Because talented people don't care about politics, they care about achievements. They don't necessarily care about how their achievements are used. They just want something they can put their hands on and feel content when they make it work.
The most brilliant minds are often bored by the fact they can't find anything that challenge their skills. You give any problem to talent, talent won't care about the nature of it. Talent will be put to work.
And to be honest, maybe the work they do can be legitimate or might serve good in the end. It's just that you will never know about it, for the simple fact that it's classified.
For example, catching tax evasion or financial crimes is very hard. If you really want to catch those criminals (who have the worst effect on society), you might want to step up the spying game and scan everybody. Catching or discouraging terrorists is difficult too.
The issue is not that you scan everybody, the issue is that those spying tools can be used against inncocents or for the sake or private interests. So of course people will scream bloody murder, but if the NSA has a very well made policy to avoid misuse, and if you don't hear about any big scandal, maybe there's no big harm done.
All in all, civilization works in a hierarchy, and politics will lead people to do things. Moral standards are guidelines, they're not rules. Civilization works towards its perpetuation. I doubt those spying tools are used for private interests. I know freedom is important, but you can't escape the fact that information technologies can give new powers to criminals.
The question is, do you want civilization to be the norm, or would you prefer to have people taking advantage of civilization with the use of technology ? I know the US has a history of liberty, but when it comes to domestic telecommunications, I doubt any government will let people use gadget because it feels "free". You're not free when you use any device, any of those device requires telecom infrastructures, and thus it requires civilization.
In the light of dirty finance, I think I can be be okay with those spying program, because I really want those bad guys to be caught. On the other hand, citizens are both protected and housed by government, so I don't think kids can really complain about their parents peeking in their room.
Of course my cynicism doesn't excuse my arguments, but I like to understand the real reasons behind those programs, and children rarely realizes the real reasons the behavior of their parents.
Freedom in modern western countries requires a lot of regulation and very hard police work. Freedom has a very high cost.
And talented people will have to care about politics more and more as time goes on. It's vital that we get better more moral people into politics and everyone has a duty to act in accordance with their own morality. Maybe we can fix some of the problems around the world that cause most of the harm if more people stop being quiet about the bad things that governments are doing in their name.
Sure. As long as absolutists like you are willing to accept that maybe "moral" doesn't necessarily mean to other people something you are going to personally agree with.
I guess in the end you are saying you trust the motives of governments and I'm saying I don't. It's fine to argue that but lets hope neither of us end up on the wrong side of government in a legal case for example. The UK government has been breaking client attorney privilege with these tools.
The people who are meant to be serving our best interest are clearly often serving themselves.
>> I doubt those spying tools are used for private interests
It's proven from the Snowden papers and elsewhere that America uses it's spying power for industrial espionage.
A program with limitless powers such as this will lead to limitless abuses. I'm all for governments being able to individually monitor bad people but it seems to me the old mechanisms are still the most effective and that particularly mass surveillance, but also deep and difficult to detect hacks like this make me think that everything we believe about democracy is probably false and that we actually live in a kleptocracy.
I still think that we know very little about the people using these systems for the wrong reasons. I think government should be reporting them where abuse occurs; it would make me feel a lot safer about their use. If there are never any abuses reported you can be sure that they are many.
> It's proven from the Snowden papers and elsewhere that America uses it's spying power for industrial espionage.
I don't have a problem with that. It's totally expected from government to do industrial espionnage. It has nothing to do with privacy and liberties. I think any patriot would be happy to know his country is trying to spy on another country. It's expected, spying is a common denominator. In french I'd say "c'est de bonne guerre".
But they tell us they just love the free market and that is the solution to all problems - why is it acceptable to lie to people with a straight face. I say it's totally unacceptable to lie and cheat corporations who are working maybe working to make a better deal for their citizens rather than OPEC and that you have accepted it is not really my point to argue against.
The most brilliant minds are often bored by the fact they can't find anything that challenge their skills. You give any problem to talent, talent won't care about the nature of it. Talent will be put to work.
And to be honest, maybe the work they do can be legitimate or might serve good in the end. It's just that you will never know about it, for the simple fact that it's classified.
For example, catching tax evasion or financial crimes is very hard. If you really want to catch those criminals (who have the worst effect on society), you might want to step up the spying game and scan everybody. Catching or discouraging terrorists is difficult too.
The issue is not that you scan everybody, the issue is that those spying tools can be used against inncocents or for the sake or private interests. So of course people will scream bloody murder, but if the NSA has a very well made policy to avoid misuse, and if you don't hear about any big scandal, maybe there's no big harm done.
All in all, civilization works in a hierarchy, and politics will lead people to do things. Moral standards are guidelines, they're not rules. Civilization works towards its perpetuation. I doubt those spying tools are used for private interests. I know freedom is important, but you can't escape the fact that information technologies can give new powers to criminals.
The question is, do you want civilization to be the norm, or would you prefer to have people taking advantage of civilization with the use of technology ? I know the US has a history of liberty, but when it comes to domestic telecommunications, I doubt any government will let people use gadget because it feels "free". You're not free when you use any device, any of those device requires telecom infrastructures, and thus it requires civilization.
In the light of dirty finance, I think I can be be okay with those spying program, because I really want those bad guys to be caught. On the other hand, citizens are both protected and housed by government, so I don't think kids can really complain about their parents peeking in their room.
Of course my cynicism doesn't excuse my arguments, but I like to understand the real reasons behind those programs, and children rarely realizes the real reasons the behavior of their parents.
Freedom in modern western countries requires a lot of regulation and very hard police work. Freedom has a very high cost.