The government isn't one thing. It might be worth doing some reading on systems thinking, for instance some of the writing by Donella Meadows. People inhabit a government system and they either set boundaries for themselves, or have those boundaries asserted onto them; boundaries between their area of influence and other areas of the system they consider out of bounds. If they didn't, no one would be able to focus and get things done.
People often think that the failings of a system are chiefly because of the motivations of the actors in the system. But what's more accurate is that the failings are often because of the structure of the system, and the inhabitants often don't feel they have the ability to change the structure.
The least effective way to change the behavior of a system is to twiddle the various buttons and knobs that each inhabitant has ready access to. The most effective way to change the behavior of a system is to change the overall goal of the system, which would necessitate a complete restructuring.
So that's why it is easy to believe that various NSA wrongdoings aren't entirely because of nefarious motivations (although that is probably part of it), and very much driven by system structure (log and analyze data) that simply weren't "checked" as their technological tools and abilities increased over time. What many of us have failed to realize is that our own personal security has been a form of security-through-obscurity in the past. We can put personal data up on a website and not tell anyone, and before search spiders, it might have stayed private. But we can't expect such a website to stay private these days, because of how technology has increased. It's the same with our private data, and how our browsing habits can be mined to create freakishly accurate personal profiles. There was never any privacy protection there to begin with other than obscurity, and we just convinced ourselves it was there by believing in social mores that hadn't been challenged until technology increased too much.
Meanwhile, the health system was about constructing an entirely new structure/system for health insurance, benefits, and penalties.
So... I wouldn't say it is a matter of compartmentalizing. It's more a matter of appreciating that the government is a huge collection of disparate systems and motivations, and that there can be simultaneous breakdowns and successes.
First, thanks for the book recommendation... the quickest way to my heart is giving me something interesting to read.
While I mostly agree with you, it's important to realize that a single administration (speaking directly of the President, his close advisors, and officials he has put in place) has both encouraged the NSA in their actions and also produced the ACA. At what point do we write off the machinations of a political machine as the intricacies of a complicated system, or vice versa? Do we merely ignore common threads that point to a single motive as conspiratorial thinking, or do we act assuming the worst?
I'm not so naive as to think the NSA has become what it is through the directions of a single person or group. I mostly agree that you hit the nail on the head, but the fact remains that many people in our current administration were given a high level overview of current processes, projects, and operations and gave the O.K. to not only continue in the current direction, but intensified efforts, brushing aside the consequences and ramifications that only a stupid person would have ignored. And I refuse to believe that these people got to where they are via stupidity.
If you honestly think like this what do you think people should do that live under more invasive governments ? Even most of Europe has more invasive data collection laws (in all European countries, the secret service and the IRS equivalent can tap/copy/... anything they want to without warrants, and any cooperation they request must be freely given on pain of imprisonment. Anybody who's worked at a Euro ISP knows this. Nobody ever mentions it for some reason)
All European ISPs must give a certain organisation a command shell (sort-of) that allows them to copy any and all traffic to a specific customer without the ISP even knowing they're doing it. They have to do this for free and provide free tech support. This is why cisco, alcatell, juniper, HP, ... both produce "lawful intercept" versions of all their network software [1]. Installation of these images in most of the world (not just Europe) is not optional.
Unlike in the US, the ISPs never get to see any warrants. Asking for that is a crime, that can land you in prison. "Obstructing" justice can also land both directors and techies in jail (ie. not promptly providing prompt tech support to idiot police officers who wonder why tapping an ADSL line does not tell them when the tapped person checks gmail on their phone). There are not allowed to be limitations. For example if you are an American customer of an ISP that operates in Europe, they can tap you (e.g. Liberty Global). And obviously, the government refuses to pay anything for the quite substantial effort required to implement all this.
ISPs only deal with a certain central organisation (it's more-or-less interpol) that basically gives open tapping to a list of European organisations that doesn't fit on a single page, and several organisations that aren't even European.
So given this, what do you think the entire European telco, government, and ... industry should do ? Keep in mind that people working for this infrastructure is probably around 50 million people.
People often think that the failings of a system are chiefly because of the motivations of the actors in the system. But what's more accurate is that the failings are often because of the structure of the system, and the inhabitants often don't feel they have the ability to change the structure.
The least effective way to change the behavior of a system is to twiddle the various buttons and knobs that each inhabitant has ready access to. The most effective way to change the behavior of a system is to change the overall goal of the system, which would necessitate a complete restructuring.
So that's why it is easy to believe that various NSA wrongdoings aren't entirely because of nefarious motivations (although that is probably part of it), and very much driven by system structure (log and analyze data) that simply weren't "checked" as their technological tools and abilities increased over time. What many of us have failed to realize is that our own personal security has been a form of security-through-obscurity in the past. We can put personal data up on a website and not tell anyone, and before search spiders, it might have stayed private. But we can't expect such a website to stay private these days, because of how technology has increased. It's the same with our private data, and how our browsing habits can be mined to create freakishly accurate personal profiles. There was never any privacy protection there to begin with other than obscurity, and we just convinced ourselves it was there by believing in social mores that hadn't been challenged until technology increased too much.
Meanwhile, the health system was about constructing an entirely new structure/system for health insurance, benefits, and penalties.
So... I wouldn't say it is a matter of compartmentalizing. It's more a matter of appreciating that the government is a huge collection of disparate systems and motivations, and that there can be simultaneous breakdowns and successes.