A question about the NSA debate for any parents out there.

[pnwmom]

Unlike some, I don’t know what the best solution to the NSA debate is. I’m not comfortable with the idea of the government (and even more so, its contractors) spying on us. I’m uncomfortable with the amount of trust we’re asked to place in the “system.” But I’m also not comfortable with allowing deaths from terrorism to occur that could be prevented if the government continued to collect and analyze patterns of meta-data on phone calls. Which is why I have a question for other parents. Or for anyone who loves someone else more than themselves.

Several days ago, someone asked if DUers would accept 200 US deaths a year from terrorism if that was the consequence of ending the kind of surveillance we’ve been subjected to. Most people confidently replied that they would. If 200 deaths every year from terrorism was the price to pay for ending the collection of meta-data, then so be it.

It’s easy to talk about 200 deaths in an abstract sense. But I’d like to ask anyone who is a parent how they would answer if they KNEW their OWN child or children were among the two hundred? Would they accept the death of their OWN children in exchange for ending the phone call surveillance? Or are they just assuming that the odds are excellent that none of their loved ones would be among the 200?

I know I wouldn’t be able to sacrifice one of my children on the altar of my idealism. How many parents would, really? So, if we’re absolutely honest with ourselves, is it only okay to have 200 terrorism deaths a year if our OWN children aren’t among them?

What kind of principled, moral stand is that?

The reason I directed this to parents is that they will understand that it is much easier for me to imagine giving up my own life for the sake of a principle than giving up my child for one. As I said, I don’t know what the solution to this debate is. What I do know, as a parent, is that there are no easy answers.

[dkf]

1. Parents would give up their lives for their kids. Is there anything they would disallow?

I dare say some would even move their kids to a North Korean prison camp to save their lives.

[pnwmom]

2. I don't know. And that is the problem. That is why there will always be a struggle

to figure out how to balance the demands of freedom and safety. Most of us are parents, not 20 year old, unattached, freedom fighters.

[Posteritatis]

8. Yep. "Think about the children!" justifies all sorts of awful things. (nt)

[dkf]

15. Well I'm thinking of how the children would live with an oppressive government.

That is probably closer to the trade off here.

Given the likelihood that our government would be unable to stop terrorists with completely legal tactics, and that your child will be one of the people killed, how much privacy and possible future leverage are you willing to give up.

What if 20 years from now someone uses this data to implicate and imprison your child maybe for their "extremist" views.

[WestStar]

3. The number one cause of childhood deaths in this country is automobile accidents

Especially teenagers.

If I had known for sure that one of my kids was going to be a statistic would I have handed them the keys to a car when they were of age? Probably not.

But there are no guarantees in this life.

We all must make decisions based on what we do know.

I handed the keys to all five of our kids, and sweated out some nights.

(they all made it)

[pnwmom]

10. I realize that of course. But could you please answer my question

without changing the subject?

Isn't it easier to be willing to sacrifice abstract lives to the principle of no meta-data collection than it is to imagine sacrificing the lives of your own children?

[Whisp]

4. good and thoughtful post. thanks.

Your post reminded me of this vid someone posted here a while ago. I don't know exactly how it fits in, but somehow it does.
Things may look terrible, chaotic and hopeless, but there are always good people working, the helpers.

[pnwmom]

13. I remember that video. Thanks! And there was a perfect example at Sandy Hook.

The retired man who quietly took a group of the children into his home and kept them safe and calm till their parents arrived.

[magellan]

5. It doesn't matter what *anyone* is willing to give up

We cannot cherry-pick which rights matter to us depending on the day or situation.

What kind of principled, moral stand is that? The kind that keeps this country from falling into tyranny.

I'm pretty certain it's already too late because of attitudes like in the OP.

[KittyWampus]

6. Rights are not absolute. Not speech, nor privacy. There are circumstances for the Common Good where

they may be curtailed according to law. Except, apparently, the "right to bear arms"…. which is absolute even though in the actual verbiage is says "well-regulated".

But still, no right is absolute.

