DIRNSA Fired

In “Secrets and Lies” (2000), I wrote:

It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.

It’s something a bunch of us were saying at the time, in reference to the vast NSA’s surveillance capabilities.

I have been thinking of that quote a lot as I read news stories of President Trump firing the Director of the National Security Agency. General Timothy Haugh.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote:

We don’t know what pressure the Trump administration is using to make intelligence services fall into line, but it isn’t crazy to worry that the NSA might again start monitoring domestic communications.

The NSA already spies on Americans in a variety of ways. But that’s always been a sideline to its main mission: spying on the rest of the world. Once Trump replaces Haugh with a loyalist, the NSA’s vast surveillance apparatus can be refocused domestically.

Giving that agency all those powers in the 1990s, in the 2000s after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and in the 2010s was always a mistake. I fear that we are about to learn how big a mistake it was.

Here’s PGP creator Phil Zimmerman in 1996, spelling it out even more clearly:

The Clinton Administration seems to be attempting to deploy and entrench a communications infrastructure that would deny the citizenry the ability to protect its privacy. This is unsettling because in a democracy, it is possible for bad people to occasionally get elected—sometimes very bad people. Normally, a well-functioning democracy has ways to remove these people from power. But the wrong technology infrastructure could allow such a future government to watch every move anyone makes to oppose it. It could very well be the last government we ever elect.

When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the government to deploy those technologies. This is simply a matter of good civic hygiene.

Tags: national security policy, NSA, privacy, surveillance

Posted on April 7, 2025 at 7:03 AM • 33 Comments

Comments

Markus • April 7, 2025 9:06 AM

I don’t follow why there’s suddenly a concern about NSA leadership. Of course the new administration replaces people so they have folks in place that support them in driving their political goals. Why use the term loyalist? Obama and Biden did replace various leadership positions in the intelligence community as well. They both also spied on journalists. I think only the Trump campaign was spied on by the NSA, right? Maybe we’ll see some reform.

DownUnder'er • April 7, 2025 9:16 AM

Is there anything to this article other than the hypothesis “…the NSA’s vast surveillance apparatus CAN be refocused domestically” ? (emphasis mine)

I suppose that in a sense that is true, it can be refocused. But it can also NOT be refocused, or it could be if the outcome of the election was Kamala taking the Oval Office, too.
BTW, what evidence is there that all that apparatus wasn’t refocused during the Biden administration? All it takes to be seen as absolute angels incapable of evil is to wave blue flags instead of red?

Seriously, I like the technical articles but the double standard in the political debate here is apalling. Can we go back to cryptography and hacking news stories please?

AlexT • April 7, 2025 9:35 AM

This is a bipartisan issue. There are no good guys…and you know it.

Artifakt • April 7, 2025 10:51 AM

This post is very timely as I was thinking along the same lines as I walked up the hill from the bus to the local 50501 rally this past Saturday. My phone in a faraday pouch and my rayhunter turned on (thanks EFF!) and going through how I could tighten things up more and get more friends onto Signal. Not a cheerful place to be on a sunny and warm Saturday; Thanks Bill and Obama.

Ash • April 7, 2025 11:07 AM

Geez! What’s with the comments on this one? The responses have a lot more vitriol than I would expect to a security expert saying “The government is changing a lot and looking at its people more. Be careful out there.”

ResearcherZero • April 7, 2025 12:01 PM

When administrations become obsessed with insider threats, regardless of who is in power, they are essentially operating blind while presenting a perfect environment to adversaries.

Credibility in important roles is incredibly important, but it also requires people who will listen to the advice or information delivered. Politicians often spruik themselves as tough on defense and national security, but have no practical experience in defense planning, security or intelligence. They also have a record of ignoring experts.

Oral briefings rarely provide the detail and context of what is provided in carefully produced and verified written reports. Nor can presentations convey the understanding gained through the in-person experience of those physically dealing with the matters that are outlined.

The evidence of this is, that when eventually challenged with the pending implications of historic national security warnings, governments consistently cut budgets to departments and attempt to rearrange the very agencies that delivered those very same warnings.

There is no better example of security theatre than politicians announcing new national security priorities regarding a pressing matter unprepared – a decade or more after the risks were reported to government. This often takes place at a difficult time, in an environment now full of additional challenges that present an even more complex threat.

If in fact politicians were warned that this would happen we can ignore for now.

Starting new defense projects when the costs have doubled, and assessment made increasingly difficult through personnel and funding cuts, creates additional risk. Compounding that with impediments to manufacturing is incredibly foolhardy.

