I do understand that it is now the status quo to disavow everything the NSA is, but foreign intelligence gathering is their mission and releasing these details simply doesn't help the cause of fixing the NSA's less savoury incursions.
While arguably any foreign intelligence agency of note isn't going to be caught off guard by these leaks, leaking these details does offer political ammunition to the very people who stand to gain from the expansion of the NSA's mission into civilian data gathering. It helps to make the case that the leaks aren't such a good thing after all and are compromising the intelligence gathering apparatus of the US of A. Add a bit of spin and you can quickly use this to get back to business as usual and people will actually support them as now it'll become a matter of identity instead of what it should be - a surgical exploration of a cancer afflicting a nation state.
The only reply to the comment you replied to is yours. Hardly an endless debate. You could have scrolled down just one comment to skip it - now there is an entire screenful of meta debating which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, which personally I find far more tiresome.
I think it's a little bit silly to expect discussions about these revelations to occur without discussion of politics. The issue is intrinsically political, and many people are calling for political solutions to the problems. By saying "can we please take the politics elsewhere" you are actually shutting down a very important avenue of debate.
This doesn't strike me as a political question. Strong intelligence on foreign activities is the "right" side from an American perspective. It would be in the best interest of the nation and would be within the mandate of the NSA. It's right from a strategic sense and I wouldn't expect it to be partisan.
Other NSA activities, especially where they have exceeded their mandate would be debatable, and possibly partisan. Much of the leaked activity could be argued to be not in the best interest of the nation.
(I'm Canadian, so while I couldn't claim to be neutral, I have a bit of an outsiders perspective. Not to mention, spying on me with such a device would be within the mandate of the NSA.)
Much like /r/politics, it would hopefully catch the worst of the political bickering and simply unsubscribing from it would save you the pointless rehashed debates.
It's not an attack. It's just a backdoor that avoids transmission over the network. This allows airgapped computers and those with close network traffic monitoring to still be monitored without giving it away, "the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user." It's just another antenna that the target would be unlikely to look for a transmission from.... until now I guess.
That's Ok, but you might agree, that since last year, the topic is highly political. I also don't think, that you could simply dissect discussion lines ...
There is a lot of politics in these debates, but surely you don't think that as Internet users and technology professionals these revelations hold zero meaning for the HN community beyond "politics"?
I think the current system is fine, where NSA-related stories are (apparently) assigned a handicap to begin with. So those that make it to the home page are usually more significant pieces. And the best way to avoid the "debates" is to not read the comments (if that is what grates you) but just read the story. If even that's too much just read the headline, shrug at the needless brouhaha people are making about it all, and move on to the next news item.
This is what happens when you screw up at the magnitude the NSA has, EVERYTHING will be released and scrutinized for the foreseeable future. Right or wrong they made the bed they now have to sleep in.
Plus, the assumption that they're only using their surveillance technologies against foreign powers is now known to (often) be a false assumption. So it's not immediately clear which systems are only being used against foreign powers, so one wouldn't even know what might be held back (if one were to take the position that things only affecting espionage against other nations should be kept quiet).
Exactly. The entire argument rests on the idea that we are certain that the NSA is trustworthy and is using its powers judiciously against, not only foreign powers, but those that pose a security risk. That assertion is exactly what is in question (for good reason).
I think some people see the NSA as fundamentally good and trustworthy, but perhaps exercising a little bad judgment and/or overreach. Others see their breach of trust as reason for grave concern and a flagrant abuse of power that merits our consideration that it may be the tip of an iceberg inadvertently revealed by a rogue agency.
Where people fall on that continuum probably drives their responses to subsequent revelations more than anything.
That's an odd argument and seems completely circular.
You effectively state that the leaks aren't such a good thing ipso facto, then you go on to say that leaking these details proves it; thus they shouldn't be leaked. Kind of hard to find where that argument begins and ends.
I know where your thinking is going, but you would first have to establish the NSA's trustworthiness to get there. That is exactly what is in question and, importantly, for legitimate reasons.
I think he means that a distinction should be made when considering whether to leak information.
Is this information something the public needs to know, because it tells them something important about their democracy, or would releasing this be an ironic hindrance to the common public interest?
The "common public interest" should not be limited to the US public. (even if it were, I'd argue that they are only mutually exclusive in the short term).