So we are left debating and deciding when it is reasonable and appropriate to curtail those rights.

[pnwmom]

11. +1. nt

[magellan]

17. That's all well and good.

Maybe you'd be kind enough to remind me when the American people were allowed to have the debate about when our privacy could be violated before it was done.

[treestar]

67. +1

"unreasonable" searches and seizures, means the Founders realized there had to be some searches. They just should not be unreasonable. In their day it meant the General warrants where the British searched a whole town with no probable cause on anyone in particular.

Thus it is always a matter of balance. The metadata issue needs to be considered in light of Fourth Amendment case law, rather than just presumed to be unconstitutional.

[pnwmom]

7. Do you have children? Could you answer my question, please?

[magellan]

18. I don't have children

That doesn't mean my rights don't matter.

Any one of us is far more likely to die at the hands of a drunk driver, and even those odds aren't paranoia-inducing. Do you let your children drive? Would you be in favor of forcing everyone to undergo a breathalyzer test by the police before driving anywhere?

[pnwmom]

20. That would be entirely unworkable. But having cars manufactured with breathalyzers pre-installed

would be something to consider. Kind of like having safety locks on guns.

[magellan]

26. Great! Then be prepared for the continued deaths

...because there have already been cases of people bypassing court-ordered breathalyzer systems on their cars.

The point being, there are no guarantees and always what-ifs. Will you be willing to give up more of your rights the next time the NSA fails to stop an attack? And the next time? How far is too far?

[pnwmom]

28. There would still be a reduction in deaths, just as safety-locks on guns

have reduced but not eliminated accidental gun deaths.

[magellan]

31. You didn't answer my question.

How far are you willing to go in giving up our rights for safety?

[pnwmom]

50. I don't know. What are the options? But I think I'm okay

with the meta-data on phones calls being collected and stored. That's the subject of the OP.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. And then there was Boston

The FSB pointed out the shiny needle in the haystack...not once, but twice.

[DevonRex]

19. And they could not get a FISA warrant based on "Russia said he's been radicalized."

It's very difficult to access the phone records of American citizens and green card holders.

"The classic example, experts say, of operating internationally is training in an al-Qaeda camp in the Pakistani hinterlands. To be sure, to get a FISA warrant the standard is higher for American citizens and green-card holders (like Tamerlan) — the FBI has to show the suspect is knowingly engaging in international terrorism or preparing for it on behalf of a terrorist group. If the suspect isn’t a citizen or green-card holder, then you just have to show the suspect is a member of terrorist group."

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/why-the-fbi-white-house-will-face-hard-questions-about-their-boston-bombing-interviews/#ixzz2WDqj90sN

[treestar]

68. they can't win

The classic example, experts say, of operating internationally is training in an al-Qaeda camp in the Pakistani hinterlands. To be sure, to get a FISA warrant the standard is higher for American citizens and green-card holders (like Tamerlan) — the FBI has to show the suspect is knowingly engaging in international terrorism or preparing for it on behalf of a terrorist group. If the suspect isn’t a citizen or green-card holder, then you just have to show the suspect is a member of terrorist group.

But FISA court judges don’t often reject warrant requests. And if the foreign government thought or knew that Tamerlan was traveling abroad to associate with “underground groups,” that could have been enough. Which raises the question how hard, if at all, the FBI and prosecutors in Boston tried to get a FISA warrant.

Even as he enjoys the cheers of Bostonians for his successful apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, FBI special agent in charge Richard DesLauriers, who took over the Boston office in 2010, may be preparing for tough questions about his past oversight of the Tsarnaev family.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/why-the-fbi-white-house-will-face-hard-questions-about-their-boston-bombing-interviews/#ixzz2WLIXEHLd

So funny to read that in light of all this outrage over metadata. Oh the government should have gotten a FISA warrant. Yet now that would be "unconstitutional" and giving up our rights to prevent terrorism.

[HappyMe]

12. Actually, when I saw that post

the first thing I thought of was my sons. I'm not willing to arbitrarily say 'ok, fine if those people that work in the XYZ building die'. Or the people at an event, kids at a college, or people hanging out in Times Square. It's not as if any of those people chose to be a part of some sort of revolution or fight.

