# Why the persistent political apathy over NSA surveillance? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 1, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632 "2014-03-01T21:57:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/61 "2014-03-23T18:38:10Z")
I overlooked this before. It deserves a reply. > [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > I disagree that it was an informed decision, or the right one. Al-Qaeda is a creature of the media as much as anything else. It serves the narrative of us as the ‘crusaders’ against the darkness, when I think more innocent people are afraid of our attacks in the middle of the night that anything jihadists do. We certainly killed more in our ‘fight for freedom’ than they ever hoped to dream - whether we use drones, or jihadists use an IED, we created the situation that enables that response - not them. We chose to respond with anger, warfare, and hatred fueled by ignorance. That was not the right decision. This is unvarnished nonsense. AQ is a creature of its own making, except for those who live in a world of moonbeams, and deny the obvious reality of pronouncements such as AQ’s own, taking credit for serial terrorist atrocities culminating in 9/11. The situation is created by the radical Islamist faction of the world, demented by the very existence of the state of Israel and the presence of non-Muslim defense forces on Holy Saudi Arabian soil, even though those were there by invitation of the Saudi government with the assent of the Wahhabi religious authority of the country. > [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > And the scale and scope of surveillance was never acknowledged for the average citizen to make an informed decision. Nor did our elected officials - Sen. Wyden recently noted he gets all of 15 minutes a year to directly question officials, and he sits on the Senate intelligence committee. Nor are they any repercussions when those officials lie. The checks and balances don’t seem to be working at the moment. Informed citizens are _now_ aware of the scale and scope of the surveillance, and it is the present time frame which is addressed by OP. If they had made a decision against surveillance their elected officials would be hearing about it in no uncertain terms, and it is of course silly to single out the frustrations of only one of those officials as being of any significance. You do know, don’t you, that there are 100 senators and 435 congressman, and if enough of them thought the problem was big enough to spend time on then by golly there would be a lot more than one of them getting a lot more than 15 minutes a year to say something about it. > [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > But the broader issue is why are we creating the police surveillance state - as prelude to a true police state, as too many of my friends think, or a worse reason - there’s gold in them thar hills. The conservatives have destroyed nearly every other reason for taxes, ‘security’ is about the only one left. Reading up on the Deep State, as used by former GOP congressional staffer Mike Lofgren, their prime motivation is not so much power, as money. Power is only useful for them to obtain more money. Money for what? Mostly $16 million birthday parties for Muffy’s sweet sixteen. Or $50 million weddings. You know, useful stuff. More moonbeams from the paranoiac left wing. I speak as a straight-ticket, Blue-Sate, Yellow-Dog Democrat, and it seems obvious that most Democrats to the right of the Mother Jones faction are at one with me and with most Republicans.This rare example of principled bipartisanship does not hurt my feelings a bit. It might hurt AQ’s feelings, but not mine. > [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > And a big fat chunk of money and power is from government contracts - makes everyone happy. Government is privatized, so no pesky public unions. Privacy for them, sorry, IP protection, and surveillance, sorry, data collection, for the rest of us. The few bureaucrats left get to join the revolving door to contractors, getting fat bonuses or sweet boardroom seats when they ‘retire’ and then hired. (Swear Obama did something about [that.](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ethics-commitments-executive-branch-personnel) Been very effective. They just get a two-year sabbatical.) Big Business and Big Government found out how to get around Eisenhower’s warning by not scaring too many of the people too much of the time,and not being so overt about the whole process. More moonbeams and nothing but moonbeams. It must take a dim source to produce such dim light. > [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#): > > Because we certainly are not using the tools to police the streets. Personally, I consider gangs such as MS-13 or 18th Street a far greater danger than Al-Qaeda. I venture to say they have far more members than bin-Laden ever had, and they have destroyed more lives and endangered more communities in the US then he ever had. But they are a different narrative where we are not the good guys - who is buying all the coke, heroin and weed? Not fundamentalist Muslims. And there are not enough street junkies to maintain the size of the market. Luckily, most of the direct damage is to brown people, so no worries, right? As long as they stay in the inner cities or shitholes like Bakersfield or Fresno, Muffy doesn’t need to worry about her upcoming birthday. Street gangs and junkes are not a threat to our existence. AQ and its demonic brethren _are_ a threat, meaning if they ever get a hold of a nuclear WMB and another aircraft they will try to use them against us. Far-fetched? It would be stupid to count on it given the ongoing proliferation of nuclear weapon capability, and the ongoing propensity of aircraft for getting commandeered. