8 ms·

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on thei

• davisr 7y ago
  The most important thing one can do is write, AND call, their legislature. Don't ever shut up about it. Does it stand a chance against corporate lobbyists? Probably not, but it leaves one with a clear conscience.
  • netsharc 7y ago
    Seems weak.. "well, I did all I can.". Look at Hong Kong at the moment; the youth seems to be going all-in with their protests. What is their goal and can they achieve it? Forcing a regime change seems impossible, but who knows. Meanwhile, Mueller is finished, Trump is still president, and Pelosi is the 2019 version of Chamberlain...
    • cmurf 7y ago
      Pelosi is appeasing a dictator? The current POTUS can't get enough of blowing kisses to the world's dictators.
    • dang 7y ago
      Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • ultrarunner 7y ago
    I don’t think that sending a sternly written letter should have any bearing on one’s conscious. I upvoted GP, but on the same note I know there is nothing we can do at this point against a powerful bureaucracy with a lot of ideological and financial incentive to proceed. That this has continued and accelerated under multiple administrations with varied talking points should tell you everything you need to know about the power of the modern vote at this level.
    • wallace_f 7y ago
      That's sad. So why even have kids, or go to work?
      • ultrarunner 7y ago
        Being sad does not make it untrue. Indeed, many political problems seem to stem from an unwillingness to grapple with truths that make people uncomfortable. I’m not sure why you think an unaccountable political regime relates to children and work— there are plenty of obvious and unrelated answers as to why people do those things.
  • aaronbrethorst 7y ago
    Or your city council. I got a personal reply from one of my council members this morning in response to an email I sent based on this: https://www.seattleindivisible.com/daily-actions/2019/8/1/no-police-partnerships-on-facial-recognition-in-seattle https://www.seattleindivisible.com/daily-actions/2019/8/1/no... She promised to investigate and follow up on a policy front. Good use of two minutes of my time.
  • anigbrowl 7y ago
    The most important thing you can do is put your body in the way of the machine. Sure, writing persuasive letters is good, but what actually moves the needle is showing up at public meetings, making noise, engaging in civil disobedience, and risking arrest or worse. Reasoned argument is unfortunately not an effective political lever unless you have some sort of power (eg political, financial, military) with which to bear down upon it.
• craftyguy 7y ago
  The vast majority of the comments on 'hacker' 'news' are either anecdotes based on the title or nitpicking the title. Since no one has any anecdotes to argue about and the title is pretty straight forward, there are very few comments here.
• sam0x17 7y ago
  I agree, but all of that said, the surveillance state is much much worse right now in Britain, so I'm told.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• davidw 7y ago
  > There is no way to opt-out of this. I can't believe how stupid the "Hacker" "News" community is--commenting on things that don't matter, then shutting up for matters of grave importance. There are a lot of people here who take these concerns extremely seriously, and are working to fix things. But they may not post much about it on Hacker news, because not every site needs to be political, even if it's far, far more important right now than most of the content here.
  • jimktrains2 7y ago
    Surveillance isn't a political issue, or maybe rather, like drinking water standards, it need or should not be a toxic political issue.
    • tehjoker 7y ago
      Unfortunately, any issue where there are different groups that want different things is a political issue. Newbies to politics often feel that there are some things that transcend politics but there's a kind of dual answer to that. The things that transcend politics are your values - the things that you will fight for and the tender feelings you ascribe to the state of the world. However, when you want to make them reality, you must find alliances and ways to pressure opposing groups to make them materialize in the real world.
    • anigbrowl 7y ago
      Surveillance isn't a political issue How could it not be
• sambull 7y ago
  Technically we tested them on Iraq and Afghanistan. Guess it's our turn.
• tlb 7y ago
  The fact that people haven't commented "this is bad" doesn't mean lots of people don't think it's bad. But such comments don't change anything, and the site guidelines specifically discourage them because they just add noise. Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.
  • state_less 7y ago
    I've said the obvious before, but technology is going to make mass surveillance relatively easy. Natural protections are no more. We have to reaffirm our liberties and not tolerate unreasonable search. Also, let's cut out the criminality when it comes to drugs. The rationality this rests on can be chopped out from under it if we just regulate the drug industry better. Give drug users the drugs with limitations, which is better than having them served via some barbarous criminal enterprise.
