NSA hypocrisy soars to new heights

[Skroe]

Time to don the black NSA.

The NSA won't go away and if it does it's because of exactly what you said. We're in an age of technology, we have to stay ahead while we have the advantage.

Exactly. This anti-NSA stuff is becoming some weird, self-fueling religion. It feeds on itself because it's adherents want to believe.

In other NSA threads, we've actually asked anti-NSA people about this... and their response do little than elict a "... what?", it's so out in left field. If we were to scrap the NSA, it wouldn't change anything other than the USA government no-longer doing certain practices. Every other country with advance electronic spying program would carry on, and in a decade hence, their technical capability will surpass where the NSA is today. It ends up solving precisely zero problems with respect to privacy. It just moves who is doing the dirty deed.

Their refrain, typically is "I don't care about other countries doing it, just my own." which is, of course, bullshit, first because certain Europeans subject to NSA spying don't feel that way, and secondly because that's an oddly provincial view of the world, especially relating to the internet. If Micronesia were spying on Americans, Americans would not have privacy. It's an all or nothing thing.

When you cut through the crap, anti-NSA sentiment doesn't have a logical bone in it's body. It isn't philosophically, logically or technically consistent. It's built on emotions of outrage about some stuff that plays to pre-existing political prejudices, and little more. Even an international treaty against electronic spying wouldn't work - ban treaties have a long history of faltering or being circumvented, even with regards to nuclear weapons (see: the INF treaty).

The best thing is to do modest reforms to the NSA, declare the discussion over, and adopt a strong defense-through-offense posture with it. Or better yet, push it all into the classified world yet again.

[ringpriest]

When you cut through the crap, anti-NSA sentiment doesn't have a logical bone in it's body. It isn't philosophically, logically or technically consistent. It's built on emotions of outrage about some stuff that plays to pre-existing political prejudices, and little more.

And here I thought I was opposed to the NSA because its panoptic surveillance damages representative government, is stupidly expensive and poorly run, and hypes non-existent threats while not actually accomplishing anything.

The black comedy of government hypocrisy (which I see you neither denied nor defended) just keeps getting better - apparently Secretary of State Kerry is currently in talks with Israel to free Johnathan Pollard, who was caught selling U.S. top secret documents decades ago. From ABCNews: Spycatchers: Freeing Pollard While Pursuing Snowden Sends ‘Mixed Signals’

Former investigators who thought they'd put convicted U.S. spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard in the slammer for life lashed out today at news that the Obama administration is using his release as a bargaining chip in Mideast peace talks.

"How do you do this after Snowden?" fumed the former top prosecutor who won Pollard's conviction, Joseph diGenova.

Maybe it's an April Fool's joke by the State Department?

[Duronos]

And here I thought I was opposed to the NSA because its panoptic surveillance damages representative government, is stupidly expensive and poorly run, and hypes non-existent threats while not actually accomplishing anything.

The black comedy of government hypocrisy (which I see you neither denied nor defended) just keeps getting better - apparently Secretary of State Kerry is currently in talks with Israel to free Johnathan Pollard, who was caught selling U.S. top secret documents decades ago. From ABCNews: Spycatchers: Freeing Pollard While Pursuing Snowden Sends ‘Mixed Signals’

Poorly run? Ever been there? It's ran quite efficiently. Beautiful glass building too.

[Skroe]

And here I thought I was opposed to the NSA because its panoptic surveillance damages representative government, is stupidly expensive and poorly run, and hypes non-existent threats while not actually accomplishing anything.

The black comedy of government hypocrisy (which I see you neither denied nor defended) just keeps getting better - apparently Secretary of State Kerry is currently in talks with Israel to free Johnathan Pollard, who was caught selling U.S. top secret documents decades ago. From ABCNews: Spycatchers: Freeing Pollard While Pursuing Snowden Sends ‘Mixed Signals’

Maybe it's an April Fool's joke by the State Department?

This is exactly what i"m saying. How can any agency which has attainted the level of computer access they've managed to attain around the world be "poorly run". It's contradictory. You don't like what they did, but don't have the intellectual honesty to balance the good with the bad, and segregate the effective from the ineffective. Just because the NSA hasn't stopped any terrorist attacks (and really, who cares... that's not what the NSA should be for anyway), doesn't mean it's incompetent when it's hacked its way into Russian and Chinese government and military networks in new, amazing ways. That is what the NSA absolutely should be doing. Do you agree?

Actually I'll just ask you directly: should the NSA spy on the Russian and Chinese Governments? Yes or No.

Let's talk about this spy thing. This is the rare case I agree with you. Pollard should rot in a cell until the end of time. The only reason he is being brought up is because Obama is desperate - completely and utterly desperate - to save these failing peace talks of his. And really, it's a stupid thing on his part, because he'll release Pollard, and the Israelis and Palestinians will find a way to have the talks fail anyway.

Really American Presidents desperately need to stop getting drawn into the the high stakes game of Middle Eastern peace where risks are high and rewards few. It never works, and even the eventual payout is kind of a worthless too. Bush's refusal to engage in that crap post 2004 was certainly a good spot on his legacy.

As for Snowden though... have you taken a look at what proportion of his leaks relate to US civil liberties being under thread and what proportion are relating to non-Americans? It's pretty shameful that on the day Obama and Merkel were to meet, more US Spying on Germany stuff came out. What's the point? To inform or to run interference? Fortunately that trick only works once, and Merkel said nary a word. But Snowden's motivations are clearer now than ever. He deserves the solitary cell he'll get one day. And like Bradley Manning, I will celebrate right here when that day comes.

