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

I'd have thought

[myowntrueself]

that the average American would want the line between liberty and safety drawn right at the national borders of the USA.

Ie the rest of the world is unsafe and the USA has liberty.

Why can't we have both?

[Omega]

Why does the NSA have to ask for a line between safety and liberty? Why can't we have both?

I know that violating people's civil liberties including taking away their right to speech, privacy and due process makes it easier for law enforcement, but aside from being unconstitutional, it's also bad policework.

If you racially profile your suspects, then the Timothy McVeighs slip through. If you tap everyone's phone, then you become bogged down in terabytes of data -- most of which is useless. If you suppress the speech of the hate mongers and racists, then you don't know who is a hate monger or racist.

Civil liberties aren't just respectful of constitutional and human rights, they also help law enforcement do their job right. So don't ask for a line to be drawn. Try playing by the rules instead.

I drew the line a long tma ago....

[haplo21112]

They crossed it about 5 minutes later when the Patriot Act passed. And don't kid yourselves, it has been said the patriot act is supposed to be somewhat limited and a temp measure....Yeah Right a Temp measure like the Federal Income Tax was supposed to be when it passed...

Honestly I scared...of all of the things going on...Homeland Security is a term that scares the hell out of me....

Ironic, since we just had an election...

[TrollBridge]

Not to troll (as I know the name implies) but why is everyone here whining about the restrictions on our freedom that our legislators are imposing on us, when most of you (Americans, anyway) probably didn't even vote this past Tuesday.

I voted. I voted for Libertarian candidates because I, like many people here, believe that the less intrusive government is, the better.

Writing letters and making phone calls only goes so far. No matter how many letters or phone calls legislators receive, it's still the same person who ignores them. The real solution is to get these people out of office and elect people who are more likely to give our concerns a voice.

So the next time you feel that our legislators truly aren't looking out for our interests, get your ass out of your chair and vote.

Re:Maximum Liberty

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

I choose Maximum Liberty. Please draw the line there.

As a former paratrooper I thank you kindly. Many americans (military and civilian) traded their safety and even their lives for our continued freedom. The war on terrorism promotes the heroism of cowardice "I boldly tell the FBI what my neighbor says in confidence....because I am scared of the roughly couple dozen Al Qaeda reps that the President says MIGHT be in our country." That is a sad, sad statement.

Back to the root cause

[DuBois]

Is it possible that one widely disregarded factor in what happened on 9/11/2001 was that none of the passengers on those four flighs were allowed their pre-existing self defense rights, in complete and utter disregard of the 2nd Amendment?

Is it not possible that, having already made the decision for security over liberty back in the 1970's when the tools of self defense were banned from aircraft (and post offices, and schools, I might add), these formerly free United States had become a haven for terrorists without any help from the NSA?

Didn't anybody ever watch "Red Dawn?"