IMHO, the public should know everything its government is doing on its behalf. A more appropriate question would be how long the government is allowed to keep its secrets.
I don't dispute that there is definite realpolitik value in keeping secrets when trying to achieve short-term gains. However defaulting prevents that society in the future from determining if your actions were just when done in their name. Every time a politician acts in the name of myself and my fellow citizens, it reflects on me. On the other hand, I and my fellow citizens voted that person in to get things done on my behalf. The eventual publication of all governmental secrets keeps governments honest long term. After aboute ~10 years, a secret poorly received when made public after the fact no longer reflects poorly on the current officials in government (unless those responsible are still involved in government). What it does do is allow society to have a debate about whether they approve in hindsight of a government's actions.
If the government wants to keep a certain category of secret indefinitely, it should specifically ask the public if they acquiesce via a majority vote. A future public should be able to overturn that vote and make something public. Unilaterally affording government officials the right to make things secret indefinitely is a path to tyranny. The truth keeps governments honest.
Does such a policy put a country at a disadvantage when competing against adversaries without such a policy? Yes, it does, in the short term, since any governmental actor must consider the potential for fallout when their actions/policies enter the public domain. On the other hand, there are long term game theoretic advantages of holding your country to a higher standard. It establishes a basis upon which the population of other democratic countries judge their own government.
The US used to have this positive influence upon the World. There was a time when citizens of less free countries would look to the US and ask themselves, "Why can't my country be free like the US?". That question is no longer asked because we are no longer a guiding light for the world to follow, instead we've become the ship on the beach that has become the lighthouse to the sea.
Long-term, citizens the whole world over are going to be better off by establishing a precedence that everything their governments do in their name (from the local and state levels to the federal) will eventually become public.
Just seems odd. Along the lines of complaining about a foreign language because you don't speak it. The fact that you don't speak it does not mean it's gibberish.
As upset as I am about the NSA, I agree that reports like these may be hard to justify as whistleblowing. This seems to be less about accountability and more about gawking at the NSA's toys.
I suppose the NYT could argue that this article only reiterates what was previously reported on the ANT program, and the technology disclosed in that report is over 5 years old. Still, this article may get more attention because when ANT was previously reported the media (and much of HN) got distracted by the NSA's ability to jailbreak iPhones (in 2008!) and largely ignored the passive radio-based technology that was also described.
I think that your idolatry of the NSA is unwarranted. They have powers and technologies that they can use to actively thwart anyone who will cross an American interest. They're not a military organization; the military is simply one of their biggest customers.
What they are, is a totalitarian control mechanism for American political and business interests to apply around the world.
So if you are on the 'American' side of this fuzzy, electronic wall that they have erected, and if you are an American who will do what is necessary to further American interests in the world - okay. The NSA is on your side.
But for those of us who do not live under the crux of American hegemony - and there are quite a few of us, after all - knowing about these heinous violations of human rights, and the tactics and technology that these totalitarians are using, is very important. We are not all Americans, here, nor do we all derive profit from American military-industrial efforts.
To some, the NSA is a heinous, despicable construction. I, for one, am glad to see leaks around this organization; as I am with any leaks that will reveal the truth about the tyranny we all live under.
The entire West is complicit. Pretending it is just America ensures the status quo remains in place. Also look up the word tyranny, it doesn't mean whatever you want it to.
You look up the word tyranny - it absolutely applies to the NSA situation!
And just saying 'others do it too' isn't enough to weasle out of the fact that the USA spends far, far, far more energy and effort on establishing its tyranny - militarily and technologically - than any other country.
Fact is, 'others' would like to live in a world where we don't have to deal with secret injections at the whim of a politician in our lives. Some of us would like to build companies to compete with the American hegemony, and some of us would very much like to reduce the power that the military-industrial tyrants currently ruling America have over the worlds' population. We're not happy having to deal with American pixy-dust solutions to the problem that they're not in control ..
"Entire West"? You're showing your prejudice. Not everyone in the Western world is content to bend over for American tyranny.
And you think the NSA won't interfere, should I start up a company that will compete with the US? They sure will. This is why there is such heat on this subject, duh .. why compete with the American Industrial Spook Empire, if they can inject code into your systems, remotely, without detection. If they can inspect all the packets, wherever. If they decide, after I become successful at something that might impact an American-Industrial Giant's applecart, to use my neighbours router to hide their destruction of my business?
