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Comment by nmcfarl | Hacker News Reader

Yes.

Or at least exist at what scale, for what purpose, at "peacetime".

History has taught us over and over huge standing armies will be drawn into conflict (often quite easily) and wars ensue. Perhaps the same is true for huge standing intelligence services - not something we’ve had to deal much with in the past…

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You're going to lose that debate, and by engaging in it you're jeopardizing the other winnable issues, like domestic spying. There is zero chance that Obama (or any administration) will simply disband intelligence agencies because it turns out they spy on other countries. You're incredibly naive if you think that has any chance of success. Furthermore, Snowden is now treading into treason territory, and at the very least fits perfectly within the Espionage Act that he was charged with. It's one thing when Snowden exposes potentially illegal and unconstitutional actions by a government agency against the nation's citizens. It's another when he's leaking specific actions against specific foreign governments, potentially to buy himself leverage.

I, personally, would not suggest that intelligence services don’t need to exist.

I would however suspect that civilian intelligence services are overly large, ambitious and funded for the goal of informing America of threats.

That’s a debate I would like to see happen.

-- Massively edited

Not to say that this isn't a noble aspiration, but it is a glaringly naive point of view to say that organizations like the NSA and CIA don't need to exist.

What are they needed for? Who do they benefit, how, and at what cost? Who/what decides when the cost/benefit is acceptable? Nationalism(our rights are more important than theirs)?

I think the GP's real argument was the "at what scale, for what purpose" bit. I don't think many people want to see intelligence agencies entirely disbanded. But questioning what they do and how much they do it is legitimate.

There is absolutely nothing naive about questioning whether intelligence agencies ought to exist.

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