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/62 "2014-03-23T19:55:01Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > Street gangs and junkes are not a threat to our existence. AQ and its demonic brethren _are_ a threat, meaning if they ever get a hold of a nuclear WMB and another aircraft they will try to use them against us. Far-fetched? It would be stupid to count on it given the ongoing proliferation of nuclear weapon capability, and the ongoing propensity of aircraft for getting commandeered. Even a nuclear weapon is not an existential threat in Al Qaida’s hands. They could kill a lot of people _if_ they got it to the right place, sure, but they lack the capacity to follow through. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/63 "2014-03-23T21:44:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Even a nuclear weapon is not an existential threat in Al Qaida’s hands. **They could kill a lot of people _if_ they got it to the right place** , sure, but they lack the capacity to follow through. The highlighted section is an understatement so gross that it falsifies itself. Suppose they had detonated a nuclear WMD over the WTC on 9/11…? Huh, dude??? Sure, _ **one** _ such attack would not have been “existential”. We would have survived it. But the cost in blood and treasure would have been so great that there would not now be any complaints about any NSA surveillance, even from the Mother Jones editorial board, I don’t think. I would just as soon make a nuclear 9/11 as unlikely as possible, and that means the NSA won’t get a peep out of me for all these bugs of theirs. Most of my countrymen and their elected reps apparently feel the same way. Good. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/64 "2014-03-24T00:55:42Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > I would just as soon make a nuclear 9/11 as unlikely as possible, and that means the NSA won’t get a peep out of me for all these bugs of theirs. Most of my countrymen and their elected reps apparently feel the same way. Good. You seem rather convicted in supporting this hypothetical situation which nobody in the government’s ever purported to be true. What makes you so certain al-Qaeda, or anyone, has actually acquired a nuclear weapon? And if they have one, why haven’t they detonated it yet? The U.S. Intelligence community could gain a lot of converts by presenting “proof” that a nuclear terrorist attack is legitimately plausible (as opposed to hypothetical, which no one doubts) or, even better, if a Legitimate Attack had actually been prevented in the past. But neither Snowden nor Manning have ever leaked any hard-copy evidence of something akin to that – if true, don’t you think they would have? In any case, the current drama on Capitol Hill appears to be merely a domestic dispute – the C.I.A. stole info from a Senator’s computer, for frick’s sake – so there’s gonna be a public squabble, peppered with meaningless soundbites, but in the end, nothing major will change. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/65 "2014-03-24T01:54:33Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > You seem rather convicted in supporting this hypothetical situation which nobody in the government’s ever purported to be true. > > What makes you so certain al-Qaeda, or anyone, has actually acquired a nuclear weapon? And if they have one, why haven’t they detonated it yet?.. I did not say or imply that AQ or anyone had actually acquired a nuclear device. However, with rogue states and organizations like North Korea and ISE available to act as potential distributors the potential is too close for comfort to suit me. And nuclear WMD aren’t the only worry, ricin and suicide bombing are worth avoiding too. Then there’s plain old fashioned sniping- remember how metro DC was half-paralyzed by one team of two in 2002? I want to cut the odds in our favor to the maximum possible degree, and that means I am willing to give up a considerable amount of theoretical privacy. I say “theoretical” because counterterror ops are unlikely to spend more than a few seconds on people like me in our lifetimes, if they spend any time at all. And if they were to spend more on me personally the only thing that would bother me about it would be that they were wasting valuable resources and time. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/66 "2014-03-24T02:13:01Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Even a nuclear weapon is not an existential threat in Al Qaida’s hands. They could kill a lot of people _if_ they got it to the right place, sure, but they lack the capacity to follow through. So by your logic we are obliged to wait until so many nuclear WMD have gone off that only one more would put us out of existence. By my logic we are entitled to take whatever steps are needed to keep it from ever getting remotely close to that point. If we can round up the bombers, the snipers and the ricin attackers in the same net so much the better. