Snowdon is a dummy

@spendius,

I think you are on the wrong road here...NSA is a typical American failure but on the all too American grounds of

A)more is better

B) a hammer is the only useful tool in the tool box, and the bigger the better (see rule A)

C)Technology can and will solve every human problem

D) dont give a **** if it works, we will make it work tomorrow (which never comes).

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@spendius,

Consider that one of the NYT's goals is to break even. They are bound to keep a worry eye on cost-effectiveness, and mass spying is known to be very ineffective. No need to treat all journalists as potential criminals.

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But we have no reason not to trust the fine folks at the NSA, right?

DOJ Says Company That Vetted Snowden Faked 665,000 Background Checks

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@JPB,

I think we have known not to trust the NSA since that Clapper lied to congress. Didn't check out the link since the headline pretty well says it all, but I guess we know how Snowden slithered his way through to such a position. The whole outfit need to be scrapped and started over.

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@hawkeye10,

You can't have everything hawk. The US is the finest country in the world isn't it. I've heard the President say that a few times.

Was he being economical with the veracities?

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@JPB,

One of the points made is that folks like Sen. Diane Feinstein, who chairs the Senate committee charged with oversight and has been an NSA apologist since anyone outside of her committee and her cohorts started talking about the NSA, stated that we have no reason to be concerned about abuses within the NSA because they're all "professionals".

Diane Feinstein wrote:

stated (not wrote) on 'Meet the Press', "Well, I would disagree with Mr. Gellman. I think that what the president has said is that he wanted to maintain the capability of the program. That, as Chairman Rogers said, it has not been abused or misused. And it is carried out by very strictly vetted and professional people."

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

The whole outfit need to be scrapped and started over.

yes

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

revelette2 wrote:

The whole outfit need to be scrapped and started over.

yes

I am sure there are people whose intentions are to harm the US as much and as terribly as possible...

...agree with you guys completely.

I most assuredly do not.

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@Frank Apisa,

Make that...

...whose intentions are to harm the US and other countries as much and as terribly as possible...

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@JPB,

Quote:

yes

And what sorts of types would you recruit. Not individuals. The names may change but how will you vary the types in this situation. A bureaucratic process has a life of its own. It forces people into roles.

It's called "going native".

"POP HOP JOE NAMED HEAD OF RE-VAMPED NSA!" headlines are no good JP.

You might scrap it altogether and go back to the C.I.A. The desire to create new departments is always strong in ambitious leaders for obvious reasons. It extends their patronage.

The trouble is that if the C.I.A. was still in charge, and the two-bit wannabee spies had been left washing up in diners, the President might worry that they were up his arse all day long without him ever being any the wiser.

A 2-tier system implies that there are differences between levels.

I don't know but I presume working for the C.I.A. carries a higher cachet than working for the new outfit. Those recruitment trawls at universities might well allow the C.I.A. to be fussy. All other temptations being equal cachet might be important.

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@spendius,

I agree; we don't need another "layer or department" that goes beyond our CIA, FBI, and military OSI. Another layer that costs taxpayers billions just isn't worth the cost - or suspicious benefit.

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@hawkeye10,

Very good post.

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@Olivier5,

Today on data searching.

Quote:

The administration has provided only vague descriptions about changes it is considering to the NSA's daily collection and storage of Americans' phone records, which are presently kept in NSA databanks. To resolve legal, privacy and civil liberties concerns, President Barack Obama this month ordered the attorney general and senior intelligence officials to recommend changes by March 28 that would allow the U.S. to identify suspected terrorists' phone calls without the government holding the phone records itself.

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@cicerone imposter,

That's what I can't get beyond. We're PAYING for this!!! Everyone who has a tax liability, that is. I just don't get why a few hundred million people aren't pissed off that there's an entire layer of government charged with tracking their every move just in case someone might want to take a poke around those very moves at some point over a five year period, and it's all operating in secret with bullshit Congressional oversight and a secret court that none of us supposed to a) know about, b) care about, c) worry our pretty little heads about, and d) care that it costs about $10 billion dollars a year that we don't have and are borrowing to pay for.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

There are 19 difference intelligence Agencies. All have a different mission. You can't just put an ad in the paper and hire an analyst with a combination of skills to view overhead and determine if troops are moving or nuclear tests have been performed. I wish it was a simple as just picking up a newspaper to keep the military and administration aware of upcoming threats. You need to be immersed in a targets culture. Threats in Bosnia will be revealed in a very different fashion than they would in Chechnya. I don't there is one person who can adequately keep up with everything that is going on in the world.

The State department is not an intelligence agency, but if you plan a trip to Mexico or Argentina or Greece, you can get the most current info available online provided by State on how to avoid dangerous situations, or if a part of the country is so unstable riots might break out. Personally, I like knowing what to expect when I travel and what inoculations would be appropriate. The world is not like McDonalds with a set menu and customs.

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@JPB,

Dame Feinstein has outlived her usefulness in congress, and needs to be voted out! She's a danger to our Constitutional rights to privacy; an idiot of sorts.

I told her not to vote for the war in Iraq, and she had the gall to tell me "with the information we have, I have no choice but to approve the war" - something to that effect. She was wrong on not only that issue, but some important ones after that. I wrote her off as a useless hack back then.

From USLegal.

Quote:

The right to privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has interpreted several of the amendments as creating this right. One of the amendments is the Fourth Amendment, which stops the police and other government agents from searching us or our property without "probable cause" to believe that we have committed a crime. Other amendments protect our freedom to make certain decisions about our bodies and our private lives without interference from the government. The due process clause of the 14th amendment generally only protects privacy of family, marriage, motherhood, procreation, and child rearing.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I am sure there are people whose intentions are to harm the US as much and as terribly as possible...

...agree with you guys completely.

I most assuredly do not.

That looks like a claim to be on the right side of history, to be most virtuous thing on the block and as chaste as the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy.

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@JPB,

Quote:

That's what I can't get beyond. We're PAYING for this!!! Everyone who has a tax liability, that is. I just don't get why a few hundred million people aren't pissed off that there's an entire layer of government charged with tracking their every move just in case someone might want to take a poke around those very moves at some point over a five year period, and it's all operating in secret with bullshit Congressional oversight and a secret court that none of us supposed to a) know about, b) care about, c) worry our pretty little heads about, and d) care that it costs about $10 billion dollars a year that we don't have and are borrowing to pay for.

That's about the size of it JP.

You sound a bit like those ladies in War and Peace who got up a deputation to the General to complain about his men raping them.

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nsa could turn their attention to stopping thieving of debt card data, so that we could get some value for our sunk costs. I am not holding my breath.

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@glitterbag,

You might try to control silly whims about going to Mexico or Argentina or Greece.

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Snowdon is a dummy

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