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Spy Peer Review

Who's watching the watchers? Let's expand that gradually
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In light of the ever-growing global spy activity...

There's lots of (mostly futile) discussion about stopping the NSA & similar spy groups. All we've seen from past laws that limit spying, they just continue it, underground, with even less scrutiny & oversight, leading to even worse abuses.

So, I'm proposing: Spy Peer Review

Every time the spies do a search in the database (including every time they write a new automated script), that query goes into a log.

Those logs are immediately viewable by everyone within the analyst's team. (Meaning, if we're all targeting one bad guy, we all should be sharing our approaches.)

The logs are viewable in 2 weeks by all superiors.

The logs are viewable by expanding levels of security out from that over time, where, after 5 years (or similar, but not infinite), they are 100% public.

That would prevent the most egregious abuses.

"Hey Karl, why are you searching on your ex-wife?"

"Hey Bob, why are you searching on your son's political opponent?"

And, if it was known that after 5 years, your spy queries would be public, you'd be more accountable to make sure you're doing something defendable there.

And, after it's public, I should be able to search the query log to see how many times I was searched.

And, it'd still let those who want the power have it. So, it should offer the least resistance to actually getting done.

sophocles, Feb 12 2014

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