PRISM

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

The hypothetical example in PH45's link is far too tenuous to carry much weight at all.

Regarding PRISM's legality, there are many other sources that suggest the same thing. Whether someone agrees or disagrees with it, it does seem to be legal.

Regarding the argument, it hold just as much weight as your argument as well.

Originally Posted by LampLighter

The Boston Marathon bombing shows that a program that has been in operation for at least 7 years failed to do what it is supposed to do.

This has no perspective because it doesn't state how many attacks have been prevented because of PRISM. If PRISM has only stopped a single, small attack while not preventing the Boston Marathon bombing then I would agree with you. IF PRISM has stopped 1,000 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing was someone who slipped through the cracks (this will always occur), then I would disagree with you. Reality is likely going to be somewhere in-between.

[Lamplighter]

@PH45: Yes, we are in agreement
... my example was intended to be trivial and carries no weight.

The problems are that with secrecy and "not on my watch",
we (the public) will only know what we are told and/or what
is leaked by insiders-with-their-own-motives and whistle blowers.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

The problems are that with secrecy and "not on my watch", we (the public) will only know what we are told and/or what is leaked by insiders-with-their-own-motives and whistle blowers.

Yup. In an ideal sense, the issue with security versus privacy is sort of like quantum physics. The public cannot know of the security practices without compromising those security practices. On the other hand, if the public does not know of the security practices, there is no accountability and much risk of these security practices being misused. In my opinion, there is no is no perfect way of dealing with the security versus privacy problem but informed representatives (congress) and occasional whistleblowers may be a decent equilibrium…

I am pretty agnostic on the current practices but I do think this is a true slippery slope. Here is a good perspective on this slippery slope (I’m emphasizing certain parts):

And yet, Jenkins thinks that the U.S. government’s counterterrorism policies—which he’s helped influence over the decades—have gone too far. “What we have put in place,” he said, “is the foundation of a very oppressive state.”

The oppressive state doesn’t yet exist, he said, but if a president wanted to move in that direction, “the tools are in place now.” The choice to do so “could be made under circumstances that appear perfectly reasonable,” he went on, noting, “Democracy does not preclude voluntary submission to despotism. Given a frightened population, Congress can legislate away liberties just as easily as tyrants can seize power. That seems to be what has started to happen.”

…

“We are driven,” he continued, “by fears of what might happen, not by things that havehappened.” He noted that since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been 42 terrorist plots in the United States. All but four of them were halted. Three of those succeeded and killed a total of 17 people. “Not that this isn’t a tragedy,” he said, “but, really, in a society that has 15–16,000 homicides every year, it isn’t a lot.

…

Jenkins thinks the occasions should be mandated. It appears that these programs are renewed periodically. After the Guardian reprinted a court document allowing the NSA to mine data from Verizon, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed that this was a routine renewal of a long-standing program. But Jenkins is bothered that the renewal is so routine. “I don’t know if it’s every year or five years or seven years,” he said, “but somebody should have to come back and say, ‘These are the measures in place, they were useful in the following circumstances.’ Then a choice should be made on whether to keep them in place. The government will always argue that they should be, but at least they should have to make the argument, again and again.”

This means Congress should take its oversight responsibilities more seriously—and the debate should be conducted more broadly, as much of it as possible in public.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ernment.2.html