[pnwmom]

14. Or the kids at Sandy Hook elementary. If those deaths could have been prevented

through the collection of meta-data, how many of those parents would say no? Or any of us, if we had empathy for those families?

[Andy823]

16. Not just 200 deaths

One poster, I am not sure it was on the same thread, made the comment when asked about another 9/11 and 3,000 deaths that another 9/11 would be acceptable if we could get rid of NSA spying. How anyone can say that is beyond me. Yes, we need to fix the system, and we need to make sure there is little to no chance of abuse, but not having any kind of programs to prevent another 9/11 seems a bit insane to me.

What I fear is that it would not be just "one" event like 9/11, but numerous events. Thousands and thousands could die and for me that is not acceptable. I don't want to see my children die in another 9/11, and I can't fathom how anyone else could think that such a disaster could be acceptable under any circumstance.

I think congress needs to make sure there is oversight on these programs and stop simply passing laws like the patriot act without really reading everything that is in the bill. I also think that members of congress should be made to go to any briefings that given so they can't come back later and say they knew nothing about the programs. Congress has the power to make the changes and they need to do so.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. May I suggest a long reading of the Church Committee

Hearings?

Historic amnesia at it's best.

Also we had the info, including aPTB titled, "Bin Ladin Determined to strike in the United States."

It must have been another United States and not the stove piping going on.

Anyway, this is not about communists, excuse me terrorists, but internal threats...or perceived threats. When environmental activists are declared terrorists the dots make a lot of sense.

Oh and it is party independent.

[pnwmom]

23. Terrorists can be internal threats.

And yes, Bush ignored that memo, for whatever reason. So what? He did a lot of stupid and/or evil things.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. So you are ok with infiltrating peace groups

As long as a democrat is in the WH I s'pose.

Those are the kinds of scary terrorists we are talking about...most be the chocolate chip cookies.

[treestar]

70. None of this stuff is needed for that

They have been infiltrating groups since at least the 60s.

[neverforget]

72. Is that ok?

[treestar]

73. Probably. If you are out in public starting a group, anyone can walk up to it

And pretend to be interested. If the government were to infiltrate Al Qaeda, would that be wrong?

[nebenaube]

42. Wow

So what? For whatever reason? He did it to 'protect us' while he went out and created 400 million more terrorists.

[treestar]

69. Plus, how did they get the information for that memo?

By spying. But was any part of that spying premised on what is now such an outrage?

If Snowden outed a CIA agent they'd be cheering him on. Yet when Cheney did so, it was terrible!

[Andy823]

33. So the question is

Do you think more 9/11 type events where thousands and thousands could be killed is acceptable? If we have no programs at all to try and keep these attacks from happening would we be safe to do was we please or would we be scared to go out of our homes for fear of an attack?

As for Bush the man was an idiot, he ignored the threats, that does not mean any other president would do the same.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. The reality is that these programs are over bloated

Produce hundreds of reports by private contractors that are never, ever, cross my heart, read.

And are all but effective. Proof is in the pudding, they had the FSB point to not one, but two of the alphabet soups the shiny needle in the haystack they were supposed to find...they knew the name and adress of the needle...we still had an attack. Or did you forget Boston already?

So some of us try to live in this thing called reality, and reality is they are not working as advertised.

So since you chose to live in fear of the communist...err forgive me the terrorits, how many rights are you willing to give up in the name of faux security? I guess from your answer, you are so scared that you are willing to give all.

I have lived in a dictablanda, quite honestly we live in one already...I guess to be safe you are willing to have travel controls, and pick up suspects in the middle of the night. What they have in place could do that within an hour, perhaps a tad longer, you need to bring in the personnel. But I guarantee you will feel very safe in that environment. At least of the terrorists, that is.

Now go read on the Cburch Comittee once again. Or not, it might lead to more taking of a red pill than you might be comfortable with. Or just for a short answer, read a tad of Ben Franklin.

