Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public 403
New submitter autonomous_reader writes: Ars Technica has a story on this week's Intelligence & National Security Summit, where CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey had a lot to say about the resistance of the American public to government cyber spying and anti-encryption efforts. Blaming resistance on "people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission of the NSA, CIA, and FBI, John Brennan explained it was all a "misunderstanding." Comey explained that "venom and deep cynicism" prevented rational debate of his campaign for cryptographic backdoors.
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr Fox feels misunderstood and would like to continue guarding the hen house.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if the government could prove it has a way to possess knowledge without becoming corrupted by the power it represents, the situation might be different. Good luck with that!
Re: (Score:2)
Realistically, the only way that would happen would be for them to go into exile. Since we don't do that, there really is no solution.
Hmm. (Score:3)
TFS title:
Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public
Seem to me it could simply have read:
Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not "People who don't trust the people are surprised that the people doesn't trust them either."
Trust is a two way street.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't "deep cynicism". This is the Founding Fathers' hard-won experience in freeing themselves from oppression.
The King, George III, used all kinds of tricks to keep opposition down. Warrantless searches, "general warrants", allowing them to root around your house and papers until they find something they can tag you with, which would be applied to uppity folks. Outlawing of speech. Outlawing or restriction of presses, the literal mechanical method of mass producing speech for distribution, a backdoor method of censorship. Using one particular popular denomination of one particular religion to stir outrage and knock down other opponents through religious laws.
These a d dozens of other concepts are not freaking cynicism!
Attention NSA leaders and politicians: You are constructing a panopticon (go look it up) that is literally more powerful than that which was cynically portrayed in "1984". With no mechanical methods to prevent, or even track its abuse, you cannot guarantes that the 1 out of 1000 agent who is a G. Gordon Liddy type won't abuse the spying to report on political opposition to his patron.
"Imagine a boot stamping on a human face...forever." Ancient Rome and Greece, 1930s Germany, these are democracies that handed over emergency power and The People never got it back.
The Founding Fathers knew the only way to guarantee (as far as such is possible) this cannot happen is to simply blanket forbid these powers to government. Now you want Eye in the Sky crap, too?
Yes I am sure you all fancy yourselves The Untouchables, but it's not you We, with our Founding Fathers hats, are worried about. It is those who would abuse these marvelous tools for dictatorship.
Do you think Putin, to whom you are selling Eye in the Sky to, won't abuse it to track opposition?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Commisioner Pravin Lal said it best (Score:3)
I don't normally hold with quoting from fiction, but Firaxis had some damn sharp writers and this resonates *much* more today than it did in 1999.
Re: (Score:3)
Where is the American Dictatorship? Have you looked in the White house? Can you say executive order? You are a fool and deserve what you get.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Informative)
Where are the death squads and ditches full of dead bodies?
Where are the crying survivors hoping to find their disappeared loved ones?
What is scary is that you even thin you can get away with asking the question given that the answer is so obvious.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Interesting)
The, where is the American Dictatorship?
Where are the death squads and ditches full of dead bodies?
Where are the crying survivors hoping to find their disappeared loved ones?
The problem is that the gas chambers didn't start claiming bodies on January 5, 1919, when the German Worker's Party was founded. No genocide occurred on July 28, 1921, when Adolf Hitler was elected party chairman. On November 8th, 1923, the rest of the world shrugged at (even if they were aware of) the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. No Jews fled the country on December 20th, 1924 when Hitler was released from the prison where he wrote Mein Kampf. The government of Germany showed no real concern in 1925, when Hitler re-founded the previously banned Nazi party. No death squads suddenly started roaming the streets after September 14, 1930 when the Nazis gained a significant representation in the legislature. No crying survivors searched for their loved ones on January 30, 1933, as Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor. Perhaps some concern was raised in February 28th, 1933 when government suspended civil liberties, but, hey, the main government building had been the victim of arson - the country was under attack, so suspension of civil liberties seems reasonable, no? And besides, where was the evidence of death squads and ditches full of dead bodies? And on March 23, 1933 when the parliament gave the Chancellor sweeping powers, it was passed by a large margin. "No, Hitler's not a dictator, he just has emergency powers, granted to him by the legislature. You Communists, complaining about it and weakening the ability of our government to exercise their duly appointed capabilities. Besides, they're just *emergency* powers, and will expire in four years ..."
The problem is that gross infringement of rights probably isn't going to happen with you waking up one morning with some oppressive regime goose-stepping through the streets. It's much more likely that it will creep up slowly. Germans in the '20s and early '30s all could have argued "Where is the German Dictatorship? Where are the death squads and ditches full of dead bodies? Where are the crying survivors hoping to find their disappeared loved ones?" The big atrocities didn't happen overnight, they only occurred once the Nazis has cemented their power and it was hopeless for anyone in Germany to resist them.
