Is the NSA Worth Preserving?

[HardTimes99]

I have contacted my Rep (Maxine Waters) and Senator Boxer twice in the past three weeks, as the NSA story has developed and permutated. (Feinstein's Washington # rang busy the first time and I didn't bother trying her again after she preemptively labeled Snowden a 'traitor').

As the episode has deepened and lengthened, I find my thoughs continually swirling and find it hard to make any sustained arguments.

So I thought it might be productive and useful to push back almost to first principles and ask a couple basic questions:

1) Is the NSA necessary to the national security of the United States or can it be significantly curtailed and\or ended?

and

2) If there is a need for the NSA, what exactly is that need? Is there anything about the NSA and what it does that is worth preserving?

I plan to contact Rep. Waters and Sen. Boxer at least one more time about these matters and was thinking I would ask that the NSA budget be cut as one way to re-assert meaningful Congressional oversight over it. But even as I type this, that suggestion seems like sort of a knee-jerk response. I am a layperson with no experience in national security or diplomacy and relatively little experience in politics (although I've worked briefly in telecom and longer in IT). So I felt like I would sound like a fool if I called for a budget cut to the NSA if I did not have some rational basis for doing so. And then I thought, based on some of the fine discussions I have read here, that there might actually be a good reason(s) for continuing the NSA largely as it is.

Based on the awesome discussions I've read here and the many fine voices on both sides of the divide, I think it should be possible to discuss the two questions above without resort to taunts or invective. If a thread like this one has already taken place here, I will gladly retract this one to save folks the trouble of posting their opinions yet again. (If you can point me to the link to that earlier discussion if it exists, it would be much appreciated.)

[kentuck]

1. I read today that Leahy has put forth a proposal to sunset the FISA law.

That might be a good start?

[HardTimes99]

2. I feel like the deeper I get into this story, the more confused I grow. I want

to be able to communicate my thoughts and feelings with my congressional representatives but I like to sound like I know what I'm talking about when I do. Just saying "I think the NSA's budget should be cut" does not sound very compelling to me. Hence this thread.

BTW: I saw your thread and commented on it. Am thinking maybe I should kill mine to give yours more space to breathe? Any thoughts?

[kentuck]

3. Naw.

It should be cut but we don't know what it is?

[Skidmore]

4. Now these are questions worth asking

and addressed to channels where they can be appropriately dealt with. This is productive.

[HardTimes99]

5. Every government has a need for some signal intelligence, I suppose, and so

defining the legitimate mission of the NSA might include that component. I'm trying to define for myself what its msision, if any, should be now that the USSR is a distant relic and no new global adversary has emerged to take the place of the USSR, save perhaps China.

[Skidmore]

7. I'm happy to see some shift toward constructive questioning and steps to rework the laws of the

land.

[KittyWampus]

6. Feinstein is trying to pass legislation to limit contractors. Maybe you need to contact her in suppo

support of doing that.

[HardTimes99]

11. That's a great idea. Thanks for giving me that shot in the arm to try her office again. (I think

everyone should be disturbed at the privatization of the intelligence-gathering function, no matter what their feelings on Snowden.)

Thanks again!

[Taverner]

8. Eliminate the NSA, CIA, DHS and DEA.

Shrink the military so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub

[HardTimes99]

14. I see you're channeling your inner Grover (Norquist, that is :). Do you think

the U.S. government should retain any intelligence function? Or are your thoughts trending in more radical directions?

[Taverner]

16. "Intelligence Function" - let's start with that

Define intelligence function.

Does it have to be clandestine?

Who are we gathering intelligence on and why?

Why not make it a police function?

Cops have caught more terrorists than drones have killed

Is this intelligence to find out what's really going on behind the scenes in other countries?

If so why?

Are we treating this planet like our home, or like a game of Risk?

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

9. If it were said to be abolished, how could the public ever be sure that it actually was abolished?

[HardTimes99]

10. That, my friend, is a damned good question. Do you think it should be abolished? - nt

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

12. I think it should have some additional checks placed on it to ensure compliance with the law, and

with the Constitution. It seems to operate at the pleasure of the Executive branch, but without adequate oversight by Congress or the Judiciary.

If the secret courts rubber-stamp every request it makes without serious question, that is a problem.

If members of Congress can be briefed about it only in closed session and then aren't permitted to discuss it even among their fellow members, that is also a problem.

[HardTimes99]

17. I'm certainly no expert in the federal bureuacracy either, but based on what I've read thus far,

I believe the NSA is technically a part of the Pentagon\Department of Defense, so part of the Executive branch (but, of course, theoretically subject to congressional oversight).

When I first called Waters and Boxer, I suggested that they convene hearings to cover the gamut of all these points you raise (along with my own). I know there have been some hearings in (I think) the Senate since. But I may have missed the coverage\treatment of them in the media, there being only so many hours in a day.

But I agree with you there are some serious outstanding issues that need to be addressed and debated.

[NightWatcher]

13. I hate to be Jack Nicholson from a Few Good Men, but we need them

We need all the cogs of our Defense Dept. . Sure there is a lot of waste and I believe that they should do all their in house investigations and not use any contractors.

Every State (country) has a spy agency and needs them to obtain and protect secrets. To say that it and the rest of DIA, DSS, NRO, NIMA.... need to go away is silly and naive.

[HardTimes99]

18. Although I'm not sure I agree with your position 100%, I definitely understand it. How

do you feel about preserving the NSA, though? Born in the Cold War, is it an entity that has outlived its reason for being?

[xchrom]

15. They're wasting tax payer dollars.

It's jobs program for government cronies.

[HardTimes99]

19. So do you favor eliminating the NSA entirely? If so, would you transfer

Signal Intelligence responsibilities to another agency (or maybe agencies)?