7 ms·

This kind of manipulation of access to public records needs to stop if we are to continue to have a free society. Reminds me of when the US Marshalls deputized

by voxic11 11y ago

This kind of manipulation of access to public records needs to stop if we are to continue to have a free society. Reminds me of when the US Marshalls deputized a local police officer to move stingray use records out of the state of Florida after a reporter got a court order allowing him access to them. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/us-marshals-step-in-thwart-efforts-to-learn-about-cell-tracking-devices/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/us-marshals-step-...

JackFr 11y ago
I don't think its necessarily as clear as you make it out. Two private individuals donated their personal papers to a private institution, and the CIA asked, but certainly did not compel, the private institution to remove them from the public collection. If you assume that this is simply pure coverup of an embarrassing episode, then the bad guy is really Georgetown (which I say as an alumnus.)
pieter1976 11y ago
In the film Spotlight there's a similar worry about disappearance of public records and a race to get them when they are released before a sort of Boston/Catholic Omerta makes them disappear.
- Cyph0n 11y ago
  Amazing film. I had weirdly never heard of the Boston scandal, so I went in with a fresh mind.
jdimov9 11y ago
Do Americans actually sincerely believe that they live in an actual "free society" / "democracy" / whatever... Blows my mind.
- mineshaftgap 11y ago
  Trump, recreational marijuana and a whole lot of other things indicate it may not be a black or white issue.
- unchocked 11y ago
  Quit treating it as a binary distinction. Does anyone believe they live in a pure "free society"? There is a deep state beneath every nation. Like a rational mind exists atop lower forms, higher forms of social organization exist atop lower ones. Democracy is built on intrigue, is built on naked violence. Just as true for smaller countries with smaller deep states.
- sp332 11y ago
  But where else is better?
  - atom-morgan 11y ago
    Freedom isn't relative to others.
    - sp332 11y ago
      It is important, since governments often use other countries' policies to excuse or justify their own.
    - mason240 11y ago
      Our concept of what "freedom" means is relative.
    - kafkaesq 11y ago
      Not sure what you mean -- it's hard to think of a concept less relative than this thing called "freedom", actually. Especially as people (particularly across different cultures) tend to have wildly different conceptions as to what "freedom" really is.
      - atom-morgan 11y ago
        > But where else is better? I was trying to say that just because you're the best doesn't mean you're "free".
  - benevol 11y ago
    I'd say the Nordic countries plus Switzerland.
    - blue_dinner 11y ago
      The Nordic countries have their own problems. The press is owned by the state, making the freedom of the press a little difficult. Because of the high taxes and plentiful regulations, your only options for employment are huge corporations or government. Hardly what I call freedom. Switzerland, on the other hand, is more free. Mostly because the majority of citizens have some wealth. Many people associate more government programs and freebies with freedom. In reality, it only creates dependent groups of people and gives more control and power to the government. The exact opposite of freedom.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  More free than the majority of other countries. Oh sure, the level of rational discourse has certainly fallen off and most news outlets are now heavily slanted to one party or the other - but the mere idea of having the ability to raise your voice is something that is rare in this world. Even the countries that people always point to (Scandinavia, Europe) have their own issues which are not dissimilar from those in the US. It's like when you have a job and you complain how horrible the place is you work at because of a,b,c and d. So you leave and go to another big company because they don't have a,b,c and d problems. Within two months, you suddenly realize that now this company has other issues and drive you nuts because if f,g,h and i problems. You want an "actual free society" go live on an island, and be a government of one. That's the only way you'll have the utopian vision I'm sure you're thinking about.
- tn13 11y ago
  America remain one of the most free society even though not truly free. In India or China no records are ever made public, if they are the people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street. In USA you have a good opportunity to clip the wings of CIA and others. A small chance but still a positive chance.
  - 20andup 11y ago
    "people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street" Sorry, but this is absurd. People that are asking for information are usually harassed and threatened. They don't kill people like flies. This kind of rhetoric is meant to paint black and white portraits of the world, and is simply inaccurate.
- Aelinsaar 11y ago
  I would say that MOST of them do, and consider you to be a fringe lunatic if you express a belief in something else. I don't mean 9/11 conspiracy theories either, I mean things like, "The intelligence services greatly abuse their powers, and experience only token oversight."
  - Loughla 11y ago