[Andy823]

39. I am not afraid of "communists"

Where did you get that idea? If you read what I posted I said I want congress to do their job and make sure their are safeguards to prevent abuse. I never said anything about it being OK to pick up innocent people in the middle of the night. What I said was I want a program that works to prevent another 9/11. Which once again brings up the question I have asked you, but you have not answered, are the deaths of another 3,000 people, or more, acceptable to you so you can have "NO" surveillance at all in this country? Well you really feel safe after another one or two 9/11 events take place because we had no way of preventing it?

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. No surveillance can guarantee what you want

Short of a full surrender of every right you have.

I am sorry this is hard to understand. At least POTUS, to his credit, gets that.

What he does not get is that this system is already rife with abuse and graft

[Andy823]

41. One more time

Are the deaths of over 3,000 people acceptable to get the freedom you want? I am willing to admit that it is not acceptable to me.

I also keep telling you we need oversight on these programs, and if congress would do their job and make sure we have safeguards, and make sure every damn member of congress attends the briefings when they have them, maybe we could fix the problems. There has to be a middle ground between no security to prevent another 9/11 and complete invasion of privacy you talk about for EVERY person in this country. Why does it have to be one extreme or another?

[HappyMe]

44. Exactly.

There has to be some balance to this thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

53. I am sorry you are that afraid.

So let me quote somebody I like to counter the fear


“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”


By the way, what will you tell the families of the 5000+ US soldiers killed in Iraq? And are you that adamant with other causes of death? Like I don't know guns? Or is it just the Fourth you are willing to sacrifice so you feel safe? Which is purely an illusion.

Not even a full totalitarian state can guarantee zero attacks. I am sorry you are in such fear of the terrorist under the bed. I really pity you. I truly do.

Checks the stats killed and maimed every year by fire arms and come back and tell me with a straight face you are willing to go there with the second. FYI, I am willing to have 100% background checks, but to the gunnies that is going too far. Yet, you are willing to suspend the first, the fourth and the fifth, cause I don't know we might have another 911, impressive.

Impressive. Are you that afraid?

For the record, blowback due to our imperial policies will lead to another sooner or later...that is reality. I still remember Senator Byrd demanding a CIA type answer if 911 was blowback and the prevarication. That was another man who got it.

Feingold also got it. They were not afraid.

[Andy823]

56. OK

You are really good at avoiding the question, and changing the subject. Is the question that hard to answer?

Unlike you I will answer your questions. I would tell the families of those killed in a needless war that I am sorry George W. Bush put them in harms way, and many died or were injured. I hate war, period! What does that really have to do with what I have been asking you?

I am all for gun control, background checks, and making assault weapons illegal. I am not willing to suspend any of our rights. Meeting on middle ground is what I have been talking about. I am not afraid, but you sure seem to be, and that's kind of sad.

Please one last time are the deaths of thousands and thousands in another 9/11 event acceptable to you so you can have all the freedom that you seem to want? Yes or no would be just fine.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. It's not whether they are acceptable or not

It's going to happen no matter how tight you try to close things. Even if you suspend the constitution. I prefer to live in the real world.

And in the real world I prefer not having programs that are wasteful, and don't work as advertised reigned in.

Funny thing happened on the way to the real world. Nation States living under a real threat, not this joke, things like real large postal boxes, like the USPS boxes, no longer exist, why? It's a nice place to place a bomb. Instead...you truly have to go to the postal office to ship large packages. Oh and the postal service is not a preferred shipper...yup, they check their mail, we don't.

When they are serious they don't tell you, if you see something, say something...they educate you as to what you are looking for. I got some of that training somewhere else, courtesy of Uncle Sam actually. Oh and thanks to the actions of Uncle Sam.

A week after 911 I placed a call to the local pd. somebody had indeed left something (a package by a retaining wall at a large mall) behind it. I called 911. The local rent a cops, read security guards, were more than annoyed. They threatened with refusing service at a mall since this highly inconvenienced the customers, and the forgetful guy who lost his laptop...explosives tend to do that and bomb squads don't joke, especially a week after 911.

