I know this will, forever, brand me the NSA Defending, lackey of authoritarianism; but ...

[Shandris]

12. I don't think it makes you a permanent authoritarian...

...but I do think it is something you need to consider more. The very idea of people in power -- ANY power -- looking out for the common person's interests is not only silly, its dangerously naive. The history of the world is built on the fallacies of people trusting those in power; it is only transparency and the reach of the masses that have any potential of reining in the powerful, and the reach of the masses has been neutralized in the last 50 years or so.

I don't mean they need to publish every single bit of data collected or encountered, but there need to be hard-coded, hard-enforced -obvious- safeguards that even a common set of citizens can check for compliance. And if that means we out ourselves as spying on our friends and allies -- which we do, and they know it, and we know it -- then nothing has changed in terms of international relations. It's never been a question of 'are we spying on our allies', it's 'how many are we spying with and can they catch them all', and vice versa.

But faith that our elected representatives have our best interests in heart is tantamount to believing that fast food companies have our health interests at heart, or that arms dealers have our families' best interests at heart. It's nice to believe, it may even be comforting, but it's ultimately a fantasy.