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Civil Liberties Expert Argues Snowden Was Wrong (usnews.com)
An anonymous reader writes that in 2014, Geoffrey Stone was given access to America's national security apparatus as a member of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Last week Stone, a staunch civil liberties supporter, moderated a live discussion with Edward Snowden from Russia, and this week he actually praised the NSA in a follow-up interview:
"The more I worked with the NSA, the more respect I had for them as far as staying within the bounds of what they were authorized to do. And they were careful and had a high degree of integrity... I came to the view that [the programs] were well intentioned, that they were designed in fact to collect information for the purpose of ferreting out potential terrorist plots both in the U.S. and around the world and that was their design and purpose...
"I don't doubt that Snowden was courageous and did what he did for what he thought were good reasons. But I think he was unduly arrogant, didn't understand the limitations of his own knowledge and basically decided to usurp the authority of a democracy."
Meanwhile, a new documentary about Julian Assange opened at the Cannes film festival this week, revisiting how Wikileaks warned Apple that iTunes could be used as a backdoor for spies to infiltrate computers and phones.
"I don't doubt that Snowden was courageous and did what he did for what he thought were good reasons. But I think he was unduly arrogant, didn't understand the limitations of his own knowledge and basically decided to usurp the authority of a democracy."
Meanwhile, a new documentary about Julian Assange opened at the Cannes film festival this week, revisiting how Wikileaks warned Apple that iTunes could be used as a backdoor for spies to infiltrate computers and phones.
Obviously not.
""The more I worked with the NSA, the more respect I had for them as far as staying within the bounds of what they were authorized to do."
Given the furor that was raised due to Snowden's revelations in 2013, it doesn't surprise me that - in 2014 - the NSA was sticking to the letter of the law with regards to their operations.
#DeleteChrome
"But I think he was unduly arrogant, didn't understand the limitations of his own knowledge and basically decided to usurp the authority of a democracy"
That argument fails basic logic.
Because of Snowden we know the NSA routinely misled and outright lied to the democracy it was supposedly acting under the authority of?
The "authority of the democracy" had been thoroughly undermined by the NSA. Snowden brought this fact to light.
>"The more I worked with the NSA, the more respect I had for them as far as staying within the bounds of what they were authorized to do."
"The more money the NSA give me, the more I'm willing to go out and schill for them in public."
He enabled democracy by telling voters what the government was doing. It's not democracy when leaders hide their actions from voters.
So, tell me, how exactly does 'the authority of a democracy' exist when dealing with a program so secret that even the bulk of the congress knew relatively little about it, never mind the electorate at large?
It is nice that his conclusion(and he doesn't think that he is being arrogant in assuming his carefully curated little field trip is sufficiently accurate and representative?) was that the NSA was mostly abiding by the rules they made up, rather than going mad with power; but it's simply smarmy nonsense to pretend that anything that clandestine has any meaningful relationship to democracy. On a good day, such an enterprise might be an unaccountable black box more or less attempting to do what they interpret a democratic society's mandate for them to be; but you could say the exact same thing about a hereditary despot who tries to govern more or less according to the interests of the population as he understands them: aligned with the objectives of a democracy only by their own preference, if at all.
When it comes to governance, good intentions aren't worth the air used to state them. The personnel in these institutions perpetually change, and there is no way to ensure that the new crop have the same good intentions as the prior crop.
So, any overboard powers you grant with the understanding that good intentions will prevent their abuse will eventually be abused.
More commonly than not, the original crop doesn't have good intentions either, they are just pretending in order to deceptively win hearts and minds, with abuse being the primary intention.
So, the trite saying might not be true in all cases, but in this case it applies.
The NSA led Stone through a figurative Potemkin village.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
"This is not to say that the NSA should have had all of the authorities it was given. [...] The NSA did its job -- it implemented the authorities it was given."
Just did its job. I've heard something like that before. If I can only remember where...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
So why did Clapper commit perjury in front of congress to cover up these programs?
Because most people who work for the government do so out of a feeling of patriotism and seeking to improve the common good? Sure there are a88holes in every job, but government jobs traditionally pay less than the civilian sector, many have a higher level of personal risk and those that require security clearances require you to forgo many experiences that the average citizen indulges in without worrying about the risk to their job.
I really don't think the majority of government workers, including the NSA workers, originally took the job because they want to engage in either power trips or voyeurism. I feel fairly confident most just want to do a good job defending their country.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Once you can look at everyone's data I imagine the temptation to shut down individuals and groups whose agendas you don't agree with are huge. And we can't for get the few a88holes who are in the system, who might rise to a position of power, as did J. Edgar Hoover.
These people generally aren't evil, they just are the victim of the boiling frog syndrome like the rest of us. In may ways they must be protected from themselves, for out sake and theirs.
Who do we believe? The fellow who worked at/for the NSA back when they still have the cover of secrecy of a "pre-Snowden" world? Or the fellow who went for a rid-a-long after the NSA had knew they were being watched? One of them provided a bunch of evidence of NSA behavior. The other tells us they mean well.
The moment we were hearing the words "Unconstitutional but legal" the debate should have ended.
The NSA reached spying on Americans one step at a time, each step thoughtful and with the best of intentions.
Bullshit. There is no possible noble justification for spying on and lying to the American public then trying to make an example out of the hero who revealed your treason. If some average person did something like that, say put a camera in a private area, then got caught, saying 'I had good intentions and just wanted to protect them' would look like a pathetic excuse. These assholes were on power trips, not making mistakes with good intentions.
Swearing just makes everyone think you're a tool, incapable of controlling yourself.
You are correct.
The devil is a gentleman who speaks with a honeyed tongue.
Because both POTUS's Bush and Obama *ORDERED* the NSA, CIA, and FBI to do this illegal surveillance, torture, murder, invasion shit... with their customary excellence in execution [1].
And everyone knows that in American politics, and up until that man falls, one must ALWAYS protect the highest man involved, since he is the one who will get you a nice cushy job and life after you're gone for defending him.
That's why no President has fallen to the public in a very long time (and Nixon doesn't count, he quit).
[1] Cheney, Clapper, DOJ, etc, etc, etc... Yes, all scum, but not the final scum at the top that approved and gave the orders.