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[Strife26]

And if blowing of FOIA isn't a good cause, I don't know what is. :p


Also, the word you're looking for is Compartmentalization. It's not an ideal information philosophy, but it's been used basically forever.

[Frumple]

Yeaaah... and with compartmentalization, folks (especially up top) tend to be even more aware of what's been taken care of by which department, or at least where they're sending the information off to. If someone's not seriously in the loop there, bad shit can entirely too likely go down. Money starts getting siphoned, important things start disappearing piecemeal, etc, so forth, so on. At the very least, you track everywhere your own compartment is sending stuff, just to cover your own ass when things screw up.

But nah, in this case it looks like they're just using, "We're goddamn lazy." as their excuse. Word given in the article is that they apparently don't have a means of automatically searching through their internal email, and that's apparently reason enough not to go looking for stuff. 'Cause, y'know, someone couldn't get off their arse and start reading, or dump the raw data or whatev' and search that. Bullshit be bullshit, and that line o'response be full of it.

[Another]

And because both all other organizations can easily search through their own internal emails and the NSA can* search through other organizations' email. But apparently claims to not be able to run an automated query on its own.

*That is kind of part of their job, at least in their own view.

[Duuvian]

Well, it looks like I'll be voting for the most sensible person in my elections that will work to break up this whole information racket. I think that if info is being collected to prevent things like slavery or murder or terror, that is probably OK. The thing is, this whole organization seems to be able to collect information on politics, invention, business, and personal relationships of every single person on Earth. In addition, I think that corporations should not be allowed to be in the business of collecting information, because it's extremely easy to influence them. I think that there ought to be a law that provides a mechanism to challenge predatory user agreements, not for individual cases, but to encourage businesses to stop collecting userdata for whoever is paying for it. The number of scripts and requests and such running on some pages is ridiculous.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Use firefox?:Go to addons, search for noscript, install that, search for request policy, install that

 If both parties get involved in 'reforming' it, it'll just drag out and the NSA'll just keep happening the whole time probably.

The best outcome would probably be if the conservatives were to protect it as it is, while the liberals fight to scrap the whole thing and try again. That would be somewhat ironic as it would be a reflection of the Republican's dislike of Obamacare. Ultimately liberals would win that fight because no one really likes the idea of people reading their usage data and messages.

Also there is the idea that maybe by hoarding information these few people will be worldwide kingmakers so to speak. I don't want someone else building their utopian society by using information to make life difficult for the lower castes, so of course I'm opposed to the idea that the government has the right to pay a group of people who are allowed utilize government resources to access whatever communication they can intercept. There can be no doubt that ability would be used to counter things like terrorism; but what if it's also used to quell reasonable protests in a foreign country against a government that is friendly to our own? If the people they profess to care for think they are tyrants, I would want no part of my own government making me complicent in obstructing self liberation from tyranny simply because it makes their job easier as the boss has connections.

I say liberals should fight to scrap the whole thing because they could win that fight. If the Conservatives take that position first it would be their light in the darkness by forcing the liberals to negotiate on their terms or keep the current system. If liberals take the position first the Conservatives will react to defend it probably because it's one of their areas of interest and they like it anyways. However the public does not and the liberals would gain popular support by trying to scrap or defang the NSA and reward Snowden for being a whistleblower. In this way the liberals could shape public opinion more in the favor of their 'team,' who's goals in general once achieved I personally believe to be less detrimental to the average human to be brief. With enough pressure Congress could revisit the whole ordeal as it probably should, and supporting 'defanging' the NSA would go a long way towards helping the public's view of not only Government but also of liberals (or whatever political takes the position of steering the government away from this rather authoritarian revelation), as Conservatives will probably overreach in the issue in trying to take personal or organizational advantage because they want all those tasty informations about how to profit (see ads) and possibly how to smite their enemies socially.

[Helgoland]

Something that's confused me during this whole Snowden thing: Are we angry about what the NSA does, or are we angry about how it does it? Because I still believe intelligence agencies to be necessary, and with them being necessary comes them being able to in some cases disregard some citizen's rights...

[Duuvian]

Something that's confused me during this whole Snowden thing: Are we angry about what the NSA does, or are we angry about how it does it? Because I still believe intelligence agencies to be necessary, and with them being necessary comes them being able to in some cases disregard some citizen's rights...

