NSA: Shut it down?

[JackRiddler]

14 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Shut it down!
	12 (86%)
	No, don't.
	1 (7%)
	Don't, but...
	1 (7%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Dark n Stormy Knight]

1. Maybe not. If the info they collect were actually helping thwart enemies of the people,

maybe I could trade off that loss of privacy if they could strictly enforce this:

Nothing they discover can be used in any way unless it is clearly and directly related to stopping an attack on us. If not, they may not share any data or discuss any data that is attached to any identifiable person. No arrests, no intimidation. And they may never sell any of our personal data.

Otherwise, shut the fuckers down.

[OnyxCollie]

2. “Nuke the entire site from orbit--it’s the only way to be sure”

Between contracting the work out to Carlyle Group-owned Booz Allen Hamilton and the secret court hand-picked by the man who went to Florida in 2000 to help out George W. and who was later rewarded with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the whole thing is fucked and needs to be shut down.

[TheKentuckian]

12. Yup, I trust no "reforms" or promises, blow it away and make every cent of budget allocation public

If roaches want to scurry to dark corners they can do it on their own dime.

[hughee99]

27. Many companies have their data facilities mirrored,

so that data mirrored in 2 places (lets say, Utah and somewhere in the hills of West Virginia for example). Nuking one site won't even slow them down very much.

[Ohio Joe]

3. Don't, but...

I don't think the NSA should go away completely but it should have strict and transparent oversight on what they are allowed to do. We have laws and they have not been following them, they should be forced to do so.

[Bolo Boffin]

8. Pretty much this.

The database of Internet and phone content for instant query has to go as well. I don't have anything to hide. That's why the government doesn't need to waste money and time storing my content away. And that goes for the vast majority of people as well.

Metadata is a different thing. But storing content is BS. That needs to go yesterday.

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. Shackle it.

How's about we limit it to physical connections OFFSHORE and/or BETWEEN the US/MEXICO and US/CANADA?

[hootinholler]

5. Jail everyone responsible for the current mess

Starting with Clap on and Alexander.

Splinter all the spook agencies into 2 of each. One job for everyone of them is to keep an eye on the other sides' operations.

Make them compete and police themselves through an adversarial system.

[LittleBlue]

6. Yes, it is a threat to a free society

Gut it of personnel and defund non-essential areas.

[JackRiddler]

7. Kick for votes, midnight central

[Recursion]

9. I'm much more worried about the CIA, but

make the FISA process public, at least in aggregate.

That said, I think the CIA may have finally accomplished its goal of killing the NSA off. (You know who Snowden started out working for, right?)

[JackRiddler]

10. CIA: Shut it down.

That should have happened already in the early 1960s, or the project should have been aborted in 1947. We can agree on that, no?

[Recursion]

11. No, I'd rather have the roaches all in one room

Shutting it down just makes them scatter far and wide.

[JackRiddler]

14. Interesting view of it.

So, to take your metaphor for a moment, are you saying it's better when the roaches build a big roach nest from which they can organize a decades-long roach crime spree? I think defunding the roach motel might be one of the better ideas for dealing with it.

[Blue_Tires]

35. What if that room of roaches is filled to capacity and it overflows to the rest of the house?

[JackRiddler]

41. Also, not to harp on the metaphor...

But since when do roaches stay in one room? Are you kidding?

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. in my heart I would like to shut it down the same way I would like to shut the Pentagon down and

shut Wall Street down. But that is not living in the real world. The real world does require that an economy have an investment mechanism and that a strong state have intelligence services and a mechanism of defense. But they can be and must be significantly reformed. If a city water works is unfairly distributing the water - the answer is not to blow it up and shut down the water supply to everyone. The answer is to make it fair and equitable.

[sendero]

16. Perhaps one could..

... create a new agency with a clear mandate, literally oppressive oversight and a limited budget.

But there is no way to fix the broken "fuck the constitution" culture of the NSA.

[JackRiddler]

25. No there isn't a way to fix that culture...

Since it dates back to this agency's origins.

Same deal with CIA. Let's stop pretending. Same deal with MIC and "Top Secret America" as a whole.

