10 ms·

The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

201 points by urs2102 10y ago

marcoperaza 10y ago
Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of. Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.
- carbocation 10y ago
  > until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today. Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won't eliminate terrorism entirely. Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking), the threat of terrorism will forever loom.
  - mozumder 10y ago
    Which is why government allows for surveillance directly in its constitution. Search warrants have always existed. There is no government without a search warrant, since no government allows privacy against the state's will. Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.
    - Cyph0n 10y ago
      Right, but there is a procedure behind obtaining a search warrant, which is nothing at all like giving the government blanket surveillance powers.
      - slarrick 10y ago
        I'm not well versed on the details of U.S. government surveillance, but is it not the case that collection of phone logs, for instance, does not entail the government directly infringing on or even caring about 99.999999% of the public's private activity? My understanding is that these types of surveillance programs technically exist so that logs can be pulled up retroactively or algorithmically in rare but important cases. I am asking because I am intellectually curious. It seems to me that _on average_ people could stand to gain from surveillance and possibly predictive algorithms for crime. I would like to better grasp the other side of the argument.
        hedora 10y ago
        That argument has been made by repressive regimes to justify all sorts of witch hunts: "Our records say you were friends with John; you should have known he would be branded a subversive traitor. Why didn't you turn him in first?" Stats make this even worse: "Sorry. The computer said we have to lock you up for your own good." Also, the framers of the US constitution had a deep mistrust of government (they just overthrew the brits!). The right of revolution is something they teach (at least used to teach) in US schools: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution Tl;dr: If law enforcement is too effective then you can't defend yourself from unjust governments. This is why we have juries and the right to bear arms / form [state in addition to federal] militias.
        slarrick 10y ago
        Thank you for your reply. Your argument makes sense to me, however I am still having some difficulty understanding how ultimately surveillance is anything but negligible in aiding law enforcement to oppress U.S. citizens - compared to the government's already existing enormously superior weaponry. IF the government were out to get me, I can't imagine how I could stop them, even if they had only basic information about me. UNLESS I am a criminal mastermind, in which case it seems like the government would NEED information about me to stop me, which would probably be a good thing? I dunno... do you at least see where I'm coming from? I haven't formed a concrete opinion about it all, and I am a student of cyber-security. Presently considering all points of view. EDIT: I guess your point is that the surveillance information can be used to /justify/ an attack on a citizen, so that the public accepts it. But somehow I imagine the government could already easily falsify records to do exactly that without deep troves of info?
    - wybiral 10y ago
      The scope of that surveillance should be kept in check though. Search warrants seem reasonable to me (assuming the process of obtaining a warrant is somewhat restrictive) but broad unchecked surveillance isn't reasonable to me. Giving a government too much access and control seems bad for both the government and the people.
      - mozumder 10y ago
        I get that but a lot of people are questioning any surveillance.
        wybiral 10y ago
        That's fair. But regarding this statement: > Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government. My complaint is that a government should exist to facilitate the well being of its people. They should have to operate under the permission of us, not the other way around.
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        The US government does operate under the permission of the people. There have been candidates who are strongly opposed to the NSA's surveillance programs. They didn't win. The election of Donald Trump should shatter any illusions that the political establishment has a stranglehold on power.
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    >Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking) I disagree with that approach to framing terrorism because attacks are not just random violence, they are responses to the specific actions or perceived actions of individuals and governments. Charlie Hebdo and the various cartoonists that have drawn political comics of Mohammed, have (to my knowledge) all found themselves at the receiving end of terrorist attacks, or at least credible threats that require them to change their way of life. Thus there are now broad topics where we don't actually have the freedom of speech that technically exists on paper.
    - carbocation 10y ago
      I was careful not to call the attacks random. Rather, for any individual, it is unlikely that they will be involved in a terrorist attack. The Charlie Hebdo attacks are much more targeted (like an assassination), and seem qualitatively different from what people typically think of when terrorism comes to mind.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  Terrorism is a reaction to policies conducted in foreign lands for the most part. If one wants less of it, one has to reduce their agressive behavior overseas. This is true for the US but also France, the UK and the like.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Your conclusion adopts the myth that an ideology can be extinguished. By what standard will terrorism be judged to have ceased, and is that standard subject to change? If the line can be moved, then it will.[1] Pretty much anything can be reasoned in hindsight, and we have to have tools to undo the ratcheting effect that crisis responses have historically had on public policy. It's only through the devaluing of the public interest -- some might say freedom itself has been defined down over the years -- that there is no counterbalance to it being seen as "not a great political move." We have to invent a politics that can justify the tradeoff, and that it's not in existence yet (much), is something that authoritarians know. Heck, I guess we all know it, but there still has to be a way back, because what's the alternative? Maybe we're about to find out. 1. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_institutions http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_institutions
