Why do we tolerate the NSA?

[MannyGoldstein]

They are obsessed with stealing our privacy, flout the Constitution, and lie as easily as they breathe. They even lie to Congress, and that's apparently fine.

As far as I can tell, they've done nothing substantially helpful, just suck our money, spy on us, and enrage the rest of the world.

It's like keeping measles as a pet.

Damn, are we stupid.

[Boom Sound 416]

1. We have a choice?

[TheNutcracker]

33. Imagine if we all chose a day, and disconnected from everything, and turned in our cable boxes.

No email. No cell phone. No internet. Go out for a walk. A week of silence would send a message. No E- commerce. Nothing. You will enter a past, peaceful existence.

The reason we put up with it is because we are not disciplined enough to make a plan that hurts back, and stick with it.

Instead of taking to the streets and risking more enforcement and danger would you unplug yourself for awhile???

[Boom Sound 416]

38. You just described pre-1992

But I hear ya

[billhicks76]

34. BLACKMAIL!!!!

Because they are blackmailing all our politicians, journalists and judges most probably...and people fear them. It can only end badly.

[Ed Suspicious]

2. "It's like keeping measles as a pet." I LOVE that. Perfect.

[ileus]

3. Because we're in control of them.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. You say that as if

spying on us, sucking our money, and enraging the rest of the world were a bad thing.

[jazzimov]

5. Because they do NONE OF THE ABOVE.

I could go into details, but I've done so many times before and nobody wanted to listen.

You'd rather believe the lies.

Just like the Right Wing.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. How many terror plots have been foiled by their

Last edited Fri Apr 11, 2014, 11:41 PM - Edit history (1)

wholesale collection of phone records?

[Cali_Democrat]

12. Manny, we've known about bulk metadata phone record collection since 2006

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

I'm willing to bet you created no posts between 2006 and 2013 decrying metadata phone record collection.

You only started decrying it when Greenwald told you to jump and you did like a good little puppy.

While I do think the program is overkill and should be reformed, I'm not going to pretend that it's a new revelation.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Was that my question?

If not, then why push the conversation in a new direction?

[Cali_Democrat]

20. It's just interesting how you're only outraged about it now when there's a Democratic President.

Nary a peep from you when it occurred under a Republican President.

[MannyGoldstein]

26. Still trying to hijack this subthread.

Isn't it interesting?

[Cali_Democrat]

37. The subject of your OP is the NSA and you brought up metadata phone record collection

Hardly a hijack.

Can't handle the heat, eh?

Not surprising.

[grasswire]

41. shame on you. nt

[SidDithers]

57. Nailed it...nt

Sid

[bvar22]

68. Yes. Some of us knew a little about the Meta-Data Collection in 2006,

.....and we spoke our minds and values back then too.
YOU must not have been paying attention.

Joe Biden even agreed with us.

Since the beginning of DU, the NSA and CIA and spying on Americans has been an issue here.
Supporters of Spying on Americans, The Patriot Act, Secret Courts, NDAA, the Unitary Executive et al has only recently become popular among a certain sub-culture at DU.


You will know them by their WORKS.

[Ed Suspicious]

9. How's the sand looking down below?

[fascisthunter]

72. lol

[Vattel]

6. Because somewhere, somehow, someday, the NSA just might stop a terrorist from killing someone.

[pragmatic_dem]

30. meanwhile, 100,000 a year are killed and injured by gun violence, but that's ok because it tastes

like freedom.

[Vattel]

44. Get with the program. No one really dies unless they are killed by a terrorist.

[99Forever]

7. Agent Mike says...

... you are a throublemaker, MG...

... you might even have a lot of boxes in your garage.

[Egnever]

10. Because foreign intelligence is important?

[Junkdrawer]

15. Especially to Wall St. So important in fact, that Wall St. ran the proto-CIA for 2 years...

before it became a permanent part of US governance.

[Egnever]

17. To a lot of things

Wall street included.

[Junkdrawer]

11. To guard the secret of The Bomb.

And failing that....

[w8liftinglady]

14. I lived at Ft Meade throughout Vietnam. My dad worked there.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2002/infosec_training.shtml


Context of '1968: NSA Launches ‘Canyon’ Surveillance Satellites'

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=civilliberties_216

The N.S.A.’s Chief Chronicler

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/06/the-nsas-chief-chronicler.html

Hell,in 1986, Reagan had a big woodie for "frequency hopping"

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologs/cryptolog_105.pdf

Some more lovely NSA reading from Reagan's Toilet

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologs/cryptolog_113.pdf

[goldent]

16. I think we learned especially during WW2 the need to apply

science and technology to our defense in the area of intelligence. I think this is more true today than it ever was. The NSA needs firm oversight, but its reason for being is the same.

