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Which Western country uses their military surveillance to decrease the security of its dissidents? I can't find such as case, while I can find many cases of sur

Which Western country uses their military surveillance to decrease the security of its dissidents? I can't find such as case, while I can find many cases of surveillance used to stop tragedy. Seems like military surveillance in the West is predominantly used correctly: to counter terrorism and illegal crime. Sharing military surveillance mitigation tricks is not unlike sharing 0-days against government systems, and can be seen as unethical and counterproductive: Military surveillance will try to improve their systems, and bad people will use it to avoid surveillance. It is too simplistic to deem any and all surveillance as inherently bad and invasive. No country can ensure the safety of its tax payers if it cripples their counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, border security, counterterrorism. People who deem national security as more important than individual security, or the security of anti-nation dissidents, or people living outside the legally approved modes, should be applauded. It is not very nice to decrease the security of me and my family to obtain an ideological goal.

iamnothere 7y ago
> military surveillance Who said anything about military surveillance? Why on earth would you jump to the conclusion that military surveillance is what we are discussion? Most government-run domestic surveillance likely comes from law enforcement and agencies with a domestic purview like Homeland Security. The NSA is the exception, of course. I would expect that even most privacy advocates wouldn't have a problem with surveillance that is a part of actual military operations. > It is not very nice to decrease the security of me and my family to obtain an ideological goal. That's your opinion. Ben Franklin and many others would disagree, and we have a Bill of Rights in place specifically to disallow this kind of tradeoff. If you want absolute security at any cost, Singapore is always an option.
int_19h 7y ago
Note how you have juxtaposed individual security with national security. But what is "national security", really? If it were the aggregate of individual security, then there would be no contradiction here - you achieve maximum national security by making everybody individually secure. That we see them as contradictory goals rather implies that "national security" is about something else. At which point I would say: yes, individual security is more important than "national security".
anigbrowl 7y ago
The UK has been flirting with declaring Extinction Rebellion (an environmental protest group with a preference for street theater) as an extremist group. The US did designate environmental and animal rights groups as terrorists in law back in the 90s.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I bet that Earth First was one of them. https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-field-guide-to-monkeywrenching/ https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-fie...
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I've only seen the designation applied to Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, but my understanding is that there's considerable overlap between the latter and Earth First. They're an interesting legal example in that both groups explicitly disavow the destruction of human life and targeted their efforts toward property destruction, which is rather at odds with the popular understanding of 'terrorism' as discussed herein. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf
bobbydroptables 7y ago
My comment was not limited to Western countries. Most people don't live in the West after all. If you're going to make a ridiculously overbroad statement like "surveillance increases security" then I hope you have some very strong evidence or else be ready for people like me to point out that not really true across the board at all. Do you have any evidence that surveillance of citizens increases national security? Even we you did, it's not clear that it's worth the trade-off in freedom. And even then, that is irrelevant for what we're talking about, which is whether a given individual would benefit from submitting to the surveillance state (99% won't). Also, the West has a storied history of abusing it's surveillance powers. Are we just handwaving this away or what?
burner831234 7y ago
It's possible that you aren't thinking of the west in terms of the last 100 years. I feel like sometimes when we're all discussing privacy on here, we forget surveillance is iterative as an industry as well. This isn't the first time that privacy has attempted to be eroded. Here are a few for you to consider: Post 9/11: the tracking of muslim american communities and all that came from Snowden's disclosures Interment of Japanese Americans: identify, tracked and literally interned during WWII WWII Axis decisions: the tracking, internment, and death of Jews, Slavs, gypsies and others WWI: The Wilson administration banned radical and Socialist journals from the mail system, jailed the leader of the Socialist party even though ~1% of the US population voted for the guy McCarthyism which was shown to be used against political rivals as much as it was against socialists The list honestly goes on and on. A government cannot be trusted with expanded surveillance tools and there just needs to be oversight. Its not to say it shouldnt exist, its to say it should always be viewed with a critical gaze. As far as the ideological goal sitting above your security, its important to remember that your ideological goal may be at odds. Democracy was at odds. Socialism is at odds. Freedom of religion in communist china and russia was at odds with the existing govt. Its easy to say these things when we feel like we're on the 'right' side and things will never change.
pmlnr 7y ago
"illegal crime" Crime is, by definition, illegal.

iamnothere 7y ago

> military surveillance Who said anything about military surveillance? Why on earth would you jump to the conclusion that military surveillance is what we are discussion? Most government-run domestic surveillance likely comes from law enforcement and agencies with a domestic purview like Homeland Security. The NSA is the exception, of course. I would expect that even most privacy advocates wouldn't have a problem with surveillance that is a part of actual military operations. > It is not very nice to decrease the security of me and my family to obtain an ideological goal. That's your opinion. Ben Franklin and many others would disagree, and we have a Bill of Rights in place specifically to disallow this kind of tradeoff. If you want absolute security at any cost, Singapore is always an option.

int_19h 7y ago

Note how you have juxtaposed individual security with national security. But what is "national security", really? If it were the aggregate of individual security, then there would be no contradiction here - you achieve maximum national security by making everybody individually secure. That we see them as contradictory goals rather implies that "national security" is about something else. At which point I would say: yes, individual security is more important than "national security".

anigbrowl 7y ago

The UK has been flirting with declaring Extinction Rebellion (an environmental protest group with a preference for street theater) as an extremist group. The US did designate environmental and animal rights groups as terrorists in law back in the 90s.

mirimir 7y ago
I bet that Earth First was one of them. https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-field-guide-to-monkeywrenching/ https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-fie...
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I've only seen the designation applied to Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, but my understanding is that there's considerable overlap between the latter and Earth First. They're an interesting legal example in that both groups explicitly disavow the destruction of human life and targeted their efforts toward property destruction, which is rather at odds with the popular understanding of 'terrorism' as discussed herein. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf

bobbydroptables 7y ago

My comment was not limited to Western countries. Most people don't live in the West after all. If you're going to make a ridiculously overbroad statement like "surveillance increases security" then I hope you have some very strong evidence or else be ready for people like me to point out that not really true across the board at all. Do you have any evidence that surveillance of citizens increases national security? Even we you did, it's not clear that it's worth the trade-off in freedom. And even then, that is irrelevant for what we're talking about, which is whether a given individual would benefit from submitting to the surveillance state (99% won't). Also, the West has a storied history of abusing it's surveillance powers. Are we just handwaving this away or what?

burner831234 7y ago

It's possible that you aren't thinking of the west in terms of the last 100 years. I feel like sometimes when we're all discussing privacy on here, we forget surveillance is iterative as an industry as well. This isn't the first time that privacy has attempted to be eroded. Here are a few for you to consider: Post 9/11: the tracking of muslim american communities and all that came from Snowden's disclosures Interment of Japanese Americans: identify, tracked and literally interned during WWII WWII Axis decisions: the tracking, internment, and death of Jews, Slavs, gypsies and others WWI: The Wilson administration banned radical and Socialist journals from the mail system, jailed the leader of the Socialist party even though ~1% of the US population voted for the guy McCarthyism which was shown to be used against political rivals as much as it was against socialists The list honestly goes on and on. A government cannot be trusted with expanded surveillance tools and there just needs to be oversight. Its not to say it shouldnt exist, its to say it should always be viewed with a critical gaze. As far as the ideological goal sitting above your security, its important to remember that your ideological goal may be at odds. Democracy was at odds. Socialism is at odds. Freedom of religion in communist china and russia was at odds with the existing govt. Its easy to say these things when we feel like we're on the 'right' side and things will never change.

pmlnr 7y ago

"illegal crime" Crime is, by definition, illegal.