4 ms·

I'm curious at what point people decide that the government spying on them begins to be ok? How does the average person feel about the following: 1. A spouse g

I'm curious at what point people decide that the government spying on them begins to be ok? How does the average person feel about the following: 1. A spouse going through your cell phone without your knowledge 2. A landlord requiring cameras in all rooms of your house to catch potential property destruction 3. A boss logging all computer activity at all times I'd imagine the average person would be pretty pissed about all of the above. At some point though, when it gets scaled up to the federal government effectively having the power to go through anybody's phone records, cloud data, email, search history, and now surveillance cameras, a lot of people seem to be okay with that, because terrorism. Terrorism is bad, but police states are worse, because at that point the government becomes the terrorist. If you're that afraid of terrorists that you're willing to give the government the power to spy on you (which is not even guaranteed to prevent terror attacks), maybe you should move to a rural location far away from any population center. Otherwise, it should be treated like any other crime. Perhaps we should think about why people become terrorists in the first place, and maybe get at the root of the problem, instead of increasing police power endlessly to try to solve the symptom and not the cure.

pjmlp 8y ago
As someone from the first generation to live in democracy after 41 years of dictatorship, I would say people ignore the signs and when they finally decide to start taking action is too late.
Qwertious 8y ago
All three of those examples are one person asking for themselves to be granted access to your private info. They're not really any less personal. To some extent, I'm just describing separation of powers, but there's also a difference between an individual with motives, and an organisation. A better example might be an exec passing a policy requiring HR to have permission to see your X.

pjmlp 8y ago

As someone from the first generation to live in democracy after 41 years of dictatorship, I would say people ignore the signs and when they finally decide to start taking action is too late.

Qwertious 8y ago

All three of those examples are one person asking for themselves to be granted access to your private info. They're not really any less personal. To some extent, I'm just describing separation of powers, but there's also a difference between an individual with motives, and an organisation. A better example might be an exec passing a policy requiring HR to have permission to see your X.