Hacker News Reader

At what point does this start being used to wipe the trail of other agencies malicious actions via foreign proxies? How do we know, with this level of unprecedented access and overreach that the FBI isn't going to quickly become the domestic clean sweeper for all other bad acting agencies chartered for foreign surveillance and activity?

View on HN

That's pretty much nonsense. You're making a claim the foreign intelligence agencies are already illegally acting domestically, but you've somehow conjured up that cleaning their tracks is a redline of illegality they won't cross? Doing illegal things means you're more likely to cover your tracks-not less.

And then, the answer to your question is the same as it's always been. Inspectors general. Congressional oversight, both routine & impromptu. The various civil liberties offices created post 9/11 that you've been ignoring. Journalists and foia. And last but most important: God forbid you go out and vote

Except that many of these oversight things have been toothless or rubber stamps (see Snowden revelations). And WRT go out and vote, these issues have continued to degrade under both major parties. Unless you're advocating independents, in which case there's a hard discussion about the effectiveness of that...

They already are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com