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> The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed. But until that happens, the NSA is in the right to continue with business as usual.

From the article, quoting the report:

The program “lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value,” the report said. “As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program.”

Now, you could mention that two out of the five representatives disagree with the idea that the program is illegal. That would be fair enough. Saying that the report finds nothing wrong law-wise with the program isn't.

> This means that someone can't be charged with violating a law that was not in effect at the time of the person's action. ie, if the the speed limit is lowered to 50mph on Tuesday, you can't be ticketed for having driven 55mph on Monday.

No doubt. But if you were to be caught red-handed doing warrantless wiretaps, on the other hand, retroactive immunity would automatically follow.

> In general, it's bad for business. It's difficult to plan for the future when a relatively small group of citizens can change how things work in a short time period.

I don't know what ordinary US citizens think about having their privacy violated and have the head of the NSA lie about their activities. You may well be right about them not caring, it's certainly the case here in Europe. But saying that changing the law would "harm business" is grotesque. I'm pretty sure you'll be hard-pressed to find any support for the activities of the NSA in the US IT sector, short of security/defense suppliers, who bloody well know which side of the bread is buttered. The rest is scared of losing non-US customers and of the EU implementing stringent laws about transferring data outside of the EU borders.

> Now, you could mention that two out of the five representatives disagree with the idea that the program is illegal. That would be fair enough.

Not based on the article, which said they rejected the majority's conclusion that the program was illegal because they believed that legality should have been left to the courts and not addressed by the board, which does not mean that they disagreed with the board's assessment on legality. (I'd argue that it suggests, but does not mean, that they did not like the fact that the board reached the conclusion, but even then could not actually argue against it.)

It suggests strongly that Ms. Brand disagreed:

Ms. Brand wrote that while the legal question was “difficult,” the government’s legal theory was “at least a reasonable reading, made in good faith by numerous officials in two administrations of different parties.”

But alright, you win this one.

> The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do. This watchdog report is saying that the law is not in the interest of the people and it should be changed.

No, the watchdog report is saying that the actual program was not within the statutory legal basis on which the Executive Branch, in the past two administrations, attempted to justify it, and, beyond that, is not within the bounds of the Constitution.

> This should apply to the NSA in the same way that it applies to citizens. We may not like the law, but we can't call them criminals, dictators or all around bad guys for playing by the rules as they were written at the time.

We can call them whatever we want (see US Constitution, Amendment I). Further, the report is saying that the program was not within the laws in place at the time, both the statute laws governing surveillance (and, since there are criminal laws for that, outside of the statutory allowance, the conclusion that, if the report is correct, they are criminals is not unjustified) and the fundamental laws limiting government power in the Constitution (from which, again on the assumption the report is correct, justifying the description as dictators, or at least agents of those usurping power in the manner of dictators).

And "bad guys" is a conclusion that doesn't require a violation of the law to support, since something can be bad without being illegal.

> It's also important to note that the NSA currently has the support of the people

No, it doesn't.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/20/poll-...

> If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.

Aside from the mistake of assuming that the US is a direct democracy where public opinion is immediately and infallibly reflected in policy (which is decidedly not the case), this errs further in arguing that if there was current widespread opposition, that opposition would cause policy change in the distant past ("long ago"). This is an astounding claim of retrocausality, and is simply implausible.

>It's also important to note that the NSA currently has the support of the people and the people's representatives. If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.

That's ingenious. We didn't know about these secret courts. We didn't know the extent to which we were being spied on. The extent to which laws were being manipulated. Obama's administration even claimed that their interpretation of these laws and therefore what they could do with them were too vital to national security to let us know!

Congress wouldn't have had hearings where Keith Alexander had to explain and defend what he was doing if we already knew what he was doing. These wiretap laws also run contrary to an older Supreme Court ruling. You know how the government got around that? Bush's administration claimed that Congress told him to use military power and he considered the NSA a military force so they could ignore the Supreme Court ruling. The FBI did the same. These are twisted versions of laws we allowed that we weren't even allowed to know about. Fuck secret interpretations of laws.

> That's ingenious.

Well, no, its just false. The NSA surveillance is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, but...

> We didn't know about these secret courts.

There was nothing secret about the fact of the existence of the courts are what their job was, they were an overt part of the system from the original adoption of FISA.

They aren't "secret courts" whose existence was concealed, they are courts whose proceedings are secret.