I know something about real security and so far we have enjoyed in security theater. It makes you feel better, it's a mommy device, and quite frankly it's there to find and fight things like Occupy not the Tsarnaev brothers.

Am I ok if 3000 folks get killed? It's not whether I am ok or not. I cannot stop it, neither can you, nor this security theater. But if it makes you feel better, to surrender your rights, I guess it's worth it.

[nebenaube]

43. no.

You are merely afraid of freedom.

[Andy823]

45. Really

Why would you say that? Because I want a middle ground instead of no protections at all for something like another 9/11?

[nebenaube]

52. because none of it works...

Living under constant surveillance is not living, it's imprisonment. If you want a fascist dictatorship and it's concurrent downward societal spiral then go ahead and embrace this because it's only a matter of time till another sociopath takes over.

[Andy823]

57. OK

So for you there is no middle ground? Do you think that a complete lack of programs to try and avert another 9/11 would make you feel safe?

What you and others here seem to want is total and complete freedom, which would be great, but can you tell me of one place on this earth where that is possible, to have complete freedom?

Now I don't like what the world has become, I really don't, but reality is that we live in times where people what to do harm to other people because of religion, greed, hate, racism, etc. I would love to see all that done away with, but I will never see that in my life time. As I state before, I want to see a middle ground where we can do all we can to prevent another 9/11, yet not become a complete dictatorship. The only way that can happen is if we can get people in office that will push for those needed changes, but we can't go all the way to the left or all the way to the right, there has to a middle ground. I can't be my way or the highway from both sides of the issue.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. You should read what Richard Clarke has to say

I am troubled by the precedent of stretching a law on domestic surveillance almost to the breaking point. On issues so fundamental to our civil liberties, elected leaders should not be so needlessly secretive.

The argument that this sweeping search must be kept secret from the terrorists is laughable. Terrorists already assume this sort of thing is being done. Only law-abiding American citizens were blissfully ignorant of what their government was doing.

Secondly, we should worry about this program because government agencies, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have a well-established track record of overreaching, exceeding their authority and abusing the law. The FBI has used provisions of the Patriot Act, intended to combat terrorism, for purposes that greatly exceed congressional intent.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/worry-nsa-article-1.1369705#ixzz2WKhrrbaS

You do know who he is right?

There are others, including the author of the USPA, James Sensenbrenner, raising alarms. He is one of the authors of the USPA.

Both these men are in a position to know.

[nebenaube]

74. No...

I am a citizen, not an enemy of the state... although this 'state' is so far gone that it breeds infinite enemies. I said it in 2001. This whole thing is a is bullshit. Before you know it, we'll all be terrorists and I was right.

[pnwmom]

22. Yes. And imagine if there was another 9/11 -- or something much worse.

Imagine what security measures people might be willing to accept then!

[Andy823]

46. Yep

And we all know how much a president Christie, Paul, or another Bush would just love to take advantage of such an scenario to put in "their" right wing agenda!

Chris Christie may be play the guy who can cross party lines right now, but you can guarantee if he ever became president, the really right winger in him would come out, and I don't even want to imagine what a moron like Rand Paul would do!

[treestar]

71. that's a good point

The Patriot Act would never have passed but for 911.

Were there more attacks on such a scale, it would indeed be far worse.

[HappyMe]

24. I agree.

[DirkGently]

27. That is an imaginary scenario supported by nothing. Jesus, just stop it. n/t

[pnwmom]

29. I'm responding to an earlier OP that took your basic point of view.

But no one's requiring you to become involved in this one. Stay out of it if you prefer.

[DirkGently]

30. Okey doke. Just trying to help. nt.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. Here's one for you. Since we all know there will be some abuse of any power,

including these powers of observation and tracking-let's say 2 cases a year. Just two, but one target is your kid. Fine with that? So to save 200 lives, your child is subjected to stalking by a predator with all kinds of government toys. Is that cool? Or is this just another stupid question like yours?
And if you don't mind me saying, the high blown language about parents being unable to see harm done to their children is not supported by the generations of parents who raised up boys only to sacrifice them on various military alters. The notion is belied by the thousands of LGBT teenagers parents throw away each year, cast into the streets for being who they are. Parents, as a class will sacrifice their young consistently, that is how history is written. So blah blah...

