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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

I literally just posted a dismissal of your claims in a sibling comment.

You owe it to yourself to think critically about what you think you want out of intelligence services, being secretive is one thing, not permitting any oversight is not ok and being in direct violation of the law is also not ok.

It's not a hypothetical situation, people were using these tools to stalk women for crying out loud, you can't defend that. Those tools shouldn't have even existed in the first place, it was a flagrant violation of authority.

The reason in the UK police are charged with harsher sentences than ordinary criminals is because they have authority and an enormous capacity to do harm. So do these agencies.

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There isn't a system in the world which isn't subject to abuse, every police force in the world for example suffers from it. Some people such as yourself take that to mean they need to be torn down, the rest of us just think it means there needs to be more controls to minimize those abuses.

It's not as though MOST of the activity of these agencies is stalking women, and it's profoundly disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

> Some people such as yourself take that to mean they need to be torn down, the rest of us just think it means there needs to be more controls to minimize those abuses.

Yeah. some oversight would be nice.

Shame that this is exactly what I am advocating for and not at all for tearing down intelligence services… Shame that this is not happening and this was the entire problem.

How is anyone to say what most of the activity of these agencies are without any oversight. That’s why the leaks happened in the first place, it was the only way to say ‘hey we need more controls on this stuff’. Unless you’re suggesting that was going to happen anyway somehow?

They have enormous oversight, just not by the general public.

That's hard to believe when Clapper literally perjured himself before his oversight and faced no consequences.

But where are the countless, or at least fragmentary, stories where they did much, or any good?

Secrecy and transparency and democracy just don't mix well, imo, if you want an absolute state that's fine.

I can also agree that some rare situations may require absolute secrecy for some services, but that then must be limited and fully disclosed for later oversight, control and consequences.. 10 years is already a lot, 20 years absolute max, in my opinion. But almost nothing ever is, except what's leaked, that is shocking.

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