Fixing the NSA

[Griff]

Ha! Not really. Actually Feinstein and company are going to give legislative approval to the existing activities of an agency run amok. I really don't see a way out of this box. They won't shutter the agency and they won't limit the agency. If someone grows a pair and goes after them you can bet they're going down. If you want to piss into the wind go here.

[Clodfobble]

Major cultural shifts are always interesting to me. Whether one agrees with the behavior of the NSA or not, the fact is they did it, continue to do it, and probably never will stop, as you noted. At the same time though, people are willingly putting most of the same information on the internet anyway, perhaps because they don't realize the implications or perhaps because they have thought it through and they really don't care.

We are in a weird transition time where people haven't figured out their new boundaries, where teachers get fired for the mildest of vacation photos with their fiance', where teens don't yet understand that those party photos are going to truly haunt them when they start their job search.

Or maybe they won't--there will come a point where either everyone stops putting their personal life online, or we acknowledge as a society that everyone does that, that everyone has embarrassing moments, and stop using it against one another. I'm suspecting the latter, myself.

[Griff]

I think it's interesting that she lost her job and the guy didn't, but Idaho.

This is a weird time socially but a line needs to be drawn that prevents collection of what people really consider private. I don't think anyone wants their bank transactions, business plans, and product designs compromised. It is also chilling of free speech when private communications are known to be monitored. People won't express unpopular opinions which will lead to societal stagnation. Although, truth be told, I feel like we already have reached the point where some things considered anti-patriotic can't be said so maybe it is too late already.

[Griff]

Of course bank records are exactly what the NSA wants...

[Lamplighter]

...that everyone has embarrassing moments, and stop using it against one another. I'm suspecting the latter, myself.

... never happen, GI. By coincidence, this article is in today's NY Times

NY Times
NATASHA SINGER
11/9/13

They Loved Your G.P.A. Then They Saw Your Tweets.

At Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., admissions officers are still talking
about the high school senior who attended a campus information session last year for prospective students.
Throughout the presentation, she apparently posted disparaging comments on Twitter
about her fellow attendees, repeatedly using a common expletive.<snip>

“We would have wondered about the judgment of someone who spends their time
on their mobile phone and makes such awful remarks,” Mr. Meiklejohn said.<snip>

As certain high school seniors work meticulously this month to finish their early applications to colleges,
some may not realize that comments they casually make online could negatively affect their prospects.
In fact, new research from Kaplan Test Prep, the service owned by the Washington Post Company,
suggests that online scrutiny of college hopefuls is growing.

Of 381 college admissions officers who answered a Kaplan telephone questionnaire this year,
31 percent said they had visited an applicant’s Facebook or other personal social media page
to learn more about them — a five-percentage-point increase from last year.

More crucially for those trying to get into college, 30 percent of the admissions officers said
they had discovered information online that had negatively affected an applicant’s prospects.

[tw]

All organizations and industries have a trust. It goes to basic concepts that define the purpose - the strategic objective. Google states it simply: do no harm. Some companies state it up front in a mission statement. The purpose of their existence is the advancement of mankind.

Organizations that violate those principles get laws they deserve. Recently, heads of MI-5, MI-6, and NHQ testified that Snowden's exposing their 'violation of trust' has caused them great harm. These guys just do not get it. They must now be heavily regulated because they violated their trust. For the same reasons that auto companies and banks earned heavy regulations. They have proven they have no morals - will do anything under the myth that it must be good because it is not illegal.

When Nixon, et al did this stuff in the 1970s, laws put severe restrictions on government spooks. It was necessary even if it put national security at risk. Since a violation of that trust is more dangerous then something less trivial - ie airplanes smashing into buildings. We need heavy regulations applied to spooks who unfortunately have no morals; who have no idea what their strategic objectives really are.

That's the solution. However we have a second problem. We just do not know (or agree on) what is and is not a violation of trust. For example, everyone would agree that recording, collecting, or storing of personal data, conversations, and text messages (ie bugging) without a court order is wrong. Only Snowden had the balls to demonstrate how widespread and routine these acts occur. However, is collecting and storing metadata - the information also found on your telephone bill - also a violation of your rights? We know AT&T, in particular, has demonstratee that all data is for sale when their own privacy statements say something different.

When you file income taxes electronically, that data is owned by the company who submits it to the IRS. You cannot submit your data directly to the IRS. These companies can do with that data many things other than a few limits imposed by law. How many know their information on tax returns is freely available and used by these companies? Is that a violation of trust?

We know plenty of privacy laws must be created. We also know Justice Scalia says the Constitution does not grant you rights to privacy. Your privacy can only exist and be protected by specific laws. Even that principle is vague or controversial. Just more reasons why a trust we put into so many organizations and industries is indistinct, murky, and often remains undefined.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Griff

I think it's interesting that she lost her job and the guy didn't, but Idaho.

I actually am glad that it worked out that way. He's the one who grabbed her boob, sure, but she's the one who showed poor judgment in posting it to the internet. It's the poor judgment that got her fired, not the frisky business with her fiance'.

Throughout the presentation, she apparently posted disparaging comments on Twitter about her fellow attendees, repeatedly using a common expletive.

I should clarify that I do think there's a difference between embarrassing moments and using the internet for genuinely bad behavior. Most of us get drunk sometimes, get naked sometimes, and do them simultaneously sometimes, and like Chef said, "Children, there's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college." Being rude about everyone around you has always been bad employee behavior, and even if this girl didn't have Twitter I bet the habit manifests in her real life. It might have started affecting her sooner, but unlike sexy-boob-grabbing-time on a vacation, the snarking behavior would have gotten her fired or cost her a promotion eventually.

[Clodfobble]

You know how people who grew up in really small towns talk about how everyone in town always knows everyone's business? The world's getting smaller, but I don't know that can really ever get smaller than it's already been in the past. Soon the equivalent of "leaving town" will just have to be "going offworld."