On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 6:27 AM, Naslund, Steve <snasl...@medline.com> wrote:
[snip] > 1. We vote in a new executive branch every four years. They control and appoint the NSA director. Vote them out if you don't like how they run things. Do you think a President wants to maintain power? Of course they do and they will change a policy that will get them tossed out (if enough people actually care). > > 2. The Congress passes the laws that govern telecom and intelligence gathering. They also have the power to impeach and/or prosecute the executive branch for misdeeds. They will pass any law or do whatever it takes to keep themselves in power. Again this requires a lot of public pressure. Historically speaking, I'm not convinced that a pure political solution will ever work, other than on the surface. The need for surveillance transcends both administrations and political parties. Once the newly elected are presented with the intel available at that level, even their approach to handling the flow of information and their social interaction have to change in order to function. Daniel Ellsberg's attempt to explain this to Kissinger is insightful. It's a pretty quick read, with many layers of important observations. (It's Mother Jones, but this content is apolitical): http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge I think that Schneier's got it right. The solution has to be both technical and political, and must optimize for two functions: catch the bad guys, while protecting the rights of the good guys. When the time comes for the political choices to be made, the good technical choices must be the only ones available. Security engineering must pave the way to the high road -- so that it's the only road to get there. Royce