    I whole-heartedly disagree with that statement. I live in a very rural, unbelievably conservative part of the states. We love guns, god, and the USA. And even here people are concerned about the reach of the US's intelligence agencies.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Free society doesn't pay the bills. Might makes right and does amazing things for consumer prices. We are lulled by our proximate pleasures while true freedom and honest democracy remain fantasies at best.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  That's what their corporately owned, government friendly, media tells them. So a lot of them do. I think the internet has done a lot to help escape the typical narrative. For one example, there is a stark difference between what young and older Americans think of Israel because of where both groups get their news. Now, sure, there is a natural tendency with the internet for conspiracies to form. In particular if you hang out all day with extremists. But I'd prefer to have that problem than the alternative problem of most public discussion coming from a dozen or less large corporations.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    So, which countries are democratic according to the Americans who escaped the typical narrative ? edit: it's a serious question
    - lstamour 11y ago
      Tough to say. I suppose you need an intersection of high voter turnout, low scores on corruption indexes and laws that prevent companies from donating or having too much sway over individual representation. All of the above is rare, I figure, but not ideally impossible. The phrase "money talks," comes to mind...
    - Sophistifunk 11y ago
      None. America has a lot of barriers to keep certain people from the franchise, and all mainstream media is lies and ads. But America is the only place where the concept of truly free speech is even held up as a virtue, let alone accorded the people in practice.
  - FatAmericanDev 11y ago
    The bit regarding what my young and old compatriots believe based on source of news resonates with me. I generally don't debate with "pre internet" people.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  Well let's see if this discussion gets deleted by the government.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    Speech is suppressed commensurately with its threat to power. It is difficult to see the absence of speech; negative space, absence is difficult even to talk about. Historically speaking, movements of people that posed a threat to the US Government were shattered, suppressed, and then rewritten out of the canonical history as promulgated by the government and its subordinate institutions. What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA? Is there really any voice out there whose words substantially threaten the government? Whenever such a voice gets loud enough, out come the battalions of cops with riot gear, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. The mainstream media never questions this clockwork logic: it must be as natural as the sun rising and setting in such a society. It is almost a truism that any institution of power will renege on all of its promised rights towards those who would curb or abolish its power. We know after the fact that the government of the USA has done so towards many, many people whom it felt threatened it.
    - snowwrestler 11y ago
      > What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA? Let's try an experiment: you post some of the things that you think aren't being said, and we'll all see what happens.
      - danharaj 11y ago
        I don't have to run the experiment. I can already tell you that anything said in Hacker News comment threads doesn't threaten the government or much of anyone, really.
      - cryoshon 11y ago
        You misunderstand: he has the freedom to speak, so long as he has no voice. Say whatever you want whenever you want; they're watching, but don't care enough to interfere if you're a nobody. Nobody will bother you until you have a following, and nobody will bother you in meatspace until you have a massive and physically active following.
- cgh 11y ago
  Compared to, say, Russia, Americans are correct to believe they live in a free society. These things are relative.
  - grecy 11y ago
    It's amusing that Americans constantly compare themselves to Russia, China and North Korea. Are you actually proud to compare favorably to them? Is that as high as you want to set the bar? Surely there is little to be gained from continually pointing out you're better than the lowest. Aim higher. I mean, congrats for being competitive against high school teams, but man, you gotta move up into the big leagues if you are serious. Go and learn how societies like Switzerland, Norway, Australia and France operate, and compare yourself to them. You will learn something, which will help you improve something. Comparing yourself to the bottom of the list teaches you nothing, which improves nothing
    - cgh 11y ago
      I'm not American so I'm not the "you" you're referring to in your bizarre "aim higher" lecture. That said, the comment I was answering implied the US is an unfree country. That is simply not the case. To illustrate this, let's see how some other countries, including the ones you named, compare to the US. Freedom House ratings[1] for selected countries (100 is best): Switzerland: 96 Norway: 100 Australia: 98 France: 91 Canada: 99 Russia: 22 China: 16 United States: 90 So the US is roughly equivalent to France, one of the countries you named. Russia is lousy, as expected, but certainly not the worst. [1] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-...
    - pdeuchler 11y ago
      Your last point contradicts the first three
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - 11y ago
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Yes, they do. And they'll defend that thought to the death without understanding it.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

by voxic11 11y ago

JackFr 11y ago

I don't think its necessarily as clear as you make it out. Two private individuals donated their personal papers to a private institution, and the CIA asked, but certainly did not compel, the private institution to remove them from the public collection. If you assume that this is simply pure coverup of an embarrassing episode, then the bad guy is really Georgetown (which I say as an alumnus.)