Screw that. I don't want to hear an excuse - I want to hear a solution, from our American friends. Damn right I want a revolution!
I think this thread is a manifestation of the broader trap that we are in as a culture, in that we cannot seem to break out of the dialectic-materialist mode of argument, even though its not the only way we can form a consensus..
There's classified data coming from Washington or whatever government agencies to newspapers all the time through "sources". Do you really think everything that is given passes the highest standards for what should or not be leaked?
At the end of the day it's the newspapers who decide what gets published.
It's also worth keeping in mind that the NSA may percieve, in this case rightly, that pushing this angle, which is all re-hashed information, would in fact not expose new information but could potentially reframe the debate in their favor.
Given how in bed with the USA my country the UK is, yes, I would suggest that. I might be wrong, but I would very much make that suggestion.
My problem ultimately, as a Brit, is that it seems that we are more and more becoming a satellite of the US, bound by US law and ideals we never ever voted for. We had a referendum on the EU, but never a referendum for all this. But of course that is a British matter and not something the US should be concerned with. If we Brits want to suck up to the US, why would the US turn it down?
I think that what has happened is a nasty mission creep with regard to intelligence. Its used to be all about threats to a given country. The basic point was to understand the intentions of one's enemies. This was and is vital in preventing mistaken action based on not knowing that an enemy has no plan to, say, invade, or what ever. It was based on the idea that knowledge helps prevent paranoia and fear. All of which is not just OK, but vital. It is why in the cold war, both sides accepted this in a gentlemanly way. Both knew it was vital to both to stop both nuking each other. If the USSR said it would not start a war, the West could verify that by spying and have confidence. And vice versa. Now it seems that a lot of it is about gaining advantage in commerce, and local law enforcement. Its fine to say that the NSA has nothing to do with this, but we know that they give access to the FBI and police. We can reasonably believe that its quite possible that the NSA also gives intelligence to large businesses like Lockheed. What has happened is that economic and local criminal issues are now redefined as matters of national security. The lines have not just blurred, but completely crossed over, perhaps gone completely.
As a result, I think we need to re-examine the role and scope of intelligence gathering. Spying needs credibility. And yes, there is a severe danger of throwing out babies in the bathwater. But ultimately, if the people lose confidence in intelligence gathering, we are in a whole lot of trouble. It is vital to get the balance right.
The USA has diplomatic relations with foreign countries based on trust. They also trade with those foreign countries - and that international trade is what makes the economy and our lifestyles work.
Targeting "all foreigners" destroys trust that foreigners have in the USA system for trade and diplomacy, lowering the impact of the state on both.
Comments like this make me think that maybe all the "acting naive about foreign affairs, diplomacy, and statecraft" is not actually acting.
In the entire human history of diplomatic relations, nations have always attempted to spy on one another. Diplomatic relations are not based on trust, they are based on shared beliefs, interests, and goals.
Personally, I'd like to think that I live in a country that is above accepting such clandestine activities against its own citizens, allies and the citizens of its allies as the status quo.
This is not such a naïve viewpoint as you may think since I would expect it to be the average of the viewpoints that many Americans held about its own government up until a year or so ago. To most Americans, a year ago the NSA didn't spy on US citizens, not did it eavesdrop on the communications of the leaders of its own allies.
If you asked the typical American a year ago if s/he believes that their government spies on the leaders of our allies like Angela Merkel, you'd probably get an overwhelming negative response. If you continued your line of questioning and asked if it is acceptable to for the US government to do so, you'd probably get mixed responses. If you then went on to ask if it would be acceptable for the German government to spy on president Obama and other US politicians, you'd probably get a reaction where US citizens would consider that an act of war.
The truth is that many US citizens hold very very very different opinions of what is acceptable than those in the intelligence community.