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/67 "2014-03-24T03:12:00Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > I did not say or imply that AQ or anyone had actually acquired a nuclear device. However, with rogue states and organizations like North Korea and ISE available to act as potential distributors the potential is too close for comfort to suit me. Well, it’s hardly any secret that rogue states such as NK/Iran desire to acquire a nuclear weapon, if they haven’t already procured one. And there’s always the spectre of a nuke being sold, stolen, or lost from a first-world nation’s current arsenal, esp. Russia & the former Soviet states, or even (who everyone seems to forget) India or Pakistan. However, all these scenarios are completely hypothetical, as far as J.Q. Public knows. But the current administration has been exceptionally upfront regarding terrorism issues, from [Najibullah Zazi’s plot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_subway_and_United_Kingdom_plot) to the assassination of OBL (a far cry from the years of GWB & Co. who played off the public’s fears with vague, non-specific threats to distract everyone from war profiteering in Iraq…but I digress.) My point is, don’t you think this privacy debate would gain sympathy in favor of the NSA, et al, were they to reveal the truth about a genuine WMD plot (past, present, or near future) and the mere fact that they’ve _never_ publicized this kind of information is evidence, albeit circumstantial, that there’s never been a problem? Why keep secret something that could play in their favor? > [@WheatCat](#): > > I want to cut the odds in our favor to the maximum possible degree, and that means I am willing to give up a considerable amount of theoretical privacy. How nice of you to say so. Thing is, we’re living in an age where loss of privacy isn’t up for debate – it’s already gone. All we can do in the 21st Century is live with that knowledge, and understand that as you said, there’s too many big fish in the sea for a reasonably “innocent” civilian to worry about being harassed, targeted, or snooped upon – we hope. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/68 "2014-03-24T03:38:35Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > So by your logic we are obliged to wait until so many nuclear WMD have gone off that only one more would put us out of existence. By my logic we are entitled to take whatever steps are needed to keep it from ever getting remotely close to that point. If we can round up the bombers, the snipers and the ricin attackers in the same net so much the better. No, by my logic you’re doing the enemy’s work for them. Your irrational fear of terrorists has done more damage to the United States than the terrorists ever could on their own. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/69 "2014-03-24T04:29:24Z")
I guess in principal it’s a little unsavory, but I guess for me unless nighttime flatulence and ass scratching suddenly become federal offenses there is nothing of interest surveiling me would provide to the NSA, so I’m not really worried about it. ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/70 "2014-03-24T05:02:24Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > I guess in principal it’s a little unsavory, but I guess for me unless nighttime flatulence and ass scratching suddenly become federal offenses there is nothing of interest surveiling me would provide to the NSA, so I’m not really worried about it. I strongly suspect this is how the majority of Americans see the issue. There is really not much that I do online that is of any interest to the NSA. I check my email, read news, engage in online discussions, and occasionally look at photographs of babies that friends or relatives have posted on social networking sites. I have no cite, but that likely describes a large portion of internet users in America. This may disappoint some of the posters in this thread, but the fact is that most people’s lives are of no consequence to national security. To think that the NSA cares enough about your life to track your google searches is fanciful thinking.\* \*Edited to add that I don’t believe there has been evidence that the NSA does anything more than metadata tracking ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/71 "2014-03-24T14:27:43Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Well, it’s hardly any secret that rogue states such as NK/Iran desire to acquire a nuclear weapon, if they haven’t already procured one. And there’s always the spectre of a nuke being sold, stolen, or lost from a first-world nation’s current arsenal, esp. Russia & the former Soviet states, or even (who everyone seems to forget) India or Pakistan. OK. > [@buddha\_david](#): > > However, all these scenarios are completely hypothetical, as far as J.Q. Public knows. But the current administration has been exceptionally upfront regarding terrorism issues, from [Najibullah Zazi’s plot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_subway_and_United_Kingdom_plot) to the assassination of OBL (a far cry from the years of GWB & Co. who played off the public’s fears with vague, non-specific threats to distract everyone from war profiteering in Iraq…but I digress.) My point is, don’t you think this privacy debate would gain sympathy in favor of the NSA, et al, were they to reveal the truth about a genuine WMD plot (past, present, or