[Egnever]

18. Well said

[Android3.14]

22. Not just firm oversight

Public oversight.

[goldent]

39. I agree the public should know what is in the remit of the NSA and

what are the bounds of what it is permitted to do.

[MannyGoldstein]

23. Of course

We also need a government, but that doesn't mean we should accept one staffed with Republicans.

[pragmatic_dem]

31. lol - China, N. Korea, Iran, India et al would agree. You might just say it is more important

than ever to maintain ample distance between the public's declining quality of life, and the corrupt government responsible for it.

[RKP5637]

55. Agree! Also, yes, it needs firm oversight. For many there has been too much trust, that can

be dangerous, because as we well know, agencies take on a life of their own, transcend presidential administrations and congress and often TPTB have scant knowledge of what is really going on in dark corners, hardly even understanding the technology.

[blkmusclmachine]

19. ,

,

[DeSwiss]

21. You know why Manny.....

...everybody's scared to death of them. Everyone's scared period. Of just about everything. When there's really no reason.

- Life: Nobody gets out alive.

K&R

[center][/center]

[adirondacker]

32. That's a pretty healthy attitude to have.

(I'm speaking of yours. if course)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. We like to think they're on our side.....

I know,...that's a real knee slapper ain't it....

[pragmatic_dem]

25. we don't, but the conservative infection sweeping the Democratic Party does and it is a

flesh eating, democracy resistant disease.

[Demeter]

27. I don't tolerate it. I just have no power over it.

We might as well be in different galaxies, for all the gravitational pull I can exert on the Military/Industrial/Espionage complex.

[pragmatic_dem]

28. Besides, if we didn't spend billions spying on each other, we'd just spend it sending more jobs and

technology to India and communist China.

lol- here we are spying on each other while wall street sends trillions worth of technology and investment to China and India.

How fucking perfect is that.

[rhett o rick]

29. As if you hadnt heard, there has been a coup and apparently you werent invited.

The NSA, CIA and FBI are the new Powers That Be. It isnt clear who is the force behind them but my money is on the Carlyle Group.
I bet Goldman-Sachs told HRC in their last tete-a-tete.

[moondust]

35. They have a legitimate mission.

The problem today is defining and then limiting their activities to what is legitimate in an age of ubiquitous mobile communications, organized "civilian" terror groups, suicide bombers, etc. Electronic intelligence collection was comparatively easy back before mobile phones and al Qaeda, back when you knew who the bad guys were and how they communicated with one another on diplomatic and military channels.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. They keep us safe...from ourselves. We can't be trusted to know what "our" government does.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

 Thomas Jefferson

God help the NSA and the rest of our "protectors" if the people ever do become well informed.

[JohnnyRingo]

40. Doesn't the NSA work covertly on international security?

That's what they used to do, even back in the '60s. I had a friend who worked for them via the army during 'Nam. Maybe now the NSA just worries about who my cousin is dating, and my sister's secret cookie recipe.

I know they can't make their achievements public, but if you have evidence that they do absolutely nothing substantially helpful, a link would be helpful, and Alex Jones doesn't count.

I agree that it'd be nice to return to the imaginary days of my youth when we could speak openly on the party line about drug deals and such without risk that the govt was listening in.

I'm still waiting for the privacy conscious masses to pull the fuse for their OnStar, yank the sim card from their smart phones, and pull the Wi-Fi out of their laptops, so they can stop broadcasting their business across the country at the speed of light and freaking out that it can be heard, but I won't hold my breath.

Unless one leads a life of incredible international intrigue, it's much to-do about nothing. I'm more concerned with income inequity and the environment.

[Maedhros]

42. The Internet is the greatest tool in our arsenal.

It lets us talk to one another and share information that is not edited by the State-sponsored media. Yet you advocate abandoning it as a way to thwart the NSA. THAT PLAYS DIRECTLY INTO THEIR HANDS.

This is our country, dammit, and we should not have to abandon our communications with one another just because of the fascist tendencies of the State. The more people are angered about the surveillance state, rather than resigned to it, the better our chances to change it.

[JohnnyRingo]

73. I really don't propose anyone discard the tech of the 21st century.

It just seems sometimes that the people who are most concerned with privacy are those who shout the loudest from their back porch. Someday I may initiate a post with the title: "I want everyone in the universe to read this... except the government".

