Re:Obama’s Remarks on NSA Controversy
by pkulak on Friday June 07, 2013 @03:56PM
(#5841259)
It's not really my _will_ that every single intelligence gathering operation be disclosed to the public. There's a lot of value in terrorists not knowing exactly what communication mediums to avoid at any moment. I think it's a good point that hundreds of directly elected people, representing the entire country, have known about this since it's inception. You can't just put every single government action to a vote, for several reasons.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
>It's not really my _will_ that every single intelligence gathering operation be disclosed to the public. There's a lot of value in terrorists not knowing exactly what communication mediums to avoid at any moment.
Really? As if skilled terrorists chat their plans over the phone like casual people. They might get some young idiots, but nobody else. And those things are black swan events.
Furthermore, if every single government action was "disclosed to the public", there wouldn't even be more terrorists. People that get to be domestic terrorists would have less reasons to mistrust that open government. And the country wouldn't be made to invade, mess with other sovereign countries and get their people to seek revenge -- at least not without consensus.
You can't just put every single government action to a vote, for several reasons.
True, but we also know the moral/ethics of those elected (and how their campaigns are funded).
I agree, but is there any reason why any actions taken 15 years ago shouldn't be matters of public record? It seems like secrecy on that time frame serves only to protect illegitimate actions.