Not what I said. I said "realistically imaginable attack" ie ethics is the only thing hypothetically stopping them, not lack of fantasy technology. See if you can come up with a counterexample that actually meets that hurdle.
Mind control satellites and lizard men are both so far away from our current science and technology that even assuming the NSA could be a few years ahead, it's not worth considering. If there really were mind control sattelites or similar precursor technology available or in research today, and there were lizard men who had a history of being good at working with those and willing to sell their skills, then I would agree that it's plausible they're doing it.
Also, I'm more interested in the /practical/ applications of this knowledge of whether the intelligence community does a certain thing X, not the philosophical certainty of whether they do a thing X. You lock your doors because someone /might/ break in /maybe/, not because you're certain John Doe is planning on doing so at 4:30am tonight. Even if no one ever does, it's certainly technically possible, so if locks are cheap it's a reasonable tradeoff, even if you'll never be sure if they really helped.
You're probably right though that I'm moving the goalposts around! :-) I'm not trying to have a formal debate, just idly shooting the shit on the net, so I'm OK with that.
Mind control satellites and lizard men are both so far away from our current science and technology that even assuming the NSA could be a few years ahead, it's not worth considering. If there really were mind control sattelites or similar precursor technology available or in research today, and there were lizard men who had a history of being good at working with those and willing to sell their skills, then I would agree that it's plausible they're doing it.
Also, I'm more interested in the /practical/ applications of this knowledge of whether the intelligence community does a certain thing X, not the philosophical certainty of whether they do a thing X. You lock your doors because someone /might/ break in /maybe/, not because you're certain John Doe is planning on doing so at 4:30am tonight. Even if no one ever does, it's certainly technically possible, so if locks are cheap it's a reasonable tradeoff, even if you'll never be sure if they really helped.
You're probably right though that I'm moving the goalposts around! :-) I'm not trying to have a formal debate, just idly shooting the shit on the net, so I'm OK with that.