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Why not? I mean, if the cops turned up at your door with a search warrant, you'd let them in, right?
by marcus_holmes 7y ago
Why not?
I mean, if the cops turned up at your door with a search warrant, you'd let them in, right?
- burrows 7y agoThe NSA agent didn't have a "search warrant".
- marcus_holmes 7y agoNo they didn't, but they proved who they were to the OP's satisfaction, and left it to him to decide whether he should help them or not. To me, this is a bit of a no-brainer. A government agency wants my help to do something. Do I trust them? Do I help them? Well... yes. They're the government. Incompetent sometimes, irrelevant a lot of the time, inefficient, sure. But ultimately there to provide a service for me as a citizen. If they need my help, then I should probably help them. I understand that Americans don't trust their government like this. I'm not sure why not.
- duncan_bayne 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) Those two spring to mind immediately, and I'm not American, I'm Australian. Personally, I don't understand why anyone trusts their Government more than the bare minimum required to support the rule of law.
- ycombi3 7y agoYou can lead a horse to water.... People are way to trusting.
- rcoveson 7y agoIf I ran an neighborhood ISP, and the cops asked me to spy on a neighbor (for reasons they wouldn't even provide), then I'd shut down first. If they just wanted to search _my_ stuff, sure. But if the only reason that I'm even capable of assisting the government in spying on somebody is that they are my customer, neighbor, friend, or user then I will not offer that assistance. That would be evil. Don't be evil.
- burrows 7y agoThe cops plant CP your servers. Help them spy on Joey Beer or they'll pursue criminal charges against you. Now what?
- rcoveson 7y agoGun to my head, would I still do the right thing? Of course I'll say yes, and I hope it's true. Thankfully, I probably won't ever have to find out. But if it does come to that, and I choose wrong, I know I won't write a blog post about it.
- Hnrobert42 7y agoWhat are you talking about? What are the odds of this? I mean really, like out of all the CP allegations, how many of them are fabricated by the police?
- ycombi3 7y agoYou might be surprised. Check out what the fbi was doing to people a few years back hacking into victim's networks.
- Hnrobert42 7y agoSupporting the government in lawful operations is not evil. There are many, many examples of the abuse of power by the government. But at least in the US, there is a system of checks and balances including freedom of the press and an independent judiciary. If we give up faith in those things then we will succumb to a lawless, might-makes-right society. What makes you think you know better than the duly elected and appointed representatives of the people? Ok, fine. Tell it to a judge. But if you lose, then comply. TL;DR: I don’t like “the man” either, but in the end, the man is us. We thwart him at our peril.