I would say how they go about it for now; whether or not we should be angry what they do with it we won't know until they've done it if ever as of now. As for being able to in some cases disregard some citizen's rights, I'd disagree with that, because then attention is focussed away from people doing things they don't have rights to. However that might assume the law is perfect and I'd argue in some circumstances the law as written isn't always in the best interest of the people. However when people notice the laws can be improved then their rights will change with the laws, thus making the intelligence agency's jobs different by perhaps changing the targets of their interest to those more deserving should they be inclined to respect the laws as they probably should. One thing I could wish is that instead of hunting dissidents in the so called fringes, Occupy and Tea Party, is that the NSA instead targetted the root cause of these fringe movements which are the large amounts of money being used to manipulate and shape individuals in the US government and thus it's policies.

[SalmonGod]

I'm the complete opposite.  Don't believe such an organization should exist.  If it does, its powers should be extremely limited and focused.  A person should be practically determined to be guilty of terrorism before their privacy can be invaded.  If it's determined that rights can be disregarded in some cases, then there's a hole that is easily widened for the agenda of whoever has their hands in it.  And that's exactly what's happened.

[Helgoland]

So no wiretapping to catch criminals? Or, depending on how strict your definition of privacy is: No investigation into the suspect's life at all?

Sorry, doesn't seem to work to me.

[SalmonGod]

Do you really believe that invading privacy, negating rights, and ending dignity is the only way to conduct an investigation?  Did the law not exist before there was an internet to spy through?  Are you really comfortable with the idea that a person can lose their rights for being suspected of a crime, or connected to someone who is suspected of a crime?  Is the benefit of catching more criminals worth the inevitable drawback of abuse of power?

[Strife26]

Do you really believe that invading privacy, negating rights, and ending dignity is the only way to conduct an investigation?  Did the law not exist before there was an internet to spy through?  Are you really comfortable with the idea that a person can lose their rights for being suspected of a crime, or connected to someone who is suspected of a crime?  Is the benefit of catching more criminals worth the inevitable drawback of abuse of power?

Yes.

Or, longer put: It's a needed tool at times; no, but it's certainly made things easier in a different world; if losing their rights is phone metadata sure thing; yes.

[Helgoland]

Did the law not exist before there was an internet to spy through?  Are you really comfortable with the idea that a person can lose their rights for being suspected of a crime, or connected to someone who is suspected of a crime?  Is the benefit of catching more criminals worth the inevitable drawback of abuse of power?

Yes.
You forget that the right of non-home-invasion (don'tknow the english term), right to postal secrecy, and so on and so on are routinely suspended during criminal investigations. Rights =/= internet privacy.

[Frumple]

... yeah. During criminal investigation. Not before.

[SalmonGod]

And I'm pretty sure that stuff doesn't cover minor suspects and every contact relation two degrees out from the minor suspect.  Weren't warrants sort of a thing once upon a time?  I'm also pretty sure privacy suspensions in classic investigations were supposed to target information that was believed to be relevant, not open up access to absolutely everything.

Rights =/= internet privacy

How is this a fact?  Legal policies regarding the internet are far from settled.  They're changing all the time, under heated debate, and what you just said varies heavily depending on the details of what specifically you're talking about.  If there is any such thing as a right to privacy at all anywhere, then you'll have to explain to the legal precedent that says this never applies to the internet and why you would agree with that.

[Helgoland]

Yeah, there is (or should be) a right to nternet privacy - but there are rights other than that (thank god), and the rules that already apply to them would also apply to the right to internet privacy.

... yeah. During criminal investigation. Not before.

It's really not like they're reading everyone's email word-for-word - a much better comparison (still flawed, I have to admit) would IMHO be a road safety camera: They watch everyone on the road, but only become active when there's something atypical, like someone going 100 km/h in a 50 zone.
That would of course mean a much tighter control of the proceedings; I'm just saying that the methods that have been applied are not unjustified in all circumstances.

[Frumple]

Heh. Y'd have no way of knowing, but th'courts in the area I'm in have actually ruled against road safety cameras more than once. Forget the reasoning they've been using, though. E: Think it was related to me as something along the lines of there needing to be cops with eyes on the scene (even if remotely) for it to be legal. So automated cameras were a no-go. Memory's fuzzy as hell and this was a bit back, though. Could have changed, could be misremembering, etc., so forth, so on.

Regardless, it's more like a live google street view that looks in your windows, since it covers non-public facing data as well. M'relatively certain that if you actually handed something like that to the cops in the states, right now (and folks actually found out, of course ), it'd be a pretty serious fourth amendment violation. For what that's worth, anyway, though I vaguely remember them getting a bit better about forth amendment violations, last time I checked. Personally still consider the amendment to be non-existent these days, but eh.

But for whatever reason, folks seem inclined to treat secure, non-public facing, websites or website activities as different from a private business place or personal residence. Conceptually, I'd consider 'em pretty similar, m'self. E-mails, private messages, stuff that's been turned off from public access... stuff like that I'd call off the street, so to speak, and they're not being considered as such.