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Re:NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Ge... by rpenm on Monday December 16, 2013 @11:55AM (#6915971)
A policy decision most Americans normally have no say in. It would never have come to public debate before the revelations.
Re:NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Ge... by rayiner on Monday December 16, 2013 @01:23PM (#6916668)
What are you talking about? The fact of American agencies spying on the world has been well-known since at least World War II, and is the stuff of major motion pictures, etc.
Re:NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Ge... by nitrogen on Monday December 16, 2013 @06:03PM (#6918465)
There's spying in the abstract, which is known just from the existence of intelligence organizations, and there's spying on specific targets (or everybody), which hasn't been subject to public scrutiny or debate until now.

It's one thing to "know" from movies that someone is being spied on. It's another thing entirely to know from NSA documents that you and people you know are being spied on.

Re:NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Ge... by timdiggerm on Monday December 16, 2013 @12:29PM (#6916258)
Unfortunately that's a neccessity of the nature of these policies. Are you saying the US should have nothing that isn't publically known?
Re:NSA Coworker Remembers Edward Snowden: "A Genius Among Ge... by jessaustin on Monday December 16, 2013 @01:16PM (#6916607)
I'd like to suggest that! We wouldn't have done 90% of the evil, pointless, counterproductive bullshit we've done since WWII, if all aspects of that bullshit had been public. And, not a single genuinely good thing we've done would have been prevented.

Details of military battles could be kept secret during the battles and for a couple of years afterward, and sure we should keep demographic data about private people restricted to only those agencies that legitimately need that data, but those are the only exceptions that come to mind.