There were plenty of warning signs *in retrospect* that Hitler and the Nazis were bad apples - hell, as mentioned, the Nazi party was even banned at one point in time. The problem was that *at the time* no one took the red flags seriously. "Well, the Nazis haven't genocided anyone yet .. I guess they're okay." "Well, theoretically he *can* commit gross atrocities, but that would be crazy, so we don't need to worry about it."
I'm certainly not saying that any current government - American or otherwise - is as bad as the Nazis. I'm not even saying that they are definitely, probably, possibly, or even vaguely on the road in that direction. What I am saying is that "they haven't instituted a brutal, oppressive regime" isn't a ringing endorsement. If you *were* going to flagrantly violate someone's rights, you'd make sure to hide that fact until you know no one could oppose you. If an American Dictatorship ever does come about, at the point in time that there are death squads, ditches and crying survivors, it's likely going to be too late for anyone to do anything. The time to act is not when the megalomaniacs are in charge of the military and all the government and can deport your to an interment camp for disagreeing with them. The time to act is when they're a fringe group in a remote province, or minor players in the government, trying to extend their power by questionable means. An ounce of prevention, and all that.
"Besides, he looks like such a sweet young man [dailymail.co.uk]. Who would he ever harm?"
Re: (Score:3)
If that's what you think, you are already in opposition to the founding concepts of the United States. It is not a matter of who is in control, but rather that there should be no control other than rational and mutually beneficial law.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this is pretty much it. There's a LOT of cynicism but it's well deserved. The Federal gov't has proven to all of us that they are not to be trusted. Trust is EARNED not inherent. If you violate the trust someone has in you, it may never return, or at best it's going to take a lot of time and work.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
I once had a boss that was fond of the espression 'you cant unring that bell'.
before the recent (last few years) whistleblower events, you'd be called a tinfoil hatter if you dared suggest that online comms were not safe or that the big agencies are not bulk surveiling us.
now, you won't automatically be called a tinfoil hatter. we get it, as a whole, at least a sizeable portion of the population gets it.
its out in the open now. but there is still no real discussion about it. are we, as a people (as a species!) ready and willing to live our lives under spotlights, having no say in the matter? should we just accept that YOU have decided this for us and it was all done in secret, slowly, over the decades? its true that it was in secret over the decades, but should we accept what we can now, finally, talk about?
we have to have the discussion and really understand the long term and short term cost/benefit of this before we plunge ourselves, officially, into a surveillance state.
but we should have a say in this! that's what is being denied and attacked and drowned-out. we are being denied the ability to actually affect the laws and rules and this defines what kind of world we end up living in!
to deny us this choice is to wage war on your own people. pretty much, it is. you enslave if you cannot get a concensus. are you afraid to bring this into discussion and see/hear our views? (answer, of course they don't want to hear it. they KNOW how we'd vote, if we were given real say in this matter).
look, either you discuss this with us or we work around it. and by that, I mean we run our own layers of tunneling and encryption and this is a war you cannot win.
and so, let me use that phrase again. encryption is already 'out there' and you can't un-ring that bell, no matter how hard you try.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Posting AC just because I am going to mention a very unpopular angle:
The one thing the CIA and FBI directors are missing is how foreign propaganda can quickly become US memes. I have seen pictures and memes from Syria wind up as daily fodder on Occupy and other FB based groups. Same with Daesh memes like "Straight outta Kabul". They may lose militarily, but they can easily get their propaganda videos onto YouTube or FB for consumption.
Back in the '80s, a company distributing Russian or East German propaganda videos would be shut down and everyone involved arrested for providing aid and comfort to the enemy, to even treason by showing enemy propaganda. Now, showing an ISIS video is "hip" or a snide thing to do, especially today.
Hearts and minds... stop the influx of propaganda, and you will win back the US populace. Let the propaganda continue constantly on how the US is the evilest entity to ever take part on history's stage, and you only will get more government distrust and hatred, when in reality, those are the people keeping US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped.
That is what they don't understand... stop the influx of propaganda, and you will get your citizens back. Let the memes flow, and every single military engagement will end just like Viet Nam, no matter how good the generals are.
So, be more like North Korea and stop incoming messages you don't like? Great strategy!