[JackRiddler]

23. I talk like a utopian...

but understand what comes out practically won't be that.

However, I object to the analogy to the water works. Water and surveillance, what's the difference? Are you telling me it's okay if only the NSA distributes unnecessary surveillance more equitably? That baby needs to be 10% of the size for its supposed function. It's actually an "investment mechanism" itself, an industrial policy in the guise of "security."

[sendero]

15. Remember when the current revelations first came out..

... and their initial response was that they had thwarted 20 terror attacks? And then they upped it to 50, with "details soon".

I guess they found out that fabricating a past event is fraught with difficulty, because now they count is near zero.

The NSA sucks up a lot of resources but it is totally unclear that they provide any benefit to the average American whatsoever.

Just another MIC money sink with zero accountability.

[JackRiddler]

18. The only example they presented in detail...

Last edited Tue Oct 1, 2013, 11:02 AM - Edit history (1)

would have to be a strong one, right? And then it turned out NSA surveillance had nothing to do with catching the suspects in that case.

If that was the best they could do - you gotta wonder how they couldn't manufacture anything better, but it was basically an act of contempt, another fuck-you to us, like: We're full of bullshit but people believe us anyway, what are you going to do about it?

But that prompts a key question:

So what is the NSA for?

(Spontaneous notes)

(1) Among other things, it's an industrial policy. For ideological reasons, the U.S. pretense is that the government does not subsidize technological development, that this is one of the worst Sins Against Capitalism. Now this is a tough one, since of course government has always subsidized R&D and that's how most R&D happens in the capitalist and imperialist powers, whatever our myths of lone geniuses. So we have outfits like NSA and DARPA to develop computing and telephony (going back to the Bell Labs days) and eventually spawning (directly or indirectly) the basis for www, Oracle, Google, Facebook, etc.

And so industrial policy, an indispensable component of modern capitalism (which according to ideology is a European-Chinese sin only, we just have a "market" do everything by magic) is implemented in the form of a so-called "security agency" that subsidizes industries but does not actually provide any security. (In fact, it's part of a larger apparatus that makes enemies, and if it doesn't make enough of those, it makes them up.)

And what is the particular technology that is being developed?

(2) A general surveillance apparatus of Americans, Earthians and all of their businesses and corporations, with all of the power and benefits for those who have access to it that such an apparatus implies.

While:

(3) Making a lot of money for the contractors and, importantly, their executives and consultants, who are recruited through the revolving door after an early retirement from "service," so that it becomes a massive self-licking ice-cream cone, the equal of Wall Street in corruption and self-deceiving justifications - and, fatally, power, fully unaccountable power - plus all those wonderful jobs jobs jobs to justify it.

And

(4) Because like any institution it's got to have an internal morality or religion, and because this is going to have to be a lie (since it is a primarily superfluous and parasitic institution) it turns into, along with the rest of the "intelligence" and "security" and "homeland" "communities," a dictatorship over a separate, extraconstitutional realm of government -- a parallel state that provides "security" against "enemies" and is expected to break the rules and "Do business with unsavory characters." With a nearly totalitarian ideology in place that most of them always believe and usually become fanatic about. Everything they do is justified and much worse will be justified besides, because all this is for America to survive through a perpetual death-match with World Communism.

Sorry, terrorism. I meant terrorism. Communism, where did that come from?

[baldguy]

17. The idea that "gentlemen don't read each other's mail" led to WWI & allowed Pearl Harbor to happen.

Intelligence, surveillance and data-gathering are necessary and proper functions of govt and always will be. But, there needs to be stricter definitions of what information can be collected, how it can be gathered & what it can be used for. And there also needs to be thorough, ongoing oversight of all aspects of any program.

The local police shouldn't be prohibited from reading the local newspaper. but elected officials should actually read the briefing materials they are given & ask enough questions - and receive answers - so that they can understand what our intelligence agencies are doing.

Unfortunately, some want to take such functions away from govt & hand them of to private corporations with no possibility of transparency & no oversight whatsoever.

[JackRiddler]

19. No, it didn't. Your initial premise: ridiculous. Microscopic.

The idea, prevalent among the "Great Powers," that some countries should get to rule over and exploit all others by virtue of their racial or systemic or moral or religious or cultural superiority, led to World War I and "allowed Pearl Harbor to happen."