pieter1976 11y ago

In the film Spotlight there's a similar worry about disappearance of public records and a race to get them when they are released before a sort of Boston/Catholic Omerta makes them disappear.

Cyph0n 11y ago
Amazing film. I had weirdly never heard of the Boston scandal, so I went in with a fresh mind.

jdimov9 11y ago

Do Americans actually sincerely believe that they live in an actual "free society" / "democracy" / whatever... Blows my mind.

mineshaftgap 11y ago
Trump, recreational marijuana and a whole lot of other things indicate it may not be a black or white issue.
unchocked 11y ago
Quit treating it as a binary distinction. Does anyone believe they live in a pure "free society"? There is a deep state beneath every nation. Like a rational mind exists atop lower forms, higher forms of social organization exist atop lower ones. Democracy is built on intrigue, is built on naked violence. Just as true for smaller countries with smaller deep states.
sp332 11y ago
But where else is better?
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  Freedom isn't relative to others.
  - sp332 11y ago
    It is important, since governments often use other countries' policies to excuse or justify their own.
  - mason240 11y ago
    Our concept of what "freedom" means is relative.
  - kafkaesq 11y ago
    Not sure what you mean -- it's hard to think of a concept less relative than this thing called "freedom", actually. Especially as people (particularly across different cultures) tend to have wildly different conceptions as to what "freedom" really is.
    - atom-morgan 11y ago
      > But where else is better? I was trying to say that just because you're the best doesn't mean you're "free".
- benevol 11y ago
  I'd say the Nordic countries plus Switzerland.
  - blue_dinner 11y ago
    The Nordic countries have their own problems. The press is owned by the state, making the freedom of the press a little difficult. Because of the high taxes and plentiful regulations, your only options for employment are huge corporations or government. Hardly what I call freedom. Switzerland, on the other hand, is more free. Mostly because the majority of citizens have some wealth. Many people associate more government programs and freebies with freedom. In reality, it only creates dependent groups of people and gives more control and power to the government. The exact opposite of freedom.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
More free than the majority of other countries. Oh sure, the level of rational discourse has certainly fallen off and most news outlets are now heavily slanted to one party or the other - but the mere idea of having the ability to raise your voice is something that is rare in this world. Even the countries that people always point to (Scandinavia, Europe) have their own issues which are not dissimilar from those in the US. It's like when you have a job and you complain how horrible the place is you work at because of a,b,c and d. So you leave and go to another big company because they don't have a,b,c and d problems. Within two months, you suddenly realize that now this company has other issues and drive you nuts because if f,g,h and i problems. You want an "actual free society" go live on an island, and be a government of one. That's the only way you'll have the utopian vision I'm sure you're thinking about.
tn13 11y ago
America remain one of the most free society even though not truly free. In India or China no records are ever made public, if they are the people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street. In USA you have a good opportunity to clip the wings of CIA and others. A small chance but still a positive chance.
- 20andup 11y ago
  "people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street" Sorry, but this is absurd. People that are asking for information are usually harassed and threatened. They don't kill people like flies. This kind of rhetoric is meant to paint black and white portraits of the world, and is simply inaccurate.
Aelinsaar 11y ago
I would say that MOST of them do, and consider you to be a fringe lunatic if you express a belief in something else. I don't mean 9/11 conspiracy theories either, I mean things like, "The intelligence services greatly abuse their powers, and experience only token oversight."
- Loughla 11y ago
  I whole-heartedly disagree with that statement. I live in a very rural, unbelievably conservative part of the states. We love guns, god, and the USA. And even here people are concerned about the reach of the US's intelligence agencies.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Free society doesn't pay the bills. Might makes right and does amazing things for consumer prices. We are lulled by our proximate pleasures while true freedom and honest democracy remain fantasies at best.
Someone1234 11y ago