I don't know what I find more off-putting, the arrogance of some who believe the govt is interested in their weekly rants, or that that sending an enciphered electronic transmission to a cell tower is a sacred trust bestowed specifically by the Constitution.

In this case, I can hardly call the OP's five sentences a rant, and the overly simple "solution" seems to be calling for an end to all national intel gathering. As solutions to complex issues go, that's right up there with throwing all the world's firearms into the ocean to stop gun violence, and ending racism by insisting that we love one another.

I usually don't reply to posts that I suspect may be designed to ring up high counts, but this one was just too tempting. I imagine he'll jumble the words in the five sentences around in a couple days and repost to a new choir of huzzahs and kudos, but I've already voiced my opinion.

I wish I could trademark a form post here: "I've had it with ______, and ______ is no better than the republicans!". If I could collect a dime for every post here that follows that format, I could stop worrying about my daily survival and focus more on issues like privacy in a world where consumers demand electronic convenience delivered at the speed of light.

[Maedhros]

75. I can see your point.

However, I'm a Liberal, and freedom is important to us - even the freedom to use new technology without surrendering our rights.

[JohnnyRingo]

77. And yet I get the word liberal spit in my face often enough.

When it's my week to decide what the defining liberal cause is, I think I'll go with the decline of organized labor as the most important issue we face today, and deride others as tools of the fascist state if they don't agree. I donate a lot of my time and money to union organizing, and see it as a noble endeavor.

If you really believe so strongly in your cause for internet privacy, perhaps you should actually do something about it. The key base of activism is, after all, the word "active".

You could join ranks with the ACLU or The Electronic Frontier Foundation, both of which are working diligently on your cause, but need money to see it through. I could say that's the least you can do for what you see as the most important issue we face today, but giving a K&R to a brief piece of outrage on a website and attacking others who fail to share your concern is literally the least thing you can do.

If you're feeling particularly energetic about your cause, perhaps you can pen a self help book about how to win people over to your side through prejudgment and smug derision. I don't know if anyone needs help being a self righteous jerk, but I always say play to your strong suit.

I know I may be a bit pushy about actually doing something material with your time and money, but I'm a liberal, and activism is important to us, even when that activism seems to be at a dead end in the judicial system.

[Pholus]

43. “One need not destroy one’s enemy. One only needs to destroy his willingness to engage…”

-- Sun Tzu, as quoted in this article:

http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/social-media-use-in-the-military-sector/

I think it's cute when people think cyberwar is about dating and cookie recipes and OMG they're watching me tinfoilhattedness.

Whoosh!

[pragmatic_dem]

46. A poorly reasoned NSA purity defense. Apology not accepted, but we'll sent you a "NSA Ranger" badge,

just for trying.

[JohnnyRingo]

69. I should apologize anyway.

I usually don't reply to five sentence "solutions" to complex issues, because I chalk them up to people who are looking more for a high post count and huzzahs than a real discussion.

In this case the OP's solution to intrusive govt surveillance is to simply end the department that gathers global intel, or else. The "else" being that he'll post a very similarly worded piece in a couple days. Of that, I'm quite certain.

The OP's "study" of national security concerns ranks right up there with other bumper sticker solutions, like stemming gun violence by throwing all the firearms of the world into the ocean, and ending racism by loving one another. My uncanny ability to type while rolling my eyes is a talent I've honed over the years.

I'm sorry you had to spend every bit of 10 seconds from your incredibly full life to convince me that, in a country where most of us survive paycheck to paycheck, our primary concern is whether the govt is reading our Facebook updates. Try to sell that notion to your extended family at next week's Easter table and see how fast they change the subject.

I wish I could trademark and sell a form post here: "I'm very mad about ______, and I think _____ is no better than the republicans". If I could collect a dime for every post here that follows that simple format, I could afford to worry more about petty issues than my daily existence.

[goldent]

48. You always had to be worried about speaking openly on the phone about drug deals

Law enforcement has been doing phone taps for ages.

[Oilwellian]

54. NSA program stopped no terrorist attacks says White House review panel

A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.

While Stone said the mass collection of telephone call records was a “logical program” from the NSA’s perspective, one question the White House panel was seeking to answer was whether it had actually stopped “any [terror attacks] that might have been really big.”

“We found none,” said Stone.

Under the NSA program, first revealed by ex-contractor Edward Snowden, the agency collects in bulk the records of the time and duration of phone calls made by persons inside the United States.

