<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>belorn</author><text>The surveillance service began their history by monitoring enemy armies, knowing what the troop movements were and locating potential weaknesses. Their purpose was to help the military in defending the nation.&lt;p&gt;They later grow to encompass international commerce, as that too related to national defense. Knowing where, how, and who are able to transport material in and out of countries is paramount in successful wars between nations. Of course, having access to private information in the international market, they were also able to start supporting their own nations companies and improve the nations ability to commercial out compete foreign companies.&lt;p&gt;Afterward, the next step was to encompass everyone in ubiquitous surveillance. Having a working social graph of their own citizen, as well as anyone else can very much relate to national defense, now called nation security. Knowing who might in 10 years become the next President of the United States is important, as otherwise the wrong candidate might get elected. Surveillance of news papers is also of paramount importance, as otherwise state officials won&amp;#x27;t have time to react to the fast pace of inquiries that otherwise might happen. Documents destined to be shredded could be laying around for just anyone to read.[¹]&lt;p&gt;The next step they took was a bit more bloody. Secret indefinitely incarceration, torture, and kill lists (The renamed Deathsquad of old). Using military force in targeting journalists, and publications.&lt;p&gt;I wish I know what the next stage is. The insight from the old big leaders of west Germany, USSR and China has not made any new innovations on this front. At most, they were better at scaling the last step up and increasing the size of the kill lists, torture chambers, and the nastiness of the military force against journalists. I wonder if the national security agency feel a need to go one up on this, and innovate further. The virtual strip search by massive radiation machines are a nice touch, but they surely can do more.&lt;p&gt;[¹]: &lt;a href=&quot;http://snowdenandthefuture.info/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;snowdenandthefuture.info&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>conductor</author><text>This is the top comment on the Reddit thread:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;They went after &lt;i&gt;high ranking military officers&lt;/i&gt;. They went after &lt;i&gt;members of congress&lt;/i&gt;. The Senate and the House - especially on the intelligence committees, and on the armed services committees and judicial. But they went after other ones too. They went after &lt;i&gt;lawyers and law firms&lt;/i&gt;. Heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after &lt;i&gt;judges&lt;/i&gt;. One of the judges is now sitting on the supreme court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after &lt;i&gt;state department officials&lt;/i&gt;. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House - their own people! They went after &lt;i&gt;anti-war groups&lt;/i&gt;. They went after &lt;i&gt;US companies&lt;/i&gt; that do international business around the world. They went after US banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after &lt;i&gt;NGOs&lt;/i&gt; like the red cross and people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few anti-war civil rights groups...&lt;p&gt;Now here&amp;#x27;s the big one. I haven&amp;#x27;t given you any names. This was in summer 2004. One of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something year old wanna-be Senator from Illinois. You wouldn&amp;#x27;t happen to know where that guy lives right now, would you? It&amp;#x27;s a big White House in Washington DC. That&amp;#x27;s who they went after. And that&amp;#x27;s the President of the United States now. And I could give you names of a bunch of different people they went after that I saw! &lt;i&gt;The names and the phone numbers of congress&lt;/i&gt;. Not only the names but it looked like staff people too, and their staff. And not only their Washington office but back home in their congressional offices that they have in their home state offices and stuff like that. This thing is incredible what NSA has done. They&amp;#x27;ve basically turned themselves - in my opinion - into &lt;i&gt;a rogue agency that has J Edgar Hoover capabilities on a monstrous scale on steroids.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;--former nsa officer Russ Tice...&lt;p&gt;June 20th interview on Boiling Frogs... &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPyxeqcCjkc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=CPyxeqcCjkc&lt;/a&gt; (full 1hr+ radio interview)&lt;p&gt;or watch 11 minute RT interview &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls?CMP=twt_gu</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>r00fus</author><text>The big question is, who controls this security state? The information is being collected, but who&amp;#x27;s the audience?&lt;p&gt;And what is their agenda?</text><parent_chain><item><author>conductor</author><text>This is the top comment on the Reddit thread:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;They went after &lt;i&gt;high ranking military officers&lt;/i&gt;. They went after &lt;i&gt;members of congress&lt;/i&gt;. The Senate and the House - especially on the intelligence committees, and on the armed services committees and judicial. But they went after other ones too. They went after &lt;i&gt;lawyers and law firms&lt;/i&gt;. Heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after &lt;i&gt;judges&lt;/i&gt;. One of the judges is now sitting on the supreme court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after &lt;i&gt;state department officials&lt;/i&gt;. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House - their own people! They went after &lt;i&gt;anti-war groups&lt;/i&gt;. They went after &lt;i&gt;US companies&lt;/i&gt; that do international business around the world. They went after US banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after &lt;i&gt;NGOs&lt;/i&gt; like the red cross and people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few anti-war civil rights groups...&lt;p&gt;Now here&amp;#x27;s the big one. I haven&amp;#x27;t given you any names. This was in summer 2004. One of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something year old wanna-be Senator from Illinois. You wouldn&amp;#x27;t happen to know where that guy lives right now, would you? It&amp;#x27;s a big White House in Washington DC. That&amp;#x27;s who they went after. And that&amp;#x27;s the President of the United States now. And I could give you names of a bunch of different people they went after that I saw! &lt;i&gt;The names and the phone numbers of congress&lt;/i&gt;. Not only the names but it looked like staff people too, and their staff. And not only their Washington office but back home in their congressional offices that they have in their home state offices and stuff like that. This thing is incredible what NSA has done. They&amp;#x27;ve basically turned themselves - in my opinion - into &lt;i&gt;a rogue agency that has J Edgar Hoover capabilities on a monstrous scale on steroids.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;--former nsa officer Russ Tice...&lt;p&gt;June 20th interview on Boiling Frogs... &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPyxeqcCjkc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=CPyxeqcCjkc&lt;/a&gt; (full 1hr+ radio interview)&lt;p&gt;or watch 11 minute RT interview &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls?CMP=twt_gu</url></story>