Say hello to men who hate the NSA but love invading the privacy of women

[Pholus]

27. On needing "intelligence programs" we agree.

But you also need intelligent people leading the intelligence programs. Since President Obama used NOTHING but retread Bush era appointees we can take as a given we do NOT have intelligent people in those positions, nor is there any reason to believe that they are not simply continuing the PNAC vision for "controlling cyberspace" with the fig leaf of the FISA court, which LONG AFTER 2008 has been rumored to be completely ineffective in supervision. In other words, if 2008 was some kind of panacea, why is this discussion needed six years later?

http://www.ibtimes.com/nsa-fisa-controversy-congress-looks-reform-secret-court-1348875

My evidence that this is a MASSIVE failure in administration policy? Watching the spooks flail around some PR spin in the wake of being caught with their pants down -- ONCE AGAIN! When they needed an excuse it was Snowden's fault that we had insufficient analysts and ignored the satellite images showing troops massing and then had to overcompensate ex post facto with some "surge" of intelligence assets. And all the conservative authoritarians and Tom Clancy fans just ate that shit right up:

http://www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=3998

Intelligence work requires critical thinking and targeted data collection. The original "collect it all" strategy was valid in Iraq because it was a limited dataset with a definite threat. Trying to scale it up to watch everyone all the time seeking unspecified general threats might sound good in seen through the lens of DC cocktail party hangovers and it certainly sounds good to any number of beltway bandits' bottom lines but it means we are simply not spending our resources in any intelligent way.

We are not safer through the creation of huge data repositories and the promise of early "anomaly detection" software. What is a certainty is that the probability of our private communications being abused by a future conservative jackass to control or intimidate liberals approaches unity. This entire misguided project was put together to look good on a powerpoint slide and to cover asses, not because it was in any way the best way to protect the country.

The upshot? I want "signals intelligence" but where you cheer the first part and its expensive technology, I pine for the second part in the people running the program.

Glad YOU get to be happy at least.