Stone was one of five members of the White House review panel – and the only one without any intelligence community experience – that this week produced a sweeping report recommending that the NSA’s collection of phone call records be terminated to protect Americans’ privacy rights.

The panel made that recommendation after concluding that the program was “not essential in preventing attacks.”

Link

[treestar]

67. +1000000

Great post.

[randome]

45. Our energy is better spent on something besides tilting at windmills.

Any large country needs a security apparatus in place. The NSA does a lot regarding national security, international pedophile rings, human trafficking, drug smuggling, money laundering and, yes, stopping terrorists.

Are they a perfect organization that is to be 100% trusted? Of course not.

But all Snowden has shown us so far is that they store (via legal warrants) the same telecom metadata records that the telecom companies themselves store and that they spy on other countries.

The reason we 'tolerate' the NSA is because the majority of people in this country understand that Snowden's 'revelations' amount to little beyond the outlook of a strange, disgruntled man who has more in sympathy with Libertarians than with Democracy.

I don't mean this to be a 'defense' of the NSA, simply a way to see things for how they really are.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[DisgustipatedinCA]

47. But you DO mean it as a defense of NSA, just as with all of your NSA posts.

Putting a disclaimer at the end of your post claiming that your post isn't what it sounds like...this is a meaningless gesture. I understanding your paternalistic/strong authority/punish the evil doers mindset. I just don't agree with it. Historically, it's a really bad idea to let those of your persuasion hold sway in the public arena.

[randome]

49. And yet you don't dispute the substance of my post.

Is it true that Snowden has shown little for us to be up in arms about? If not, list what makes the NSA #1 on your hit parade.

Sure, my disclaimer at the end derives somewhat from accusations that I am, at various times, an authoritarian, a BOG-ger, or in favor of 'the surveillance state'. It's difficult not to sound a trifle defensive when you're being labeled as such simply for saying what you think is true.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[DisgustipatedinCA]

50. The OP asks why we should put up with NSA. You ranted about Snowden.

Why would I respond to this? Now that I'm on the topic, I'll be glad to remind you that your protestations aside, Snowden has told us LOTS of things we never knew.

The NSA is #1 on my hit parade because they're instrumental in destroying the principles this nation was founded on. We've never fully lived up to those principles, but we used to at least give it some effort. Now the NSA actively works against US citizens who aren't supposed to be in their purview. It doesn't get much more serious than that.

[randome]

53. There is nothing Snowden has 'revealed' that supports your assertion.

The NSA is actively working against U.S. citizens by storing copies of phone metadata? By spying on other countries?

Snowden is relevant here because without him, we would not be having this conversation. Healthy skepticism is essential for a Democracy. Misplaced skepticism will often have bad results.

We did not care about the NSA before Snowden made a break for it. We don't see the same type of posts about the FBI or the CIA. The CIA tortured individuals, and we still see the NSA front and center in the 'eyes' of Democratic Underground.

Why is that? I suppose it's because we have the 'celebrity' Snowden to help push this as more important than anything else.

The IT genius who didn't know what a secure FTP server was and who failed to get any evidence of his more outrageous claims, such as he could spy on the President or knows of emails that prove he went through proper channels before stealing as much as he could and leaving the country.

To me, the NSA is a tempest in a teapot. And I keep going back to what Carl Bernstein said: that it looks to him as if there are solid safeguards in place to prevent abuse.

Again, no law enforcement agency is perfect. But I truly don't see the NSA as the 'evil organization' that some want to see it as.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[questionseverything]

52. defending the law of the land, the Constitution

is not "titling at windmills"

lots of illegal activity has been revealed....


AUGUST 6, 2013 | BY HANNI FAKHOURY
DEA and NSA Team Up to Share Intelligence, Leading to Secret Use of Surveillance in Ordinary Investigations

UPDATE: Add the IRS to the list of federal agencies obtaining information from NSA surveillance. Reuters reports that the IRS got intelligence tips from DEA's secret unit (SOD) and were also told to cover up the source of that information by coming up with their own independent leads to recreate the information obtained from SOD. So that makes two levels of deception: SOD hiding the fact it got intelligence from the NSA and the IRS hiding the fact it got information from SOD. Even worse, there's a suggestion that the Justice Department (DOJ) "closely guards the information provided by SOD with strict oversight," shedding doubt into the effectiveness of DOJ earlier announced efforts to investigate the program.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering



///////////////////////

and then there are the nekid pics the nsa is collecting....I am sure you have no problem with that either

[randome]

56. Without evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to assume this is being done...

...to U.S. citizens. Since the NSA is forbidden from spying on citizens, why do articles such as this fail to address that at all? They leave it to your imagination -and some all too easily want to imagine the worst- that the NSA is 'watching us'.