[baldguy]

20. I'm guessing you don't know much history, do you?

Just what you can glean from movies, the teevee & the intertubes.

[JackRiddler]

21. Masterful projection.

Read your own post on why World War I happened. Ludicrous. Am well aware of these kinds of mythologies. Care to drop the invincibility of the ignorant and maybe cite the cases you're imagining were the determinative factors in the world war of the imperialist powers?

[Ace Acme]

40. History of Oil

This analysis questions how the assassination of some guy in a funny hat could make Germany and France fight.

The thesis I found very fresh and plausible. Trains and ships ran on coal, which both Germany and the UK had domestically.
But new technologies--automobiles, trucks, military tanks, and airplanes--required oil fuel. Oil was better for naval vessels too, because ships on a blockade could be refueled on station simply by pumping oil from a tanker ship. Refueling on station was not practical with coal, so blockade ships were constantly having to be rotated out so they could go off and refuel.

Of course neither Germany nor the UK had domestic supplies of oil. The Brits soon formed the Anglo-Iranian oil company. The Germans found oil in Iraq.

The Germans wanted to build a railroad to Iraq so they could bring the oil back home to Germany. This railroad would become the Orient Express. The Brits wanted to keep the Germans out of Iraq not just to deny them the oil supply, but also because they feared that a presence in Iraq might aid German influence in India and further the movement for independence.

[Taitertots]

22. Please clarify: I seems like you are saying the US could have prevented WWI & WWII by reading mail

Do you have any published history journals that support your opinion?

[JackRiddler]

24. Watch out, he almost certainly does.

This is a very popular and academically sanctioned form of history. For example, tell us how a world war that inevitably came about because of imperialism, capitalism, racism and militarized states in an arms race (sort of like what we have now with the cyber arms-race, among other things) was actually caused by Baron de Blowhard's failure of protocol in communicating with the Marquis de Bullshit at Lord Pisspot's grand ball, etc. etc., all to be documented extensively with archival cites in big, fat square books that win Pulitzers. The Barbara Tuchman school, among others. (And I say that as an admirer - she's a great read!)

[Zorra]

26. I can't answer cuz I don't know it the NSA actually does anything beneficial for the people

of the US.

So far, it seems like all they do is keep everyone under surveillance in order to help protect the 1% and their profit interests from democracy and possible harm from hostile forces.

[rrneck]

28. Keep it with more oversight. ntt

[NightWatcher]

29. No. You're naive if you think the NSA doesn't serve a purpose

Aside from these current stories of abuse, the NSA actually serves a purpose and does a job. It's a crazy, uninformed knee jerk reaction to want to close down something that you don't understand all because if a small amount of abuse.

There are dirty cops but no one has suggested closing all the police departments. Fix the problems don't shut the system down.

[JackRiddler]

33. Of course the NSA serves a purpose!

You're naive if you think it's a good one.

See post #18 above.

[treestar]

34. What about the apparent total confidence that it does nothing

and that there is no need for security?

[Turbineguy]

30. Yes!

We want to do what republicans do. Scrap something we don't understand and then later blame the damage on the Democrats.

[leveymg]

31. Return to the pre-FISA law. Title III of the 1968 Act banned all warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Let the NSA focus on foreign threats and, if probable cause can be shown for any individual suspect inside the US, the NSA should simply go to a regular federal judge with jurisdiction and seek a warrant to conduct electronic wiretapping. That's the way the Constitution and the law once said it should be done. FISA (1978), seen at the time as a limit on gov't power has turned out to be a giant, expanding loophole for warrantless domestic surveillance - repeal it, in its entirety.

[JackRiddler]

36. A last kick?

[JackRiddler]

37. Absolutely!

[JackRiddler]

39. Almost.

[JackRiddler]

38. Oct. 1st: 76% of 79 users say "Shut It Down"

[JackRiddler]

42. timely kick for votes!!!

[JackRiddler]

43. Oh, so relevant all of a sudden.

As the New Cold War is geared up to give new legitimacy to this wretched enterprise.