That's what their corporately owned, government friendly, media tells them. So a lot of them do. I think the internet has done a lot to help escape the typical narrative. For one example, there is a stark difference between what young and older Americans think of Israel because of where both groups get their news. Now, sure, there is a natural tendency with the internet for conspiracies to form. In particular if you hang out all day with extremists. But I'd prefer to have that problem than the alternative problem of most public discussion coming from a dozen or less large corporations.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  So, which countries are democratic according to the Americans who escaped the typical narrative ? edit: it's a serious question
  - lstamour 11y ago
    Tough to say. I suppose you need an intersection of high voter turnout, low scores on corruption indexes and laws that prevent companies from donating or having too much sway over individual representation. All of the above is rare, I figure, but not ideally impossible. The phrase "money talks," comes to mind...
  - Sophistifunk 11y ago
    None. America has a lot of barriers to keep certain people from the franchise, and all mainstream media is lies and ads. But America is the only place where the concept of truly free speech is even held up as a virtue, let alone accorded the people in practice.
- FatAmericanDev 11y ago
  The bit regarding what my young and old compatriots believe based on source of news resonates with me. I generally don't debate with "pre internet" people.
snowwrestler 11y ago
Well let's see if this discussion gets deleted by the government.
- danharaj 11y ago
  Speech is suppressed commensurately with its threat to power. It is difficult to see the absence of speech; negative space, absence is difficult even to talk about. Historically speaking, movements of people that posed a threat to the US Government were shattered, suppressed, and then rewritten out of the canonical history as promulgated by the government and its subordinate institutions. What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA? Is there really any voice out there whose words substantially threaten the government? Whenever such a voice gets loud enough, out come the battalions of cops with riot gear, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. The mainstream media never questions this clockwork logic: it must be as natural as the sun rising and setting in such a society. It is almost a truism that any institution of power will renege on all of its promised rights towards those who would curb or abolish its power. We know after the fact that the government of the USA has done so towards many, many people whom it felt threatened it.
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    > What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA? Let's try an experiment: you post some of the things that you think aren't being said, and we'll all see what happens.
    - danharaj 11y ago
      I don't have to run the experiment. I can already tell you that anything said in Hacker News comment threads doesn't threaten the government or much of anyone, really.
    - cryoshon 11y ago
      You misunderstand: he has the freedom to speak, so long as he has no voice. Say whatever you want whenever you want; they're watching, but don't care enough to interfere if you're a nobody. Nobody will bother you until you have a following, and nobody will bother you in meatspace until you have a massive and physically active following.
cgh 11y ago
Compared to, say, Russia, Americans are correct to believe they live in a free society. These things are relative.
- grecy 11y ago
  It's amusing that Americans constantly compare themselves to Russia, China and North Korea. Are you actually proud to compare favorably to them? Is that as high as you want to set the bar? Surely there is little to be gained from continually pointing out you're better than the lowest. Aim higher. I mean, congrats for being competitive against high school teams, but man, you gotta move up into the big leagues if you are serious. Go and learn how societies like Switzerland, Norway, Australia and France operate, and compare yourself to them. You will learn something, which will help you improve something. Comparing yourself to the bottom of the list teaches you nothing, which improves nothing
  - cgh 11y ago
    I'm not American so I'm not the "you" you're referring to in your bizarre "aim higher" lecture. That said, the comment I was answering implied the US is an unfree country. That is simply not the case. To illustrate this, let's see how some other countries, including the ones you named, compare to the US. Freedom House ratings[1] for selected countries (100 is best): Switzerland: 96 Norway: 100 Australia: 98 France: 91 Canada: 99 Russia: 22 China: 16 United States: 90 So the US is roughly equivalent to France, one of the countries you named. Russia is lousy, as expected, but certainly not the worst. [1] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-...
  - pdeuchler 11y ago
    Your last point contradicts the first three
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - 11y ago
cryoshon 11y ago
Yes, they do. And they'll defend that thought to the death without understanding it.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]