Where do you stand on the NSA?

[KittyWampus]

Curious how many DU'ers here don't think its overreached and needs some serious oversight/modification.

26 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I unreservedly support the NSA & all its actions. Leave it alone.
	1 (4%)
	I reservedly support the NSA, & think it has overreached its mission. Rein it in.
	13 (50%)
	I reject the NSA completely. Abolish it.
	12 (46%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[JoePhilly]

1. Rein it in, add additional levels of transparency.

[think]

2. Kick the private contractors out while revamping the oversight and laws governing

the NSA...

For profit spying is reprehensible and un-American

[Maximumnegro]

3. If I can get my black ass shot

in my own driveway for being black in my own driveway and if I was a black woman have my black ass shot AND my vagina told what to do then I could give a rat's ass about some Rand Paul pimple who's brilliant enough to get stuck in Russia over shit that should have been obvious to white people years ago.

I mean Jesus already.

[DevonRex]

18. Haha.

Yeah, I can see how Eddie and his pet issue aren't at the top of your list of things to worry about. The way you said it made me laugh but I understand how serious it is.

[Summer Hathaway]

42. You have quickly become one of my faves here!

It's not just what you have to say, but the way in which you say it - with style, scalpel-like precision, and an incredibly well-honed (and often very dark) sense of humor to drive the point home.

[Downwinder]

4. Tell me first what NSA is doing.

[KittyWampus]

5. I would base your answer on your own current understanding of what it's doing/not doing.

[Downwinder]

12. In that case we would have to go to the source of the lying and cover-up.

[RobertEarl]

13. You expect a straight answer from the Kitty?

Man, you have more faith than I do.

As we see from Kitty response, the answer it gave was like used Kitty litter!

[KittyWampus]

14. wtf is your problem?

[RobertEarl]

19. Hi Kitty

I'm due a bit of an apology from you. You claimed I was disrupting DU the last time we chatted. And what I was doing was outing a real disrupter, no thanks to you.

Her's the link, Kitty:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3348484

[sabrina 1]

27. Wow, I would say you and the rest of us who were attacked by a now banned troll are owed an

apology. A 'repeat' returning troll according to the profile. That one was obvious from the start. S/he should have received zero support here being how obvious it was.

I'd say it was a right wing troll, here to disrupt, which was my opinion the first time I encountered it.

Interesting how these trolls single out the 'left' to attack and how confident they are of support.

You were absolutely correct in you assessment and are entitled to an apology. Can't believe it was your comment that was alerted. These right wing trolls must be laughing their heads off at how easy it is for them to get support for their outrageous and blatant attacks on Democrats here lately.

Good for EarlG for seeing it for what it was. And good for the jury too.

[RobertEarl]

30. Not holding my breath

I go hunting a troll, make them expose themselves by cornering them, and I get stabbed in the back. Makes ya wonder, doesn't it? Or is it just an honest mistake? That's why we make apologies__because of honest mistakes.

Here is the troll's pizza page:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=305721
Note the last post made.

Glad to have been of service. Who is next?

[sabrina 1]

37. What a shame to see so much support for an obvious troll. I also engaged him in that thread re his

obvious right wing talking points. They are so easy to spot, they know how to get enough support to remain active for a while.

[randome]

38. 'I go hunting a troll'.

I'd suggest time on DU would be more productive engaging in conversation and debate rather than letting yourself get upset over something someone posts.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[RobertEarl]

45. Isn't that special?

That's what I'm saying... why would someone come at me like that? I was engaging and debating a troll, and some other DUer gets upset and butts in where they wish they hadn't. Maybe they'll read your advice?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

41. Spying

On everyone.

[Downwinder]

48. My little sister used to do that. Listen in on phone calls and at doors.

Open letters and snoop through drawers. Never had any privacy. if you just looked at her she would holler, take things out of context and target me for corporal punishment. NSA anything like that?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

49. Waaaaay Worse...there is no comparison to this unprecedented SPYING (LINK)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3378381

Bone up & pass the word

[Downwinder]

50. Don't see any greesewood switches involved

and I don't fly any more or have a new car that can run away or into a tree. Guess I'm beyond their reach. If they target me with a drone, it will take out the whole downtown. Not much left anyway.

[snot]

6. I think it way more than "overreached."

I need an option between that and abolition.

[Rex]

7. Get rid of the Patiot Act and the DHS, take the DEA while you are at it.

The NSA serves a purpose, but as of late, not the one it should be serving. We don't need another domestic spying organization - we have the CIA.

Actually now we have a legitimate KGB - the DHS. Sigh.

[LWolf]

21. +1

[leftstreet]

22. ^^this^^ 17+ intel agencie$ Enough! n/t

[leveymg]

8. I have the feeling that NSA itself would welcome some redefinition of its mission

particularly shifting the burden of retaining US person content. Some of the contractors are going to be upset, but others may like this particular reform, particularly if Congress votes to pay the telcos and service providers (Google, MS, Amazon, etc.) to retain the data in the same way the 1995 CALEA Act paid the telcos to install switching equipment that allows the NSA and law enforcement to do digital wiretaps.

Maybe, this explains a lot.

[quinnox]

9. Pass. The whole damn survellience state ongoing trend needs to go off a cliff

in a spectacular train wreck. "reined in" is far too mild.

[Vashta Nerada]

10. I reject the NSA and I want to see it abolished.

[PowerToThePeople]

11. Patriot act should never have become law.

It should be repealed and any agency that was developed from the patriot act dissolved and all associated data destroyed.

[1-Old-Man]

28. You're right, and I'd add to that the suggestion that we create laws so that they never come back.

[customerserviceguy]

15. How about an option of

Do whatever you need to do with foreign nationals, at home and abroad, and just leave regular Americans the fuck alone?

