> When I was younger, I respected agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Now I think they are corrupt as hell and we’d be better off without them.
Hear, hear. I'd abolish these institutions long before I abolished the police (and I'd love to reform US police into something basically unrecognizable).
And then we'd need to replace them with new institutions to pick up the slack they were originally set up for. And we'd staff them with the same people because we need their skills. A bit like what happened in Germany post ww2.
In Georgia (a country in Eastern Europe, not a US state) they just dismissed nearly all police officers some time around 2004, without the right to work in police again. The previous police force was corrupt beyond redemption.
Then they hired and trained an entirely new police force, including the top officers. As a result, corruption in the new police force basically does not exist.
I suppose most people in NSA are not renowned cryptographers; it's not they who are most corrupt.
Arguably anyone with the sheer horsepower to play ball at the Equation Group level can see far enough around the bend to feel conflicted about working for the contemporary NSA.
This is obviously speculation but if the NSA was reformed into something that mostly respected the rule of law most of the time, more excellent cryptographers and cryptanalysts would want to work there.
I imagine that the NSA’s ostensible mission of protecting United States communications and compromising the communications of legitimately menacing regimes would be better served without domestic full-take and secret courts.
Hear, hear. I'd abolish these institutions long before I abolished the police (and I'd love to reform US police into something basically unrecognizable).