4 ms·

> I wonder how we, the people, can protect our democratic systems from these dangers? Stop trading freedom for security? Politicians will always tantalize you

by umvi 7y ago

> I wonder how we, the people, can protect our democratic systems from these dangers? Stop trading freedom for security? Politicians will always tantalize you by proposing you <limit guns, limit speech, limit privacy, etc.> for <fewer deaths, fewer suicides, fewer terrorists, etc.> but if you let it go forever, you'll find all your freedoms have been traded for safety.

Bartweiss 7y ago
I'm always worried about discouraging people with the pessimistic view here, but it's not actually clear to me that we have a choice in that matter. Most innocently, because the number of people worried about this remains relatively low, and regularly gets overwhelmed by other groups. That's how democracy works, obviously, but it alarms me because privacy is a partially unrecoverable resource; even if people organize and win, a great deal of damage may have been done. More cynically, though, because it feels like many of our democratic systems don't work on this problem. By its own admission, the CIA violated its charter - and in many cases federal law - numerous times from the 1950s to 1970s. These events were documented internally in 1973, but no one appears to have faced consequences, and the "Family Jewels" weren't publicly released until 2007. Also in the 1970s, the Church Committee concluded that the NSA had conducted illegal surveillance, failed to shut it down when instructed to do so, and then followed up by lying to Congress about the entire mess. It also concluded that no one could be prosecuted for this, essentially because the tracks had been covered too well to convict any specific individual. The history of other Five Eyes nations in not substantially more comforting, as a look at e.g. UK practice in Northern Ireland will testify. Today, the state of privacy law in the US isn't even known, because much of it is decided in secret court hearings with no one but the government present. National Security Letters help ensure that the public can't object to state surveillance by forcing private citizens to keep it secret, and interfering with basic access to counsel for the recipients. James Clapper gave testimony to Congress that was prima facie perjury, for which he faced no consequences. The list goes on at enormous and alarming length. I don't know what we do about this. Voting for candidates who oppose war and surveillance is good, but they generally perform poorly, the ones who do well often seem to reverse course after election, and the ones who follow through (like Wyden and Udall) are frequently stonewalled and outright lied to by intelligence services. It feels alarmingly like we've created a surveillance system which operates independent of any democratic decisionmaking, and no longer know how to walk it back.
- tro7ghor4 7y ago
  The US intelligence services do not operate within the law, clearly. They are not beholden to the people they pledge to serve because their pledges are lies. Their public statements are lies. Regular people tolerate the erosion of their freedoms because the process is slow and subtle (and because they are made to fear). Meanwhile, news sources blast our brains with the well-chewed topic du jour to distract from the tragic reality of the global US-led pursuit of absolute power they call "defense". These people are not voted into office. They rise in rank by repeatedly demonstrating willingness to carry out orders without question or moral objection. Real power is achieved by the systematic extermination of human compassion. Every new technology they build and release to the public is another tool in their arsenal. It is all a con. There is a comprehensive historical record of the iniquities perpetrated by agencies like the CIA, and even more clues of their involvement in all manner of pure evil, yet we collectively operate as if this were untrue. These criminial organizations destroy cultures the world over. The surveillance system is expanding at an exponential pace. It will soon overtake everything we once held sacred or private, and we are being trained to accept it. We are slipping into a new paradigm where everyone is plugged in all the time, or not plugged in, but bathed mind and body in the radiative probes of a thousand wireless devices. The world is being infiltrated by forces that seek to undermine creative thought, to create a an emaciated drone army of egoist technoslaves. There is no democracy. Can you prove that your vote counts or is faith in the system good enough? For many people, money is just a number on a screen. Your entire livelihood is based on what that number on the screen is. There is no guarantee that your number is safe. The fork in the road is coming fast and we have two choices. Expose and destroy the slime or go to sleep in a virtual reality forever.
soraminazuki 7y ago
I agree that free speech and privacy is of utmost importance in a democratic society. But gun ownership? No. What value does a gun have for the general population, provided it can't be used for any other purpose besides killing people? When it comes to gun control, there simply is no tradeoff between freedom and security unless the right to kill people is a widely accepted right.
- subarp 7y ago
  That's the only way to protect freedoms. Well, the only other option is everybody agrees to disarm themselves: no more guns, nukes, warships, military complexes. But people aren't that nice and if you want to disarm yourself, do that, but beware that corrupt politicians won't join you and you'll be left alone, nice, peaceful and toothless next to an armed to teeth and corrupt government.
  - soraminazuki 7y ago
    Even corrupt governments won't be able to operate without some level of support from its citizens. I doubt gun control is relevant here. Besides, if firearms can stop government corruption, how come police violence is still a thing in the US? If citizens can overpower the military with firearms, they should at least be able to overpower corrupt cops.
    - subarp 7y ago
      If I was a politican, I'd prefer 100M votes backed with firearms than 100M votes backed with nothing.