[KittyWampus]

16. I'd pretty much call that option #2.

[customerserviceguy]

20. If it were more specific

I'd agree with you. "Rein it in" is vague, and you bet your sweet ass I want them listening to whatever Yemeni exchange students are saying to folks around the world.

However, people who have lived effectively all of their lives in this country, and especially those who are citizens need to be left the hell alone.

[think]

26. You want them listening to Yemen exchange students?

[customerserviceguy]

31. Yes.

What's hard to understand about that?

[think]

33. Unless you think all Yeman exchange students are terrorists

I find it very hard to understand...

[customerserviceguy]

35. Of course, not all are

However, you go looking where the most trouble has come from. I just picked one example, I could have picked a number of them for a variety of reasons. Dragnetting all Americans means that you have too much data to sift through to catch a terrorist. Those guys from Chechyna should have been targeted, too.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

51. then why waste the time, resources, and MONEY, especially now

and they were targeting the guys from Chechyna... but maybe all this spying isn't primarily about catching terrorist... or maybe they are choking on the firehose?

[sabrina 1]

39. 'do whatever you want to foreign nationals, at home and abroad'. Absolutely not.

Surely you don't mean that. We have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent 'foreign nationals'', not to mention torturing them, kidnapping them from their own countries, bringing them to our disgraceful gulag in Guantanamo.

I think the world would prefer it if the US just took its war machine back home and left everyone else alone. We have no RIGHT to abuse any more foreign nationals and we need to start prosecuting those who have.

Enough of this attitude that we are somehow entitled to abuse human beings anywhere. We are NOT.

[customerserviceguy]

43. I didn't say "do whatever you want"

I just said that it was OK for our government to do what is necessary to look out for foreign threats through monitoring of electronic communications. There's a difference.

Believe me, they're doing it to us, friend and foe alike.

[adirondacker]

17. I'm one of those that wants to believe in a functional government in a

Democracy, not a plutocracy. The NSA would serve an excellent purpose in spying on the right culprits (multinationals)that are actually undermining our country.

[DevonRex]

23. Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee must be cleared to see product

not just reports that have been prepared and massaged for presentation to them. Not only that, they must actually take a proactive role and go see that product as it happens, real time, in the case of NSA.

They must have TS/SCI clearance and they must use it, not just accept what the various agency heads tell them is so. That means actually seeing what a voice interceptor does and what an analyst does.

They must have the ability to show up unannounced at NSA and accompany the OIG Inspectors to any and every inspection, investigation or audit they happen to be conducting.

And they must pour over the findings from past inspections, including the working papers, to see if the inspection system is valid or needs to be revamped or even given to an outside agency.

Oversight legislation does need to be tinkered with. But amending laws will not have any impact if the inspection system can't be trusted. I have no reason to believe that NSA OIG isn't doing his job. I just know that it's an obvious possible weak point that has to be held accountable like everything else.

[On the Road]

24. The NSA Should Never Have Gone from Two to Three Steps

in analyzing calling patterns.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to assemble a call detail database in secret is an idiot and ought to be fired, even if they did manage to get the support of the FISA court. Politically, you can't do something of this magnitude without telling anyone and not risk serious repercussions.

Having said that, none of the specifics that I have heard have sounded anything like the characterization that the NSA is spying on everyone and listening to our phone calls. I think a lot of the people most outraged by this are either listening to inaccurate characterizations or else were not paying attention in 2008 when some of the foreign surveillance provisions that were up for renrewal were being debated. Obama's position then was similar to his position now.

The NSA does not spy indiscriminately on domestic targets. What they do is spy on domestic locations linked to recognized foreign targets. The secrecy surrounding the program apparently led management to exceed its mandate. It needs sunlight, and the rules need to be followed.

The NSA has pretty much admitted it overreached its mandate. It needs correction, oversight, and modification, but I think those are less major than most posters here seem to think.

[KittyWampus]

25. wondering if anyone else would vote

[Robb]

29. As long as their checks keep clearing, I'm all about 'em.

Did I say that out loud?

[cthulu2016]

32. Other: This poll is utter bullshit

There is no choice but to call for the NSA to not exist, or to voice some level of "support"

A mentally corrupt exercise in cynicism.

[think]

34. I voted with option 2 but added my conditions in the thread.

At least there is only one person (so far) who thinks the NSA is perfect just as it is.

Based on the posts here lately I expected that number to be much higher. Although I've noticed that the most ardent supporters of the NSA are mostly non existent in the poll results.

Rather ironic that they don't want to be on record that the NSA is perfect since they defend it so vehemently....

[Boom Sound 416]

36. Option 5 - ignorance is bliss

[Harmony Blue]

40. NSA is redundant with the formation of Homeland Security

I suspect that is why the NSA has had to extend is sphere of influence in terms of what it brings to the table to justify its existence.

[MineralMan]

44. Since nobody on DU really knows

much of anything about the NSA, voting is uninformed. I worked at the NSA years ago, assigned there by the USAF. I know some stuff, but not everything, by any measure. I cannot vote in this poll, because the choices are all wrong.

If any DUer thinks he or she knows about this agency, he or she is either wrong or works there.

[rug]

46. Exactly how many security agencies does the federal government have?

[markiv]

47. I dont stand on it, it stands on me

that's the problem

[ucrdem]

52. What's interesting is that it seems to be working as intended

and what's more interesting is who that seems to bother (and I'm not talking about DUers): the UK Guardian-of-all-things-intel, assorted nutbaggers like Rand Paul, and wingers like Chuck Grassley.

Hmm..
........

ETA: I voted for option 2, but what worries me fare more than the NSA is the possibility of a GOP president running it.