How far is ethical and who's going to decide?

since there is a lot of cyber crimes taking place,the goverment has no other options rather than to hire these computer savvy hackers,they do check their credentials and maybe they are taking some other precautions which are unknown to us but they have to take some risks,theres no other way out!!

This just made me think of the book Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. The setting of the book is NSA and they're said to have this huge extremely powerful supercomputer that could decode messages in seconds. I forgot if they also decode messages being sent and received overseas or they only decode those messages sent and/or received in the US. Im just not sure. What Im sure of however is that they have this advanced technology and they do this kind of job with the purpose of preventing possible terrorist attacks or anything that could endanger national security. Logically thinking, if they have that kind of power to decode, they can possibly intercept as well as send those kind of messages themselves if they wanted to. With the ever changing advancement of technology, its inevitable that there be a new battlefield which is the worldwideweb, be it the top position in the companies in the world or be the number one country in the world. I guess it would just be up to the individual if they agree and go along with this kind of thing, regardless if its already way over the line.

I'm not sure I've heard of this term but to me it doesn't seem right. It seems like someone's trying to control everything and play God. I knew that the schools hire hackers to find and delete all proxys students use to get on restricted sites on school computers. That I can understand but to do everything else that you said...I don't see where that's nescassary. I could be wrong and it could be very needed but from my point of veiw they're acting like children and calling it something else.

Im not surprized to hear this. I even heard tha the presedent knew that 911 was going to happen before it did.

This does not surprise me at all. I am not sure that most governments know how to apply ethics at all! They seem to do what they want with no regard to what the people want. I get the feeling that they are just out to feed their pockets and their ego's most of the time!

Yes that is what is happening nowadays. The word ethical shouldn't be used anymore as there are no body with clear mind now who are hackers. The governments lack technical expertise and whom they hire are from outside . And its idiotic to rely on what they do.

That is not ethical. Anything that is sneaky, undermining, dishonest, etc., is as far from ethical as we are from the end of the universe.