What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA? How can the NSA prove to you that the systems aren't being abused?
I agree that it's an important conversation we should be having. However, I still don't think Snowden's unsubstantiated claims are irrelevant. We should be asking for more evidence for those unsubstantiated claims.
Specifically, I think it would help greatly if the other slides were released.
Your hypothetical conversation seems likely to devolve into a he-said she-said without more evidence.
I agree that Snowden's credibility is incredibly important here. However, the NSA's credibility (and transitively, the administration's) is also incredibly important since almost their entire defence boils down to "just trust us". Currently I haven't seen anything to suggest that Snowden is lying except that some of his claims are fairly outlandish and some are contradicted by what Google et al are saying - however they're fairly highly incentivised to at least fudge the truth a little under their current constraints. On the other hand it's pretty clear that Clapper lied under oath to a senator ("least untruthful"? Seriously?) so the onus is on them to recoup their credibility. I'm also anxiously awaiting more slides.
> What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA? How can the NSA prove to you that the systems aren't being abused?
Frankly, and not to devalue the difficulty of that problem, it's their problem. "It's hard so we gave up" simply does not fly here.
I agree with you I'd like to see more solid evidence, and I'm pretty sure we will-- Glenn Greenwald has stated that other slides contain potentially damaging intelligence and will not likely be released, but there are further newsworthy documents to come.
Frankly, and not to devalue the difficulty of that problem, it's their problem. "It's hard so we gave up" simply does not fly here.
That is the laziest fucking thing you could have written here. You demand satisfaction, but are unwilling to specify to any useful level of detail the answers you seek -- and still intend to hold the NSA responsible for failing to satisfy your concerns. You demand NSA demonstrate a fact to your satisfaction, without elaborating your standards of evidence in any way.
Completely unbelievable. You don't appear to be stupid, so I can't imagine that this is lost on you. So I have to worry if your head hasn't exploded from the cognitive dissonance.
Here's a standard for you: Complete honesty. No secrets, period. No classifications. All activities and policies related to national security are a matter of public record by law.
What? The intelligence agencies can't operate with full disclosure? Okay, I'm not a radical. They can keep some secrets from me if the actions are morally permissible and for the greater good, and the secrecy is plausibly necessary. I would even accept "trust us" at some point-- but only if they had earned my trust. They haven't. Not with decades of documentation citing immoral secrets kept for personal and political gain. The trust was gone from this relationship before I was even born.
And when you violate my trust, none of it is on me. You're the one who fucked it up. You figure out how to make it right.
As the conditions you set out exclude any/all covert surveillance and collection, you're essentially saying intelligence gathering shouldn't exist. Your profession of non-radicalness notwithstanding, that is exactly what you are and you should state that upfront so that you don't waste any more time pretending to be involved in a good faith discussion about how to reasonably conduct a secret intelligence program.
What kind of assurances would you like from the NSA?
I imagine people would like assurances like these:
That the NSA is not allowed to lie to its oversight committee and congress
That the Court decisions which govern NSA activities are public
That the interpretations of laws which govern NSA activities are public
That the president and administration, and the NSA itself doesn't decide what the NSA can and can't do - that should be a matter of law, publicly debated, not a matter of policy, and overseen by lawmakers who are given the facts, even about details, and certainly about the overall picture.
That the broad scope and coverage of NSA activities are revealed without revealing operational details - this is essential to prevent abuse, and follows from the above requirements.
Snowdon and Greenwald claim the other slides contain operational details that would be damaging to release, but what has been revealed is bad enough - complete collection of all phone records (this is simply astounding), a huge program of surveillance involving US data (3 billion records on the US alone over 1 MONTH), and collection of data from all top US service providers on FISA requests (which could easily be automated, perhaps contributing to the huge total above). I think he is owed the benefit of the doubt on other claims and they should be investigated by those with the authority to do so (i.e. members of congress). I'm not sure releasing all those slides on a particular program would be the best move for Snowdon (opens him up to charges that he caused damage), or for the US public (knowledge of exact details of this surveillance are not as important as the broad scope of it).
There has been no proof that Snowdon lied so far, only some ambiguities between his claims and the curiously legalistic replies of US corporate executives, who may well know far less than him if (for example) data was collected at the boundaries of the google network. It is worth noting that he has been corroborated by other NSA whistleblowers who say the NSA has been breaking the law as the public understands it (even if they claim they are not on technicalities):
I certainly would prefer to know what data American agencies have been collecting, which I suspect is far more than those detailed in this particular slide deck - as a foreigner and unperson with no rights as far as the NSA is concerned, my communications are being recorded with impunity, a situation I disagree with and which makes me question using US providers, visiting the US, or doing any business in the US. It's easy to forget that US surveillance policy now affects other nations almost as much as it affects their own, and that reactions to it will affect the standing of the US in the world, already at a low ebb.
I agree that it's an important conversation we should be having. However, I still don't think Snowden's unsubstantiated claims are irrelevant. We should be asking for more evidence for those unsubstantiated claims.
Specifically, I think it would help greatly if the other slides were released.
Your hypothetical conversation seems likely to devolve into a he-said she-said without more evidence.