michaelvoz 10y ago
I agree with the title. However, a political opinion piece has no place on HN.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Sometimes politics and technology cannot be separated. This is much as technology issue as a policy issue.
tomludus 10y ago
One reason that leaders as diametrically opposed as Obama and Trump can be aligned on surveillance is simple: The majority of Americans don’t care. The reason why this keeps getting worse and worse.
- boomboomsubban 10y ago
  Partially, it's also that anyone strongly opposed to surveillance realistically can't get elected to high office. If you oppose the intelligence agencies, they have access to the data necessary to ruin you by leaking that your running mate had ECT or someone similar.
- pitaj 10y ago
  Just for future reference, please don't quote using the four-spaces code block. It can make it difficult to read on mobile, and often requires scrolling from side to side on desktop. Please, instead, use the `>` (meme arrow). While it does not add markup, it does make it significantly more readable. Thanks.
  - stefantalpalaru 10y ago
    > `>` (meme arrow) It's much older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting ...and it looks suspiciously similar to the "diple" used by ancient Greeks: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/01/30/quotation_marks_long_and_fascinating_history_includes_arrows_diples_and.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/01/30/quotati...
    - pitaj 10y ago
      Oh I'm sure it is. I just called it that because it's funny.
dahart 10y ago
> Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed. Calling all engineers! We do have the power amongst ourselves to add technical impediments to surveillance to the services we're building, and to the internet as a whole. The technology exists to prevent surveillance, we just need to care, and to use it. Also keep in mind that net neutrality would be an automatic byproduct of an internet that prevents automatic surveillance. > “The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to ‘collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.’” This will never change, and I would go so far as to suggest it's even a reasonable position to take, from someone who's job it is to collect information for the government. What we need to do is make our internet usage unavailable to onlookers.
- RA_Fisher 10y ago
  Net neutrality by encryption seems like a much better idea than government imposed NN. It's optional and not one size fits all. Let's encrypt all the things!
  - saalweachter 10y ago
    I take it you've never had WiFi drop your connection when you start using a VPN?
    - RA_Fisher 10y ago
      Yep, and then I switched to OpenVPN! :)
jbpetersen 10y ago
Mass surveillance in the digital age is a Pandora's box that's been opened. Without comprehensively putting extreme restrictions on what people can put online, there is only ever going to be an exponentially growing trove of data to mine that reveals implications far removed from whatever whoever made it available intended to communicate. While it may be possible to significantly cut back the amount of surveillance done on communications intended to be private, I think people need to accept that the automation of surveillance and of inferring likely connections from it are developments which irreversibly change how society functions going forward. What's more, technology has a very persistent tendency to become accessible to more people over time. I have yet to see any reasons this wouldn't be true specifically in the case of automated surveillance. Remember the story about someone trying facial recognition to tie pictures of strangers on the subway to VKontakte profiles? That's just a small taste of the implications. I think it's realistically possible to push back a large portion of the surveillance that invades private communications, likely by technological means more often than legal ones. And I think the article highlights that possibility, especially at a time when distrust in government is reaching a peak in America and elsewhere. That said, I'm waiting for the Pandora's box of wide access to powerful surveillance tools using publicly available information to be seen for what it is.
rayiner 10y ago
Between the inauguration and living in DC, all anyone can talk about lately is politics. So I've had the opportunity to probe a bunch of mainstream Democrats on this issue. The overwhelming response has been not caring (though many are more worried now that Trump is in the charge of the surveillance apparatus rather than Obama). Even to the extent people care, nobody cares enough to want to spend limited political capital on the issue. To the extent policy is necessarily subject to political compromise, privacy doesn't seem to even make the top 10 of issues Democrats are willing to fight for. It seems inevitable to me that the same generation that willingly hands over all their personal information to Google and Facebook, and sees government mostly as a positive force for enforcing civil rights and increasing social equality will embrace the expansion of the surveillance state.
- treehau5 10y ago
  > and sees government mostly as a positive force for enforcing civil rights and increasing social equality will embrace the expansion of the surveillance state. This isn't unique to the generation you talk about.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Millenials aren't unique in having those views, but are unique in that they'll be the ones running the country for the next 20-30 years.
    - cmurf 10y ago
      I think you mean in the next 20-30 years rather than for the next 20-30 years. At a federal level it is mainly baby boomers in charge. In state legislatures, gen X vs baby boom, varies a lot by state.
- devoply 10y ago
