Comment ignorance piled on arrogance (Score 2) 157
1. Hoover set up a massive index of FBI files on american citizens in the WWI era, it was later shutdown by congress as a massive affront to American law and history
1.a. Nixon used the security apparatus to damage his political opponents. That is why we had the Church Committee to investigate past abuses of the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc, where gross nazi-style human rights abuses were revealed. That's why we have FISA courts and why USSID 18 was supposed to exist and be respected.
2. World War II was an Actual War where 60+ million people died after genocidal dictators started sending millions of troops, tanks, and airplanes into each others countries and murdering civilians by the hundred-thousand. We are not in world war ii.
3. Back in 1929 the biggest threat to global security was the financial system that crashed and left millions and millions homeless and unemployed, including a huge number of disgruntled german WWI veterans, whom Hitler was able to mold into the SA and later the SS. Spying on people wouldnt have stopped the abuses on wall street. In fact, wall street typically grows fat on these abuses because it has inside information and links with spy agencies.
4. the US was not ready for WWII, but it became ready quickly enough to turn the tide of the war. Having a massive standing army is not a pre-requisite to victory. Having the moral high ground and a strong economy, well, those are. And the US is rapidly losing both of those things.
In other words, if people are wanting the NSA to prevent the next WWII, they are coming from a very ignornat, and arrogant point of view of history. Do you want to prevent "an enemy of the US", or do you want to prevent totalitarianist ideology in general? Because that ideology could take over the US just as it took over Germany's Weimar Republic if the principles of the founders are not adhered to and respected.
