NSA: We Mulled Ending Phone Program Before Edward Snowden Leaks

Mark Wilson writes Edward Snowden is heralded as both a hero and villain. A privacy vigilante and a traitor. It just depends who you ask. The revelations he made about the NSA's surveillance programs have completely changed the face of online security, and changed the way everyone looks at the internet and privacy. But just before the whistle was blown, it seems that the NSA was considering bringing its telephone data collection program to an end. Intelligence officials were, behind the scenes, questioning whether the benefits of gathering counter-terrorism information justified the colossal costs involved. Then Snowden went public and essentially forced the agency's hand.

Comments

Not everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

The revelations did not change the way *I* looked at the Internet and privacy. It merely confirmed my well-justified suspicions.

I think the same statement can be made by most people on slashdot, and by most technicians in general.

The only people who were surprised were the technically ignorant.

Re: Not everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone be so naive as to believe that a "goddamned piece of paper" would curtail this?

The *only* force that prevents powerful institutions from abusing their power is public accountability. Any talk about oversight committees and the state of the law is pure air.

If they are operating outside of the scrutiny of the public eye, it is *guaranteed* that they are doing something nefarious. That is how power works. To believe otherwise is to misunderstand human nature.

This should be the common case, though.

[shess]

Big deal. If you are running a program which costs money or time, you should be considering whether it is worth running periodically regardless of whether it's a program to collect phone data or bringing donuts to the office. If you aren't revisiting that decision, you're doing your job badly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they're doing a good job. Just that "Oh, yeah, we considered cancelling that program" is a stupid comment which doesn't excuse anything. Most likely they kept the program more because you don't give up power and money once you have it, and they really didn't care about efficacy.

Re:This should be the common case, though.

[Jane Q. Public]

If you are running a program which costs money or time, you should be considering whether it is worth running periodically regardless of whether it's a program to collect phone data or bringing donuts to the office. If you aren't revisiting that decision, you're doing your job badly.

Besides, I don't buy the line that Snowden "forced the agency's hand". I call bullshit. They could have done any number of things at that point: modify their program, reduce their program, or even eliminate it entirely. What they did instead was double down. That was THEIR decision, nobody else's. Trying to cast blame doesn't change that.

Re:Sure you did..

[TheGavster]

Even if the NSA was considering terminating these programs due to cost, that's not the same as terminating them because domestic surveillance exceeds the NSA's mandate. It's kind of like saying that we don't jail people for homosexuality because the prisons would cost too much: while the argument does end the injustice in the short term, it leaves open the possibility of it returning in a way that a moral argument doesn't.