NSA Director Defends Surveillance To Unsympathetic Black Hat Crowd

Trailrunner7 writes "NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander's keynote today at Black Hat USA 2013 was a tense confessional, an hour-long emotional and sometimes angry ride that shed some new insight into the spy agency's two notorious data collection programs, inspired moments of loud applause in support of the NSA, and likewise, profane heckling that called into question the legality and morality of the agency's practices. Loud voices from the overflowing crowd called out Alexander on his claims that the NSA stands for freedom while at the same time collecting, storing and analyzing telephone business records, metadata and Internet records on Americans. He also denied lying to Congress about the NSA's capabilities and activities in the name of protecting Americans from terrorism in response to such a claim from a member of the audience."

Comments

Re:Privacy concerns now outweigh terrorism in poll

[flaming error]

> The "trust us" defense isn't good enough
It's not, because we are unsatisfied.

But it is enough, because what do they even need a defense for? What threat must they defend themselves from?

Congress? If Congress does anything, it will expand NSA powers, not reduce them.

SCOTUS? Somebody has to sue the gov first and prove harm. But it's all secret, so nobody can do that. If anyone managed to get proof, they'd end up in a jail cell with Bradley Manning.