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Because our Cold War Propaganda built a world of allies and didn't do anything like prop up lousy dictators like Castro, Hussein, and the rest of the bunch. Our Anti-Communist policies set back the world in so many ways, yet kept the U.S. sheltered. Along came the Information Age and ended much of that seclusion. We are now seeing the rest of the world for what it is: Pissed at us for decades of mindless meddling.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Mindless meddling? Hardly. The meddling was cynically ruthless.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
The dictators above are not our monkeys and not our circus, but by using the ostensible moral hand, US business profits by condemnation, isolation, and sanctions against these and others. They're the ones paying Washington the non-tax, campaign-funding and lobbying revenues.
Foreign policy is for no moral gain, rather, profit. Make no allusions to the contrary: this is not about morality or democracy, this is about control and manipulation. Hue and cry otherwise is to play to the flag-wavers, and low IQ.
Somehow, these agencies believe they've been given carte blanche, and they have not. They react to assertions that they don't have carte blanche in really rough and startling ways.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
The cause of the Vietnam war? Eisenhower ordered US forces to invade Vietnam and block the democratic elections, because there was a fear that fair democracy would lead to the election of a an unfriendly government. Millions dead, and the worst case election of Ho Chi Minh didn't happen. He died of old age before the US abandoned that war.
Nothing destabilizes an area like the US trying to stabilize it.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
So, shut down inbound communications by watching your citizens more closely and jailing people for repeating things they find to contain truth? I'm not sure that's how you win the hearts and minds of people upset over spying and censorship.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps the problem is that the message you intend to squash is true, and that the US government is *actually* "the evilest entity to ever take part on history's stage"? That they are, in fact, keeping "US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped", doesn't really contradict the previous statement.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure they do understand it, it's just that there is only so much you can do, short of banning the internet.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
No need to post as AC, cold fjord. We all know you are a treasonous traitor, anyway.
those are the people keeping US residents' schools unexploded and your eyes unpopped.
Wow. Talk about propaganda.
Before the CIA's founding:
* Revolutionary War
* War of 1812
* Mexican War
* Civil War
* Indian Wars
* Spanish-American War
* WW1
* WW2
8 wins, 0 losses if you count Indian Wars as one.
Since the CIA's founding:
* Korea
* Vietnam
* Iraq
* Somalia
* Yugoslavia
* Afghanistan
* Libya
0 wins, 7 losses.
The fact is that the US was 8-0 in war before the CIA was founded, and 0-7 since. It is a security risk we cannot afford.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a traditional division of labor in the US intelligence community. The NSA gathers the information, the CIA acts on it and fucks it up, and the FBI arrests innocent citizens.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a traditional division of labor in the US intelligence community. The NSA gathers the information, the CIA acts on it and fucks it up, and the FBI arrests innocent citizens.
AC with the best post in the thread!
Very incomplete list - let's try again (Score:3)
You left out Greece and Italy in the 1940s / 1950s, which were successfully kept in the US column till the end of the cold war.
Iran in the 1950s was subverted for the US cause - and kept under control until Khomeni came along
You've left out Grenada in the 1980s - Reagan's successful reversal of a Soviet backed coup.
Yugoslavia is mostly a success - and the Kosovo exercise of beating Serbia by air power is a textbook
Re:Given the amount of money that gets spent (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was in the 4th grade, I learned that "Russia" (meaning the USSR) was evil because they tracked where you went and who you talked to even if you weren't a criminal and because the police just did what they wanted when they wanted and the U.S. was great because none of that happened here.
In other words, the USSR was evil because it did what these assclowns want to do here. How can I possibly see them as anything but a domestic enemy that must be rooted out? They want to turn us into the USSR.
Pretty decent article, though. More than the headl (Score:3)
On the other hand, the article is a bit more than the headline. A pretty decent article for Ars, actually, if you read it remembering that these guys have been given a specific job to do.
Misunderstanding (Score:5, Insightful)
"You see, we thought that the Constitution doesn't apply to us. Why can't anyone understand that we're the good guys?!?"
Re: (Score:3)
That they "thought that the Constitution" didn't apply to them is a part of the problem. The other part is that they apparently still think so.
Re:Misunderstanding (Score:4, Informative)
The one thing that would save the US government is the elimination of classification. Simple, easy. Nothing secret except for active actions, and none of those allowed over 20 years, and any over 2 years must be disclosed and revealed.
Would that make their jobs harder? Maybe. Just maybe, and if so, only a little. But it would eliminate any doubt over what's going on.
The current rules classifies everything, and for the maximum allowable time. Policies and procedures are classified. Ones that are not classified are classified. TSA traning docs are refused FOIA for "national security" reasons, when clearance isn't required to be trained with those docs. In an abstract sense, the DHS is violating classification by training un-cleared people with documents they claim are classified.
Eliminate it all.
