Great response, thank you. You're right, it's hard during this current media push to remember that these organizations aren't just fighting terror. I suppose that is the easiest way to market them to keep the public from getting to concerned over it.
What if they are using the intel they are gathering in order to influence the public's opinion as effectively as possible? It's that sort of power consolidation that worries me and makes me question when an allegiance to the democratic nation that created them starts to fade away.
How does a free nation effectively control an intelligence agency like this to prevent it from slowly usurping all the seats of power? It seems to me that with the expanding technological capabilities of our modern age, we are feeding our guard dog a new super food and it's going to bite our neck if we try to slow down the input and tighten it's leash.
It's possible, but there is no indication that the US security agencies "go rouge." The NSA might be stretching the 4th Amendment but it does so at the command of the President and it does within the bounds of the law.
When Obama had the CIA kill a US citizen, they wrote a legal memo about it.
The rule of law is still worshiped in the US.
It helps that the leadership of these agencies are political appointees and then rank and file are just regular bureaucrats.
The guys at the NSA aren't some secret cabal. It's the nerdy dood you play Settles of Caatan with at a game club in DC.
I also think controlling public opinion is a lot harder than you are imagining. Even in N. Korea the people generally know their country is bullshiting them.
I hope you are right. Ultimately I'm not opposed to American intelligence agencies. I'm aware that there are big threats beyond terrorism and it's important for us to have the best team with the best resources. If things escalate with China for example I'm willing to accept that sacrifices will have to be made to our concept of privacy as a wartime measure. If we have to pull pages out of Art of War to win this thing then I guess that's that.
I just worry that they have in fact gone rouge and have lost track of their real duty. Snowden's critique of citizen surveillance aside, his critique of America's ability to protect ourselves from China after crippling our nation's encryption efforts is what really bothers me. I'm worried that the agency, in an attempt to tighten it's grip on the western world's communication, is missing the important window to instead begin locking things down. They are missing our chance to get our corporations, institutions and infrastructure encrypted properly to protect civilians from cyberwar fallout. Protecting us from a modern war modelled in part on America's WWII strategic bombing campaign of German civilians in an era when we no longer have the geographical advantage of two oceans keeping us safe.
I think they got a taste of the power that comes with total information (not unlike the advertising world is with leaders like Zuckerburg [but thats another post...]) and are not willing to give it up and smarten up.
Really? Because it seems to me like they are chugging along just fine. They have plenty of wiggle room unlike real adversaries like Snowden. If they've seen a dip in public support I'm sure short and long term projections have it not only solved but completely countered. They may never convince the HN crowd but the HN crowd doesn't need to be convinced.
Whether this is "good enough" for them to keep doing what they do wasn't the question. The question was whether they were doing their best to influence public opinion.
What if they are using the intel they are gathering in order to influence the public's opinion as effectively as possible? It's that sort of power consolidation that worries me and makes me question when an allegiance to the democratic nation that created them starts to fade away.
How does a free nation effectively control an intelligence agency like this to prevent it from slowly usurping all the seats of power? It seems to me that with the expanding technological capabilities of our modern age, we are feeding our guard dog a new super food and it's going to bite our neck if we try to slow down the input and tighten it's leash.