Before we label them an 'evil organization', we should have evidence they are breaking that fundamental rule of not using their authority against U.S. citizens. So far we don't have that.

They were breaking that rule during the Bush Administration. It was stopped with the Obama Administration. Is it continuing nonetheless? We should have evidence of that before we assume it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[questionseverything]

58. we have plenty of evidence

just because you are willfully blind does not mean evidence is not there....the irs (which is involved in the link I gave you) only deals with us citizens...so yes the nsa is illegally spying on us citizens and then illegally hiding the beginnings of the investigation

/////////////////////

and getting a "warrant" for 60,000 phone records at a time is not a legal warrant

///////////////////

I have a lot of sympathy for current admin trying to reign in the alphabet agencies but I will not pretend as you do that it does not need to be done

[randome]

59. I would think that where the IRS is concerned...

...that information the NSA collects from foreign sources is what is turned over to them. If they discover an illegal offshore tax haven being used by a U.S. citizen then I have no problem with them turning that information over to the proper domestic agency.

And it makes sense that they would want to keep the source of that information secret so they can continue to monitor said tax haven. At least I think it does.

Of course that's just my guess and I think we are all agreed that we should have more information about this and other operations the NSA undertakes.

As for the metadata, no warrant is actually required since those records have long been ruled to be third-party business records that do not belong to individuals. The warrant, I think, is actually the NSA going the 'extra step' to both protect the telecom companies and to show they are not collecting as much domestic data as they can get their hands on. In other words -and you may vociferously claim that I am trying to 'trick' you- the warrants are to show that the NSA is actually using restraint when it comes to domestic data.

That's truly how I see it, though. No subterfuge or disingenuousness intended.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[questionseverything]

61. it is hard for me to imagine a "real" person

that does not understand how important our Constitution and bill of rights are...and yet here you are fonting away to me

the right to privacy is the cornerstone for many protections including a woman's right to control her own body

the right to a fair trial is what separates us from medieval times when a king could toss any1 in the dungeon but you would throw that away to catch an imagined criminal "somewhere"

the whistleblowers know it is much more than metadata, so does the aclu

[randome]

66. Oh, I'm real enough.

The Good Fairy made me a real boy just last week!



6.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[JohnnyRingo]

74. Stop that rational nonsense.

There's no place for that in the DUniverse where everyone's personal gripe is the single biggest issue that faces the country today.

It seems the people who are most concerned with privacy are those who shout the loudest from their back porch, and someday I'm going to author a post titled: "I want everyone in the world to read this, except the government!".

I wish I could trademark and sell a form post here: "I've had it with ______ing, and ______ is no better than the republicans!". If I could collect a dime for every post here that follows that format, I could stop worrying about my daily survival and focus more on issues like privacy in a world where consumers demand electronic convenience delivered at the speed of light.

[cantbeserious]

51. The Answer - The Oligarchs, Corporations And Banks Need Federal Spies To Protect Global Interests

eom

[gulliver]

60. I would rather have the paranoids ranting about the NSA...

...than advocating populism, environmentalism, etc. People only have so much time. The Snowden/Greenwald opera version of the NSA mesmerizes the paranoids and keeps them from speaking out on (and thereby discrediting) the important issues. We can be thankful for that even if it is not in the mission statement of the NSA in conventional reality.

[randome]

62. Stated with just the right amount of sarcasm that I think even Manny would approve!

[Jefferson23]

63. Perhaps the same reason we tolerate so many abuses, we are overwhelmed. The more info

we receive through Snowden, hopefully we can build a movement to fight back.

I do believe a fight for public funded elections is the ticket..there are too many agendas to take
on one by one..they all intercept at the same pig trough. Lobby money.

[L0oniX]

64. Because they are of, by and for the people?

[ucrdem]

65. I'm ready for the next Benghazi.

This one is running on fumes as that lone FISA warrant expired nearly a year ago.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

70. The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. Albert Camus

[Vashta Nerada]

71. Who cares about the NSA? That Edward Snowden guy is a traitor!!!111

[cheapdate]

76. I don't see the question as having much practical value.

It's more of a philosophical question, like 'Why do we tolerate injustice?', or 'Why do we tolerate the destruction of the living systems upon which all life on earth depends?".

Most of us on DU don't exactly 'tolerate' the NSA, we live imperfectly in a world where the NSA exists. It's not like we have a choice.