And while doing so, make the US government copyright holder over all materials that are funded with government funds, then have them release all materials into the Public Domain as they are copyrighted (or free and open license to all citizens or some such).
The secrecy is killing the secret organizations. I had a friend who joined the FBI. She thought it would be fun and interesting. Instead, she spent all her time sending people to decades of prison for clerical errors on Katrina relief forms. Her conscience wouldn't let her work as an FBI agent. She was ordered into situations where she was only punishing innocent people, and wasn't "allowed" to find guilty people.
They aren't the good guys. They never were. Hoover was evil, and tainted the FBI with that until the end of time.
Re:Misunderstanding (Score:4)
NSA head Rogers said that "we have got to engender a better dialogue" on security issues. "In the end, we serve the citizens of the nation... all the revelations [a reference to Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks] have made life more difficult for us."
The reason Mr. Rogers you can't get support is you lie to the people you are supposedly serving. You won't comply with the one thing that we want which is to be left alone and have our rights respected. Tell us the truth, respect our rights, stop weakening our technology security and we'll be all good. I'm happy to have you go kill all the terrorists you like, just stay off my lawn. I'd also suggest you be very selective about when it's really worth meddling in foreign affairs, overthrowing foreign leaders tends to get messy even when it seems like a good idea. We live in a world where the truth is a very hard thing to hide. If your actions can't be justified honestly in the light of day then maybe there is a better approach.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is they DON'T want a better dialogue on security issues. A better dialogue would include things like limits on spying on law abiding citizens and retention limits on recorded data. What they want is to be ignored.
I am a bit puzzled why these two guys bothered to say anything about it at all. They are going to do their damnedest to get more corrupt and spy on everybody and anything the best they can anyway.
The only thing I can think of is they either ARE losing the battle to encryption or are trying to make everybody THINK they are losing the battle so they stop pushing encryption because they've got something right around the corner that can deal with what is in use now.
Complaining about "resistance" to being s
Re: (Score:2)
China, these days it seems. But apparently it was popular in Germany, and of course there were mobile electrocutioners in the US.
Here's an article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
It doesn't detail if the vans are also available on the black market or only the criminals organs. Maybe check AliExpress?
Don't want you to read my personal stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Is personal, is not yours. Not allowed. Like you're not allowed to rape my girlfriend even if you say its for national security.
Not yours, never was, hands off.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that the response to that would be a link to the pornhub section for a specific model, don't' you?
Re: (Score:2)
One hopes (Score:5, Interesting)
...that these men are just acting. They cant be that naive that they dont understand the resistance to their designs.
Re:One hopes (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that they are caught up in their own bullshit that they have forgotten how ''the man in the street'' thinks. Ie - they don't get out enough. They think that we all forget their 'little lies' and really believe that they are acting in our best interests. They talk mainly to each other, if you don't talk up the reality of the persistent threat to fellow NSA/.... people - then will you be looked on with suspicion or passed over for promotion ? The corporate 'yes' men will always tell their bosses what they think the bosses want to hear - many a large company has gone bankrupt or empire been overrun because of that.
I do believe that many of them are honourable people, but their viewpoint has become so skewed by the corporate culture that they have lost touch with reality; not that much different from those embedded in a religious community who end up thinking that the myths are true.
It is always possible that they are right and I am wrong - but I don't think so.
Re:One hopes (Score:5, Insightful)
> I do believe that many of them are honourable people, but their viewpoint has become so skewed
You know, in a way, I do too; its just, I can't imagine how that could matter less when we know the road to hell is most easily paved with the best of intentions.
It doesn't matter how good they intend to be, or how honorable they are. What they are building, as a technological capability, is too powerful of a weapon to trust anyone with. Actions taken in secret audited in secret, regulated in secret.....
Once the gun is built, it is a matter of the will of the user where it is pointed. The only thing you can be sure of is, the owner will someday change. Policies will change.
Just imagine what happens if we wind back the clock to my parents 20s. What if, after the very first protest, police could identify the names and home addresses of all the social hub people in the community. What would our world look like today if every gay rights protest or every anti war protest just saw a string of quiet arrests for "drugs" or traffic stops that "got violent" and removed the very people who glued others together....
Who really looks at history and thinks this sort of power is safe to leave in the hands of those in power? When has any sort of power to silence opposition NOT been abused?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:One hopes (Score:5, Interesting)
These people are not "the man on the street". They are members of an increasingly prominent caste in Western society, which for want of a better term, we can call "Corporate careerists". These people know what they want from day one and that is an Important Well Paying Job. They are motivated and in many cases groomed from a very early age to jump through formalised certification hoops, network relentlessly, fit into existing systems and to expand the scope and role of those systems so as to advance their own career. It's a new kind of aristocracy, one whose economic fortunes are increasingly -- and mostly in the case of government careerists -- based on rents of one kind of another.