With the government’s attention focused inward and the top experts and researchers being cut, with it goes the last ten years of intelligence that passed across their desks. The volume of information that is collected is enormous and countless reports are produced and archived. Without the people with decades of experience in those fields, no matter how loyal anyone is who fills those positions, there is no-one who can direct them where to look or pass on the information they need to know.

Robin • April 7, 2025 12:05 PM

@Ash: yes, it’s almost as if they haven’t actually read – or understood – the post ATL. The acts being mentioned (quite mildly and politely) go back to 1996 and the Clinton era, followed by post 9/11 actions. Some of us seem very touchy.

Mom • April 7, 2025 12:10 PM

@Liberalism in Un-Natural

It is way past your bed time. Do your parents know you are still playing on your computer?

Clive Robinson • April 7, 2025 12:23 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

There is a problem with,

“It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.”

1, Police State.
2, Could someday facilitate.
3, Install technologies.
4, Poor civic hygiene.

All have “weasel words” within them, thus their meanings are shall we say

“Fluid at best, to the point of opposites and beyond.”

As an unrelated example of (1) as expediency, was used during lockdown to regularly (3) spray the streets with chemicals and shine lights at people both of which were (4) “known carcinogens” that would cause people early deaths in some very unpleasant ways at significant cost and duration.

The arguments for and against are still being talked about and due to (1) expediency we now have in the two (3) major phone OS’s and “required hardware” “Bluetooth Low Energy”(BLE) “beaconing” allegedly for epidemiological reasons for “the safety of all” that just coincidentally (1) mean not just the tracking of all but who has been in range of whom thus is “suspicious activity” from someone’s viewpoint.

It does not matter (3) what the technology is, if it has any “use for good” it has as much if not more “use for bad”.

Which as I’ve indicated in the past “good or bad” are not defined they are usually the “Observer not participant Issue” some time after events based on “societal norms” and mostly irrelevant “points of view” (think “long bearded Elbonian = doubly bad”, and similar).

All technology is “agnostic to use” even nuclear weapons do arguably have “good purposes” (busting up high velocity inbound space rocks etc). As well as “bad purposes”, it is down to the “Directing Mind” and the later “observing mind” as to what they think is good or bad.

Psychologists came up with stylised questions that are the “Train/Trolley Switch Problem/Test”,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Perhaps not realising the question says more about the person asking / observing than the person answering / acting[1].

The point is what gets done has nothing what so ever to do with the “good” of civic hygiene or the “bad” of a surveilling Police State.

We see this all the time with,

“Think of the children arguments.”

Or,

“Health and Safety arguments.”

They are at best “plausible sounding arguments” for an “already made decision”.

Have a think back to Apple’s “Client/Device Side Scanning” or “See What You See”(SWYS) technology. The CSAM argument[2] was obviously a “falsehood” to get the “base technology in device”, which I understand has not been fully removed… That is “the low level hooks” remain waiting to be used[3] for what most civilized humans with normally functional minds would call “Bad” activities.

Nearly a hundred years ago Upton Sinclair put an observation about morals or significant lack there of in certain types of people, into a book he was writing. And it “nicely encapsulates” the issue,

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

That is they will refuse to understand as long as they are getting pay and perks. Ask yourself how many very senior people after “retiring” pick up a different hymn sheet to sing from? Especially those in or close to “National Security” leadership positions.

[1] The big failing of the original Trolley Switch Questions was the implicit assumption, that because “the switch is binary” the answer from the person has to be from a binary choice of,

1.1 Set switch to left branch
1.2 Set switch to right branch

Forgetting the more valid,

1.3 Turn you back and walk away or equivalent “take no action” choice.

Which in the way most modern Western Societies work is in reality “the safest thing to do”.

[2] The CSAM argument is nearly always false. It’s so useful to Authoritarian types because it’s such a horrific crime the societal consensus in the West is you would have to be “bad to say no” rather than apply “reason and logic”. Put simply few anti-CSAM technologies actually work and so have actually less than zero effect on those who produce and consume CSAM. Because it “diverts resources” into the pockets of “the chosen few” away from actually proven techniques thus ends up protecting the abusers. Thus the question hangs in the air of “Why?” It’s not just to “fill the boots” of the chosen few, that some might see as “good” No. Like CALE[3] the real purpose is “generalised and unlawful surveillance”, most likely for the purposes of “leverage” or “blackmail” and crimes such as “murder” (all described as “Intelligence Activities” and hidden behind “National Security”). Which I suspect most observers would see as “bad”.