  In the managerial culture no one really cares about the rules, because they don't think the rules apply to them because they are not doing anything wrong and they are privileged. They understand that some people in the country are not privileged and those rules are for "them", not for "us". The only way to make them change their minds is if a lot of them become targets of the control apparatus and in liberal democracies that never happens. Democrats are afraid that Republicans are going to use the apparatus on them and vice versa. No one cares about the rule of law. In fact privilege has nothing to do with your actions, it has to do with who you are in relation to the government and those in power. Privilege can't really be taken away by new laws. Privilege can't even be given by new laws. Because the laws don't apply to those with privilege. It's possible to get privilege by doing what those in power want you to do and that's mostly act as they want you to act on their terms. Privilege is about power and control. It's nothing to be guilty about, because it's not something you did. It was something that was done for you.
BoringCode 10y ago
> (If you’re wondering what data the NSA collects, its own site[1] offers a list and this statement: “The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to ‘collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.’”) The linked site is a PARODY. There is no such thing as the Domestic Surveillance Directorate, that would be the FBI. How the author of this article fell for that, I don't know. [1] https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ https://nsa.gov1.info/data/
tomkin 10y ago
When Obama says that Snowden created serious security implications, do you think that's from a point of privilege, or simply placing ideology over practicality? Based on everything I know, both Obama and Snowden appear to be fairly authentic characters. It seems weird that they would have opposing view points. If we're to assume the best ideals are forged though intelligent reasoning and debate, shouldn't they have both concluded the same? Glenn Greenwald has proven himself to be less than authentic at times. If I could pass a criticism Snowden's way, it was who he went to, not what he did. Am I wrong to feel this way?
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Fairly authentic characters regularly have drastically diverse viewpoints. For instance, Republicans and Democrats. Parties on both sides have fairly authentic views[1] on various moral points, that end in very, very different opinions. And no amount of intelligent reasoning or debate will bring either party closer to the other. [1]Both parties ALSO have fairly unauthentic views, on how they will in fact, happily sell us out to a corporation for a side gig when they leave office. But they tell us they won't and that's shameful to even suggest that's what they're doing.
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  How about the South China Morning Post, whom Snowden also provided with classified information? Does that also merely call into question merely whom he went to, not what he did?
stordoff 10y ago
I agree with the main point of the article, but feel like it undermines itself in a couple of ways. Firstly (and by far most importantly), the alleged quote from the NSA[1] comes from a parody site which explicitly states "[t]his parody website has no connection whatsoever to the National Security Agency"[2]. If a reader isn't already convinced of the potential harms of mass surveillance, (accidentally, presumably) using such quotes makes the arguments easier to discard. Secondly, and this is more of a pet peeve of mine, is the "top highlight" that appears mid-way through the article. I know they aren't really comparable, but "mass surveillance is bad, but, by the way, we are totally tracking every interaction you make with this article" doesn't feel like a particularly consistent position to hold. [1] > The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to 'collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.', per https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ [2] https://nsa.gov1.info/about/about.html https://nsa.gov1.info/about/about.html
Mendenhall 10y ago
The average citizen doesnt know or care, and in this day and age many would trade "freedom" for what they think will give them "security". This story is already over.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Saying changing is not possible is unreasonable; see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13459166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13459166
saycheese 10y ago
Please stop pointing fingers at the American "government" and realize that the issue is really the average American. The US public has had over 10 years to figure it out, blaming the government is just causing more problems, not less; to understand why it's been 10 years, Google "Room 641A", which was exposed in 2006. Sure, there are people in America that are opposed to mass surveillance, but the bulk of Americans willfully allow it. If you think the issue is important, do me a favor: find 10 people next week that do not believe it is an issue, help them see it is, and get them to the point that they want to help do the same thing you just did the following week. Even if only 5 of the 10 people go on to do the same the week after, if that pattern went on for a year, by the end of the year mass surveillance would no longer exist; happy to explain, but math is a basic viral coefficient[1]; that is if only one person reading this did it and succeed, which would mean in less than three months the majority of the US would have been "converted" to supporting change. [1] http://nichevertising.com/viral-coefficient-calculator/ http://nichevertising.com/viral-coefficient-calculator/
- westoncb 10y ago
  I think this is a great idea, and I may give it a go. If you are initiating anything else like this, though, I'd make one suggestion: we need some materials that can be honed in their effectiveness in communicating the danger, as what has been done to make it a reality so far. It's a complex issue, and most ad hoc attempts to explain it to a random person will end in disinterest on their part. Seems like one wiki page for techies and one for non would be a decent approach. For the most part, it would be best to have potential teachers use the resources on the wiki rather than students—but they could hold a repository of illuminating examples, analogies etc. until effective approaches for communicating to each audience type stabilize. Edit: probably the main benefit of this isn't making teachers more effective, but rather that it would make it easier for potential teachers to get on board. As it stands I'd need to go do a bunch more research and collect specific figures personally before I'd feel prepared to teach anyone.
- pitaj 10y ago