It would be impossible to explain to this person that his plans to expand the reach, control, influence, and above all budget of his little part of corporate america is somehow a bad thing. Appealing to constitutional principles, legal prcedents, or commons sense mean nothing to someone whose entire working life has revolved around using power point presentations to elicit funding for hair brained projects based on numerological "models" of one thing or another.
This person knows only one truth: I do as the system dictates and I get paid. Their entire life is the comfortable and predicable drawl of the modern office and "professional" workplace. It is impossible to explain to them that their actions are eroding the very foundation of the system and life they lead, because in their minds the modern world is a default state. Nothing will ever erode the stability or predictability of the status quo they operate in -- or so they believe.
In reality this professional "careerist" caste has done more damage to western society in the last 30 years than any other factor. They erode both stability and order as they increasingly mismanage their systems on what is now a colossal scale. We see this everywhere: Government, Banks, Military, Politics, Media, Business, Academia. The hoop jumpers are running the show and the ringmaster is one of them. There's really nothing to be done anymore except wait for the system to fail. It won't be pretty to watch what careerists like Brennan and Comey do then.
Re:One hopes (Score:4)
Or perhaps the neocons, with their "noble lie" approach to politics (masses are too dumb to make the right choices, so in a democracy, you have to feed lies to them if that advances an important goal that they would not otherwise support but that the elite knows needs to be achieved), are still in charge of the three-letter agencies?
Re:One hopes (Score:5, Insightful)
You know ... you should be far more terrified of people who think they're doing the right thing, and fervently believe in all the crap they say.
Those people? Those fucking people are scary motherfuckers who will do anything if they can justify it to themselves. And if they can avoid getting caught, they'll do even more.
A bunch of people who sincerely believe in all the crap they do ... those people are dangerous, unhinged, and will simply do anything they feel they need to.
You can't have a free society protected by thugs who ignore the basic tenets of that free society. It just doesn't work. And they can't protect freedoms by taking them away.
At this point, they can either try to protect your lives, or your way of life ... but what they've been doing is incompatible with both.
Re: (Score:2)
So you're basically saying that anyone who acts according to his conscience, and tries to not lie, should terrify us?
I think your point may have been more subtle than your wording suggests.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You know ... you should be far more terrified of people who think they're doing the right thing, and fervently believe in all the crap they say.
Those people? Those fucking people are scary motherfuckers who will do anything if they can justify it to themselves. And if they can avoid getting caught, they'll do even more.
Yup. Sounds just like anonymous and many other hacktivist types.
At this point, they can either try to protect your lives, or your way of life ... but what they've been doing is incompatible with both.
Yup. Just like when your nice country home becomes part of the busier growing suburbs. All the sudden you have to give up the freedom of never locking your front door and leaving your keys conveniently in the car. Why? Because there are malicious asshats in the world. Sometimes entire sub-cultures of them, some of which are deadly violent.
Re: (Score:3)
They aren't actors, they're liars. They're saying this for two reasons:
1) to get their claim on the record.
2) some people will pretend to believe them.
There may be another reason that I'm just not cynical enough to think of. Every time I've thought I was too cynical the government* has proven that, on the contrary, I wasn't cynical enough.
* By government here one needs to include the major corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
The government we didn't elect ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is concerned that we don't trust them, and don't really want them keeping tabs on us? I mean that would never happen! Next thing you'll tell me people are throwing tea in the ocean to protest their unelected government! Insanity!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government we didn't elect
What? Obama was elected with a fairly good majority, and re-elected. He's in charge of everything we're talking about here - it's entirely within the executive branch of the government, and he is in charge of that.
Re:The government we didn't elect ... (Score:4, Insightful)
He isnt talking about obama, dumbass
Yes he is, he's just too dumb to realize he is. "The government," when it comes to the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, etc., is the executive branch of the government. It is run by the Chief Executive. That is Obama today and for the last six years. He politically appoints the directors of every one of those agencies, and they report to him. Of course you know that, and you're just trying to deflect.
Well, that doesn't sound moderately sinister (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't think we've really tried to find answers yet because no one in the private sector has been properly incentivized."
They haven't been properly motivated. We'll help them come around to our way of thinking.
Re:Well, that doesn't sound moderately sinister (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly via waterboarding or threatening their tax breaks and the like.
The government and the "intelligence" communities are more like the Mafia than actually protectors of the American People and the Constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, you can't defend the Constitution by completely ignoring it.
