Of all of the crazy scandals, is the NSA most dangerous?

Is anyone frightened about the NSA now? Most of us have seen episodes of 24 where CTU and Jack Bauer get the information through hacking and interrogation. But since the "whistleblower" revealed the capabilities of the NSA, does anyone beside me think that leaves the U.S. more vulnerable to attack? I HATE the thought of the government spying on me (I consider the bastard a traitor), but him leaking uber secret capabilities for the world to know is scary. Thoughts?

everything the whistleblower revealed has been essentially common knowledge since ~2006, just not confirmed by the administration.

the rest of your bravado is silly posturing, but given your habits, I'd be astonished if you even reply.

man, and Cracked.com does it again:

4 Reasons to be Angrier that the NSA is Tapping Your Phone

2006 is sort of a red herring date. That is when this specific type of surveillance started. Abuse of networks and the internet goes back to at least Clinton, there have been illegal wiretaps for as long as there have been phones and the American government has a rich history of infiltrating and breaking up any domestic group they aren't happy with.

I'm actually somewhat amazed people are doing the: "the government has the capability of spying on me!?" dance.

I am with you Robtard.

This guy was very careful not to leak anything that could be harmful.

Originally posted by Darth Truculent
Is anyone frightened about the NSA now? Most of us have seen episodes of 24 where CTU and Jack Bauer get the information through hacking and interrogation. But since the "whistleblower" revealed the capabilities of the NSA, does anyone beside me think that leaves the U.S. more vulnerable to attack? I HATE the thought of the government spying on me (I consider the bastard a traitor), but him leaking uber secret capabilities for the world to know is scary. Thoughts?

As someone put it on facebook:

The NSA, a well known organization involved in lots of spy operations, is spying on people?

That made me lulz.

I'm glad someone's reading my emails cos I don't. Feels like I have a personal assistant

We need to government to monitor our activity, it's for our own good.

What's wrong with the government spying on its own people? That's what governments are supposed do--it's why we elect them. They keep us safe from ourselves. I'm terrified of myself. God knows what I'm capable of.

I know what you're capable of, because I'm a government agent and I'm spying on you.

You're welcome.

I have a question. As far as we know has this information been used in untoward ways? The danger that it could be is enough reason to force it out into the public eye or stop it all together but what I've heard is that in US history these types of things generally don't get abused. A lot of attempts to abuse the PATRIOT Act were shut down by the system itself.

we don't know, yet. it is likely there is data stored on innocent people and behavioral profiles built from those, but I haven't heard of any specific, egregious violations.

that being said, it's also true that these advanced surveillance powers have little impact on law enforcement's ability to catch terrorists. almost all cases are broken up by tips from the community and basic police work. the best cases that we can point to tend to look closer to FBI entrapment than "al Qaeda"

My first thought was that the government knows all of my porn searches.

I'm very much against what they're doing, I think it's an invasion and not warranted under any justification involving stability or safety. I think the fallout - or lack thereof - will be interesting. Despite my philosophical disgust with the practice, I'm well ware that little is likely to change, and I have a hard time getting super upset about things that I can't meaningfully influence. Of course, my opinion isn't anything out of the ordinary, and actually seems to be the majority opinion in the general public. But the sources from which I form that opinion may bias my experience.

I'm still waiting on DT to come back with a riveting defense of government spying

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/datamining-would-be-lovely-if-it-worked/

Everyone should read this and see why this kind of data mining doesn't work.

Originally posted by jaden101
http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/datamining-would-be-lovely-if-it-worked/

Everyone should read this and see why this kind of data mining doesn't work.

Interesting, thanks.

Originally posted by jaden101
http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/datamining-would-be-lovely-if-it-worked/

Everyone should read this and see why this kind of data mining doesn't work.

Prior probabilities tell us that we should moderate our posterior beliefs not that would she should ignore evidence. We can debate the prior and how to weight the likelihood but datamining can still provide us with useful knowledge. Indeed, the base rate fallacy applies to all crimes and all evidence (its been called the prosecutor's fallacy, actually) but only post-modernists would use that as a reason to reject all criminal justice proceedings.

For example: In that Goldcare's thouhgt experiment. 60 million people, containing 10000 terrorist. The machine is 90% sensitive and 90% specific.

A member of the accused population has a 1 in 1000 chance of being a terrorist.
A member of the accused population is six times as likely to be a terrorist (because there is a 1 in 6000 chance of a person in the general population being a terrorist).

These are not competing pieces of knowledge. The challenge is to pick which one is more useful for what you're trying to do. An investigator is making a better use of time and money by investigating the accused population rather than the general population. A prosecutor is making a mistake if they use it as reason to convict someone.

Originally posted by Oliver North
I'm still waiting on DT to come back with a riveting defense of government spying

Originally posted by Oliver North
we don't know, yet. it is likely there is data stored on innocent people and behavioral profiles built from those, but I haven't heard of any specific, egregious violations.

that being said, it's also true that these advanced surveillance powers have little impact on law enforcement's ability to catch terrorists. almost all cases are broken up by tips from the community and basic police work. the best cases that we can point to tend to look closer to FBI entrapment than "al Qaeda"

No one intelligent can call Obama left-wing anymore. Secret private contractors fulfilling the Neocon John Poindexter wet dream? The Great Enabler and his corporate Clintonoid loyal opposition aren't communists, they're just the ****** (as in bundle of twigs and root of the word fascist) part of the Fasces and the Republicans are the axe blade.