Should the NSA be abolished?

[michigandem58]

Discuss.

[Autumn]

1. Yes. eom

[unblock]

2. yes, that way the spying can be rebranded.

[Rex]

3. No.

Should the Army be abolished?

[burnodo]

4. It should be reined in and tightly controlled

which is what you'd want if Bush was in charge right now

[Egnever]

10. Any specific recommendations

or just general reigning in?

I personally think the presidents recommendations sounded quite reasonable. Was there something else you think would be needed?

[burnodo]

18. Sure

Executive order: There will be no spying on American citizens.

That enough?

[Egnever]

19. That is already the law

So you should be quite happy. No need for an executive order.

[burnodo]

20. Then who's going to be charged with a crime?

Since we KNOW for a fact that it's not the case?

[Egnever]

22. I would imagine the people proved to have committed one

I will wait for the courts to decide someone is guilty if you dont mind. The laws are in place, and you KNOW for a fact that they are.

[burnodo]

24. Obama told Jay Leno and a national audience that there was NO spying on American citizens

This has been shown to be FALSE. It's not even in question at this point, despite no actual court case. My original point was that the NSA has had unlimited ability to violate the Fourth amendment. There needs to be absolute oversight or their programs and their protocols. To abdicate responsibility in that regard shows a fundamental lack of leadership.

[Egnever]

25. The idea that there is no oversight is again false on its face

There is oversight and has always been, the internal audits released by snowden show that to be the case. Absolutely nothing wrong with strengthening that oversight and the president has suggested some ways of doing it. He was also suggesting it before snowden.

You seem intent on ignoring all of that and want to paint Obama as some sort of villain intent on reading your emails. I wonder why that is.

[randome]

31. Cool.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[PowerToThePeople]

5. I think there needs to be a purge.

Congress needs to take control. Currently they are not in control of it at all. They probably have not been in control of it for decades. This is a good opportunity to get control back.

[dionysus]

12. good post

[Egnever]

14. Well said.

The idea there is no value in what the NSA is tasked to do seems like Utopian nonsense to me.

There are credible threats in the world and spying is as old as human society. We would be foolish to pretend it doesn't go on or that we shouldn't be doing it ourselves. The NSA is tasked with exactly the spying we should be doing IMHO. I am all for tightening the oversight to try and minimize as much as possible any spill over into spying on Americans and as technology changes that oversight will need to be constantly revisited IMHO to reflect changes in tech that were not anticipated before.

The only way I can see getting rid of the NSA and its responsibilities wold be to shift to a one world government and I dont think that is going to happen in my lifetime.

[pscot]

7. Yes

[99th_Monkey]

8. Complete over-haul, from ground up

Like happened in the wake of the Church Committee's nationally
televised hearings that exposed COINTELPRO and established FISA
in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
http://www.whale.to/b/wolf11.html

[mick063]

9. Not abolished

But a more transparent mission statement, a means of independent oversight that is easily implemented, more transparent budgeting, and largely confined to government employees as opposed to private contractors.

[99Forever]

11. Neato. All or nothing mentality is so cute.

Thanks for the false dilemma dichotomy.

[mick063]

13. In one instance, I'll take the "all or nothing" approach.

I do believe the Dept. of Homeland Security could be abolished.


My problem is that there is no sunset for it as well as the Patriot Act. They had their time and place in response to 9/11. In my opinion, getting killed by your neighbor's handgun is a much greater personal threat than terrorism.

The DHS has grown into a dangerous beast that would be terrifying in the wrong hands. Still relatively new and under a Democratic President for half of it's lifespan, it is much too early to consider it largely benevolent.

[99Forever]

21. Methinks, you misread my meaning.

The OP is meant to provide cover for spying on ALL of us, and all of the other shitty things this administration is doing. It isn't an honest call to end the NSA or any other of the alphabet soup of police state surveillance agencies, it's a way to make excuses for the myriad of UNCONSTITUTIONAL abuses they are visiting upon us.

Make no mistake, the agents of the MIC are among us and will say and do anything to protect their masters.

[michigandem58]

41. An agent? Can I get paid for this?

[99Forever]

47. Some do.

That's the smart ones. At least they turn a profit selling out their fellow citizens.

Whether you do or not, I neither know nor care. If you want to do the 1%'s bidding for free, that's a personal issue.

[DevonRex]

15. No.

Should the military be abolished?
Should all intelligence agencies be abolished?
Should federal law enforcement agencies be abolished?
Have all threats to the United States been permanently eradicated?

