I'm sorry if it came out upside down, I did not mean that. I wanted to go a step further than "not caring" basically because having spent 20 years inside their governmental empire, I have seen how they will build up organizations with one mission, direct it to another and tell you outsiders it is doing a third. And then ask for funding for all three. I was driving to the point they have advertised their mission as signal intercept and interpretation, that being their justification for all the spying on us. I'm saying that that obviously did not work, as they did not intercept or decipher anything that led to preemptive action. While they may have successes, I also think they should tell us what those numbers are, simply to illustrate it is either working or not, rather than tell us "they have to do it". Why would I even want to consider their vast invasion of privacy if they can't do the job? Let alone the constitutional issue around it.

What are you arguing about?

I am stating that the NSA should NOT have massive surveillance privileges. Do you think that they should?

Jan

Were the NSA angelic paragons of virtue and efficiency, I would still argue in favor of their NOT having massive surveillance privileges. The right of the individual to conduct his daily business without governmental oversight is more important.

Jan

I do not know. The NSA says that the NSA is effective, but then they would. The NSA says that the NSA has foiled 54 terrorist plots. But how can one determine if this is correct when all we have is their word for it?

What I do know is that I am not arguing about whether the NSA is effective or not. What I have said is that even IF the NSA were effective, I still would not prefer the safety of their scrutiny over the risk of more freedom. Obviously, if the NSA is not effective, then the argument is even stronger against allowing them to have that latitude.

The venerable freedom vs security dichotomy applies to this case. Like you, I think that freedom is far more important.

Jan

But it is not effective. The evidence is overwhelming

Because I do not personally like an organization or what it is doing does not automatically mean that it is not effective. You previously commented that the NSA should have reacted to key words to prevent the San Bernadino terrorist attack. It is plausible that the NSA has prevented many terrorist attacks but simply failed to prevent that specific one.

My comment was that 'I did not care' if the NSA were effective, I would prefer to accept greater risk and have greater freedom. You are reacting to this comment as if I were a proponent of the NSA when I believe I have clearly stated that I would not consider myself a proponent of general surveillance even if the organization were successful at doing so.

Somehow you have inverted my stance and are now arguing against me. Please do not stand me on my head.

Jan

Exactly right. It so repeatable as to have become the standard, not the exception. Apparently, no one in govt heard that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, over and over...

Jan, I am not sure it would impact anything. Obviously, what they do did not work, so what good is spending billions on "trying". And taking all your freedoms away. Their closed minded philosophy is to tighten the screws on all of us to catch the .01% of bad guys, rather than use some out of the box thinking to do the same. Traditionalists thrive in those closed quarters, and innovators are left out, so they approach all problems with a sledge hammer when a micro pin will work. Their misguided feel good policies have led to most attacks, by not doing nasty things like , yes, god forbid, thinking a person of arabic background might be a bad guy.

" This would result in an increase in terrorist incidents."
Regardless of whether they would increase or decrease, I'd rather live free with people able and willing to protect themselves, as you suggest, than to be in a safe prison.

I think that eliminating the NSA would result in an increase in terrorist incidents, db, but I do not care. I care a lot more about their presumed right to scrutinize my routine communications without a specific warrant. I am willing to increase risk in order to increase freedom.

Jan

It is nonsense to say that eliminating the NSA would result in an increase in terrorists incidents. I imagine what could be done with the billions of dollars spent to monitor us. This NSA program has nothing to do with security or terrorism, it is a program designed to protect the government from its people.

I differ. I would rather have the risk of the NSA not scrutinizing our routine communications. This would result in an increase in terrorist incidents. The solution to this would be for more people to carry guns and shoot the terrorist bastards when they try something.

I would like to get away from the 'they (NSA/FBI./etc) are supposed to protect us' viewpoint and back to the 'we Americans are tough and can protect ourselves' philosophy.

Jan, reads Heinlein

Take away liberty in order to possibly protect a few?

Indeed, one would think they would have made that offer. I am willing to bet the FBI said they couldn't use it as evidence, though against who I don't know, but it is the best way to do it. Maybe they could let an agent watch them pull the data so they could testify to it's veracity.

Well, I also think that our glorious security folks need to also look at how they failed to bother to look for evidence before things go bad, not after. The woman involved had been saying bad things on Facebook long before she even got here. One would think all the NSA snoops would be able to catch key words and alert them to look deeper.I think Apples point is that when you let the outside world know something can be done, it isn't long before some genius has figured out how to do it, no matter how hard it may be. Their security position is one of their bigger assets.

Blarman, I am with you. MS can, and does make some pretty good products. But they also do some of the most painful, nasty things they can. The Win 10 data thing is one example, and I will not use IE unless I absolutely have too. My company has even put Chrome on all the PCs, as IE could not digest many internal sites created with later software. And slowwww.... You can see their turnaround in their licensing and data gathering, that they are trying to build a data crunching service, and move all their software to a "pay for it forever" model. A lot of their OS attempts were pretty dismal, I ran Win98 until XP had been proven for a year or so. When I build systems for people I still load Win7, their attempt to "mobilize" the OS was just silly. As proven in Win 8. They do some good things, which get hidden by all the bad... just the way it is folks..

hear hear