by umvi 7y ago

Bartweiss 7y ago

I'm always worried about discouraging people with the pessimistic view here, but it's not actually clear to me that we have a choice in that matter. Most innocently, because the number of people worried about this remains relatively low, and regularly gets overwhelmed by other groups. That's how democracy works, obviously, but it alarms me because privacy is a partially unrecoverable resource; even if people organize and win, a great deal of damage may have been done. More cynically, though, because it feels like many of our democratic systems don't work on this problem. By its own admission, the CIA violated its charter - and in many cases federal law - numerous times from the 1950s to 1970s. These events were documented internally in 1973, but no one appears to have faced consequences, and the "Family Jewels" weren't publicly released until 2007. Also in the 1970s, the Church Committee concluded that the NSA had conducted illegal surveillance, failed to shut it down when instructed to do so, and then followed up by lying to Congress about the entire mess. It also concluded that no one could be prosecuted for this, essentially because the tracks had been covered too well to convict any specific individual. The history of other Five Eyes nations in not substantially more comforting, as a look at e.g. UK practice in Northern Ireland will testify. Today, the state of privacy law in the US isn't even known, because much of it is decided in secret court hearings with no one but the government present. National Security Letters help ensure that the public can't object to state surveillance by forcing private citizens to keep it secret, and interfering with basic access to counsel for the recipients. James Clapper gave testimony to Congress that was prima facie perjury, for which he faced no consequences. The list goes on at enormous and alarming length. I don't know what we do about this. Voting for candidates who oppose war and surveillance is good, but they generally perform poorly, the ones who do well often seem to reverse course after election, and the ones who follow through (like Wyden and Udall) are frequently stonewalled and outright lied to by intelligence services. It feels alarmingly like we've created a surveillance system which operates independent of any democratic decisionmaking, and no longer know how to walk it back.

tro7ghor4 7y ago
The US intelligence services do not operate within the law, clearly. They are not beholden to the people they pledge to serve because their pledges are lies. Their public statements are lies. Regular people tolerate the erosion of their freedoms because the process is slow and subtle (and because they are made to fear). Meanwhile, news sources blast our brains with the well-chewed topic du jour to distract from the tragic reality of the global US-led pursuit of absolute power they call "defense". These people are not voted into office. They rise in rank by repeatedly demonstrating willingness to carry out orders without question or moral objection. Real power is achieved by the systematic extermination of human compassion. Every new technology they build and release to the public is another tool in their arsenal. It is all a con. There is a comprehensive historical record of the iniquities perpetrated by agencies like the CIA, and even more clues of their involvement in all manner of pure evil, yet we collectively operate as if this were untrue. These criminial organizations destroy cultures the world over. The surveillance system is expanding at an exponential pace. It will soon overtake everything we once held sacred or private, and we are being trained to accept it. We are slipping into a new paradigm where everyone is plugged in all the time, or not plugged in, but bathed mind and body in the radiative probes of a thousand wireless devices. The world is being infiltrated by forces that seek to undermine creative thought, to create a an emaciated drone army of egoist technoslaves. There is no democracy. Can you prove that your vote counts or is faith in the system good enough? For many people, money is just a number on a screen. Your entire livelihood is based on what that number on the screen is. There is no guarantee that your number is safe. The fork in the road is coming fast and we have two choices. Expose and destroy the slime or go to sleep in a virtual reality forever.

soraminazuki 7y ago

I agree that free speech and privacy is of utmost importance in a democratic society. But gun ownership? No. What value does a gun have for the general population, provided it can't be used for any other purpose besides killing people? When it comes to gun control, there simply is no tradeoff between freedom and security unless the right to kill people is a widely accepted right.

subarp 7y ago
That's the only way to protect freedoms. Well, the only other option is everybody agrees to disarm themselves: no more guns, nukes, warships, military complexes. But people aren't that nice and if you want to disarm yourself, do that, but beware that corrupt politicians won't join you and you'll be left alone, nice, peaceful and toothless next to an armed to teeth and corrupt government.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  Even corrupt governments won't be able to operate without some level of support from its citizens. I doubt gun control is relevant here. Besides, if firearms can stop government corruption, how come police violence is still a thing in the US? If citizens can overpower the military with firearms, they should at least be able to overpower corrupt cops.
  - subarp 7y ago
    If I was a politican, I'd prefer 100M votes backed with firearms than 100M votes backed with nothing.