These guys have been bypassing it, ignoring it, lying about it, and pretty much anything they can think of.
You don't "protect" something by undermining it.
Logic fail (Score:3)
That's called poisoning the well. - Albert Einstein
that implementation won't work. ISIS has $billions (Score:2)
You are correct, the implementation suggested won't work.
ISIS has billions of dollars and wants to kill us.
Russia is getting more and more aggressive.
China's recent actions are becoming a bit more worrisome, and they hack us daily.
Those organizations are supposed to protect us from these threats, enemies who are willing to spend billions of dollars to harm us. Suggestions on ways to accomplish that mission, reliably?
Undermining the "intelligence mission"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tell you who is undermining it. It's the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and Homeland Security. They have already demonstrated, unequivocally, that they will happily fuck over every last man, woman and child, not just in the US, but around the entire planet, if they could get away with it. The list of abuses is already long, and at no point have they shown any interest in stopping.
The fact that they are accusing unknown people "trying to undermine" them, and that these people are "fueled by their adversaries" just tells you how completely and utterly out to lunch these dimwits are.
They don't seem to understand that, the tighter they squeeze their fist, the more that squeezes out from between their fingers.
Re:Undermining the "intelligence mission"? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a lying demagogue for President (Score:3, Insightful)
We have as President a lying demagogue who ran against "warrantless wiretaps" and "unconstitutional acts" whilst a candidate, but once in office went far beyond what his predecessor did.
Even Bush II didn't have "extrajudicial killings" of US citizens.
Why would us peons be cynical?
Re:We have a lying demagogue for President (Score:5, Funny)
That's because he couldn't spell "extrajudicial".
Trust the J. Edgar Hoovers of Tomorrow? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FBI engaged in a massive amount of illegal wiretapping. It was MASSIVE. It was also quite illegal--and completely unpunished. This was organized violation of civil rights--a plain crime.
The FBI engaged in massive surveillance of student demonstrators, including infiltrating student protest movements. This wasn't for suspicion of crime--this was for intelligence. That was plain wrong.
The FBI burgled--there is no other word for it--the office of Daniel Ellsberg and others. That is wrong.
Then there was FBI Director L. Patrick Gray and the Nixon coverup.
AND THEY ASK US WHY WE DON'T TRUST THEM NOT TO VIOLATE OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PRIVACY?
Oh, come on now...
But if you have nothing to hide (Score:3)
If you have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid of the authorities?
- the authorities
Bloody hell .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy fuck, seriously?
So the spies and fascists who have been ignoring the Constitution and demanding technology can be less secure so they can fumble around like idiots claiming to make us more secure .. spying on Congress and lying about it ... coming up with the form of perjury known as "parallel construction" (which is perjury because it's intended to lie about if they had legally obtained information or probable cause, and to deny the opportunity to see the evidence) ...
Suddenly these fucking clowns are feeling all misunderstood and don't understand why there is hostility?
I'm sorry, this is Chairman Fucking Mao talking about counter-revolutionary elements who must be purged ... "Blaming resistance on "people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission" is code for "all those pinko commies who expect us to respect fucking civil liberties".
Every asshole fascist claims to be a patriot. They're still asshole fascists.
Yeah, right ... tell us another fucking lie.
This is a change for the better (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what we are seeing here is progress, albeit slow and with a long road ahead. Their stated purpose of having a dialogue is, in itself, an important and positive step forward. Comey's remark on skepticism being fair, but cynicism being problematic, is reasoned and nuanced. I think this is a good sign that the intelligence community is starting to grapple with the need for open discussion, and is making a case towards that end.
Re:This is a change for the better (Score:4, Insightful)
Not New (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What you describe is American exceptionalism and is what made the country great (past tense).
These scum would prefer us to be the same as rest, which means we would be lowered to the level of a moderately-oppressed, not very rich or progressive nation.
Fuck them, defenestrate them.
If this is cynicism I don't want compliance (Score:2)
Fuck the NSA, CIA, and FBI.. (Score:2)
He's right, actually. (Score:2)
If he defines the mission of the CIA and NSA to include violating my Constitutionally confirmed, naturally inalienable rights, then yes, it should be all of our missions to undermine them. And have the perpetrators tried my impartial juries, and imprisoned if appropriate.
The fact that they don't understand is important (Score:3)
Today's example, fortunately non-fatal: A former tennis star (and former US Olympian) was arrested in a case of mistaken identity. Should be a non-story, except the arresting plainclothes officer chose to make a flying tackle and knock the guy to a concrete sidewalk, when there was no hint of resistance or even awareness on his part (and this happened in front of a big hotel with very clear security video). These "intelligence" people have exactly the same mindset - there's no such thing as overkill.
