[Mika]

I suppose you all have seen Austin Powers and how it portrayed the 60s intelligence agencies? Well, the truth may be that they are like that, with the exception of not being able to prevent anything at all. BBCs blogger just wrote a rather scatching (and downright hilarious for all the wrong reasons) historical review of the performance of MI5. "Incompetent" and "utterly useless" seem to describe them best. I do recall reading that the Ian Fleming's James Bond is based on a real person, who was very much into women, and not much else.

I do recall seeing similar reports of CIA or FBI not being able to catch people in time despite there being several honking big warning flags around them for a long time, and yet they manage to spook off a completely innocent people who happened to be looking for "pressure cookers" and "backpacks" in Google in a short period of time (Hi there, NSA!). I don't know how to describe communistic NKVD or KGB and their derivatives. My understanding that they were about equally random, but intentionally so.

[Unknown Target]

Actually the pressure cooker thing was the person's former employer reporting her for searching for those terms. Which in itself is kind of another level of wrong.

[NGTM-1R]

Of course, if everything works, you don't hear about them.

[Dragon]

Yeah, I guess that's how it supposed to work. They had their share of epic fails, but then again, every field does. US is a bit paranoid about the terrorist threat (does this count as terrorists "winning" yet?), but FBI's and NSA's work is more or less reasonable. It's the TSA which is desperately trying to justify their existence (and keep stealing stuff from peoples' luggage...).

[deathfun]

Actually the pressure cooker thing was the person's former employer reporting her for searching for those terms. Which in itself is kind of another level of wrong.

Damn
I was about to search all the awesome stuff for a moment there

Backpacks! Pressure cookers! Camping Gear!

Oatmeal!

*awaits knock on door*

[Phantom Hoover]

the ever-relevant ronson

[The E]

Of course, if everything works, you don't hear about them.

Problem with that is, of course, that we have no way of telling whether the work their doing actually amounts to anything. If the successes are secret but the failures are not, who can tell if there are any successes at all?

Yeah, I guess that's how it supposed to work. They had their share of epic fails, but then again, every field does. US is a bit paranoid about the terrorist threat (does this count as terrorists "winning" yet?), but FBI's and NSA's work is more or less reasonable. It's the TSA which is desperately trying to justify their existence (and keep stealing stuff from peoples' luggage...).

And I here I am, thinking myself a proper authoritarian, and then you come along and post this.

The FBI does do a lot of good. Why do we know this? Because they cannot act in secret. An investigation by the FBI is either dropped, or ends up in front of a judge, providing a level of public accounting that the CIA, NSA, and any of the other intelligence agencies operating worldwide do not have. In the US, intelligence services are so far removed from public oversight that they can operate with impunity and only a token ackknowledgment of the rules and regulations supposedly covering their actions.

There is no reason to monitor all of the Internet and most phone lines in order to generate statistical profiles that may or may not lead to a terrorist. I am all for proactively investigating threats. But as with any criminal proceeding, the final decision how to proceed should not be made by the investigators. There's a reason why combining the roles of judge, jury and executioner is a bad idea. There's a reason why laws, and their interpretation, must be a matter of public record. Absolving state actors of their responsibility to follow the rule of law and of their accountability to the people is a supremely bad thing, and must not be done.

[docfu]

Intelligence agencies not only have to investigate threats, they have to also determine what constitutes a probable threat. Lately, that's anything and everything.

We're often taught to give people the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure every flight instructor thinks twice about to whom they are teaching since 9/11 and not a week goes by that I don't read about a suicide bombing somewhere in the Middle East. These things happen...

People...make these things happen.

The greatest threat to humanity's survival is itself. It's not giant bugs or aliens or dinosaurs; it's not genetically modified wheat or nuclear meltdowns.

[Dragon]

There is no reason to monitor all of the Internet and most phone lines in order to generate statistical profiles that may or may not lead to a terrorist.