[3] As was the case with CALE in phone base station switches, that the NSA and CIA abused in the “Greek Olympics Scandal” where a Vodafone Engineer was according to Greek Investigators “suicided” by a CIA operative. Worse it’s said that attackers alledged to be linked to the Chinese Communist Party used the same CALE hooks to run rampant in US and I assume other Nations Phone Switches (exchanges).

ResearcherZero • April 7, 2025 12:59 PM

@Robin, Ash

They probably missed the part about how checks and balances exist to protect the public from government abuses that endanger their very own safety.

I never saw a bunch of wayward officers ask anyone who they vote for before they handcuffed and tossed them in a paddy wagon, before kicking the utter crap out of the poor unfortunate soul they detained. Those police trucks have no restraints and the young thugs who drive them have no concern for speed limits, swerving back and forth, or breaking hard at high speed. There are no cameras inside either. The beatings begin once the police are out of public view. Hospital visits are conducted prior.

The funding for legal services is always under strain. When the courts do not function properly, or are under high volume case load, there is nobody with the time to sort out who was wrongly caught up in the system. Quite certainly in the current environment, no-one who will raise their voice for fear of losing their job. Legal professionals cannot travel back in time to the point before the police began beating on their client either.

Surveillance apparatus care not for ideology, nor can the genie be popped back in the bottle. Once checks and balances are gone, legal systems are awfully hard to repair.

Concern for the treatment of detained persons, regardless if they have been proven guilty or not, is rather low. How victims of crime are treated within the legal system is not well understood by the public either and individual support of victims is also lacking.

‘https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-024-09605-w

The political creeds and beliefs within American prisons may surprise many.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/prisoner-survey-politics-2020.html

Scott • April 7, 2025 1:01 PM

“I know you will censor me”

Well… that comment didn’t age well.

“you liberals”

I don’t actually know (or care) what Bruce’s politics are, to the extent he writes competently and interestingly about security here.

“IA (Private Internet Access) run by the CIA. I am not just saying it – I have solid proof/evidence. ”

AND now you’ve peaked my interest. Looking forward to your follow-up reply. I would love to seer some solid proof/evidence.

ResearcherZero • April 7, 2025 1:19 PM

@Clive Robinson, ALL

The technology might be agnostic, but the level of empathy by those deploying it is fairly easy to figure out. Far more people can be starved with little regard, or deprived of a useful education in times of peace, without ever deploying the weapons of war.

The United States Congress has declined to uphold many of the responsibilities it is charged with. Leaders define the standards of behaviour and the limits of checks and balances. One could reason that the bar for standards of behaviour is currently very low.

Governments of an autocratic flavour sweep up many of their own people and supporters, and there are plenty of legal black holes they can now be bulldozed into with little regard.

ResearcherZero • April 7, 2025 1:38 PM

El Salvador provides an example of what can take place over a very short period of time. As many legal rights and fundamental protections vanished there with very little opposition or push-back. The citizens of El Salvador have also become increasingly afraid of saying anything negative about their government.

Within one term their rights to a fair trial and legal representation disappeared

‘https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/el-salvador-prisons-warning-americans-trump-1235309721/

The success of democratic systems may have undermined our perceptions of such risks.
https://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-democracys-success-behavioural-science-helps-explain-why-we-miss-autocratic-red-flags-251955

Don’t bag the cricket results in India!

Thousands of citizens in Indian are trapped in a legal black hole by India’s use of a law discarded by most democracies. Many of them for complaining about the government.

https://www.article-14.com/post/a-decade-of-darkness-our-new-database-reveals-how-a-law-discarded-by-most-democracies-is-misused-in-india-61fcb8768d15c

Tice with a J • April 7, 2025 1:42 PM

@ Ash

I agree. Bruce is trying to tell us that a bad situation is likely to get worse, and he is right to do so. The spying apparatus was already bad before Trump took office, and Trump has frequently shown that he is willing to go after US citizens to a degree that previous presidents have not done. He is more lawless and more vindictive than any president I’ve seen in my lifetime, and he has been empowered by the corruption and incompetence of those who came before him.

Politicians of all stripes should have taken steps to prevent someone like Trump from seizing the power that he now has. They failed to do their duty, and we failed to hold them accountable for that. Now we have president Trump holding a power that no president should have ever had. The USA has fucked around, and now we all get to find out.

lurker • April 7, 2025 2:05 PM

@ResearcherZero
“Oral briefings rarely provide the detail and context of what is provided in carefully produced and verified written reports.”