  I heard about that on PBS NOVA of all things. It was kinda scary.
nope40756 10y ago
The article cites data collection methods by linking to https://nsa.gov1.info https://nsa.gov1.info That site describes itself in its footer as "a parody of nsa.gov" Don't believe everything you read.
nope40756 10y ago
The article cites the NSA's data collection methods by linking to https://nsa.gov1.info https://nsa.gov1.info This site describes itself as "a parody of nsa.gov" in the footer of every page. Don't believe everything you read.
EGreg 10y ago
Once again, why do we need to store these files "in the cloud"? Why do signals need to go to California so that two people in an Indian village can talk to each other? Email, IRC, the Web, Git, IPFS and many others don't have to work that way. The world of always-on broadband ruined what was a great software ecosystem that didn't assume you were either "online" or "offline", but cared whether one machine was reachable from another machine. Broadband led to centralized platforms like facebook. Now that the bulk of our most valuable “papers and effects” are online, they are vulnerable to being tracked and searched by the NSA without the agency ever securing a warrant, asking our permission, or leaving a trace. That can to a great extent be mitigated if there was software for communities to host their own private networks, and only send signals out when necessary. The way the original telephone switching worked. Communities would be more resilient, too, and could help each other in the event of a disaster. We should decentralize cellphone signals and power generation eventually too. Our platform is an attempt to make a standard platform for such decentralized social networks: https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform
dirkg 10y ago
These articles are just wishful fantasy. Our history has shown that people are perfectly willing and happy to tolerate any form of govt abuse as long as they get their dose of reality tv and 'justifications' from mass media, all you need to do is mention the T word and 'keep America great' and you can do whatever you want. Even if people cared, which they don't, the govt has zero incentive to actually do anything, because increased surveillance gives them more power and more power to abuse the system.
- Fricken 10y ago
  America already has all the power to abuse the system. They have a standing military. The reason the government is the government is because they maintain a monopoly on violence. Freaking out about surveillance is like freaking out about the compass in Rambo's survival knife when he's got a rocket launcher aimed down your throat. The compass is new I suppose. The rocket launcher has been there so long we don't even notice it any more. Whether or not the government abuses it's powers is strictly a matter of whether or not it feels like abusing it's powers. With or without trendy new surveillance capabilities, the logic of that doesn't change. Why this isn't obvious is beyond me.
  - slarrick 10y ago
    Honestly, I do not disagree. In some ways I imagine that mass surveillance may even be necessary for the protection of the country, considering the potential for destruction that even a few people with the right technology and planning possess. Following your logic, it seems that the mass surveillance maybe has more potential to help than to hurt (since the govt already possesses plenty of resources for destruction). Given how many people on here are adamant about anti-surveillance I feel like I must be missing something... like I get the overall premise but it seems to exclude a lot of important considerations...
battlebot 10y ago
This is a thinly-veiled "Bash Trump" article. It is purely speculative what the Trump administration will do at this point. Obama was shitty on civil liberties, Bush was the one who caused us so much harm to begin with. But if we want privacy then we have to fight to get it back the same way Americans are fighting to get back their full 2nd Amendment rights. It can be done, but this stupid, petty, left vs. right false dichotomy has to end--there are only statists and individualists, that's all there is. You have those want to coerce and those who want to be free.
- mirimir 10y ago
  So Mike Pompeo won't be CIA Director?
arzt 10y ago
For any constitutional law experts: have there been any efforts to amend the 4th amendment to explicitly take into consideration private information held by third parties (ie abrogate FISA)?
- saycheese 10y ago
  Constitutional amendments are very hard to do, and in the context of mass surveillance, highly unlikely without the public demanding in as a majority.
coldcode 10y ago
Trumps stance on the intelligence community might be a good thing, as they all leave leaving the government with a desire but no experienced people to do the work. Of course that also leaves us wide open to be attacked. So maybe this causes a reset of sorts.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Clearly you don't understand Trump, he's just positioning himself with the intelligence community; as far as I am able to tell, his first visit to a government agency was to the CIA headquarters.
jwatte 10y ago
It is basically impossible to hide yourself if you want to take part of society. Just standing there, you send out information about yourself body posture, dandruff, IR signature, ...) Therefore, it is much more important to make sure we have full insight into those who have power. Sunlight is an effective disinfectant!
erikpukinskis 10y ago
I think "presumption of privacy" is going away. The next generation will see bubbles of privacy as something you can create, by force, not something guaranteed by societal norms. Frankly, I am a little surprised when I see other technologists advocating for governmental/corporate/societal reform of privacy-respecting practices. It seems like a losing battle to me. We are headed toward a time when you can buy a $100 vial of drone dust at Best Buy, dump it into the air, and 30 minutes later have a live 3D video feed in every window within a 5 mile radius. Maybe it will take 100 years, but every year between now and then will be a shade closer to that reality. Even if we could get strongly worded laws from Congress, I just don't see that stopping bad actors, inside government or out. It feels a little bit like bow-and-arrow culture trying to legislate that government agents shouldn't be allowed to use these new "gun" things. You can to legislate, but bigger forces are afoot. The physics of information is changing very fast.