    • iscrewyou 7y ago
      Seriously. The constitution must stay general. We can’t let them narrow down our rights.
    • turk73 7y ago
      The only way to do what you suggest is...you know. That's the only thing that will roll it back even a little. I'm available whenever, but I have no misconceptions about how brutal it will be. Just locally where I live I've watched the total state moving forward. Police are moving in unmarked/low marked vehicles a la Gestapo, intersections all suddenly have cameras, I've read articles about how LE have tracked people via their cell phones--there is a "digital fence" that the police automatically get notified if someone prohibited enters with their phone. Is that not total surveillance state? When you can't even move around without someone tracking you? Granted, they can turn off the phone or put it in a Faraday bag, but the point is, we should not have to! Slippery slope may be a fallacy, but damn, it sure doesn't seem like it when all the dots start getting connected. I'm not on board with any of it. I am not some kind of serf, peon, or resource to be exploited. If some shit has to burn down to make that point, well, that's what will have to happen.
• Waterluvian 7y ago
  It's even worse for us non Americans. American public is generally more okay letting us get tested on. And we don't get to vote against it.
  • Tharkun 7y ago
    Yup. Apparently it's fine to spy on everyone else, everywhere else. Just not on US soil. Wiretapping everyone's communications, forcing SWIFT to forward details of everyone's bank transactions to the NSA. Because apparently the 7 billion non-Americans are all potential terrorists or some such nonsense.
    • acollins1331 7y ago
      Our continuous spying and surveillance of non Americans is the perfect answer to the naysayers that argue the government wouldn't spy on us if it could. It literally does everything it can to fuck everyone over it isn't legally not allowed to fuck.
• imglorp 7y ago
  Dayton OH tried this crap with Persistent Surveillance Systems equipment that's basically a time machine: a high altitude camera that photographs the whole city and lets you follow a vehicle forward or backward in time, inferring meeting places, routes, etc. The outcry that arose cancelled the project. So yes, protest works! https://www.acluohio.org/archives/issue-information/warrantless-aerial-surveillance-in-dayton https://www.acluohio.org/archives/issue-information/warrantl... The one over Baltimore is JLENS by Raytheon: that didn't get struck down because it was never put to a vote; it was privately funded. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/15/baltimore-surveillance-john-laura-arnold-billionaires https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/15/baltimore-surv... https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/08/19/another-surveillance-blimp-launches-over-baltimore-jlens-aberdeen/ https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/08/19/another-surveillan...
  • jcims 7y ago
    There’s an excellent RadioLab episode about Persistent Surveillance. The anti-crime powers it brings to a city are compelling, only overshadowed by the powers for abuse. Worth a listen IMHO: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/eye-sky https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/eye-sky
    • eddyg 7y ago
      Being able to back-track in time after a violent crime has been committed is a fantastic application of this technology.
      • noir_lord 7y ago
        Being able to back-track in time after a (legal) protest has been committed is a horrific application of this technology. This is one of those "We should discuss the upside/downside before doing it" subjects. I mean if you want to radically increase safety, just shove everyone into an 8'x12' padded box.
  • aero142 7y ago
    The tech here is so good I don’t believe it went away. I just think it will exist in secret and only used when they really need to. We will get a snowden style leak about it in 10 years.
• uponcoffee 7y ago
  There are other people that aren't Americans on the net. That aside, what are you doing to oppose this? People may not be commenting because they dont know how to go about stopping it or simply don't think it can be stopped; leading by example is more powerful than an appeal to pathos.
• deelowe 7y ago
  Wtf are you doing about it? Commenting on hackernews ain't solving anything.
• m3kw9 7y ago
  You only complain when you notice something? Satilite with cameras has been around forever
• aeneasmackenzie 7y ago
  >testing It's been tested, look up gorgon stare.
• foobarbecue 7y ago
  "I don't comment much but you lot are going to hell because you don't comment"...?