As @Clive is fond of saying, “Paper, always paper …” But flaws in that are: “they” must be capable of reading and understanding what is written; and our adversaries can also carefully craft reports and evidence showing a different viewpoint, eg. what are they talking about when they say “tariff”?

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Random Geek • April 7, 2025 5:08 PM

This is an interesting discussion with differing view-points. Technology has been misused whenever possible and as long governments think that they can get away with it. As someone rightly said: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Such surveillance is being done in many countries, and it will only grow in future, unfortunately ! Political opponents, journalists, community leaders, activists, religious leaders are all targets.

Wannabe Tech • April 7, 2025 5:37 PM

“the NSA might again start monitoring domestic communications”.
When did they stop?

Bob • April 7, 2025 6:00 PM

You seem to be operating under the belief that conservatives don’t want a police state. It’s what they want. It’s what they’ve always wanted. This could just as easily read “good job conservatives, you won all the marbles.”

You didn’t think they planned to just guess which people are undesirables, did you?

Harry Potter • April 7, 2025 8:07 PM

“ht tps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn1lz3v4no”

A judge has sided with a coalition of civil liberties groups and news organisations – including the BBC – and ruled a legal row between the UK government and Apple over data privacy cannot be held in secret.

The Home Office wants the right to be able access information secured by Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) system, citing powers given to it under the Investigatory Powers Act.

At the moment Apple has no such capability – such data can only be accessed by the user – and says it does not want to create what it calls a “backdoor” into ADP because of concerns it would eventually be exploited by hackers and criminals.

The government’s request prompted fierce criticism from privacy campaigners and some US politicians.

Paul Sagi • April 7, 2025 9:04 PM

ResearcherZero:
Were you thinking of the infamous “Nickel Rides” in Philadelphia, PA when you wrote:
“I never saw a bunch of wayward officers ask anyone who they vote for before they handcuffed and tossed them in a paddy wagon, before kicking the utter crap out of the poor unfortunate soul they detained. Those police trucks have no restraints and the young thugs who drive them have no concern for speed limits, swerving back and forth, or breaking hard at high speed. There are no cameras inside either. The beatings begin once the police are out of public view. Hospital visits are conducted prior.”

ResearcherZero • April 7, 2025 10:49 PM

@Paul Sagi

Unfortunately that stuff is also very common in Australia. They grab young people off the streets, first take them to hospital and afterwards whisk them away to a police station in another jurisdiction and then take them to court in yet another. All of them seem to mysteriously receive serious injuries along the way. Very few officers are ever charged.

Another officer deploying tasers into the backs of innocent people, while the first officer is talking to them, is another tactic. Australia does not let UN inspectors into Australian prisons, so what happens inside is a ‘mystery’, apart from the odd video that escapes.

I will point out though, while legal aid is very badly underfunded and some of the courts themselves physically falling apart, Australians do have rights to a reasonably fair trial.

There are also a number of appeals process, complaints bodies and Freedom of Information.
What happens in the United States though, can have an impact on other democracies.

Official reports repeatedly state that standards have declined in the treatment of both victims of crime and those detained or held in custody. This includes the treatment of children as young as 10 years old in some states or 12 years of age in others.

Federal laws state a child over the age of 10 years old can be charged as an adult.

‘https://thelatch.com.au/age-of-criminal-responsibility-australia/

Rather than increase the age of criminal responsibility, some states have decided to lower in to 10 years, while at the same time senior police argue children need more support before the police and corrections service become involved – and that the system is failing kids. These kinds of counter factual arguments are becoming more common within Australia.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/21/australia-jailing-children-young-10

–

@ALL, Bruce

Attacks on the free press or those who write about such issues heralds dangerous times.
Authoritarian governments do not allow free press and encourage attacks on those that the executive labels as seditious, inside enemies or “others”.

Others have written about the dangers of the abuse of government surveillance, government overreach and the dismantling of vital checks and balances that ensure citizens’ rights.

The right to a fair trial and to see the evidence levied is an important one. The right to speak openly in one’s own defence and without arbitrary punishment fundamental.

One might argue if those fundamental rights are removed – the others and hence personal security – is a mute question, as the very process of defending oneself has been removed.

This article by Brain Krebs includes many references to how those rights are at risk.