201 points by urs2102 10y ago

Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of. Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.

carbocation 10y ago
> until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today. Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won't eliminate terrorism entirely. Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking), the threat of terrorism will forever loom.
- mozumder 10y ago
  Which is why government allows for surveillance directly in its constitution. Search warrants have always existed. There is no government without a search warrant, since no government allows privacy against the state's will. Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.
  - Cyph0n 10y ago
    Right, but there is a procedure behind obtaining a search warrant, which is nothing at all like giving the government blanket surveillance powers.
    - slarrick 10y ago
      I'm not well versed on the details of U.S. government surveillance, but is it not the case that collection of phone logs, for instance, does not entail the government directly infringing on or even caring about 99.999999% of the public's private activity? My understanding is that these types of surveillance programs technically exist so that logs can be pulled up retroactively or algorithmically in rare but important cases. I am asking because I am intellectually curious. It seems to me that _on average_ people could stand to gain from surveillance and possibly predictive algorithms for crime. I would like to better grasp the other side of the argument.
      - hedora 10y ago
        That argument has been made by repressive regimes to justify all sorts of witch hunts: "Our records say you were friends with John; you should have known he would be branded a subversive traitor. Why didn't you turn him in first?" Stats make this even worse: "Sorry. The computer said we have to lock you up for your own good." Also, the framers of the US constitution had a deep mistrust of government (they just overthrew the brits!). The right of revolution is something they teach (at least used to teach) in US schools: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution Tl;dr: If law enforcement is too effective then you can't defend yourself from unjust governments. This is why we have juries and the right to bear arms / form [state in addition to federal] militias.
        slarrick 10y ago
        Thank you for your reply. Your argument makes sense to me, however I am still having some difficulty understanding how ultimately surveillance is anything but negligible in aiding law enforcement to oppress U.S. citizens - compared to the government's already existing enormously superior weaponry. IF the government were out to get me, I can't imagine how I could stop them, even if they had only basic information about me. UNLESS I am a criminal mastermind, in which case it seems like the government would NEED information about me to stop me, which would probably be a good thing? I dunno... do you at least see where I'm coming from? I haven't formed a concrete opinion about it all, and I am a student of cyber-security. Presently considering all points of view. EDIT: I guess your point is that the surveillance information can be used to /justify/ an attack on a citizen, so that the public accepts it. But somehow I imagine the government could already easily falsify records to do exactly that without deep troves of info?
  - wybiral 10y ago
    The scope of that surveillance should be kept in check though. Search warrants seem reasonable to me (assuming the process of obtaining a warrant is somewhat restrictive) but broad unchecked surveillance isn't reasonable to me. Giving a government too much access and control seems bad for both the government and the people.
    - mozumder 10y ago
      I get that but a lot of people are questioning any surveillance.
      - wybiral 10y ago
        That's fair. But regarding this statement: > Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government. My complaint is that a government should exist to facilitate the well being of its people. They should have to operate under the permission of us, not the other way around.
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        The US government does operate under the permission of the people. There have been candidates who are strongly opposed to the NSA's surveillance programs. They didn't win. The election of Donald Trump should shatter any illusions that the political establishment has a stranglehold on power.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  >Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking) I disagree with that approach to framing terrorism because attacks are not just random violence, they are responses to the specific actions or perceived actions of individuals and governments. Charlie Hebdo and the various cartoonists that have drawn political comics of Mohammed, have (to my knowledge) all found themselves at the receiving end of terrorist attacks, or at least credible threats that require them to change their way of life. Thus there are now broad topics where we don't actually have the freedom of speech that technically exists on paper.
  - carbocation 10y ago
    I was careful not to call the attacks random. Rather, for any individual, it is unlikely that they will be involved in a terrorist attack. The Charlie Hebdo attacks are much more targeted (like an assassination), and seem qualitatively different from what people typically think of when terrorism comes to mind.
ekianjo 10y ago
Terrorism is a reaction to policies conducted in foreign lands for the most part. If one wants less of it, one has to reduce their agressive behavior overseas. This is true for the US but also France, the UK and the like.
rhizome 10y ago
Your conclusion adopts the myth that an ideology can be extinguished. By what standard will terrorism be judged to have ceased, and is that standard subject to change? If the line can be moved, then it will.[1] Pretty much anything can be reasoned in hindsight, and we have to have tools to undo the ratcheting effect that crisis responses have historically had on public policy. It's only through the devaluing of the public interest -- some might say freedom itself has been defined down over the years -- that there is no counterbalance to it being seen as "not a great political move." We have to invent a politics that can justify the tradeoff, and that it's not in existence yet (much), is something that authoritarians know. Heck, I guess we all know it, but there still has to be a way back, because what's the alternative? Maybe we're about to find out. 1. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_institutions http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_institutions

michaelvoz 10y ago

I agree with the title. However, a political opinion piece has no place on HN.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Sometimes politics and technology cannot be separated. This is much as technology issue as a policy issue.

