Senate Diplomatic Firestorm

I keep wanting to post pictures of Moose and Squirrel but then I remember it's a Senate thread...

 

Pretty sure Snowden's codename with the Chinese security forces was MOOSE, and it was SQUIRREL with the GRU in Russia.

 

Why, I take offense to that notion...

 

To me, the hospital incident with John Ashcroft was a far bigger deal than Snowden. John Ashcroft was willing to and intending to resign over what we now know as part of the surveillance program. He was not some kind of liberal icon, and in fact was and no doubt still is a very conservative man. I wish more attention was paid to this, both then and now (and particularly now). We didn't know the specifics, but I'd like to think anyone with an IQ above room temperature understood that it wasn't over whether to clothe naked statues.

 

^ Your Typical American Reply.

Freely translated:
I just love how we're spying on a billion innocent people.
I just love how we're bypassing our own justice system.
I just love how we're not seeing the implications, and think people only get wound up because the government is reading their Facebook. I just love reductionism.

Giving tens of thousands of people access to the private communication of anybody who uses the internet?



Anyway, yeah, I've already scratched "home of the brave"; I think we can all agree that 'land of the free' is not applicable anymore, either.

 

^ Typical leftist response, assuming that you can just think with your heart and not your head.

Watto please advise what measures, factoring in how external agencies have typically penetrated the west, you would employ to manage the security and intelligence gathering of a state.

 

I know I've made this comment to you before, but just don't use US-based websites.

Stay off of Google, Bing, Facebook, etc. Don't use Verizon, ATT, T-Mobile, etc. The US government isn't spying on people (well, in this method) outside of US-based internet and/or telecommunications. I'm pretty sure the spying doesn't include BT, Orange, O2, etc.

If you are that worried, there are steps you can take.

 

No, we're not! We're using a secret court that doesn't reject anything to issue broad warrants. And metadata is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, because.

 

ES, if pointing out reality leftist, then yeah, call me a leftie. But in my country I'm not on the left.
As to your question - you know as well as I do that any sane intelligence gathering policy goes hand in hand with a sane foreign policy. You gotta fix one before you can fix the other. And US foreign policy has been atrocious, the past decades.

DP, it's not about me. I'm not concerned about my own communication. I'm concerned about secret and/or sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. I don't believe for a minute that all those tens of thousands of NSA employees and contracters have good intentions, or even the American interests at heart. I think it's foolish and naieve to assume they do.

 

It's not just paranoia, it's arrogance.

 

Secret doesn't automatically mean sinister, no. Being a rubber-stamper for government abuse of power (it's okay because we're not nearly as bad as the DPRK or Myanmar or the PRC) does.

 

Ok, fine, but I don't live in the US either. I live in the Commonwealth, and our agencies are modeled on the British ones. You've heard of MI5, no?

Ever read a non-fiction book by Peter Wright?

 

Perhaps we can have a discussion about what would replace the security state, if anything. Let's say much or even all of the data gathering went away. What happens then? What are the potential consequences of this?

No one seems to want to discuss these things.

 

^ That.

Raw intelligence is without a doubt the most deathly boring stuff out there. There's a reason you pay analysts to, well, analyse it.

 

You understand I can answer but I cannot give specific examples, right?

EDIT: To clarify, I was never an intelligence officer (IO) but the Government at the time I worked for them was very keen on inter-agency cooperation. As my role had a significant border security and counter-terrorism capacity I was cleared for certain material, which is all on a need-to-know basis. So I understand what intelligence actually looks like; how rigorous the dissemination of that intelligence is (you can't just browse secrets; all your access to S/TS material is rigorously logged. Need to know only).

So in general terms, I can explain what it's used for it and how it informs the state. I'm not going to say, "For example, we learned X which gave an advantage in Y."

 

Nice combination of misrepresenting my point and displaying obliviousness to the actual nature of the problem.

 

Thanks. It's the first and third quote right there.
An additional point is made in the eighth quote.
As with the zoo thread, the fact that you disagree does not make a sentiment unworthy of the Senate.

 

That gets at one reason that my concern is maybe a bit less than one would think-- I feel like there's relative safety in numbers. There's so much data floating around that no one could ever hope to actually pass their eyes over it. Any one person's personal life can come under very direct scrutiny, and that's where some of the real issues are, but in general, I believe there's a major logistical problem when it comes to the amount of data that is being recorded.

Ender-- do you feel that maybe too much data is being taken in, and that it hinders the overall effectiveness of data analysis?