Of course not. I'm also not ok with cable guys installing hidden cameras in people's dorm rooms. Or food preparers spitting in people's food. Or any of an endless list of ways that people can abuse their positions to engage in nefarious behavior towards other people. Point being that they're not supposed to be doing that and if caught can suffer loss of job and/or legal charges. I *could* browse though people's documents, email, etc at work. I don't because even though I have the power to do so, I'm not supposed to do so without permission. Same deal IMO.
Quote:
I mean it is not like anyone is suggesting any kind of slippery slope argument here... People are just people. If you give them vast, unchecked power, they will use it.
Er? Isn't that exactly what you're doing? Hey. We give cops the authority to pull people over too. And guess what? Every once in awhile a cop abuses that authority and rapes/kills someone. The problem is that we don't have an all or nothing solution to that problem.
Quote:
I take it, LOVEINT is acceptable use of taxpayers money?
No. But if we assume that there is a need to have intelligence agencies which must have access to "secret" data, then we have to have people who have access to that data. Which means opening ourselves up to the possibility of those people abusing the data they have access to. There's no way around that. You put what precautions you can in place, but that's all you can do.
Quote:
The fact, that you even draw a line crimes related to national security makes me chuckle. These days and age... everything is about national security. If you don't believe me, try submitting FOIA what is the most common excuse not to do anything. In case you did not notice, "because National Security" has long since replaced "because Communism!" .
Um... The national security excuse has been used since before either of us were born and will continue to be used long after we're both dead. This is nothing new. We're not talking about what you or I can find out about what they know, but how they can legally use the information they obtain. Currently, you can't use any information gained "illegally" to file criminal charges. It's why there's such a problem with the whole "treat terrorists as criminals" approach. Our legal system is not designed to work that way. We have very strict rules about evidence that can be used in a trial. Those rules require that data collected be collected legally. So you need warrants for searches of any kind (including electronic).
That's what I was speaking about with regard to national security. As long as those collecting information illegally can't use it for anything within our criminal justice system, I'm not super concerned about it. But if they can use that information to spot attacks before they happen (both traditional and terrorist), that's a good thing. Again, you just can't look at this as all or nothing. It's a matter of degrees. Unless you want to toss out any ability for our government to collect data and examine patterns in that data to spot possible threats to national security you can't ensure that no one who works at such an agency has the potential to abuse the data that they collect.
Quote:
As a side chuckle, for you to consider, I will add that national security made it kinda hard to know what is happening, what with secret courts and all that. Note that people who, for example, receive NSL, happen to receive, gag orders on the side. Yay, right?
Sure. I'm not sure why you feel the need to lump two completely different things together though. The degree to which joe average private citizen can find out what an agency is doing or knows is completely different from what information that agency knows or can access. I guess I just view this as very selective opposition to what is really a fairly normal function of government. By agreeing to be governed we accept that we're giving up some of our freedom in return for protection of the remainder. That's how the whole thing works. When I put a machine gun in the hands of our soldiers, I do with trusting them to use those weapons defending me from enemies and not turning them on me and the rest of the citizens. When I give the power to a legislator to write laws, I do so trusting him to write laws that will serve the cause of freedom/liberty/etc and not pass ones that round us into concentration camps.
Ultimately, governments always have power over the governed. Saying "OMG! They could abuse their power!!!" is somewhat meaningless. You have to put it in the context of what they're actually doing, and some kind of analysis of the relative harm/help of those actions. Hence my /shrug at this. There's an unending list of people saying that the government is stealing their private information for nefarious means. There's a very very very small list of people who can actually show how they were concretely harmed by this.
The question of "who watches the watchmen" should not drive us to eliminate all watchmen. Not unless we're really stupid, that is.