tomludus 10y ago

One reason that leaders as diametrically opposed as Obama and Trump can be aligned on surveillance is simple: The majority of Americans don’t care. The reason why this keeps getting worse and worse.

boomboomsubban 10y ago
Partially, it's also that anyone strongly opposed to surveillance realistically can't get elected to high office. If you oppose the intelligence agencies, they have access to the data necessary to ruin you by leaking that your running mate had ECT or someone similar.
pitaj 10y ago
Just for future reference, please don't quote using the four-spaces code block. It can make it difficult to read on mobile, and often requires scrolling from side to side on desktop. Please, instead, use the `>` (meme arrow). While it does not add markup, it does make it significantly more readable. Thanks.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago
  > `>` (meme arrow) It's much older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting ...and it looks suspiciously similar to the "diple" used by ancient Greeks: http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/01/30/quotation_marks_long_and_fascinating_history_includes_arrows_diples_and.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/01/30/quotati...
  - pitaj 10y ago
    Oh I'm sure it is. I just called it that because it's funny.

dahart 10y ago

> Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed. Calling all engineers! We do have the power amongst ourselves to add technical impediments to surveillance to the services we're building, and to the internet as a whole. The technology exists to prevent surveillance, we just need to care, and to use it. Also keep in mind that net neutrality would be an automatic byproduct of an internet that prevents automatic surveillance. > “The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to ‘collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.’” This will never change, and I would go so far as to suggest it's even a reasonable position to take, from someone who's job it is to collect information for the government. What we need to do is make our internet usage unavailable to onlookers.

RA_Fisher 10y ago
Net neutrality by encryption seems like a much better idea than government imposed NN. It's optional and not one size fits all. Let's encrypt all the things!
- saalweachter 10y ago
  I take it you've never had WiFi drop your connection when you start using a VPN?
  - RA_Fisher 10y ago
    Yep, and then I switched to OpenVPN! :)

jbpetersen 10y ago

Mass surveillance in the digital age is a Pandora's box that's been opened. Without comprehensively putting extreme restrictions on what people can put online, there is only ever going to be an exponentially growing trove of data to mine that reveals implications far removed from whatever whoever made it available intended to communicate. While it may be possible to significantly cut back the amount of surveillance done on communications intended to be private, I think people need to accept that the automation of surveillance and of inferring likely connections from it are developments which irreversibly change how society functions going forward. What's more, technology has a very persistent tendency to become accessible to more people over time. I have yet to see any reasons this wouldn't be true specifically in the case of automated surveillance. Remember the story about someone trying facial recognition to tie pictures of strangers on the subway to VKontakte profiles? That's just a small taste of the implications. I think it's realistically possible to push back a large portion of the surveillance that invades private communications, likely by technological means more often than legal ones. And I think the article highlights that possibility, especially at a time when distrust in government is reaching a peak in America and elsewhere. That said, I'm waiting for the Pandora's box of wide access to powerful surveillance tools using publicly available information to be seen for what it is.

rayiner 10y ago

Between the inauguration and living in DC, all anyone can talk about lately is politics. So I've had the opportunity to probe a bunch of mainstream Democrats on this issue. The overwhelming response has been not caring (though many are more worried now that Trump is in the charge of the surveillance apparatus rather than Obama). Even to the extent people care, nobody cares enough to want to spend limited political capital on the issue. To the extent policy is necessarily subject to political compromise, privacy doesn't seem to even make the top 10 of issues Democrats are willing to fight for. It seems inevitable to me that the same generation that willingly hands over all their personal information to Google and Facebook, and sees government mostly as a positive force for enforcing civil rights and increasing social equality will embrace the expansion of the surveillance state.

treehau5 10y ago
> and sees government mostly as a positive force for enforcing civil rights and increasing social equality will embrace the expansion of the surveillance state. This isn't unique to the generation you talk about.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Millenials aren't unique in having those views, but are unique in that they'll be the ones running the country for the next 20-30 years.
  - cmurf 10y ago
    I think you mean in the next 20-30 years rather than for the next 20-30 years. At a federal level it is mainly baby boomers in charge. In state legislatures, gen X vs baby boom, varies a lot by state.
devoply 10y ago
In the managerial culture no one really cares about the rules, because they don't think the rules apply to them because they are not doing anything wrong and they are privileged. They understand that some people in the country are not privileged and those rules are for "them", not for "us". The only way to make them change their minds is if a lot of them become targets of the control apparatus and in liberal democracies that never happens. Democrats are afraid that Republicans are going to use the apparatus on them and vice versa. No one cares about the rule of law. In fact privilege has nothing to do with your actions, it has to do with who you are in relation to the government and those in power. Privilege can't really be taken away by new laws. Privilege can't even be given by new laws. Because the laws don't apply to those with privilege. It's possible to get privilege by doing what those in power want you to do and that's mostly act as they want you to act on their terms. Privilege is about power and control. It's nothing to be guilty about, because it's not something you did. It was something that was done for you.