Aside from the questionable efficiency of such a search (I don't see how could this yield anything useful, maybe aside from proving Rule 34), I don't see what's wrong with monitoring the Internet as a whole. Phone call statistics could potentially be useful, though. For example, someone who makes a lot of international calls to Middle East for no apparent reason would warrant a closer look. Terrorist threat is very real, so steps should be taken to identify who may pose such a threat. NSA doesn't put people in jail just for, say, talking to some distant family in the Middle East or searching for bomb-related stuff on the Internet because you're doing a PHD in chemistry. If something regularly happened as a result of such vague clues alone, tens of thousands of people would be affected. Also, we have to ask ourselves, is there any other way of detecting a terrorist early enough? They're indistinguishable from normal people otherwise, and stopping a bombing in progress is pretty much skirting the edge of a disaster. There are human lives at stake here, so relying on the police's capability to stop the bombing seems reckless.

Now, the transparency thing is another question. FBI does it right, NSA does not. CIA is concerned with foreign intelligence, so I'd say they can be forgiven somewhat. NSA, on the other hand, definitely needs to provide some way for the public to hold it accountable for it's actions. Both for what it's doing, and what it's not. For example, is there any way to check if they're actually monitoring those phone lines, not drinking coffee and watching porn all day? They're paid from taxpayers' money afterall, so it'd be nice to know if the agency is doing anything, or just saying that they are.

[The E]

Phone call statistics could potentially be useful, though. For example, someone who makes a lot of international calls to Middle East for no apparent reason would warrant a closer look.

What? No, absolutely not. Surveillance without judicial oversight and approval, and a corresponding audit trail that establishes probable cause is a violation of the surveilled persons' right to privacy. We live in mostly free societies here, and one hallmark of these societies should be an implied level of trust towards its constituents.

Terrorist threat is very real, so steps should be taken to identify who may pose such a threat.

Is it? Is there a real threat towards american or european citizens to be injured or killed in domestic terrorist attacks? Is that threat sufficiently large to warrant special treatment for these cases?
I personally do not think so. Giving terrorists credence by elevating them to the level of enemies of the state gives these idiots a level of legitimacy they simply do not deserve. Treat them as criminals, not as enemy soldiers.

NSA doesn't put people in jail just for, say, talking to some distant family in the Middle East or searching for bomb-related stuff on the Internet because you're doing a PHD in chemistry. If something regularly happened as a result of such vague clues alone, tens of thousands of people would be affected.

They do, however, flag your name for further investigation, which may result in unfortunate events at the airport next time you want to visit your family. There are already dozens, if not hundreds, of documented cases where people found themselves the subject of travel restrictions because they happened to have names similar to those of other persons of interest. So something is already happening based on such vague results, and it is not good.

Also, we have to ask ourselves, is there any other way of detecting a terrorist early enough? They're indistinguishable from normal people otherwise, and stopping a bombing in progress is pretty much skirting the edge of a disaster. There are human lives at stake here, so relying on the police's capability to stop the bombing seems reckless.

I can make the same argument, with much more actual weight, about car accidents. Let me show you:

"Also, we have to ask ourselves, is there any other way of detecting a bad driver early enough? They're indistinguishable from normal people otherwise, and stopping a car accident in progress is pretty much skirting the edge of a disaster. There are human lives at stake here, so relying on the police's capability to stop the accidents seems reckless."

There are far more people killed in car accidents each day than successful terror attacks can accomplish in a month. So why aren't we doing stricter controls of car drivers and cars?

EDIT: Here's the thing for me: I do not care. The amount of infringement into our collective privacy necessary to make absolutely sure no terror attack goes through is far too high for an open and free society to bear. If we turn into a locked down, shut in, scared police state, can we still be said to be living free? Terrorism is a problem, yes. But panopticon surveillance is a far greater one.
EDIT END.

Now, the transparency thing is another question. FBI does it right, NSA does not. CIA is concerned with foreign intelligence, so I'd say they can be forgiven somewhat.

No, they can't. Billions upon billions of dollars, euros, and other currencies get pumped into the intelligence apparatus every year. A government has to be accountable for this expenditure, and must provide cause for said funding. "We stopped X attacks before they happened" is not a metric that can be used effectively, since it relies on information we simply do not get.

NSA, on the other hand, definitely needs to provide some way for the public to hold it accountable for it's actions. Both for what it's doing, and what it's not. For example, is there any way to check if they're actually monitoring those phone lines, not drinking coffee and watching porn all day? They're paid from taxpayers' money afterall, so it'd be nice to know if the agency is doing anything, or just saying that they are.

