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.