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A comment on After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracking program. Parent comment

Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by mirimir on Monday May 25, 2015 @04:52AM (#9599178)
The NSA is part of the Department of Defense. Its Director is Admiral Michael S. Rogers, US Navy. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is James R. Clapper, who served as a General in the US Air Force. I believe that NSA Directors are necessarily active military, while DNIs are necessarily retired.

I concur with venomsnake that "The difference between theory in practice is greater in practice than in theory."

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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by tsotha on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @12:30AM (#9602950)
So I looked it up, and the NSA is indeed part of DoD. But the DNI is under Homeland Security, even if he's a former military man.

And I think both you and veonomsnake are grossly underestimating the culpability of Congress in all of this.

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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by mirimir on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @01:03AM (#9603037)
Congress has arguably had no meaningful oversight over the NSA since the 50s. Eisenhower warned us. He wasn't just talking about defense contractors. One might say that the US has been pwned by military hackers. I highly recommend Bamford's books.
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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by tsotha on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @02:38AM (#9603247)
Congress has whatever oversight it wants. They can simply defund any agency that irritates them.
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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by simoncion on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @03:58AM (#9603435)
The NSA, the NRO, and the NGA are DoD agencies. The DNI -despite the title- has next-to-nothing to do with running those agencies.

To analogize: The US Army answers to the DoD. The DoD answers to the POTUS. This the Army and the DoD are military organizations, despite this fact.

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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by tsotha on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:10PM (#9621514)
Yeah, I understand that. I only included the DNI because he did.
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Re:After Senate vote, NSA prepares to shut down phone tracki... by simoncion on Saturday May 30, 2015 @01:27AM (#9629136)
No. You included the DNI-is-part-of-DHS factoid because you thought that it bolstered your claim that "The NSA is not a military organization.". [0] You were wrong. :)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9598793

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