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woranj  ·  3755 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: NSA speaks out on Snowden, spying

"We're stopping attacks daily..." is a misleading statement. The NSA may very well be stopping hackers from penetrating certain infrastructures, or foiling acts of cyber warfare. However, we have no idea how damaging these attacks would be precisely because the agency is so secretive, and these attacks are most CERTAINLY NOT preventing 'blow up a subway system'-type attacks daily. Not even close, by Alexander's own admission:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misle.../

The 60 Minutes piece is misleading in many ways. It essentially gave Alexander a pulpit to refute the very serious constitutional violations he's overseen in the most effective way-- lying.

As to Greenwald and Snowden failing to offer alternatives-- that's not their job. Greenwald is a journalist and Snowden was a system admin. Neither of them have the training or responsibility to competently create an alternative. Isn't it enough to know that there is one? Are we resigned to a de-facto surveillance state? See the three degrees of separation parameters they have around suspects (http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/oct/28/nsa...)-- essentially if someone is targeted for whatever reason, everyone they know, everyone their friends know and everyone their friends' friends know are fair game to be spied upon. If Alexander is telling the truth about only '60 authorizations for spying on US persons', then that can mean as many as 60+ million Americans. Can we not acknowledge that that is overboard and that it was not the only solution? Must we have a counter-solution in order to point out constitutional violations?