[malokvale77]

54. ^^^this^^^

I posted a similar thought to this OP

[Bluenorthwest]

60. The OP is only interested in hyperbolic bait pulled out of the right side of the drama box.

Does not respond to discussion.

[malokvale77]

63. I know...

The OP and so many others don't seem to realize the information available in an email header or even a simple photo posted online.

[FarCenter]

35. Parents accept that their kids may be killed

I let mine go swimming, ride bicycles, learn to drive, go to parties with their friends, and eventually go off to college by themselves.

So far, so good.

[pnwmom]

48. But would it be okay with you if we stopped collecting meta-data

and one of your children died in an attack that would have been disrupted if we had continued this surveillance?

[FarCenter]

65. I would prefer that NSA continue to collect and store metadata from all of the telecom carriers

the advantages are that:
- having data from all carriers you can identify all calls to a terminating number or location (instead of querying all of the carriers in real time) and
- the data is stored for a consistent length of time (instead of having each carrier store data for different durations).
The latter allows the NSA to look back in time for previous calls when a suspicious terminating number is identified.

But the bottom line is that if the political process resulted in not storing the information, I would be OK with that.

There are lots of political compromises and decisions that affect individual well being and the chances of dying, from gun legislation to healthcare legislation.

You can't always get what you want.

[Duer 157099]

36. Ask that question to the parents of kids in the military

especially those that died in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[hughee99]

37. I think the idea that the program will save 200 people a year,

is designed for the purpose of giving the program credit for things that haven't been proven. I'm not sure the program prevents ANY deaths. I know this is based on a discussion in another thread (I don't blame you for the question, you didn't write it). I think most of the serious, organized terrorists already assumed that this sort of surveillance was going on (as did many Americans).

[malokvale77]

47. My thought was...

Do you like the idea that some pervert at a private corporation has access to your children's and grand-children's data?

[pnwmom]

49. I don't believe Snowden's claim that he could have looked at anyone's emails or other personal

information.

The issue in the OP is meta-deta -- phone call numbers, times, and duration.

[malokvale77]

51. The tip of the iceberg

nt

[Thinkingabout]

55. I do not have kids but I do have a loving family of which I dont have any one of them killed in a

Terrorist attack. I am not saying if NSA surveillance continues it will prevent further attacks but at least effort is being placed to stop them before they occur.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

62. I'd break every law on the books for my kids if I knew it would protect them

But none of us can know what the future holds, so one plays the odds when one has the luxury. The odds of my kids living in a better world because the NSA decided not to spy on America are MUCH greater than their odds would be to come to harm from terrorism because the NSA opted not to spy. For what it's worth, I don't believe the hypothetical is valid, but I wanted to answer it straightforwardly.

[malokvale77]

64. If you think this is all OK...

then please do give me all your metadata.

[treestar]

66. There can never really be an actual choice like that

But when asked the question point blank, only a real asshole would say the 200 deaths are acceptable. At least if they are in return only for the government having the metadata.

If the government really were to have all phones wiretapped with some technology that allowed it to pick up terrorist conversations, that would be worth the 200 deaths.

The 200 are going to be someone's children. I don't have any but would understand a parent preferring government metadata to the deaths of the children.

[Ms. Toad]

75. Frankly, that question smacks of the questions asked of conscientious objectors -

if your mother, your sister, and so on were being raped would you commit violence in their self defense. And then if you answer that you would, they say "gotcha" and send you off to war.

Both are unfair questions because they link things which are not necessarily linked. It isn't a question of either/or - of being spied on or of having your own child die. It is a question of finding ways which do not require violation of our civil liberties to make all of us reasonably safe (not specific family members). Just as it is a matter of believing war is wrong and that we need to be finding ways of resolving conflicts which do not use violence as the game decider.