‘https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/03/how-each-pillar-of-the-1st-amendment-is-under-attack/

“The number of autocracies (91) has just surpassed democracies (88)”

In the last few days, worrying precedents have been crossed, leading to an international democracy watchdog delivering an extremely worrying and chilling warning…

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-democracy-report-1.7486317

Steve • April 8, 2025 1:58 AM

It is always a more complicated and dangerous time.
It always costs double the last equipment upgrade.
The cops don’t drag people into vans and beat them.
Trump is not the most lawless and vindictive president ever.
I suggest the experts never were the appointees in charge, but are the career guys who are not being kicked out who know all about the files that crossed the boss’s desk.
The most anyone, handwringer or not, can declare is, we’ll see.
Keep your weather eyes peeled, if connected, help the administratin when you smell a problem. If not connected, shout out on social media and write the agencies.
Civic duty is a universally shared task. Duty is not a thing owned by officials. Do your duty.

ResearcherZero • April 8, 2025 3:31 AM

In America political parties began encouraging division with the other side.

Cops do indeed drag people into vans and beat them. They beat them on the street, inside police stations and inside prisons. They beat up women, they beat up old people, they beat up kids. Sure, not every cop, a few bad cops, but they are rarely charged for attacking innocent people or being involved in organised crime. This undermines public trust.

It is the lack of checks and balances, and the lack of responsibility or accountability.
Eventually that has consequences. Rather than deal with those problems, American politicians decided to blame the other side rather than work together in the Congress to resolve those problems.

Political representatives are elected to solve problems for the public, not to pursue their own agendas, while leaving important legislation that has passed all the way through procedures languishing because those elected members decided to instead ignore it.

In Australia the public does not hate one party or another, as Australia has a compulsory voting system creating less incentive for politicians to create hatred against the other. As a result civility and social cohesion fair much better.

ResearcherZero • April 8, 2025 3:51 AM

@Steve

Inequality is strongly linked with identity and social cohesion.

‘https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2025/02/19/the-role-of-social-identity-in-reducing-intergroup-conflict/

The effects of inequality and group identity on cooperation.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/behavioral-economics/articles/10.3389/frbhe.2025.1494271/full

While America is the wealthiest nation – it has the largest inequality of all.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/10/24/americas-richest-10-percent-controls-60-percent-of-wealth/75790850007/

ResearcherZero • April 8, 2025 4:14 AM

In the United States wealth is inherited. Wealth mobility is declining and Americans cannot work their way out of poverty. Because most Americans who are wealthy did not obtain their economic fortune through merit, they have little opportunity to understand the plight of those facing financial difficulty, or their feelings of powerlessness and alienation.

The rich often look down on the poor – and the working class have an increasing contempt for the wealthy or the academic elite. These divisions are exploited by each political party to garner votes in electorates by using emotive, manipulative and dishonest tactics.

Independent candidates who want to represent their local electorate are at a financial funding disadvantage of 3 to 1. They cannot compete with the major political parties because they have rigged the electoral funding system to their own advantage.

Americans now have only a 5% chance of improving their financial status throughout life.

‘https://theconversation.com/soaring-wealth-inequality-has-remade-the-map-of-american-prosperity-228377

As Americans age, financial mobility becomes even more difficult to achieve.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/stuck-on-the-ladder-wealth-mobility-is-low-and-decreases-with-age/

ResearcherZero • April 9, 2025 2:01 AM

@Steve

Many matters never even get as far as the “boss’s desk”. The daily briefing is exactly that, the matters of the day, not long detailed reports and analysis. Those reports can take months or even years to produce. Intelligence and national security reviews do not happen very often, and the number of people who understand the full scope, history and detail extremely limited. You lose those people – then the full understanding is lost.

Politicians do not sit down and read intelligence reports. They are time constrained. Power breeds arrogance and arrogance breeds complacency. You do the math.

The intelligence flow is far more complicated than what most people understand. I could attempt to explain it to laypersons, but it is something that takes a lot of experience to understand. Like medicine, it is a profession, with some areas employing very specialized and unique skills. Even when it functions well, some of the longer-term intel is ignored, as politicians are focused on mid-terms and short-term day-to-day issues driven by polling, rather than making decisions that may alter the outcome of events well into the future.

You could bring some matters to their attention, and they will begin laughing after you have left the room. Even matters you might imagine they would take seriously they will not.

Complex matters are often completely ignored or reduced to extremely narrow catch phrases that create the danger of a nuanced understanding becoming completely lost. The experts are then completely sidelined and decisions are made based on a limited grasp by rank amateurs.

There are many issues that politicians were informed of and [REDACTED}

Global warming for example, a risk multiplier, is not even included in the last yearly assessment. Whatever consequences and additional risks it might have, the additional resources and preparation needed may not be in place.

