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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."
> where the public wants to draw the line between liberty and safety
Just dont ask me after a traumatizing event. I might say some things I regret down the road.
"Old man yells at systemd"
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.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Counting on the government for saftey is like counting on them to spend your tax dollars wisely.
I choose Maximum Liberty. Please draw the line there.
Write to your senators. Write to your representative. Hell, write to your governors and state legislatures, just make it clear that you're not in favour of further restrictions on our rights.
Senators can be found here:
U.S. Senate Home
Representatives can be found here:
Representative Member Directory
If you do this, you have some form of say in our government, or at least a chance at influence. Don't waste it.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
With millions of cargo shipments coming in and thousands of planes in the air daily there's no way to secure it. The plans we've come up with seem similar to Microsoft's plans for 'Security'... i.e. The US governement seems to be securing their position rather than securing the people. I'd rather live in fear of terrorism than fear of the US government, something that's becoming more fearful everyday.
put the what in the where?
1 Eliminate civil liberties making security
:)
2
3 FREEDOM!
[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
This is not good enough. Because liberty is a more abstract concept than security, people tend to choose security on the principle that only criminals have something to hide ... until their liberty is eroded to the extent that it causes them problems, by which time it is too late to go back.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Governments all around the world have been using the horrible events of September 11th to take away the rights guaranteed their citizens. It is not true, though, that giving up our rights actually makes us more secure.
Every time someone looks at the United States and wrongly believes that we live under a despotic and evil government, the world becomes a bit more dangerous for Americans. The sort of person who thinks that the United States is a horrible place is far more likely to be supportive to the insanity of radical-Islamist terrorism.
On the other hand, every time someone looks to the United States and envies our elections, our freedoms, our optimism, that is a victory in the war on terrorism. And with enough victories like that, I think that the world can truly become a safer place.
... on Tuesday.
Apparently, though, the US is just fine with (even welcoming and asking for more of) the kind of government that would pass USAPATRIOT.
Be careful what you wish for, USACITIZEN.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
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.
CAN we draw a line distinguishing safety and liberty?
Through liberty.. there will always be safety.. in the sense that.. someone (the government) will always control our liberty.. and at the same time a government will do all it can to protect its country, even if it includes hindering our liberty.
If one were to go around chanting anti-american remarks and burning the flag, by the Constitutional law.. they have every right to do that, but our government will see it as a threat and most likely arrest the individual.
Unfortunately, freedom and safety are both two very strenuous issues when being discussed together, but as far as "the line" goes.. I personally don't think a line can be drawn..
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
""...[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." "
Why don't you just intercept their constituents' phone calls, email, web traffic, faxes, pages, and all other forms of electronic communications, and then you'll know exactly what they want.
Oh.. wait..
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
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....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
these people are not elected, so they have no incentive to protect your rights.
Realisticly, do the people whom are elected do have a overwheming incentive to protect our rights?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
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.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
"During that session I even said without exaggeration on my part or complaint on yours that if Usama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, U.S. law would give him certain protections that I would have to accommodate in the conduct of my mission. And now the third open session for the Director of NSA: I am here explaining what my Agency did or did not know with regard to 19 hijackers who were in this country legally."
It seems then, that the safest place for a terrorist to hide would be in US.
While you do not elect them, they are a government agency and they ultimately report to elected officials (indeed, this report is written for a Senate committee).
I am not an American, but I have met and worked with many fine people employed by the National Security Agency and I believe they are a great credit to your country. They are actively protecting you from real threats, and they have no secret agenda to destroy your freedoms.
In that light, the question posed here is entirely appropriate. There is a compromise between freedom and security, and the NSA is exactly right to ask the government to decide where the compromise should end up. And rest assured, it will end up where the American people say it should end up.
That may or may not give you some comfort. The decision-making capabilities of the American people can be questionable at times.
I personally think Michael Hayden stated the issue he faces, and we all face, extremely clearly, and thereby did us all a favor. I also think Benjamin Franklin drew the line where it needs to be drawn -- do not sacrifice essential liberty at all, and especially not for temporary safety.
The task we face is to determine which liberties are essential. I'd start with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and especially the First and Second Amendments. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of conscience and expression. The Second Amendment guarantees that individual citizens, rather than the government, hold the balance of power.
I'd also point to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments as important. We must not carelessly and capriciously deny due process to those whom we suspect. Historically, when we have, we've done no good -- for the others or ourselves. (Remember the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII?)
Does anyone see anything important I've missed?
Catherine
Draw the line between liberty and safety where it was on September 10, 2001.
It was not lack of security infrastructure that "allowed" the 9/11 attack. We had the infrastructure in place.
The hostile conspiracy had been testing the vigilance (or lack thereof) of the airport security screenings to _measure_ their complacency.
The hostile conspiracy was using techniques to keep their plans secret that would still work even if the present levels of internet monitoring and envelope steaming had been in place.
We have not really gained security. Observe that the perpetrator of the Anthrax letters still hasn't been identified, much less caught. Observe that the 2nd worst attack on U.S. territory, in OK City, was perpetrated by a U.S. citizen who used a rented panel truck. Safety still is just as illusory as it was before 9/11.
What has changed is that we've sacrificed liberty (or had it sacrificed for us) to create the image of security, without any real gains in security. Heavens, even Ashcroft admitted that U.S. agression abroad would probably increase our risk of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Security is not the objective. Control is the objective.
Draw the line between security and safety where it was before. We'd spent 35 years of hard civil liberties work to keep the words "national security" from being carte blanche for the abuse of our civil rights. Now we've got to regain that progress all over again. We _will_ regain it, even if it takes another 35 years to relearn the lessons.
Give me liberty or give me death. That seems pretty straight forward to me. If I have to die because I have freedom, so be it. I'm not gonna give it away, just so I can be "safe" and comfortably numb. That's where my line is drawn.
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?"
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We, in the US, live in a climate of fear that has been nurtured by our government and the media for a very long time. We have ignored many of the problems in nations throughout the world and focused on being the toughest MF'er on the block. As king of the heap, we have to protect our position. In order to do that we have to justify it to the American people by daily demonstrating the need for that protection--that everyone is out to get us. It becomes a catch-22 situation. The need for security and the means of ensuring that security creates an ever increasing need for more security. Of course, ultimately, our rights must suffer.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove
First we should start by questioning the assumption that loss of liberty even will buy us safety.
This needs to be done, on a point-by-point basis for each and every liberty that is being compromised. In engineering decisions there's always 'nice to have' and 'must have'. There are also times when the customer is asking for the wrong thing, and you can give a different solution that satisifes him even better than what he'd asked for. As far as I can see, current liberty/security tradeoffs appear to be a shopping list, without effectiveness review or modifications.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Whoa, they have to ask Disney AND the oil industry? Unprecedented!
(PS: It's a joke. Please don't tap my phone line.)
You only missed your fourth amendment right to not have your home torn apart in a search whenever someone in power decides that it's time to put you back in line.
Or your fifth amendment rights to not be hounded by the prosecution, and tried innumerable times on (possibly the same) bogus charge.
Or your sixth amendment right to be tried promptly, or to face your accusers and their accusations, or be able to call witnesses in your defense, or ask for the assistance of a lawyer.
Or your seventh and eighth amendment rights.