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Trump's election should really have been the last nail in the coffin on this kind of stuff, at least in the US. Either you hate him (and thus don't want him or

by rdl 9y ago

Trump's election should really have been the last nail in the coffin on this kind of stuff, at least in the US. Either you hate him (and thus don't want him or anyone like him in the future to have this kind of access), or you love him and don't want anyone who hates him to ever gain this kind of access. A polarizing political figure should erode trust in unrestrained state power unless you believe he's the last President ever.

akatechis 9y ago
Trump did nothing wrong.
jacquesm 9y ago
> A polarizing political figure should erode trust in unrestrained state power unless you believe he's the last President ever. How big a percentage of the electorate would back canceling the next election cycle?
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  From my casual observations and conversations with people, I would guess 20% would at least support postponing the next election cycle purely on the basis of “voter fraud” conspiracy nonsense that Fox News et al peddle.
- rdl 9y ago
  That to me seems like the biggest problem with parliamentary systems (which have many other advantages, especially for new parties, local constituencies, etc.). Unless there's a sovereign, or some other system, it's often left up to the sitting government to decide when elections will be called.
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    That's not true for most parliamentary systems. In fact it's only customary in the UK to arbitrarily call elections when poll numbers are up. But even in the UK, there is obviously a maximum term between elections. And calling elections without reason isn't actually possible anymore. Theresa May had to jump through some hoops to almost lose her majority last summer. In the US, a president who leaves office before the expiration of their term is replaced by the Vice President (or the next in the line of succession if there is no Vice President). In Germany, a chancellor can only recalled by electing a replacement. If they resign or die, the President gets to make a few decision, and they will usually task the leader of the largest party to find themselves a majority. Only after two or three failures of that process would a President turn to early elections.
- mcintyre1994 9y ago
  I'm not sure what the current number is (not sure it's ever been polled), but there was a pretty well reported poll that said just over half of Republicans would back a delay if Trump said one was necessary. Seems that it was a Washington's Post poll: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/10/in-a-new-poll-half-of-republicans-say-they-would-support-postponing-the-2020-election-if-trump-proposed-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/1...
time0ut 9y ago
People shouldn't have trust in unrestrained state power regardless of how kind and gentle those in power have been or are likely to be. Maybe Trump's election made more people realize this, but hopefully most people who bother to think about such things realized it to begin with.
jurt3 9y ago
I don't see it. There is always a case for privacy. But if people consider the presidency corrupt it would probably be a good idea to grant the judicial branch more power. Because secrecy doesn't protect you against a sufficiently corrupt government, it protects the government from you.
- aqme28 9y ago
  > secrecy doesn't protect you against a sufficiently corrupt government, it protects the government from you. I don't understand this. How does privacy/anonymity not protect you from a corrupt government?
  - rdl 9y ago
    Also I rarely have seen any government system installed in such a way that some kind of lawful intercept mechanism would be required to circumvent their internal controls; they almost always are set up in standard boring enterprise way where an admin user can easily access anything, reset any credential, etc. I have seen systems where people forgot the admin credentials or lost access to the admins, but even in those systems there were easy backdoors with physical access. There are some systems designed to protect keys and admin access from lower tier admins (for crypto fill, etc), but with those they are generally not archival, just transport security, and there are ways to downgrade or replace keys on request. The judiciary also doesn’t in practice have any real ability to do things to the executive without cooperation of parts of the executive; if we had some insane civil war type situation where a federal judge wanted to enforce an order against the executive, it would be basically impossible to do so without some support of the executive (or an external force, like a state national guard). This isn’t how it should be, but probably was like this within a decade of the constitution’s ratification and has gotten more so with time.
    - jurt3 9y ago
      I guess it wouldn't necessarily be the judiciary. What I am getting at is that what enables you to run a conspiracy against the government also enables them to run a conspiracy against you. When journalists starts ending up dead, like in Malta or Slovakia, you want to be able to unravel any connection the murderers had to political figures and not end up with a bunch of dead ends consisting of encrypted communication and currency. How to actually solve that in a good way is up for debate though.
r00fus 9y ago
Many people still support Trump. Trump campaign supported Government demanding Apple to bake in a backdoor in their OS. How do you think the 2016 election is any sort of last straw?

