3 ms·

There's no way to win here. If the government outright abolished the NSA at noon, there would be dozens of hn comments at 12:01 saying "Yeah, but did they reall

There's no way to win here. If the government outright abolished the NSA at noon, there would be dozens of hn comments at 12:01 saying "Yeah, but did they really abolish it?" or "But what about all the bad things they did when they existed? or "They'll just do something even worse next". It seems like distrust of authority is just a part of some people's personality. Perceived wrong doing by the government in the past has caused them to distrust the government into perpetuity, even if that same government does exactly what those people demand. So why should the authorities listen at all? It's like a convicted felon who can no longer get a job or be part of society. Why not just go back to a life of crime? You're damned if you and damned if you don't.

woodman 11y ago
Wow, I don't know that I've seen such a perfect example of Battered Woman Syndrome outside of a rerun of Cops. By "Perceived wrong doing", you mean clear and well documented violations of the law - right? Portraying people who don't immediately prostrate themselves before the throne of state power as having some sort of personality defect is pretty funny as well.
glenra 11y ago
Our security apparatus is the boy who cried "wolf" (okay, actually they cried "terrorist", but close enough). They've repeatedly lied to Congress and to the people, including lying about having programs and lying about shutting down programs. Given that background context, distrust is appropriate here! There is no short-term fix but in the long run the authorities could probably win back some trust if they henceforth were consistently truthful and transparent and actually held somebody responsible the next time lawbreaking occurs.