[ringpriest]

This is exactly what i"m saying. How can any agency which has attainted the level of computer access they've managed to attain around the world be "poorly run". It's contradictory. You don't like what they did, but don't have the intellectual honesty to balance the good with the bad, and segregate the effective from the ineffective. Just because the NSA hasn't stopped any terrorist attacks (and really, who cares... that's not what the NSA should be for anyway), doesn't mean it's incompetent when it's hacked its way into Russian and Chinese government and military networks in new, amazing ways. That is what the NSA absolutely should be doing. Do you agree?

They let a contractor without a high school diploma (as his critics love to repeat) who was getting paid six figures (and whose contracting company was likely charging the government at least three times that) loot whatever he wanted to from their most secret systems. They hounded a senior official for following the rules when he blew the whistle on a failing program, persecuting him even after he was proven to be correct and the program was canceled. They missed informing Congress on Russian intentions to seize Crimea. (Just like intel agencies have missed almost every significant geopolitical event since WWII.) Their giant data center doesn't work properly. Do any of these sound like a well-run intelligence agency to you? They're an unaccountable bureaucracy run by a limited set of well-connected contractors. Of course they're poorly run.

Actually I'll just ask you directly: should the NSA spy on the Russian and Chinese Governments? Yes or No.

Spy on the Russian and Chinese military - sure.

Spying on the internals of Russian and Chinese government, the way the NSA was spying on the German government? No, for multiple reasons. 1) It doesn't work as well as the spooks would like you to think it does. You never get all the data, and you never interpret it correctly. 2) Material cost. Tons of invasive spying - hardware and the people to design and run it - doesn't come cheap, just look at the prices in the catalog Schneier is has been methodically deconstructing. The U.S. has limited resources and spends far too much on defense and 'intelligence' as it is. There are better uses for the money, with much better returns. 3) Cost in goodwill. When you get caught, the blowback is significant. 4) Enabling corruption and damaging democracy. Spooks start spying on and manipulating their own governments, it's like a law of nature or something. But that doesn't mean you should make it easier for them to do so. Look at the god-damn full-blown constitutional crisis exploding in slow motion over the CIA messing with Senator Feinstein. (While it's far from certain, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama ends up getting impeached over it.)

And that's just spying on governments - all the craziness xof the NSA (and the rest of the intel community) - hijacking crypto standards, tracking cell phones, and on and on ad nauseaum - has similar problems, imnsho. I've always been a big fan of Bletchly Park and Station HYPO - but you'll note that the most important cryptological actions of WWII were focused on reading the enemy's field communications and diplomatic correspondence, and keeping the Allies communications secure. No one was going to win the war by reading Tojo's mail or snooping on Hitler's dinners with Eva Braun, and trying to do so would have been a foolish waste of resources better spent. An organization like the NSA should stick to decrypting military traffic and ensuring communications security for their own side. That's why they were created in the first place. It seems obvious to me that the NSA as an institution is incapable of limiting itself to those roles, which is why it needs to be torn down to the ground. (And not rebuilt. Let the DIA or someone handle foreign traffic interception, the FBI handle legal domestic surveillance, and give communications security to someone else entirely, maybe the FCC or NIST.)

Let's talk about this spy thing. This is the rare case I agree with you. Pollard should rot in a cell until the end of time. The only reason he is being brought up is because Obama is desperate - completely and utterly desperate - to save these failing peace talks of his. And really, it's a stupid thing on his part, because he'll release Pollard, and the Israelis and Palestinians will find a way to have the talks fail anyway.

Really American Presidents desperately need to stop getting drawn into the the high stakes game of Middle Eastern peace where risks are high and rewards few. It never works, and even the eventual payout is kind of a worthless too. Bush's refusal to engage in that crap post 2004 was certainly a good spot on his legacy.

I can actually agree with you that the Middle East is a waste, and that Pollard needs to stay in jail. But where you think the U.S. ought to move to a more relevant theater, I think it should wash its hands of foreign meddling beyond securing trade. (Which boils down to anti-piracy and maybe interventions in countries so awful the whole Security Council agrees that something needs to be done.)

As for Snowden though... have you taken a look at what proportion of his leaks relate to US civil liberties being under thread and what proportion are relating to non-Americans? It's pretty shameful that on the day Obama and Merkel were to meet, more US Spying on Germany stuff came out. What's the point? To inform or to run interference? Fortunately that trick only works once, and Merkel said nary a word. But Snowden's motivations are clearer now than ever. He deserves the solitary cell he'll get one day. And like Bradley Manning, I will celebrate right here when that day comes.

Bearing in mind that most of 'Snowden's' leaks have actually come from Greenwald and others he gave material to, I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. From the Guardian, there's: PRISM (domestic US), Tempora (domestic UK), Phone Collection (domestic US), Upstream (domestic AND foreign US), encryption sabotage (US & UK. This one is such an epic clusterfail that both the NSA and GCHQ ought to be obliterated by their respective governments). Other lists have more detail but it is focused on domestic surveillance in the US and UK.

Sure, there are exceptions, but if the government is given a pass on a certain amount of 'collateral damage' (as with, say, drone strikes), then I don't see why Snowden ought to be held to some higher standard of perfection. When Bush, Obama, Cameron, and Blair all turn themselves into the ICJ for war crimes, I'll agree that Snowden ought to surrender to the UK or US governments for the few items he's leaked that maybe shouldn't have been made public. (I'll also point out that if the NSA wasn't grossly abusing its authority OR had a functional system for internal whistleblowing OR had effective judicial and Congressional oversight, it's likely Snowden's leaks would never have happened.)