{"id":127947,"date":"2015-09-11T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T18:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/11\/electronic-spying-if-you-arent-with-us-you-may-be-against-us.html"},"modified":"2015-09-11T19:17:35","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T01:17:35","slug":"electronic-spying-if-you-arent-with-us-you-may-be-against-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/11\/electronic-spying-if-you-arent-with-us-you-may-be-against-us.html","title":{"rendered":"Electronic Spying: If You Aren't With Us, You May Be Against Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear national intelligence agency chiefs: you aren't helping your cause with statements like this.<\/p>\n

'CIA Director John Brennan suggested that negative public opinion and "misunderstanding" about the US intelligence community is in part "because of people who are trying to undermine" the mission of the NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies. These people "may be fueled by our adversaries," he said.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Yes, the old "criticize us and you're just doing the work (either intentionally or as a dupe) of Sinister Enemies" approach. I thought that went out with the McCarthy Era, but some people have short memories, I guess.<\/p>\n

If it is difficult to have calm, adult discussions and decision-making about electronic surveillance (domestic and foreign), it is not mostly because of ISIL-leaning fellow-travelers or folk in the employ of narco-terrorists. It is largely because, post-9\/11 (14 years ago today, fergoshsakes), intelligence "homeland security" agencies took all the power they had been clamoring for over the previous decade, went beyond the wide-ranging scope handed them by Congress and the President, lied<\/i> to the public and to courts about what they were doing, did everything they could to keep it all a deep, dark, ever-expanding secret — and then got outed by folk like Wikileaks and Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n

And now they wonder why they aren't trusted.<\/p>\n

They aren't trusted because they have both hidden the truth and lied — and done so not to keep the Bad Guys from knowing what they could do (hint: the Bad Guys, the ones organized enough to actually be a threat, already assume such capabilities), but to keep the US citizenry from knowing how their own privacy was being compromised. They have never demonstrated any significant accomplishments from such programs, even as they sucked up billions of dollars and petabytes of data. And they have waved off or denounced the potential dangers of such programs through statements like Director Brennan's.<\/p>\n

They say "trust us," when we know historically the dangers of wide-ranging spy powers. And they say "trust us" while giving us no reason to do so, and every reason to think they will not tell us the truth if they find it inconvenient to do so.<\/p>\n

'"I have something on my mind that affects all the work we do as an intelligence community," [FBI Director James] Comey said in his opening remarks. "I think that citizens should be skeptical of government power. But I fear it's bled over to cynicism. It is something that is getting in the way of reasoned discussion, and I'm very concerned about how to change that trend of cynicism." He sees that cynicism directed toward everyone from law enforcement officers on the beat to the intelligence community at large.<\/i><\/p>\n

In particular, Comey said, he feels that his push for some way to gain backdoor access to encryption was "met with venom and deep cynicism." "How do we get to a healthier place in talking about authority?" he asked.'<\/i><\/p>\n

By demonstrating that authority — especially authority in a democracy — can be trusted, can act with maximum and not minimum transparency, and that the obvious risks<\/i> to things like "secret" backdoors to encryption systems outweigh the non-documented advantages.<\/p>\n

Don't get me wrong: I understand the need to know about potential actions by acknowledged threats, foreign and domestic, to the nation, and about being able to ferret out as-yet-unrecognized threats as well. Abolishing the NSA, or the CIA, or the FBI, is not the answer.<\/p>\n

But neither is letting them do whatever they desire in gathering data about everyone on the globe. Even if every single person on that stage is acting today out of the purest and finest of intentions, we know<\/i> — from the history of other nations, and the history of our own — how unfettered intelligence gathering can be abused by abusive people, can leak to the wrong places, can be used for purposes very different than what are being proposed when the data is first gathered. Those are the givens<\/i> of any discussion about cyber-spying programs, and until those<\/i> are addressed in an open and transparent fashion, we won't be able to approach that "healthier place."<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nFBI, intel chiefs decry “deep cynicism” over cyber spying programs<\/a><\/span>
\nAdmit tough questions about things like backdoors have no easy answers.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear national intelligence agency chiefs: you aren't helping your cause with statements like this. 'CIA Director John Brennan suggested that negative public opinion and "misunderstanding" about the US intelligence community is in part "because of people who are trying to undermine" the mission of the NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies. These people "may be … Continue reading “Electronic Spying: If You Aren't With Us, You May Be Against Us”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,17,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-homeland-security","category-privacy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45031,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/08\/whats-the-alternative-to-going-public-on-intelligence-wrongdoing.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":0},"title":"What's the alternative to going public on intelligence wrongdoing?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Sep-14 8:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"Telling folk working in intelligence and national security positions that they should use internal channels to report problems only works if the internal channels actually work effectively. But in an environment where the guilty are never punished, but the CIA feels free to spy on investigators and discover who's whistleblowing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48859,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/mark-udall-breaks-some-additional-torture-information.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":1},"title":"Mark Udall breaks some additional torture information","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Dec-14 10:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Udall (D-CO) has been one of the loudest advocates for years on releasing information about intelligence agency abuses, both in this context and regarding surveillance activities, lambasting both the Bush and Obama administrations for their actions. He continued that today, discussing how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46769,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/05\/the-fight-against-secrets-lost-a-key-fighter-last-night.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":2},"title":"The fight against secrets lost a key fighter last night","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Nov-14 5:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While Mark Udall's name came up in the news the last several years because of his being a US Senator for my state, where I often also ran across him was dealing with the NSA, CIA, and other \"too many secrets\" organizations, in his role on the Senate Intelligence Community.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41427,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/14\/hoist-on-their-own-surveillance-state.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":3},"title":"Hoist on their own surveillance state","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Mar-14 3:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Feinstein's only among the worst offenders in this particular hypocrisy. She has plenty of company.That said -- good. Let's hope that NSA (and CIA, and probably FBI and DHS) surveillance of Congress actually serves up some of them with a clue as why\u00a0the whole \"If you're not guilty, why are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/BitWVJIIUAAPND4.jpg.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":128350,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/19\/the-only-time-the-government-is-willing-to-restrain-surveillance.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":4},"title":"The only time the government is willing to restrain surveillance","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Oct-15 4:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... is when it discovers that it, too, is being surveilled.After nearly 50 years of (perhaps naively, perhaps with an understanding that it would be naive to be) relying on assurances from the Prime Minister's office that Members of Parliament would not be monitored by internal security (GCHQ) -- first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49042,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/19\/the-case-against-the-torture-report.html","url_meta":{"origin":127947,"position":5},"title":"The Case Against the Torture Report","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Dec-14 3:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, America's attention is beginning to wander away from the Torture Report from the Senate Intelligence Committee -- those gifts under the tree won't buy themselves, y'know. But I think it worth a link, for the record and future discussion, to this article by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torture2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torture2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torture2.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127954,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127947\/revisions\/127954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}