Backdoors (Score:2)
There are fundamental technical issue with government backdoors. You're either baking them in making whatever keys are used the biggest target in the world. Or your writing law that says you have to provide keys to the government making that keystore the biggest target in the world and providing an easy way to forget a key to make anybody a criminal.
In any event bad guys will still use strong crypto. Stenography and one time pads make it very hard to trace and impossible to mathematically break. Cold war
They aren't very good at their job, are they? (Score:2)
Changing Roles (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to me that many of the problems organizations like the FBI think they face stem more from the change from law enforcement to crime prevention. Crime prevention requires massive amounts of data to be collected and ultimately freedoms curtailed for specific individuals who evince a pattern of behavior demonstrated to lead to crime. With organizations like the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc. all tasked with preventing another 9/11/2001, they understandably want the data to be able to proactively root out those individuals who might be likely to pull something like that off.
I'm not saying I agree with what guys like Brennan are asking for, but I am saying that they realize their responsibilities have changed and they are demanding the tools to do so. From their perspective, they probably don't understand how the people can say over and over "you'd better not ever let anything like that happen again but you can't infringe on any of my rights in order to make that happen". To a professional law enforcement officer, even a bureaucrat, that is a contradictory statement. Worsening matters is the ham handed way in which they've chosen to implement everything and how the American people have come to know how these things are being done.
You can't have the kind of safety people seem to expect today without a significant infringement of your rights.
Law enforcement back door = anybody back door (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Eventually, bad people will get that key
Surely not? [theregister.co.uk]
Observant, if you prefer (Score:2)
Cynicism is just a fancy word for pattern recognition.
Freudian slip?? (Score:2)
Spy Industry - seems about right, because I believe it involves massive amounts of money.
Those TLA guys should probably take some lessons from NASA [slashdot.org]. I mean, when was the last time you saw a movie with a spy that was actually a nice guy and not a complete MFing AH to anyone vaguely on his wrong side AND anyone getting caught in between? I mean, it's nice and all to watch Liam Neeson beating up another bunch of guys, but that's not exactly the type of person I want to have watching over my shoulder while I
It's true! (Score:3)
If by saying
"people who are trying to undermine" the intelligence mission
actually means "Secure their freedom", then yes he's correct.
Neither one understands encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
John Brennan was a career CIA analyst, focussing on the Middle East. James Comey was trained as a lawyer, and has been a law clerk, lawyer, and prosecuting attorney.
Neither one is qualified to participate in this discussion - they don't know enough about how encryption works. They need to step aside and let their technical "underlings" speak for them, if they really want to engage in a meaningful dialogue on this topic.
Venom and deep cynicism? (Score:2)
I think rational debate would be solely sufficient to shut down his campaign for cryptographic backdoors.
Unless, by "rational debate," he means everyone who disagrees shuts the hell up...
You want to know why we're cynical? (Score:3)
Who the hell is HE??? (Score:2)
I didn't vote for him.
Their incentives are wrong... (Score:3)
I woke up yesterday at 5 am for a call with a colleague in China. Fifteen minutes from quitting time, a critical system died, and I was here until 1 am fixing it. A mile from home, achingly tired and needing a bed, a police car pulled me over for having one brake light out. After 10 minutes of staring at incredibly bright, flashing blue lights in the mirror, they let me go with a warning. Got home, and because of said flashy bright lights, I couldn't go to sleep. So here I am back at work, hour 34 of wakefulness.
From her perspective, the police officer was trying to protect and serve (I know her vaguely through friends and she sounds like a decent person) From my perspective, I'm probably more dangerous to my fellow drivers due to my lack of sleep during rush hour commute than I would be for having 1 (out of 4) rear lights out at 2 am a mile from home. From my perspective (and almost certainly from society's perspective), her actions *did not* protect or serve either myself or society very well.
I don't think the leaders of the NSA, CIA, etc are a bunch of Dr Evil wanna-be's. I suspect they are in fact decent, well-intentioned people. But what from their perspective seems rational, can be contrary to the greater good.
In that, their job is somewhat like mine as a sysadmin. I have never once had someone email me and say "Hey, everything was working great this morning, just wanted to say good job!". But when something breaks, there are a hundred people complaning loudly. There's a fundamental asymmetry there, and it can lead to personal incentives that are in conflict with the greater good.
The NSA/CIA/etc are graded on "how successful they can defeat/thwart the bad guy", and not "doing what is in the best interest of society". Perfect is the enemy of the good, and it's better for society to preserve our hard-won freedoms, even at the cost of the bad guys winning occasionally. But they get yelled at (Congressional hearings, public firing etc.) when they do the right thing, so they do the "right" thing instead.