near future) and the mere fact that they’ve _never_ publicized this kind of information is evidence, albeit circumstantial, that there’s never been a problem? Why keep secret something that could play in their favor? That our enemies wish to obtain nuclear WMDs, and are in fact searching for a provider and a means of delivery I take as _a priori_. My point is let’s do what we can the keep the scenarios from crossing the line from hypothetical to actual, that is, from terrorists seeking possession to terrorists obtaining possession. The privacy debate is going well enough to avoid having to ask NSA and other counterterror ops to compromise themselves by giving up information about their operations. It would be best if none of that information were ever made public. > [@buddha\_david](#): > > How nice of you to say so. Thing is, we’re living in an age where loss of privacy isn’t up for debate – it’s already gone. All we can do in the 21st Century is live with that knowledge, and understand that as you said, there’s too many big fish in the sea for a reasonably “innocent” civilian to worry about being harassed, targeted, or snooped upon – we hope. OK. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/72 "2014-03-24T14:43:01Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > No, by my logic you’re doing the enemy’s work for them. Your irrational fear of terrorists has done more damage to the United States than the terrorists ever could on their own. It is your complacency toward terrorism that is irrational and not my fear. That condition is reversed in regard to all this NSA spooking around: my complacency is rational, your fear is not. You speak of “damage”? Get back with me with tales of all the innocent people who have been deprived of wealth, health, freedom, or their lives as a result of NSA domestic surveillance. That is, please limit the case to residents of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/73 "2014-03-24T15:16:47Z")
> [@WheatCat](#): > > It is your complacency toward terrorism that is irrational and not my fear. Would you, or anyone else in this thread, be willing to have every room in your house (as well as every house, apartment, public building, school, church, mosque etc in the US) monitored with audio and visual surveillance 24/7? If not, why not? If this country had such a system, then ALL crime would decrease, not just the risk of terrorism. We would have the safest country in the World! Your complacency is irrational. Why do you hate America? Think of the children! ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/74 "2014-03-24T15:35:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > See post #56 – how does that explain the support of most of the GOP for it? Because the notion that the GOP automatically and reflexive opposes everything Obama does is wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/75 "2014-03-24T19:10:27Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > If this country had such a system, then ALL crime would decrease, not just the risk of terrorism. We would have the safest country in the World! “Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” – _Name Redacted._ ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/76 "2014-03-24T20:19:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Would you, or anyone else in this thread, be willing to have every room in your house (as well as every house, apartment, public building, school, church, mosque etc in the US) monitored with audio and visual surveillance 24/7? If not, why not? In principle, yes. I expect some reasonable qualifications could be worked out to keep the spooks out of most rooms most of the time, though. As a practical matter no, because we do not have the resources to monitor every room in the country 24/7 and must dedicate what we do have to the likeliest sources of danger turned up by the broader surveillance sweeps and other intel. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > If this country had such a system, then ALL crime would decrease, not just the risk of terrorism. We would have the safest country in the World! Sounds good to me! > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Your complacency is irrational. Why do you hate America? Think of the children! This sounds like a clumsy attempt at irony so I pass on it. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/77 "2014-03-24T20:36:05Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > “Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” – _Name Redacted._ Why redact the venerable name of Benjamin Frankin? Maybe because you know Franklin’s quote does not actually support your contentions. See cite: [What Ben Franklin Really Said](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/07/what-ben-franklin-really-said/) From cite: > [@](#): > > The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family… The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him… Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security… > > What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor… > > In short, Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade. Notwithstanding the way the quotation has come down to us, Franklin saw the liberty and security interests of Pennsylvanians as aligned. Furthermore, Franklin never faced an enemy committed to the murder of all the inhabitants of entire American cities, and it is reasonable to assume he might grant our government more surveillance powers than he would have been willing to grant the 18th century government. A lot more surveillance powers. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/78 "2014-03-24T21:25:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > One does wonder how their surveillance **could** harm lives. I guess it depends on what the NSA does with the information. What are they doing with the information anyway? I’m not in the security business, but as a software developer my educated guess would be: 1. They pull in and index (like Google) all of the content (emails, chats, etc.) for quick searches. This is stored in a bunch of big databases. 2. They run a few key phrases over it, like “bomb” or “fertilizer”, and run better automated tests on those results. Anything which passes (flunks?) those tests gets bumped to a human who goes back and reads through the whole conversation to determine whether it’s a genuine security concern. He probably also does some Googling to figure out who the people are and if they’d have any reason to be talking about such a thing (e.g. they work in the fertilizer business). 3. Conversations from a few key people are specially marked (i.e. Congress members, suspected terrorists, people with security clearance on special projects, etc.) which go through a different review process that triggers on a larger set of keywords. Again, these get bumped to humans to review if the computer flags something. 4. Since all this data is stored in a database, when someone comes under suspicion for something via alternate means (police investigation, someone is captured in the battlefield, etc.) all of that persons’ messages can be pulled up, and then tracked back to his friends. If obvious “codewords” are apparent in the messages, one can do Google-like searches on those terms, probably looking for spikes in usage in certain geographies or within N-depth of friendship links off the key person, etc. to identify other people and further codewords. Now there’s also two areas where things get a bit murky between counter-terrorism and spying on US citizens: 1. During step #2 or #4, when a human is looking through a transcript, they might find evidence of a crime - unrelated to national security. As such, they could report this to the police, to start an investigation. 2. During step #2, keywords that are solely in the domain of domestic law, like “cocaine” or “underage” might also be processed, bubbling up information that would only be of any value to the FBI/police. For the first, there’s a strong argument to be made that due effort has been made to restrict findings into information on terrorists - who as enemy combatants to the state are excempt from some of the rights of general citzenship - via information that was available on a public networking layer, and thus the information was found simply as a byproduct of this otherwise “legal” endeavor. For the latter, I think that’s pretty clearly spying on Americans and violates the First Amendment. It’s unclear whether they are doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/79 "2014-03-24T23:05:57Z")
[quote=“WheatCat, post:76, topic:682632”] In principle, yes. I expect some reasonable qualifications could be worked out to keep the spooks out of most rooms most of the time, though. [quote] If you keep it out of most rooms, it defeats the purpose. We need 100% surveillance. Otherwise, how can we be sure you’re no planning something? > [@](#): > > As a practical matter no, because we do not have the resources to monitor every room in the country 24/7 and must dedicate what we do have to the likeliest sources of danger turned up by the broader surveillance sweeps and other intel. We will someday. You might as well be an early adopter. Set a good example. [originally posted by me: If this country had such a system, then ALL crime would decrease, not just the risk of terrorism. We would have the safest country in the World!] > [@](#): > > Sounds good to me! Well sign yourself up for monitoring. > [@](#): > > This sounds like a clumsy attempt at irony so I pass on it. It neither clumsy nor irony. ---
**Author:** ![WheatCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@WheatCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WheatCat)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632/80 "2014-03-24T23:43:16Z")
Try to learn proper quotation formatting, OK? > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > If you keep it out of most rooms, it defeats the purpose. We need 100% surveillance. Otherwise, how can we be sure you’re no planning something? > > We will someday. You might as well be an early adopter. Set a good example. > > Well sign yourself up for monitoring. Fine, start putting 'em in every room now, mine first. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > It neither clumsy nor irony. All right then, I will address it as liiteral. Here it is again: > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Your complacency is irrational. Why do you hate America? Think of the children! My complaceny is reasonable until proven otherwise such as by evidence such as pilfered assets, wrongful imprisonment, bodily injury or dead bodies. I love America. I want the best for America’s children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-persistent-political-apathy-over-nsa-surveillance/682632.md?page=5)