The metadata was NOT collected because the NSA cared about adhering to constitutional safeguards, they did it out of practicality. They were operating in an utterly intractable and vast ocean of communications information that could not possibly be monitored wholesale. When they thought they should transgress the line of metadata (assuming for a moment that "metadata" is for some reason less private) they did.
>Now the actual recording of calls and data of communications, as opposed to metadata -- that's another animal entirely.
This is exactly what they did, and it was in facilitation of precisely this purpose that the metadata was gathered. As it says in the article:
>Tice said the NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communication would be collected. Offering a hypothetical example, he said if the agency determined that terrorists communicate in brief, two-minute phone calls, the NSA might program its systems to record all such calls, invading the privacy of anyone prone to telephonic succinctness.
and:
>he discovered that the NSA was collecting the organizations' communications 24 hours a day year round.
Over and over again, defenders of wiretapping and invasions of privacy have tried to suggest that issues of security become so grave or complicated that at some point our rights to privacy fall away, or are impossible to guarantee, as though they don't operate in tandem, but rest on polar opposite ends of a sliding scale.
Why do I hear a defeaning silence the moment I ask if this power is open to abuse? What stops the NSA from being ordered to gather metadata on political opponents, activist organizations, or news reporters? What stops them from learning what those communication channels are, thereby obtaining the power to disrupt them? This is exactly what happened. Doesn't this scare anyone?
Where is the differentiation between abuse and dutiful defense of country? Where is even the acknowledgement of the possibility of abuse? I don't see it, and until it is recognized, we leave unchecked the issue rampant abuse of power under the guise of fighting the glorious fight against terrorism.
Just as the technology enables the "war on terrorism" to spill over into dimensions unanticipated by the framers of the constitution, requiring that we supply our intelligence agencies with new legal tools to continue the fight, there is a paralell duty that we prevent the government from seizing the same space for the purpose of advancing surveillance state powers.
You're making a long-winded argument against what the NSA actually did. My point was to look at the entire picture when evaluating such wrongs. Fix the bad stuff. Leave the good.
Now make a case for why we need the NSA. Then we'll be on the path to some kind of progress. By only pointing out the bad, it's a one-sided discussion. Nothing in life is one-sided.
For a freedom to mean something, it has to be delineated -- i.e., it must have limits. Can't cry movie in a crowded firehouse. etc. I'm completely with you on the freedom discussion. I just don't hear any delineation.
Outrage over legitimately outrageous behavior from the NSA does not imply that there is some sort of unbalanced perspective that needs to be tempered.
At any given moment this debate needs rest on a larger foundation of common understanding if any progress it to be possible. It is completely unfair to project into that unspoken space an extreme, one-dimensionsal and altogether unlikely position, and then say there is a lack of balance because the person hasn't yet distinguished themselves from it.
No one should have to defend their love of country every time they criticize the Iraq war. Similarly, no one should have to prove that they understand the nuances of legitimate anti-terrorism operations just because they express legitimate outrage over a legitimately outrageous event. It is curious why anyone's first instinct would be to demand such a thing, in the face of the towering need for public outcry.
We don't need the NSA. Signal intelligence is great for fighting countries, but it will will fail because terrorists are a tiny minority hiding in a huge sea of humanity. I am all for the CIA and FBI but we just don't need a the huge budget of the NSA for anything right now and because of this they can't really help.
Correction: I have no problem with the NSA building secure systems but that's a tiny fraction of their budget.
>Now the actual recording of calls and data of communications, as opposed to metadata -- that's another animal entirely.
This is exactly what they did, and it was in facilitation of precisely this purpose that the metadata was gathered. As it says in the article:
>Tice said the NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communication would be collected. Offering a hypothetical example, he said if the agency determined that terrorists communicate in brief, two-minute phone calls, the NSA might program its systems to record all such calls, invading the privacy of anyone prone to telephonic succinctness.
and:
>he discovered that the NSA was collecting the organizations' communications 24 hours a day year round.
Over and over again, defenders of wiretapping and invasions of privacy have tried to suggest that issues of security become so grave or complicated that at some point our rights to privacy fall away, or are impossible to guarantee, as though they don't operate in tandem, but rest on polar opposite ends of a sliding scale.
Why do I hear a defeaning silence the moment I ask if this power is open to abuse? What stops the NSA from being ordered to gather metadata on political opponents, activist organizations, or news reporters? What stops them from learning what those communication channels are, thereby obtaining the power to disrupt them? This is exactly what happened. Doesn't this scare anyone?
Where is the differentiation between abuse and dutiful defense of country? Where is even the acknowledgement of the possibility of abuse? I don't see it, and until it is recognized, we leave unchecked the issue rampant abuse of power under the guise of fighting the glorious fight against terrorism.
Just as the technology enables the "war on terrorism" to spill over into dimensions unanticipated by the framers of the constitution, requiring that we supply our intelligence agencies with new legal tools to continue the fight, there is a paralell duty that we prevent the government from seizing the same space for the purpose of advancing surveillance state powers.