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What Medical Tests Should Teach Us About the NSA Surveillance Program
First time accepted submitter Davak writes "In many ways finding the small amount of terrorists within the United States is like screening a population of people for a rare disease. A physician explains why collecting excessive data is actually dangerous. Each time a test is run, the number of people incorrectly identified quickly dwarfs the correct matches. Just like in medicine, being incorrectly labelled has serious consequences."
the NSA is not concerned about infringing on people's rights and civil liberties. if we are going with medical analogies, i think the NSA would rather amputate than treat an infection.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
After glancing over the summary, I'm fine with doctors are experimenting on terrorist dwarves.
That the NSA is not specifically looking for terrorists, although that is the convenient excuse. They are looking for all sorts of things, and that is why they are collecting everything. They are listening in on foreign diplomats to see what they are up to, they are eavesdropping on foreign corporations to give US companies an advantage in trade deals, they are digging up dirt on political enemies and protesters, and they are checking up on reporters to help keep them in line, and they are especially looking for whistle blowers who might throw some light on what they are doing with our tax dollars. All of these activities have been reported, so it doesn't take much imagination to realize they are collecting everything they can on purpose and for numerous reasons, most of which are not to the benefit of the American people. If the intention was to help the American people, they would be putting all that computing power into bioinformatics to cure cancer and other diseases that kill half a million Americans a year.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
So you have no test and just let the virus spread?
You extend the analogy too far. In fact, the analogy in TFA, while interesting, has limited relevance. Yes, the danger and destructive effects of false positives are important in both medicine and national security, but where TFA mentions (almost in passing) that "The balance between privacy and security is always difficult", it sidesteps the simple fact that this surveillance is about neither. It is about control.
Let us not fool ourselves that the US (or any other) government is actually likely to prevent all (or any) acts of terrorism with these efforts. We have recent proof otherwise. Our various governments have simply seized on this supposed threat as a means to exert control - for no other reason than because they can.
No, because the point is that the false positive results lead to more invasive tests (which in themselves may do harm), over-interpretation of other physical signs, worry etc.. The parallel with terrorism is that people end up on no-fly lists, get invasively searched and questioned, might get turned down for jobs or credit etc.. The uselessness of screening tests for low prevalence diseases is well known in the medical world, which is why tests need to be targeted to a high-risk population to have any value.
As your elected representative let me enlighten you as to why you voted for me rather than the other guy:
* I made good, powerful speaches. I went to some classes to help with this, it is more important that I dress in a good suit and have a strong voice than what I say makes sense.
* I avoided checking facts when making opinions. If you know the facts you realise that things are not black & white, but to express that makes people think that you are a ditherer, that you don't know what you stand for. Who wants a politician who, when asked a question instead of saying ''yes'' or ''no'' says something long and boring that starts with ''It depends'' ?
* Most of you don't look at the facts, you work on gut feeling and gross extrapolation. You remember that story in the local press last week about the thief from out of town who had green eyes, blond hair and a limp ? Yes: you are quite right to know that everyone from out of town with blond hair & a limp is a good for nothing crook and we don't want people like that round here!
* You people just want to be safe. You don't care what happens to out of townies, how hard we make it for them; or even foreigners -- some of who have a skin of a funny colour. They just don't matter!
* You don't really know what safe means, but are happy if you can still watch TV and drink beer when supporting your team. My predecessor did not do anything to make you realise that you can do something else, neither will I --so you will vote for me next time.
* In order to get on the short list for election I had to sign up to what the party says. They won't listen to a newbie like me, if I ask questions there are plenty of others to choose from who do what the party bosses say.
* Do you know how much I got in ''research grants'' and travel ''expences'' from the large corpotations? To say nothing about my fee for 2 days work a year as a consultant. I must not upset them by saying something that upsets them. All that money buys a lot of publicity as well as letting me buy that new yacht..
* I have a good friend who knows people, (I don't want to know why they are), but I got warnings of the other guy's plans and it was mighty useful when his campaign manager was caught in bed with that young ... that no one had seen before
So you see, I would be really silly if I upset the status quo and made you think for yourself.