[WinkyDink]

17. Yes! We should stop sending rockets where they don't belong! What? ......Never mind.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. Yes. And, throw in the CIA for good measure.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H.L. Mencken

[HooptieWagon]

27. Yes.

While there is a place in intelligence programs for electronic surveillence of bona-fide enemies, the NSA appears irrepairably broken. Its completely ineffective, a cess-pool of corruption by private contractors, and incapable of oversight by Congress or Courts, let alone by themselves or Executive Branch, that leads to unconstitutional abuse of power. Best to blow it up and start over, with proper control and oversight designed in.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

29. Specifically,

NSA is signals intelligence. You know, the kind of thing that broke the Enigma machine in WWII. So obviously you don't get rid of it.
The specific problem is obviously the gathering of all the metadata available from domestic carriers. The two obstacles to getting that killed are as follows:

1 - All of the legal decisions on metadata find that it is NOT protected under the Fourth.
2 - If the purpose of gathering the data is foreign intelligence, then the net can be much wider than it can be if the purpose is domestic, i.e., foreign spying has, for obvious reasons, never needed a warrant, and the net can be cast much wider because it is, after all, spying.

So those are the two problems. I'm sure there are legal solutions, but IANAL, so I have no idea what they would be.
Obviously, as a practical matter, allowing this to go on under the structure currently in place is not a good solution. The stuff Obama presented in his press conf doesn't sound like it'll get us anywhere either. But given the legal precedents in place, I don't know how you can get it to be stopped.
For Obama, the practical politics are pretty obvious: if he were to stop the current collection of metadata, and then an attack took place, it'd be game over for him. No one ever seems to take this into account when figuring out the politics of this thing. If something is going to be done it has to be done via a Congressional initiative. Obama ain't gonna hang himself out to dry.
That should be obvious, for some reason it isn't though.

[randome]

32. You do know what the NSA is tasked with, right?

Terrorism is only one part. They also track international pedophile rings, human trafficking, black market organ trafficking, money laundering, etc.

So, no. Unless you think all those activities should be allowed 'freedom'.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]The truth doesn’t always set you free.
Sometimes it builds a bigger cage around the one you’re already in.[/center][/font][hr]

[Warren Stupidity]

34. yes think about the children.

Please take away any remaining rights I might have. For the children.

[Warren Stupidity]

33. should post and run be abolished?

Disgust.

[Fumesucker]

45. I used to be disgusted now I try to be amused -Elvis Costello

[Fire Walk With Me]

35. Yes, and even more importantly, the contractors and subcontractors

such as Booz Allen, through whom the Bush disaster family raked in some $2 billion through teaching their friends the Saudis how to data mine their citizens.

[Demo_Chris]

37. Yes. nt

[cthulu2016]

38. No. We have a great national interest in an ability to intercept electronic communications

and break codes

I would no more abolish the NSA than I would the CIA, FBI or military.

But I am a critic of all of the above

[bemildred]

39. Yes. Now. It's the only way to get rid of the "perception management" teams destroying DU. nt

[Yo_Mama]

40. It should, at a minimum, be operated with far more oversight

and much more public disclosure of what's being done. To me, at least, it seems that this is out of control and probably really hurting national security. It's possible to dump huge sums of money into vast surveillance capabilities that in the end, leave you absent the human power to follow up real risks. It seems likely to me that this system has diverted investigators onto "low-value" targets aka the sting ops that produce prosecutions of those who may or may not have acted anyway.

And then we have to respect the Constitution, which the current system does not. We are in full "destroy the village to save it" mode, and it's time to step back, rethink and retool.

It seems very clear that this won't happen without public pressure, a public discussion, and brand new parameters that are set not by investigators, but by the public and the public's representatives.

[Boom Sound 416]

42. It already is. NSA - No Such Agency

[Boom Sound 416]

43. The NSA specifically or the entire intelligence sphere

Such as
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
United States Department of Defense
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
National Security Agency (NSA)
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA)
Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA)
Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
United States Department of Energy
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI)
United States Department of Homeland Security
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A)
Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI)

And what do you think these guys will think

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

[Fumesucker]

44. Could get a good start by shitcanning the contractors and doing it with govt employees

Once that's accomplished we can see how things work out.

[Marr]

46. Because the only options are "cheer wildly" or "have no intelligence agencies".

Authoritarians have a tendency to think in black and white.