""" Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """
Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time).
Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue."
I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China.
At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.
Yea man, those "closet fascists and their support of the NSA" and their statements in no uncertain terms that the NSA always been despicable. So let me get this straight: between 1) people who have always been fine with the NSA until a couple mos ago and 2) people who have always been disgusted by them and see this as an (unsurprising) affirmation of that disgust: the LATTER are closet fascists? You realize that even someone like rms fits directly into your characterization of "closet fascist", right? That should help you understand how stupid your conclusion is.
Your core issue is that you're conflating "hey man this has happened for ages and it's just how the world works" with "this has happened for ages, where the fuck have you been, people who are just deciding to get mad now that it's in fashion?". The former is definitely a bog-standard apologist tactic (though I'd argue that it's been around for a lot longer than just Snowden; it's basically the neo-con anthem, and neocons aren't exactly in the "closet"), but the latter couldn't be more different from apologia.
> I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world
Again, you're mixing up two different views. "People who actually paid attention before it was fashionable" doesn't consist only of the people defending this bullshit, it also consists of plenty of people that were protesting it. I know it makes you feel better about ignoring this for so long to pretend that the only people paying attention were apologists, but that's just flat-out, 100% wrong.
First and foremost, it's evidence with details. Echelon was more or less an open secret for a while, but even then there wasn't much information available about how it was being used -- just that communications were being collected and searched. It's the difference between, "There are data centers monitoring internet traffic," and, "here's a slide on an NSA presentation for software that will give you any person's entire browser history."
Second, there's the extent to which communications systems were being compromised. Taps on undersea cables and major backbones? Sure. Direct access to data at Google and Facebook and elsewhere? That was surprising.
Third, there was the scope. The assumption was always that it was impractical for the NSA or other agencies to store a lot of data about every person. But, now we know they don't store it -- they just exploit other databases.
There are the methodologies: I might assume that "they" are infiltrating the communications systems of certain foreign states, but to find out that they were doing it in part by hijacking Cisco equipment in transit and chipping them was surprising, mostly because it seems like such a stupid tactic in the event that word ever gets out.
And, there's the not very small matter of the targets involved. Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies? What are they trying to accomplish there? What are they trying to gain that's worth the risk of being found out and pissing off your friends?
So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."
> Spying for the sake of the War on Terror and against enemy states and all that is one of those things you grudgingly accept as part of the real world. But spying on our allies?
This has happened always and forever; it's always been a standard tool of statecraft. Again I'm not making any moral judgment, but to me this was the LEAST surprising of all the unsurprising revelations (and in fact this is something that I thought even John Q. Layman knew about).
> So, for me, the Snowden leaks moved the NSA from, "spooky, secretive, well-funded spy organization filling a necessary role," to, "totally out-of-control freaks that lost the plot years ago and seem to have set their hooks into the topmost levels of government."
I guess that's kinda where we differ. As long as I can remember, it was considered an idealistic overreaction to think of the NSA as a bad actor (with perhaps good intentions). I'm still not 100% clear on how even paying limited attention to the historical actions of 3-letter agencies could lead one to have the former view.
Why are people so shocked and upset about the NSA, when they could have expressed the same outrage at the PATRIOT act, which has been around for a decade, and which is responsible for the legality of much of the NSA's recent history? The NSA is a spy agency. That's what they do. They're using every legal avenue they have to collect as much information as possible. To assume that they're doing anything less than everything possible within legal limits is naive.
There were enough hints out there to realize that there is mass surveillance, but if you suggested the size and scope of what is actually happening in say 2008, people would think that you are a nut.
> you'll sound like a conspiracy nut
Yea I agree, for periods before 2002 it's a lot harder to explain "this assumption seems entirely consistent with the way they've always acted over decades of history" than it is to say "of course they'd do this, here's proof of the last time they did it".
It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.
I'm deeply disappointed :(
Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour.
Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free.
But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that.
† Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.
I don't think "everybody knew" that the NSA was moonlighting in the drug war: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen.
First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy.
It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though.
What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.
Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom-up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change.