BoringCode 10y ago

> (If you’re wondering what data the NSA collects, its own site[1] offers a list and this statement: “The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to ‘collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.’”) The linked site is a PARODY. There is no such thing as the Domestic Surveillance Directorate, that would be the FBI. How the author of this article fell for that, I don't know. [1] https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ https://nsa.gov1.info/data/

tomkin 10y ago

When Obama says that Snowden created serious security implications, do you think that's from a point of privilege, or simply placing ideology over practicality? Based on everything I know, both Obama and Snowden appear to be fairly authentic characters. It seems weird that they would have opposing view points. If we're to assume the best ideals are forged though intelligent reasoning and debate, shouldn't they have both concluded the same? Glenn Greenwald has proven himself to be less than authentic at times. If I could pass a criticism Snowden's way, it was who he went to, not what he did. Am I wrong to feel this way?

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Fairly authentic characters regularly have drastically diverse viewpoints. For instance, Republicans and Democrats. Parties on both sides have fairly authentic views[1] on various moral points, that end in very, very different opinions. And no amount of intelligent reasoning or debate will bring either party closer to the other. [1]Both parties ALSO have fairly unauthentic views, on how they will in fact, happily sell us out to a corporation for a side gig when they leave office. But they tell us they won't and that's shameful to even suggest that's what they're doing.
lern_too_spel 10y ago
How about the South China Morning Post, whom Snowden also provided with classified information? Does that also merely call into question merely whom he went to, not what he did?

stordoff 10y ago

I agree with the main point of the article, but feel like it undermines itself in a couple of ways. Firstly (and by far most importantly), the alleged quote from the NSA[1] comes from a parody site which explicitly states "[t]his parody website has no connection whatsoever to the National Security Agency"[2]. If a reader isn't already convinced of the potential harms of mass surveillance, (accidentally, presumably) using such quotes makes the arguments easier to discard. Secondly, and this is more of a pet peeve of mine, is the "top highlight" that appears mid-way through the article. I know they aren't really comparable, but "mass surveillance is bad, but, by the way, we are totally tracking every interaction you make with this article" doesn't feel like a particularly consistent position to hold. [1] > The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to 'collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.', per https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ https://nsa.gov1.info/data/ [2] https://nsa.gov1.info/about/about.html https://nsa.gov1.info/about/about.html

Mendenhall 10y ago

The average citizen doesnt know or care, and in this day and age many would trade "freedom" for what they think will give them "security". This story is already over.

saycheese 10y ago
Saying changing is not possible is unreasonable; see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13459166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13459166

saycheese 10y ago

Please stop pointing fingers at the American "government" and realize that the issue is really the average American. The US public has had over 10 years to figure it out, blaming the government is just causing more problems, not less; to understand why it's been 10 years, Google "Room 641A", which was exposed in 2006. Sure, there are people in America that are opposed to mass surveillance, but the bulk of Americans willfully allow it. If you think the issue is important, do me a favor: find 10 people next week that do not believe it is an issue, help them see it is, and get them to the point that they want to help do the same thing you just did the following week. Even if only 5 of the 10 people go on to do the same the week after, if that pattern went on for a year, by the end of the year mass surveillance would no longer exist; happy to explain, but math is a basic viral coefficient[1]; that is if only one person reading this did it and succeed, which would mean in less than three months the majority of the US would have been "converted" to supporting change. [1] http://nichevertising.com/viral-coefficient-calculator/ http://nichevertising.com/viral-coefficient-calculator/

westoncb 10y ago
I think this is a great idea, and I may give it a go. If you are initiating anything else like this, though, I'd make one suggestion: we need some materials that can be honed in their effectiveness in communicating the danger, as what has been done to make it a reality so far. It's a complex issue, and most ad hoc attempts to explain it to a random person will end in disinterest on their part. Seems like one wiki page for techies and one for non would be a decent approach. For the most part, it would be best to have potential teachers use the resources on the wiki rather than students—but they could hold a repository of illuminating examples, analogies etc. until effective approaches for communicating to each audience type stabilize. Edit: probably the main benefit of this isn't making teachers more effective, but rather that it would make it easier for potential teachers to get on board. As it stands I'd need to go do a bunch more research and collect specific figures personally before I'd feel prepared to teach anyone.
pitaj 10y ago
I heard about that on PBS NOVA of all things. It was kinda scary.

nope40756 10y ago

The article cites data collection methods by linking to https://nsa.gov1.info https://nsa.gov1.info That site describes itself in its footer as "a parody of nsa.gov" Don't believe everything you read.

nope40756 10y ago

The article cites the NSA's data collection methods by linking to https://nsa.gov1.info https://nsa.gov1.info This site describes itself as "a parody of nsa.gov" in the footer of every page. Don't believe everything you read.