You have no idea what the NSA does, do you. There is noone actively monitoring anything, data gets caught and added to a database for later study. We do not know what data is being collected, or how it is used. We can make inferences based on the Snowden leaks, but that's it. And that, IMHO, is not enough.

[Dragon]

You have no idea what the NSA does, do you. There is noone actively monitoring anything, data gets caught and added to a database for later study. We do not know what data is being collected, or how it is used. We can make inferences based on the Snowden leaks, but that's it. And that, IMHO, is not enough.

That was my point. Nobody really knows what NSA is doing. They probably are doing something, but where does all this money go? It definitively needs a lot more accountability and transparency. For all we knew before Snowden's revelations, they could be pocketing the money and just sending random lists of names.

"Also, we have to ask ourselves, is there any other way of detecting a bad driver early enough? They're indistinguishable from normal people otherwise, and stopping a car accident in progress is pretty much skirting the edge of a disaster. There are human lives at stake here, so relying on the police's capability to stop the accidents seems reckless."

You're assuming I would be against better driver screening. And Police alone are an inadequate measure against car accidents, as evidenced by how many still happen and claim lives. That said, the key difference is that terrorist attacks are wanted by at least one person (the terrorist in question), while nobody wants an accident, yet they still happen. Though different measures are needed, it's indeed a huge problem, and even harder to solve than terrorism. But I digress, this isn't a thread about car accidents.

Now, the transparency thing is another question. FBI does it right, NSA does not. CIA is concerned with foreign intelligence, so I'd say they can be forgiven somewhat.

No, they can't. Billions upon billions of dollars, euros, and other currencies get pumped into the intelligence apparatus every year. A government has to be accountable for this expenditure, and must provide cause for said funding. "We stopped X attacks before they happened" is not a metric that can be used effectively, since it relies on information we simply do not get.

There's a problem with a transparent CIA. If American public know what they're doing, so do foreign agencies (except perhaps MI5... ). They also need to be accountable, but it's hard to balance it with secrecy needed for foreign operations. And they're doing much more than fighting terrorism. While spying on other countries may not be the most noble activity, it's a fact of international politics and it doesn't look like it's going to go away. Pretty much every country has some kind of foreign intel agency, and they're just as secretive as CIA.

They do, however, flag your name for further investigation, which may result in unfortunate events at the airport next time you want to visit your family. There are already dozens, if not hundreds, of documented cases where people found themselves the subject of travel restrictions because they happened to have names similar to those of other persons of interest. So something is already happening based on such vague results, and it is not good.

This indeed isn't good. "Further investigation" definitely shouldn't involve locking the suspect out of airports. Once again, the fact of collecting data isn't the problem here, it's how this data is acted on. This is an example where NSA accountability would've paid off. IMO, they shouldn't have authority to do anything that a suspect would notice, if they have evidence, they could go to the court, and it'd be properly investigated.

[NGTM-1R]

Problem with that is, of course, that we have no way of telling whether the work their doing actually amounts to anything. If the successes are secret but the failures are not, who can tell if there are any successes at all?

And if the successes are exposed, there may be no more successes. It's a crappy system, but it's the best one available.

[The E]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I don't think that a government agency should be able to ask for more money (or any money really) just on the basis of their assurances that the work they're doing is actually helping matters.

[NGTM-1R]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I don't think that a government agency should be able to ask for more money (or any money really) just on the basis of their assurances that the work they're doing is actually helping matters.

If you think there's absolutely no accountability, you're obviously and painfully wrong, as intelligence exists to be used, and people who use it will notice if it's not being generated.

However publicizing success results in vulnerabilities being closed.

[The E]

Oh, I am perfectly aware of the various oversight committees.

Problem is, are those oversight committees actually doing the right thing? Is this system the US government uses of classified legal opinions the right thing to do?

[The E]

for something tangentially related:

This essay by Charlie Stross takes a good look at the Snowden situation, and analyzes it from a sociological/demographic perspective. He makes a point, quite eloquently, that not only is the expectation of perfect loyalty on the part of the people working for a secret intelligence organization somewhat misplaced (due to shifts in how normal people view employment these days thanks to an abandonment of the "work for life" ethos of generations gone past), the people who are caught inside these organizations are frequently victims of unchecked confirmation bias and other, more worrying mental afflictions.