Spy Industry had their chance (Score:3)
The "Spy Industry" had their golden chance to do it right after 9/11, and they demonstrated their inability to behave in a manner that honors the cause of freedom and liberty for our citizens. They earned the venom and cynicism by their misbehavior, and until they own up to that, I can't see cause for the American Public giving them a free pass again. Brennan and the rest are seriously in deepest denial if they are truly thinking that the backlash against government spying comes from a desire to undermine the mission of the Three Letter Agencies fueled by our adversaries.
If they want to have keys to our backdoors, they'd better come up with lube.
He is the problem, not us. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people "may be fueled by our adversaries"
When you claim that your political enemies are being 'fueled' by enemies of the state, YOU are the one that is exhibiting "venom and deep cynicism", not your enemies.
The basic problem is that our intelligence enemies have paranoia as a primary job requirement. If you want to protect a country, you must assume the worst and think of the worst so that you can take steps to prevent it. But that does not mean your worst scenarios are true, or even likely. You have to recognize that because it is your job to assume the worst, it is totally reasonable for you to go way too far, and that government MUST reign in the intelligence group from doing so.
Because if your Espionage agency does not intentionally go too far, then they have failed to do their job. Similarly, if your government bows down to the Espionage people, that means the government has failed to do THEIR job.
In the ideal situation, working in Espionage should constantly complain about how the government won't let them take all the necessary steps to protect the people - while realizing that this is a GOOD thing.
OK, it makes sense now... (Score:3)
...look at the source. The caption of the article's main photo tells it all:
"The directors of the FBI, CIA, NSA, NGO, DIA, and NRO stand for a group picture with Fox News' Catherine Herridge (second from left) and executives of INRA and AFCEA at the conclusion of their panel discussion at the Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington on September 10."
The supersilly quotes were directed at Fox News viewers. They were never intended to be taken seriously.
Dear Mr. Comey, (Score:3)
It ain't cynism. It's practicality. There is no such thing as a government-only backdoor. Any backdoor, no matter how you want to secure it, will be in the hands of nefarious groups faster than you might consider possible. We are not talking about some script kiddy hackers, this is the playground of hackers employed and funded by nation states. Nation states that have a vested interest in harming also the United States.
In a nutshell, so even you get it: You can't have a backdoor for the US government only. China and Iran will be able to use it, too.
Men of zeal... (Score:3, Informative)
In 1928 there was a court case called "Olmstead v. United States" in which the government tapped a telephone wire (relatively new technology at the time) and caught a Roy Olmstead and several others who were allegedly distributing Alcohol, which violated the National Prohibition Act.
One of the justices, Louis Brandeis, argued that the government's actions were not lawful because it violated the principle which the Fourth Amendment stood for; here is a quote of his dissent:
You can read more of it here (law.cornell.edu)
Accountable? I think not. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're not accountable to the citizens of the nation, Mr. Rogers. If you were, many of you would be in jail right now. Was James Clapper "held accountable" for the felony crime of lying to Congress?
Once you understand that you're not above the law, and once you truly become accountable to those you ostensibly "serve", then the cynicism will die down. Until then, you're continuing to reinforce that cynicism on your own by your actions, your attempts to hide them, and your willingness to lie about them. You have no one else to blame for it other than yourself.
Surely they can't be so stupid as to not... (Score:3)
...understand.
It all stems from the idea that principles only mean something when you stick to them when its difficult. After 9/11 the intelligence agencies were only to happy to abandon some of our most fundamental principles all in the name of "security."
The irony is that more people died in car accidents over the next 45 days - and yet we dumped some of the most sacred aspects of our country virtually without hesitation - and they were only too eager to justify it. FUCK them.
The Onion? (Score:3)
It reads like a headline from The Onion.
Re:Fuck these assholes (Score:4, Insightful)
'Get up,' said O'Brien. 'Come here.'
Winston stood opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's shoulders between his
strong hands and looked at him closely.
'You have had thoughts of deceiving me,' he said. 'That was stupid.
Stand up straighter. Look me in the face.'
He paused, and went on in a gentler tone:
'You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you.
It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me,
Winston--and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect
a lie--tell me, what are your true feelings towards Big Brother?'
'I hate him.'
'You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step.
You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love
him.'
He released Winston with a little push towards the guards.
'Room 101,' he said.
Re: (Score:2)
Um yes, of course their read their instruction manuals..... do you really think they came up with these ideas on their own. These people love BB.
Re: (Score:3)
I thought GM already provided that in many vehicles.