believe he should be prosecuted as traitor, etc
and
b) are also against a national firearms registry, a national health-records registry, etc, which is what now exists (Keeping in mind, a couple years ago, Target made news because they could effectively predict and market to pregnant mothers before the families knew the girls were pregnant. This was from data gleaned from single-store purchase records. What could a national, orders-of-magnitude greater DB do for someone malicious?)
then:
I look forward to seeing how you resolve that cognitive dissonance.
It amazes me how many people appear to find it impossible to believe that a perfectly normal person, could do something noble in the name of a good cause.
That you can't fathom doing what Snowden did yourself, that you must imagine him to be a narcissist or a deviant or some sort, really shows the shallowness of your own morality.
Theresa Klein said...
It amazes me how many people appear to find it impossible to believe that a perfectly normal person, could do something noble in the name of a good cause.
That you can't fathom doing what Snowden did yourself, that you must imagine him to be a narcissist or a deviant or some sort, really shows the shallowness of your own morality.
Baloney. It is not what he purportedly did, but how he did it. His melodramatic focus on himself is almost funny..."Triads" out to kill him, etc. Really?
The basic story is already a decade old [see Leslyn comment above at 12:54 PM yesterday], by at least 4 people with more credibility, and who made a big fuss then and thereafter? Did you?
I can fathom what Snowden thinks [or wants you to think] he did; act to make a bad situation in government change, because I have done it...albeit on a less dramatic issue and without globe trotting off to Hong Kong, China. Rather I formed a coalition of associates and then took the issue(s) to Congress directly...who kept my confidence. It is done much more often than you think, by people with substantial credentials [such as those in Leslyn's comment above] who want to actually effect change, not whiz in to the wind. You won't hear of it because it is not done for fame and publicity, but actually for the "noble" purpose you imply we lack.
Radegunda adds:
Did Ann Althouse really not notice that anyone who made a serious effort to "study" Obama or "check" his record was loudly and insistently branded a racist?
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