It it is illegal for an individual to murder someone, then it should be illegal for the government to do so. If it is illegal for a programmer to infect thousands of computers of innocent people with malware, then it should be illegal for the government to do so.
I have no doubt in my mind that among those 50k are many innocent people (foreign and domestic), and that among the domestic infections, I doubt the NSA could produce a warrant or other legal instrument that permits them to have caused that infection.
Under what wacky laws do we actually permit such malware. And are there any provisions in those laws proscribing corrections for any offensive malware programs that cause collateral damage.
And this isn't about "American Exceptionalism". China didn't hack Google because they were upset about NSA hacking; they did it because Google had information they wanted, so they took it.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz...
GCHQ have said for at least 15 years that their mission is to monitor all communications, world wide, at frequencies from DC to light. They've said that they provide intelligence for their customers, who are the Ministry of Defence and other parts of government. (MI5, MI6, etc).
> It's about global information dominance.
GCHQ / NSA have never ever said anything different.
> But this is about an executive power grab,
It's a grab that happened a decade or more ago.
That's a truly appalling aspiration. If that is indeed their aspiration, which apparently it is (total information awareness, master the internet etc), we'd be safer with them shut down completely. Otherwise as more and more data becomes available online, they'd be in a position of absolute power over the populace (including those who are supposed to control their activities).
That's not keeping us safe, that is endangering the things they purport to defend.
Don't you find this aspiration frightening?
It's a grab that happened a decade or more ago.
Oh, that's ok then. Business as usual. Would you prefer people just didn't bother to discuss this topic, or do you have something to say about where the limits on this behaviour should be?
I would prefer that people stop saying that it's a modern development, or that there was no sign of it until Snowden leaked, or that it's some weird new thing. GCHQ at least has been open about their behaviour for years and years. ECHELON was discussed in EU parliament.
> do you have something to say about where the limits on this behaviour should be?
My view is tricky for me to explain, but I'll try.
1) GCHQ need to be allowed to do stuff. The limits should be clear, and defined by law.
2) GCHQ is a secret organisation, thus their oversight must be by people who keep secrets, but who are accountable to the public. GCHQ oversight failed, hard. I'm not sure what should happen. I hope that, in secret, someone is getting a kicking.
3) I don't care what GCHQ does to people who are not subjects of the UK (or whatever the hell England plus others is called now)
4) For UK subjects I would prefer that GCHQ does not collect meta data. I could be persuaded that they can collect targeted meta data, if they have suitable oversight. EG: They know that Bob is a terrorist-sympathiser. (Beyond just looking at a few YouTube videos - this would be things like sending money, fly-posting, fund raising, associating with other terrorists, etc.) GCHQ would apply for, and get, a warrant, and be allowed to collect meta data for that person. Warrants would require oversight, not just by the courts but by the oversight body.
5) For UK subjects I strongly prefer that GCHQ does not collect content data unless they get a warrant.
6) GCHQ claim to obey the law. I want oversight to be stronger, and I want some of the GCHQ choices to be challenged. I don't want weird interpretations of words to guide their behaviours. (EG: Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations" - well, a blow job is sexual to most people.)
Having said all that, I am a lot less bothered by GCHQ data slurping than I am by other potential privacy invasions.
GCHQ has a many petabyte dump of data but there's no impact on me unless they grep my name. (I'm aware that this is like me saying I'm not so bothered by police stop and search powers; me being white and rarely leaving the house means that I'm never stopped and searched.) Plenty of other organisations have my data, and we have many examples of them breaching confidentiality through corruption, incompetence, maliciousness, and so on. I said a bit more about that in this post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6767612
GCHQ has a many petabyte dump of data but there's no impact on me unless they grep my name.
I'd disagree there - if GCHQ is collecting huge dumps of data, it doesn't have to be your data to affect you directly. For example if your MP or prime minister is deposed because of selective leaks of their data, that could easily affect your life in dramatic ways.
Which is why you should be angry at your government for failing to protect you.
I seriously doubt that. Russia, for example, could not care less about 99.9% of western citizens (whereas for western spying agencies, those are potential dissidents to be kept on check).
And even if they cared, what exactly would they do with that information? It's not like they are particularly powerful, imperialist or try to play global cop (post USSR). It's also not like they arrange puppet politicians and governments in foreign countries, as western powers are known to do.
You're presenting a red herring here, tptacek. Any third grader who played played Splinter Cell would say, "No duh!" But the news isn't that the NSA is breaking into computers. The news is the scope of the intrusions (installing malware on 50k computers), and of the motivations for the behavior. We've been told it's to protect us from the extremist muslims attempting to establish a caliphate here in America [1]. That was a lie. 50k computers with US-planted malware on them is not a defensive maneuver. It's an offensive one. It's not about protecting America. It's about global information dominance.
Now, whether we want that or not is a different question; there are advantages and disadvantages to the issue depending to a large degree on whether or not you believe in American exceptionalism. But this is about an executive power grab, not about "spies spy, let's all go home now," and you're deluding yourself if you believe otherwise.
[1] http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/T...