by rdl 9y ago

akatechis 9y ago

Trump did nothing wrong.

jacquesm 9y ago

> A polarizing political figure should erode trust in unrestrained state power unless you believe he's the last President ever. How big a percentage of the electorate would back canceling the next election cycle?

enraged_camel 9y ago
From my casual observations and conversations with people, I would guess 20% would at least support postponing the next election cycle purely on the basis of “voter fraud” conspiracy nonsense that Fox News et al peddle.
rdl 9y ago
That to me seems like the biggest problem with parliamentary systems (which have many other advantages, especially for new parties, local constituencies, etc.). Unless there's a sovereign, or some other system, it's often left up to the sitting government to decide when elections will be called.
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  That's not true for most parliamentary systems. In fact it's only customary in the UK to arbitrarily call elections when poll numbers are up. But even in the UK, there is obviously a maximum term between elections. And calling elections without reason isn't actually possible anymore. Theresa May had to jump through some hoops to almost lose her majority last summer. In the US, a president who leaves office before the expiration of their term is replaced by the Vice President (or the next in the line of succession if there is no Vice President). In Germany, a chancellor can only recalled by electing a replacement. If they resign or die, the President gets to make a few decision, and they will usually task the leader of the largest party to find themselves a majority. Only after two or three failures of that process would a President turn to early elections.
mcintyre1994 9y ago
I'm not sure what the current number is (not sure it's ever been polled), but there was a pretty well reported poll that said just over half of Republicans would back a delay if Trump said one was necessary. Seems that it was a Washington's Post poll: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/10/in-a-new-poll-half-of-republicans-say-they-would-support-postponing-the-2020-election-if-trump-proposed-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/1...

time0ut 9y ago

People shouldn't have trust in unrestrained state power regardless of how kind and gentle those in power have been or are likely to be. Maybe Trump's election made more people realize this, but hopefully most people who bother to think about such things realized it to begin with.

jurt3 9y ago

I don't see it. There is always a case for privacy. But if people consider the presidency corrupt it would probably be a good idea to grant the judicial branch more power. Because secrecy doesn't protect you against a sufficiently corrupt government, it protects the government from you.

aqme28 9y ago
> secrecy doesn't protect you against a sufficiently corrupt government, it protects the government from you. I don't understand this. How does privacy/anonymity not protect you from a corrupt government?
- rdl 9y ago
  Also I rarely have seen any government system installed in such a way that some kind of lawful intercept mechanism would be required to circumvent their internal controls; they almost always are set up in standard boring enterprise way where an admin user can easily access anything, reset any credential, etc. I have seen systems where people forgot the admin credentials or lost access to the admins, but even in those systems there were easy backdoors with physical access. There are some systems designed to protect keys and admin access from lower tier admins (for crypto fill, etc), but with those they are generally not archival, just transport security, and there are ways to downgrade or replace keys on request. The judiciary also doesn’t in practice have any real ability to do things to the executive without cooperation of parts of the executive; if we had some insane civil war type situation where a federal judge wanted to enforce an order against the executive, it would be basically impossible to do so without some support of the executive (or an external force, like a state national guard). This isn’t how it should be, but probably was like this within a decade of the constitution’s ratification and has gotten more so with time.
  - jurt3 9y ago
    I guess it wouldn't necessarily be the judiciary. What I am getting at is that what enables you to run a conspiracy against the government also enables them to run a conspiracy against you. When journalists starts ending up dead, like in Malta or Slovakia, you want to be able to unravel any connection the murderers had to political figures and not end up with a bunch of dead ends consisting of encrypted communication and currency. How to actually solve that in a good way is up for debate though.

r00fus 9y ago

Many people still support Trump. Trump campaign supported Government demanding Apple to bake in a backdoor in their OS. How do you think the 2016 election is any sort of last straw?