• pizzazzaro 7y ago
  Alright then. What do you recommend we do about it? Honestly. You've got the top comment on a top-10 topic. The floor is yours. What do you want to say? This is why I hate the Occupy movement - congrats, you've raised awareness. Now what? Remember - we've already got https://concentrationcamps.us https://concentrationcamps.us - and the same agency has enough fentanyl stockpiled (admittedly, it is hard to break down) to execute each person in the US 2.5x over. This is looking less and less like coincidence that Donny Drumpf had "Mein Kampf" by his bedside. Come on comrade. Where do we meet to discuss it privately? Is there more to be done than "call your senator" or such? Keep tabs with RTL-SDRs? Launch improvised drones with hand-to-hand combat tech and solar panels? Or shall we don the tinfoil hats of our forefathers, adorn them with IR-LEDs, and watch the world end in an every-hacker-for-theirself cluserfuck? I'd really rather this world and humanity go on, rather than make our climate, our country, our freedom untenable. But its not up to just me. It takes a team to do much of anything worth doing - and our culture isolates us rather neatly. So what'll it be comrade? If you wanna "meet for discussion" on some no-logging, private means of discussion, I'm in. Make sure to use a semi-private mid-layer meetpoint to gather, and point the team to somewhere even more private. If there's any dox involved in signing up for any of it, you're doing it wrong. So, where's the first meet? And the vetting?
• cmroanirgo 7y ago
  Comment more
• resters 7y ago
  > I can't believe how stupid the "Hacker" "News" community is--commenting on things that don't matter, then shutting up for matters of grave importance. Topics like mass surveillance are considered by HN moderators to be "political" and any commentary about them is considered the equivalent of graffiti that defaces the site for everyone else. As hackers we have a social responsibility to participate in important political issues that we have insight about. People's political beliefs are typically quite different when the issue is something they actually know about. Most HN content is technology focused and so there is (in my opinion) a desirable kind of political discussion that is backed up by experience and knowledge. Surely one of the mods will chime in that my comment is a flame, which is their special word for comments that discuss content they wish to censor. My comments are always polite and respectful, so obviously the issue is content and not tone. > ... this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. HN is becoming the sort of benign, bland environment the mods want it to be.
  • rashkov 7y ago
    I would guess that surveillance gets discussed here almost daily, and most readers are probably familiar with why it’s bad and that we should oppose it and write our legislators and etc. Parent poster’s comment - a call to arms - is almost free of novel content, and we can find similar comments at the top of our newsfeeds on every other social network and forum. The next highest post in this comments section, written by Apo about the dynamics of the falling costs of surveillance and the tendency for states to slide towards authoritarianism, is an example of the kind of insightful and thought provoking comment that I come to hacker news for. This thread that we’re all commenting on is a red blooded, knee jerk reaction fest by comparison. Of course it’s important that we get angry about surveillance and inspire others to be activists about it, I just don’t think that it makes for an interesting or unique discussion. We can get that on any news site and social network. By contrast, hacker news’ moderated discussion can shift your worldview and provide useful points of debate, and a wide perspective that you can bring back to the world. With that in hand we can get a lot further by fighting smarter and more strategically. I’ll take hacker news’ gentle discussion guidelines over red blooded calls to action any day, because honestly the internet is already full of those, and there aren’t enough discussion spaces like hacker news.
• auslander 7y ago
  > then shutting up for matters of grave importance. You all deserve the tyranny that is coming. Rather than whining online about surveillance, it is more effective to build your personal defences and do your research on OPSEC. It is perpetual cat and mouse game.
• cmurf 7y ago
  The guidelines literally consider politics contrary to intellectual curiosity, and in the category of cat photos and disaster videos. As someone who studied political science in school, it's an abomination of a guideline. The mixing of ideology, politics, and technology is obvious, and the ensuing conflicts are inevitable, and HN guidelines say take it elsewhere, this is not the place for those conversations. Meanwhile, objective trash ends up on the front page all the time, and stories involving technology used to subvert human freedom routinely gets rank demoted contrary to the HN community's votes. So I think it's possible your complaint is really not with the community but with the guidelines. If people don't care for an article, they don't have to vote for it. If people don't like heated debates, they don't have to participate in them. But the guidelines make that decision for the community.
• root_axis 7y ago
  lol, suggesting that people are worthy of tyranny based on comment ratios is about as quintessential HN filter-bubble as I can imagine. Comment ratios mean absolutely nothing, especially a single cherry-picked example in a swamp of front-page posts.
• tehjoker 7y ago
  Maybe you already are, but if that's how you feel... organize! People must speak to each other about their problems in person, debate what is to be done, and work towards implementing it. That's politics away from the spectacle of television and social media.