Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
It was done completely legally and followed all the correct government channels.
*Shrug* Not everyone agrees. Not everyone from both sides of the aisle. Including people who, as I said in the other thread, are infinitely more qualified than you to make that call.
Ok. But how much of that is political posturing and how much is actual concern over the legality of what was done? Pay close attention to *who* is saying what.
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As much as you may bandy about bits like "Have you ever actually studied wiretap law?" as if you're some sort of lawyer and then mock Smash for looking things up on Google, no one here thinks you're any sort of expert or doing anything more than regurgitating whatever you heard on the radio during your drive home.
Well. One of the citeria for getting a CS degree is taking a computer ethics class. Part of which covers the legality of wiretapping (since it's a pretty major issue when you're running computer systems like email to know how the law relates to what you're doing). I've written papers on electronic wiretapping and have done research on the topic. Everything from Katz to the DMCA. I'm certainly not an expert on the topic, but I'm likely more versed then the average person.
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Whether or not anything illegal was done or whether or not it can be justified will, hopefully, be investigated and decided upon by minds considerably more versed in the actual details than you or I. Likewise, the public will decide for themselves if they feel it was ethical or lawful or proper and, undoubtably, folks from both political sides will say that the rank-and-file who disagree were manipulated or fooled by the media or whatever else we all say.
This is where I have a huge problem though. Um. The people who reviewed and authorized this program *are* "considerably more versed in the details then you or I". That's the point. We've got a program that was cleared by the white house counsel's office, the attorney general, and then greenlighted by the president. It was reviewed every 120 days by a Congressional Committee (That number is derived based on the statements of "over a dozen" reviews and some basic math).
Exactly how many more people qualified and informed on the details do there have to be Joph? How is this different from hundreds of other programs run in a similar way? Other then the fact that this one can be presented in a way so as to provoke a public outcry that is?...
What's funny is the disconnect between what you're saying and the reality of what's going on. You aren't really demanding that people who are legally qualified to make the decision about the program review it and determine its validity. That already happened. Over a dozen times. What you're *really* arguing is that we should make that determination based on public opinion. Yet, by your own statements, the masses aren't qualified or informed enough to make a valid determination of this program, right? Isn't that what you were just saying? So why then are we seeing demands for the information on this program to be made public?
Aren't you really supporting the position that we should allow those least qualified but most easily manipulated to make the determination? You know and I know that this thing will die, not because it's a bad program, but because of the public attention it now has. There's a reason we have a process for oversite for classified programs involving committees within Congress instead of public referendums on them. All this current issue is doing is damaging that process.
One of two things will happen as a result. Either we'll cripple the ability of our government to conduct and run necessary classified programs (black ones even!), or we'll force the executive branch to *actually* run secret programs that they don't tell Congress about in order to avoid this sort of thing happening down the line.
Neither of those are good things. But those who are pushing this right now are more interested in partisan attack politics then looking at the long term damage they are doing.
Edited, Tue Dec 20 20:09:21 2005 by gbaji