From what's been leaked I find the idea that all digital communication is monitored on everyone and everything disturbing. As Snowden mentioned in his interview this is a powerful thing for a government to have and can become dangerous. It's something the public should be involved in deciding where and if that line is drawn.

It's a catch-22. The information necessary to fully appreciate what's going on is classified and the only way to understand the argument completely is to get a high level clearance which then prevents you from making any arguments about it.

Daniel Ellsberg wrote something really interesting about the effects this can have on the cleared vs. uncleared: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsber...

From what's available I can't imagine a situation where the cost of this type of massive internet surveillance outweighs whatever benefit. While I can appreciate the necessity of secrets - I wish we could know the truth.

In the case of such a broad surveillance system, I'm having trouble coming up with good secret reasons. Perhaps I'm being unimaginative. If, for example, this system was preventing hundreds of terrorists, what damage would be done by stating that it has unequivocally stopped major threats?

What's the damage in revealing what's going on and why?

Is the plan "if we're quiet enough, bad guys won't bother using encryption or cover their tracks?

I'm curious to know, what information, in theory, would change someone's opinion, and must remain secret in order to keep things safe. Aside from breaks on popular ciphers or mass collusion with major hardware/software vendors.

Edit: I'd trust a president stating for sure that this is entirely necessary, and stating there is secret information that'd even change the EFF's opinion. Obama's speech doesn't give that perception at all. It feels like he's stumbling around to justify something he knows is bad, using nebulous threats.

I think Obama is somewhat conflicted over the balance and is unable to reveal the interesting parts of that question.

Assuming an environment where all digital information is monitored and it actually is used in a reasonable way (active, investigations, internal warrants from courts, etc.) I could see there being an argument that keeping the extent of it secret prevents people from knowing what's being monitored and avoiding those methods of communications. I don't agree with this argument primarily because things change in leadership and governments and having a system like this (especially with it being secret) can lead to abuse.

This was Snowden's point about changes in policy and 'turn key tyranny'.

Clearly access to this information changed Obama's opinions pretty severely - there must be a lot we don't know.

What if it had prevented a biological weapon that could have killed millions of people in NYC? Revealing this publicly could cause mass panic.

Obviously I have no evidence of something like this, but it's a thought experiment to consider. Would that make the surveillance worth it in your mind?

The thing is, I don't think anyone is claiming major successes. They're just saying that it's OK. Watching Obama's talk just gives you the feeling it's political nonsense, with a bit of CYA lines too.

The catch-22 you've described is why it's so important for as little to be classified as possible. When secrets are kept from the people who those secrets are intended to protect, it is impossible for the people to know and debate their value. It creates two classes of people: ordinary people, and their rulers who possess this special information.

This is why even a vague societal acceptance of the idea that safety requires sacrificing certain rights is exceedingly dangerous. It creates a slippery slope where the people make progressively greater sacrifices to the "cleared" class so that, according to that same class, they can protect the people. But the people never know if they were safer. All they know is that they gave up rights for a promise that may or may not have been kept.

I'd like to think I would, but it's hard to define ideas when you're missing huge pieces of information.

Yet, we're at a point that the boogey-man of 'terrorism' has made us throw that away for the concept of safety.

Yes, I'm absolutely certain that if you're in the position to protect people and enforce the laws that its rather nice to be able to do anything to make that happen- but we've just got to accept some level of risk (and hazard) in exchange for them not violating everything just to create that risk-free perception.

That's one way to put it but it seems like a jarringly bad way. Secrecy is such powerful force that we shouldn't bluntly say it has a corrupting, corrosive and poisonous effect on our society? I disagree. It is so powerful we should say that.

Sorry if that's too simple or something

In 2008, Candidate Obama first promised that he would not vote for retroactive immunity for telecom companies that had opened their networks to the NSA. And then, a matter of weeks later, he did so anyways [1,2].

This vote was inextricably linked to the issues we're discussing today. In 2008, companies were on the verge actual accountability: they would have had to pay millions and billions of dollars in fines to their customers (or at least their customers' lawyers). If that had happened, it's easy to imagine those companies' modern incarnations being more adversarial with regards to new surveillance laws, court orders, and appropriate process.

It was clear then that Candidate Obama would easily cave on core issues for political expedience, just as it is now. I'm not saying that there were better alternative candidates. I'm just saying that if you'd really have followed "2007 Obama anywhere." you either weren't paying attention or willfully deceived yourself.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982898-7.html [2] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9986716-38.html

The thing about Obama 2007 was that he was, in fact, giving Obama 2013 all tools he needed.

Candidate Obama promised law enforcement "all the tools they need" as much as he promised an end to all the wiretapping. President Obama is, in fact, right that there are choices between the powers of the police and the rights of the citizens. If candidate Obama had ponied up and said sometimes you do have let one guilty man escape, let one cop feel like their "hands are tied" to protect the liberties of Americans, then he'd have an argument. If candidate Obama had said "yes, there are tradeoffs but the seesaw had clearly moved in a dysfunctional and unbalanced direction that we have to correct", then you could honestly say he's shifted now. The candidate Obama I saw, was promising anything and everything and thus it's not the least bit surprising he is now just doing what's convenient. Course, the candidate Obama had a great ability to say things in a way that made people think he's saying what you want.

Just consider the beauty of candidate Obama's, uh, "languaging", President Obama still opposes illegal wiretaps, right? What President Obama is defending here is legal wiretaps, of course.

He believed that security was not just cause for violating our constitutional liberties. In 2013, apparently that's no longer the case.

Which means that it does not say what the result will be when a tug of war between goals happens.

It generally begins in the Movie-Standard high-level, windowless, government briefing room. President and the national security advisors are there. The advisors spill whatever beans are appropriate to the situation. President pulls a Home Alone face and poops his pants.

Obviously, it doesn't let the GHWBs, or any president, off the hook. I imagine it to be a test of the sort of moral character we should focus on when evaluating candidates, rather than whether they inhaled or let a skanky woman sit on their lap while boating.

Maybe candidates should get a briefing six months before the election and then we can make sure we elect a total bastard from the start.