Other matters, because they are classified and secret, are far more difficult to respond to. Even the terminology is foreign to most people and difficult to comprehend. But the take home message would be, that it is an inopportune and unfortunate time to

[REDACTED]

that last bit has been misplaced somewhere

Who? • April 9, 2025 5:30 AM

So it is bad for the National Security Agency to listen to communications of [north] americans, but its main mission is spying on the rest of the world, even to allies?

This way of thinking is insane.

Steve • April 9, 2025 4:33 PM

It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.

More to the point, perhaps, it is poor civic hygiene to invent those technologies in the first place.

jones • April 9, 2025 8:41 PM

We don’t know what pressure the Trump administration is using to make intelligence services fall into line

I’ll guess unemployment + unemployability + private intelligence collecting.

Trump is all wired up with a variety of private intelligence firms, past and present, who have few regulations on how they collect or use personal data (cookies, targeted ads, data brokers, etc.)

Clive Robinson • April 9, 2025 11:20 PM

@ Steve, ALL,

With regards,

“More to the point, perhaps, it is poor civic hygiene to invent those technologies in the first place.”

Firstly,

“You can not unring the bell” and
“Ideas come of age thus happen.”

Put bluntly people will think up things, and because technology is agnostic to use they will turn those thoughts into tangible reality.

Even if one individual decides not to turn an idea into a reality, then shortly there after another will, so it happens anyway.

The only way to stop a technology happening, is not to try to make it worthless by decree. But make it worth less than something better in some way, thus the incentive “moves to the better”.

As I’ve noted before on this blog and again towards the top of this thread,

“All technology is “agnostic to use” even nuclear weapons do arguably have “good purposes” (busting up high velocity inbound space rocks etc). As well as “bad purposes”, it is down to the “Directing Mind” and the later “observing mind” as to what they think is good or bad.”

An example of “not better” was “no point kitchen knives”.

The idea was if you stopped supplying kitchen knives with sharp points, you could not stab people with them. The fact is it made the knives of less use than a bread knife (which actually has lots of points on the serations). So predictably people did not switch over because kitchen knives without points are really “not better”.

But also consider if you are going to harm someone anything can become a weapon… So taking away one thing will not stop another thing being used.

Yes a baseball bat will cause considerable harm if you hit someone with it… But so will a wine bottle, rolling pin, broom handle, or tennis racket.

If you search back on this blog, when the TSA first started banning pointy objects, I ridiculed it as a policy. I pointed out that there were many pointy objects in the environment they were not banning thus it was security theatre. I then pointed out that wooden coat hangers had metal hooks that screwed in and if you unscrewed it you had a fairly dangerous weapon easily capable of causing significant harm.

The point is even what you might think is a safe and useful / good object is not, as in someone elses mind they see a technology they can use to do their bidding that you as an observer looking back will see as “bad”.

The real issue is “The Directing Mind” that controls the hand, that holds the object, and the balance of benefit / harm in their intent, that you the observer, see as good or bad by your point of view, within the society you exist within.

Wishing or hoping it could be otherwise is not going to be of benefit to society.

Steve • April 10, 2025 10:42 AM

@Clive: I am put in mind a lyric by Tom Lehrer:

Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
Say rather that he’s apolitical
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department!” says Wernher von Braun

ResearcherZero • April 12, 2025 11:02 AM

The public position on government delivery post-truth.

‘https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/03/government-expectations-world/682158/

Who really is in control of your outrage and perceptions of scandal?
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/people-who-brought-you-project-2025-manufactured-evidence-voter-fraud

The public view on the problems with government – shifts depending on who is in power.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/658967/gov-itself-top-problem-depends-whom-ask.aspx

20,000 names to stack the government in the corporate interest.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/project-2025-heritage-foundation-trump-b2648705.html

The Power of Nightmares – “Good” vs “Evil”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KolgBqJ95ug

ResearcherZero • April 12, 2025 11:06 AM

@Who?

We are going to repeat the mistakes of the last 50 years. We always do this.

Everyone should understand why running government like a business is not a good idea.

‘https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2025/03/15/purpose-of-government-is-general-welfare-not-good-business/

The Dangers of Cold Logic: Lessons from history and the Cold War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m25q3it0rDs

The tangled relationship between the Russian state and the private sector.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/russia-inc-power-politics-and-money-putins-kremlin

Why governments should not be run by a CEO. (Or a dictator and KGB, or CIA or equivalent)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcSil8NeQq8

DIRNSA Fired

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