Here's one way they've broke the law: Parallel Construction https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...

> "As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do."

Do you get paid to write this stuff, or do you actually believe it? It is obvious that the NSA has been creatively interpreting the law to acquire more and more data on innocent citizens. This report says so. The President's panel said so too, albeit a little more politely.

> the NSA currently has the support of the people and the people's representatives... The issue is 50/50 at best among the people

Know what? Slavery had the support of the people. Segregation had the support of the people. Anti-miscegenation laws had support of the people. Opposition to gay marriage has the support of the people. When it comes to rights, it doesn't matter if the majority of the people support it or not; rights are rights.

And, by the way: members of Congress themselves have asked for help from the Snowden documents[1], because the NSA has not been truthful with them.

[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/today_i_brief...

> If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago.

Source?

If one thing I've learned from this whole thing is that the general public holds a very dangerous belief in some high-functioning state of representative democracy.

A combination of crippled public dissent and (state-supported) public ignorance makes me highly question a strong majority of opinion would make a difference in real-life politics. Let alone active protest among a minority.

This isn't SOPA where it's people against lobbyists and special interests. This is against internal government power. The stakes are much higher.

>The NSA has committed no crimes. As an organization, they've acted within the bounds of the law and done exactly what they were supposed to do.

Even if the "acted within the bounds of the law" that would be no better than saying "the SS committed no crimes". They too, after all, acted within the bounds of the law at the time. The law is not some holy scripture, it can be criminal in itself, especially if crooks like G.W. Bush and co help create it.

But even that's not true. The NSA broke surveillance and privacy laws thousands (if not millions of times), and even had personel lie to the Congress. That's as bad as you can get.

And they pissed all over international laws and agreements (somehow Americans forget those also exist).

The "just following orders" excuse has been proven to be bullshit. You are right on in bringing up the SS and the Nuremberg Trials when people try to spit the 'just following orders/the law' excuse or any derivative thereof.

Not comparing the NSA to Nazis, but the excuse doesn't work, its been prosecuted many times.

Can we stop with the nonsense "they have comitted no crimes" line? They have violated orders by FISC and overstepped their boundaries in many cases before the FISC, then lied to it.

So of course they comitted crimes, it's just that the punishment (or due process) is nonexistant.

With the sheer volume of laws on the books, it's a foregone conclusion that they have broken as many as a prosecutor cares to find.

Although it's doubtful anyone will be imprisoned for "doing their patriotic duty."

Or for lying to congress during a hearing and then admitting to it by saying they wanted to use the 'least untruthful answer' (which is false on its face because the truth is the least untruthful answer.) But c'est la vie power protects power.

'Although it's doubtful anyone will be imprisoned for "doing their patriotic duty."'

Except Snowden, if they get their hands on him.

Yup. The double-quotes indicates the subjective nature of legitimacy. (It sucks when decision-makers fail to grasp that legitimacy isn't objective.)

"If 80% of the country hated the law that allows blanket collection of business records then it would have been changed long ago."

Even if people hated some laws like they, they can get passed by putting something else in the law like "anti child porn" language, and call the bill "protect the children from abuse act", which just happens to have language permitting unrestricted data monitoring provisions. Try to vote against that bill? You're in favor of child abuse?

Over the top example, slightly, but even in this case, it presumes that people even read the bills before voting on them, which we all know doesn't happen as often as it should. Trying to get past that problem requires a far more educated and engaged population.

The US and its opinions are not the whole world, and are not where American tech companies get most of their revenue, which (vide IBM) has taken a big hit. The US has done wrong, and is being punished by having the US tech industry become provincial. Our remaining markets will be among customers in the Five Eyes nations, because nobody believes our products are not penetrated by spy agencies.

That's a real crime, and it will affect American people in the coming years in highly visible ways. It is a real and present crime against the industry many people here work in. It will affect how, at least, governments and industries who have an interest in not being spied on operate, and perhaps ordinary people, too.

You have stated the position for putting our fingers in our ears and relying on the public's apathy. I'm pretty sure the big enterprise customers in BRIC/MINT markets are not apathetic.

    The NSA has committed no crimes.

"The NSA has not yet been investigated, tried or convicted of any crimes. However, it's intelligence director, James Clapper, did commit perjury, but it has yet to be investigated and he has yet to be tried and found guilty or innocent by a jury of his peers."

FTFY.

Clapper has not been convicted of perjury.