Re:NSA leaker is a patriot, not a traitor
by flyinRyan on Tuesday June 11, 2013 @04:00AM
(#5860374)
There is no middle ground. As soon as you give the government the right to secrets (and even if you don't!) they're going to use it to build things like NSA and hide them from you.
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This is a bizarre claim when phrased as an absolute: Eisenhower should have published the Normandy invasion plans?
This is different and you know it. The Normandy invasion is one specific operation of one specific group. Cops doing a raid would be a similar thing. In both cases, their activities are isolated to that one specific area and they only need be secret for a relatively short period of time.
Contrast this with things like NSA: no end date, literally global scope, etc. Surely you can see how these things are different.
So intelligence services in general are out?
Yes probably. Anything that can't be held accountable publicly is just begging for abuse. Governments draw dangerous people to want to work for them so they will be creating illegal secret structures in any case. We shouldn't be making it even easier for them.