NSA Director, Congress and Monitoring

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for pointing out the testimony from NSA Director Michael Hayden, in which he talks about how the NSA worked pre-9/11 and post. And, as Bruce pointed out "...[he] tells Congress that they can best help him by going back to their constituents and finding out where the public wants to draw the line between liberty and safety."

Comments

Re: NSA Director, Congress and Monitoring

[paitre]

Yeah.
The 9th and the 10th which pretty explicitly limit federal powers to those granted to it by the people, while reserving those not explicitly graned to the states and the people.

Unforuntately, the 9 idiots on the bench have effectively destroyed both of these amendments, and are doing a bangup job on the 4th.

Re:don't believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

This secrecy removes any sort of accountability.

Wrong. Thanks to the Church Hearings of the 70s NSA is accountable, as is stated in the document, to all three branches of the gov't. It even answers FOIA requests (I hated those, simply because it meant I had to go digging though file cabinets of papers I knew were unrelated to it).

Remember this is a Republic - NSA isn't directly accountable to the people, but it is accountable, as evidenced by that hearing, to those the people select.

The Real Libertarianism in a Nutshell

[hether]

Libertarians In A Nutshell - As a party, Libertarians support the political philosophy of "libertarianism." This philosophy states that you, as an individual, know best how to live your own life. Not the government.

Obviously, you don't know a whole hell of a lot about Libertarianism or you wouldn't make such sweeping generalizations about us (yes, I am one) and our ideas. Not all Libertarians believe that we can one day just scrap police and fire protection, get rid of the entire governmental structure and leave people to fend for themselves. We don't want to destroy the world as we know it and replace with entirely privatized options. It's this kind of FUD that keeps the party down.

The LP wants to:
# Substantially reduce the size and intrusiveness of government and cut all taxes.

# Let peaceful, honest people offer their goods and services to willing consumers without a hassle from government.

# Let peaceful, honest people decide for themselves what to eat, drink, read, or smoke and how to dress, medicate themselves, or make love, without fear of criminal penalties.

# The U.S. government should defend Americans and their property in America and let the U.S. taxpayer off the hook for the defense bill of wealthy countries like Germany and Japan.

Stick to posting about topics you know. www.lp.org would be a good start to your reading.