EGreg 10y ago

Once again, why do we need to store these files "in the cloud"? Why do signals need to go to California so that two people in an Indian village can talk to each other? Email, IRC, the Web, Git, IPFS and many others don't have to work that way. The world of always-on broadband ruined what was a great software ecosystem that didn't assume you were either "online" or "offline", but cared whether one machine was reachable from another machine. Broadband led to centralized platforms like facebook. Now that the bulk of our most valuable “papers and effects” are online, they are vulnerable to being tracked and searched by the NSA without the agency ever securing a warrant, asking our permission, or leaving a trace. That can to a great extent be mitigated if there was software for communities to host their own private networks, and only send signals out when necessary. The way the original telephone switching worked. Communities would be more resilient, too, and could help each other in the event of a disaster. We should decentralize cellphone signals and power generation eventually too. Our platform is an attempt to make a standard platform for such decentralized social networks: https://qbix.com/platform https://qbix.com/platform

dirkg 10y ago

These articles are just wishful fantasy. Our history has shown that people are perfectly willing and happy to tolerate any form of govt abuse as long as they get their dose of reality tv and 'justifications' from mass media, all you need to do is mention the T word and 'keep America great' and you can do whatever you want. Even if people cared, which they don't, the govt has zero incentive to actually do anything, because increased surveillance gives them more power and more power to abuse the system.

Fricken 10y ago
America already has all the power to abuse the system. They have a standing military. The reason the government is the government is because they maintain a monopoly on violence. Freaking out about surveillance is like freaking out about the compass in Rambo's survival knife when he's got a rocket launcher aimed down your throat. The compass is new I suppose. The rocket launcher has been there so long we don't even notice it any more. Whether or not the government abuses it's powers is strictly a matter of whether or not it feels like abusing it's powers. With or without trendy new surveillance capabilities, the logic of that doesn't change. Why this isn't obvious is beyond me.
- slarrick 10y ago
  Honestly, I do not disagree. In some ways I imagine that mass surveillance may even be necessary for the protection of the country, considering the potential for destruction that even a few people with the right technology and planning possess. Following your logic, it seems that the mass surveillance maybe has more potential to help than to hurt (since the govt already possesses plenty of resources for destruction). Given how many people on here are adamant about anti-surveillance I feel like I must be missing something... like I get the overall premise but it seems to exclude a lot of important considerations...

battlebot 10y ago

This is a thinly-veiled "Bash Trump" article. It is purely speculative what the Trump administration will do at this point. Obama was shitty on civil liberties, Bush was the one who caused us so much harm to begin with. But if we want privacy then we have to fight to get it back the same way Americans are fighting to get back their full 2nd Amendment rights. It can be done, but this stupid, petty, left vs. right false dichotomy has to end--there are only statists and individualists, that's all there is. You have those want to coerce and those who want to be free.

mirimir 10y ago
So Mike Pompeo won't be CIA Director?

arzt 10y ago

For any constitutional law experts: have there been any efforts to amend the 4th amendment to explicitly take into consideration private information held by third parties (ie abrogate FISA)?

saycheese 10y ago
Constitutional amendments are very hard to do, and in the context of mass surveillance, highly unlikely without the public demanding in as a majority.

coldcode 10y ago

Trumps stance on the intelligence community might be a good thing, as they all leave leaving the government with a desire but no experienced people to do the work. Of course that also leaves us wide open to be attacked. So maybe this causes a reset of sorts.

saycheese 10y ago
Clearly you don't understand Trump, he's just positioning himself with the intelligence community; as far as I am able to tell, his first visit to a government agency was to the CIA headquarters.

jwatte 10y ago

It is basically impossible to hide yourself if you want to take part of society. Just standing there, you send out information about yourself body posture, dandruff, IR signature, ...) Therefore, it is much more important to make sure we have full insight into those who have power. Sunlight is an effective disinfectant!

erikpukinskis 10y ago

I think "presumption of privacy" is going away. The next generation will see bubbles of privacy as something you can create, by force, not something guaranteed by societal norms. Frankly, I am a little surprised when I see other technologists advocating for governmental/corporate/societal reform of privacy-respecting practices. It seems like a losing battle to me. We are headed toward a time when you can buy a $100 vial of drone dust at Best Buy, dump it into the air, and 30 minutes later have a live 3D video feed in every window within a 5 mile radius. Maybe it will take 100 years, but every year between now and then will be a shade closer to that reality. Even if we could get strongly worded laws from Congress, I just don't see that stopping bad actors, inside government or out. It feels a little bit like bow-and-arrow culture trying to legislate that government agents shouldn't be allowed to use these new "gun" things. You can to legislate, but bigger forces are afoot. The physics of information is changing very fast.