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Comment by sushisource | Hacker News Reader

You don't actually say why they shouldn't be doing this, though. Everyone with this opinion seems to base it on moral grounds around privacy, but in practical terms, is this really harming citizens? So far there's zero evidence these things being used illegally domestically. IE: Without a warrant. There is some evidence that they've prevented some wrongdoing with it, though.

I get the theoretical moral argument. I just don't understand why it matters in practical terms.

If the government wants to blackmail me, or discriminate against me, or whatever, they're going to do it with or without these tools. To not build them is to willfully give up an important competitive edge on the global stage.

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You haven't looked at the dodgy stuff the CIA has done over the years, included bringing down governments, funding coups, responsible for the deaths of millions.

Yeah, I guess I don't think those guys should have power like this.

It's also altogether reasonable to believe that they murdered a sitting US President only 5 decades ago.

No. It's not. I've seen multiple documentaries about this (Best Evidence, etc), and was totally convinced. But the stories don't really add up. And too many people would have to currently be complicit (decades later!) for this to be successful. People don't really hold together that long on something like this.

> People don't really hold together that long on something like this.

Dead people.

> So far there's zero evidence these things being used illegally domestically.

There is evidence that NSA employees or contractors have used domestic surveillance to spy on exes. There is evidence that Marines have shared clandestinely obtained nudie pics of female Marines. Why would the people working at the CIA be any different?

If you take a large human organization, and give them the tools to spy on their fellow citizens, it is likely that those tools will be misused by some people in that organization.

Is it possible that the people at the CIA are abusing their privileges, of course; however, there still needs to made a distinction between what is possible and what was presented in this document drop. Within the drop itself there was no evidence that it was used domestically (even more so systematically), in which case everything within it, is so far, not outside the scope of the CIA.

That is what I and I believe the parent is getting at. Regardless of our moral standings on if the CIA should be doing this, realistically the CIA can be doing it.

Considering the government is letting pedophiles walk[1] because they don't want to release their exploits, do you really think we would know if they were abusing their power?

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13798924

Ok, so we didn't prevent the maximum amount of wrongdoing? No program is perfect. Those pedophiles would've been just as free had they not developed the programs in the first place.

You're comparing reality against a theoretical world where we can both prevent crimes and never need to develop the tools necessary to do so.

As to the second point, sure, we don't know. That's tangential to my point. Let's assume the government is abusing their power. What does that have to do with these tools? Nothing, besides it maybe makes it a little bit easier for them. But, like I said, they'd do it anyways with sufficient motivation.

I still optimistically believe that an important tenet of liberalism is that you put some trust in your government, but recently it seems for many liberals that trust only extends to cushy (not to say I don't want them) domestic programs like healthcare, equality programs, or whatever the program du jour is. I'm willing to trust that our intelligence agencies aren't some nightmare Orwellian monster hellbent on subjugating the populace. Abuse of power could happen just as easily through other agencies, it just doesn't sounds as scary as when you slap a three letter acronym on it.

> an important tenet of liberalism is that you put some trust in your government

When did this become a tenet of liberalism? I've read a lot of liberal philosophy, from Aristotle to John Stuart Mill, and much more often the opposite is espoused: that the burden of proof of all claims of state authority is on the government to make.

> I'm willing to trust that our intelligence agencies aren't some nightmare Orwellian monster hellbent on subjugating the populace.

This sounds to me like a very privileged, safe point of view. After what these people did to Thomas Drake (and many others like him), I think it's long past time to take away their toys and send them to their room.

> You don't actually say why they shouldn't be doing this, though.

It weakens the US position in the world, how many people are going to be thinking today "Hm, I have really sensitive information on my phone, the US can hack Iphones and Androids? Maybe I need a different phone."

There is a risk due to the US intel agencies having so much power over US technology that other countries will end up shying away from US tech.

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