Well, I said the spying mission of NSA should not override the security of the U.S., and pointed to the contrast between the old sometimes-improvement of crypto standards and the new backdooring of them. You answered that my "suggestion that SIGINT should handicap itself is ludicrous on its face." I don't care if the NSA's SIGINT department does not value our information security; we, the citizens, do. Their narrow departmental interest goes against our interest. The NSA as a whole used to better approximate that interest, back sometime in the 20th century, even if very imperfectly (see Bamford's history). This conversation was missing this point about the NSA's broader mission.

Iran with nukes seems to me a lesser threat to us than an uncontrolled U.S. government.

> The NSA as a whole used to better approximate that interest, back sometime in the 20th century, even if very imperfectly (see Bamford's history).

There is no evidence that anything has changed.

> Iran with nukes seems to me a lesser threat to us than an uncontrolled U.S. government.

Who is suggesting that the government should be uncontrolled? Iran with nukes is a far greater threat than the NSA with 0-days, which is what we're discussing.