I don't know about you, but the simple fact that such a wide disconnect exists between what citizens collectively think about how their government is operating and how it actually is operating is a fundamental failure of how our democracy currently functions. Leaders in a democracy should have a legal obligation to work to keep their constituents as best informed of how they are actually doing their jobs and attempts to hide or be less than honest about their activities should be viewed as attempts to subvert democracy. Anything otherwise, prevents I, Joe Q. Citizen, from honestly and effectively exercising my right to vote. If such policies mean non-American leaders will have a greater insight into how our politicians are acting in foreign policy negotiations than our leaders have about those non-American leaders are acting, that is the cost of being more ethical. Ideally that disadvantage is made up for in the long term by establishing a norm of greater ethics that those leader's citizens expect them to meet.
If a citizen votes based on lies and misinformation, are they really participating in a democracy?
It's not that spying on Merkel (she seems lovely), is in fact a profitable affair, but there are so many other instances where it would indeed be profitable. Where do you draw the line? After the reset are the Russians off limits? After the Russo-Georgian Olympic war are the Georgians off limits? After South Sudanese independence are they off limits? Do you think any of them view us as off limits? Hell does even name-any-random-western-european-nation think we're off limits? No. I'm wholly in favor of the NSA not touching a single American email, but their job is to spy on relevant foreign targets. As long as they stick to that job (not saying they have so far, in fact I am rather uncomfortable with the earlier Snowden revelations), then yes I am OK with this.
The citizen will always vote based on (US or not) (a/dis)information in the sense that every government has secrets. The key is maintaining a state where the secrets are not destructive to the underlying society that supports that given government. I am not entirely assured that the US has achieved that, however I do not think (betting man here) that we have fully failed that.
Downvote if you must, but there is a not small tragedy in verbally damming the deeds of those whom we literally paid to do it in the first place (spying on Americans not included, more referring to the foreign targeting referred to in the parent article).
Sometimes nations lie to one another--even allies--in order to further their own self-interest. A diplomatic program that does not take that into account will find itself surprised in negative ways. Spying is one of several tools for managing that problem.
So the US shouldn't have spied on the Japanese consulate in the 40s to anticipate the forthcoming declaration of war? Or intercepted German transmissions to break the Enigma code?
"releasing these details simply doesn't help the cause of fixing the NSA's less savoury incursions" -- of course it doesn't. Why would anyone expect that? At least, I'm not convinced there is any realistic prospect of NSA's programmes, or other similar abuses being "fixed" in the forseeable future.
Meanwhile, everyone, US and others alike, needs and is rightfully entitled to secure communications (in a moral sense, not to be confused with the laws of particular states). Unless there is some guarantee that the methods exposed could never be used improperly, exposing them is a vital public service.
It's now reasonable to assume that any resources the NSA have are being used on innocent people form around the world with no connection (supposed or otherwise) with terrorism.
So I think it is valid for victims to be made aware of the tools their enemies in the security services are using against them.
As the Snowden leaks get further away from "they're spying on Americans" and more into "they're doing their job" I'm getting less and less sympathetic. This is just a way to exfiltrate data, if that way was on steroids and a bigger budget, but still very much within the scope of the legally declared mission of the agency. Why is anyone upset that a technical spy agency is spying using technical means?
As a rational person on planet earth I can safely assume that if your country is not too broke to afford a spy service then it has probably attempted to spy/spied on the US at some point. That's what countries do when they don't know something that someone else is unwilling to tell them.
Do you really think that the US is unique in spying? or that the scale is even unique? Pro tip: if you do you're wrong.
Yes, the scale is unique for many reasons, one of the most important being that most of internet backbone including consumer services are located in the US jurisdiction. Your pro tip is worth nothing.
I generally agree with this. I'm not sure what exactly this adds to the overall conversation. Does anyone have thoughts on why the NYT would choose to publish it, perhaps beyond pageviews?
I tend to think that leaks like this one may weaken the overall view towards the Snowden leaks. As far as I can tell from reading the article it's a tool that's used in specific cases, and likely has value in that capacity.
While arguably any foreign intelligence agency of note isn't going to be caught off guard by these leaks, leaking these details does offer political ammunition to the very people who stand to gain from the expansion of the NSA's mission into civilian data gathering. It helps to make the case that the leaks aren't such a good thing after all and are compromising the intelligence gathering apparatus of the US of A. Add a bit of spin and you can quickly use this to get back to business as usual and people will actually support them as now it'll become a matter of identity instead of what it should be - a surgical exploration of a cancer afflicting a nation state.