18 ms·

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems somethi

So the US, with its Constitution protecting the people from its Government, is allowing this whilst also considering Edward Snowden a traitor? It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2, and the US Government has quietly won the game where the goal was to shit on the entirety of the history upon which it was built whilst, at precisely the same time, pointing to the Constitution as the reason why "America is Great!" You're fucked. At least China isn't pretending to be free. If this is how law enforcement agencies are allowed to operate, how can you expect citizens to respect any rule of law? The precedents are evaporating. The West is dead, we're halfway through the transition to the next stage, which just means history will repeat itself - but will be recorded in higher definition so that maybe we'll learn it more thoroughly next time around.

ravenstine 6y ago
America has been over for a very long time. I know I'll get downvoted for saying this, but this is something that more people need to hear because the fact they can vote affords citizens the cognitive dissonance they need to believe the propaganda they were taught about the US federal government. I'd still choose America over China any day, but that doesn't mean I think the United States is a free country; it's a free-range farm.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  "America has been over" is a statement that needs qualifiers to have meaning. "America" means different things to different people.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    It does mean different things to different people, but there's a relatively common understanding of "America" as an idea. Interpretations of America generally have a lot of overlap, even if there's some difference. Our rights are pretty much a central pillar of the concept of America, and if they aren't inalienable or taken seriously, then America is fundamentally lost. Even if people have a different idea of what America is, that doesn't mean their interpretation is congruent with an objective viewpoint of America, especially if their idea is prescriptive.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      I agree an objective viewpoint is possible to find, but any conversation about "America being over" needs to start with confirmation that the speakers have agreed upon an objective viewpoint. Decontextualized, the fundamental rights Americans celebrate are at odds with each other (right to life and right to liberty are the obvious examples, and some good criteria for discerning how to maintain those in coexistence has been established, but others, like "Freedom from fear" or "Freedom from want" and "Right to liberty," are much, much murkier. And this is all, of course, in the context of an ever-changing world that brings new technologies and experiences that must be interpreted against those rights).
      - Lineup 6y ago
        >...right to liberty are the obvious examples >..."Right to liberty," are much, much murkier. Uh... I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to say, or if you are sure of what you are trying to say, or if you have a very appropriate username. Moreover the freedoms [0] that you mentioned are aspirational. Also, not the constitutional freedoms of speech and religion, which are enshrined therein. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    "America" means different things to different people. Well there's one qualifier right there. The American Mythos of "all men are created equal" has failed to line up with the American reality for quite a long damn time and for reasons that don't require much more effort to "qualify" than is needed to lift up an arm and point at a history book. It's been qualified, documented and analyzed thoroughly enough that the qualifiers should be abundant and "self-evident"-to continue the trope of quoting directly from the user's manual.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      If that's the criteria, America never started. That line was penned when Americans still kept other human beings as slaves. The long arc of history of the US bends towards that phrase becoming more true, but there's still a long way to go for everyone to be demonstrably accepting of it.
      - dvtrn 6y ago
        I would agree with that conclusion; it’s central to my belief system though I must also offer the caveat lector that I don’t want readers thinking this to be THE criteria, just one (honestly opinionated) criterion. Although it would be the first data point in an outline of what would be my infinitely-less abridged critique of the “American Mythos”, under which many, MANY others would invariably fall-it is still at the end of the day only one. The others would probably include a few one liners shamelessly stolen, but dutifully attributed to Hunter Thompson, James Baldwin and Cormac McCarthy. Could probably fit Howard Cosell in there too now that I think about it.
- usedtoo 6y ago
  'a country? It's a free-range farm.' [OT and (hope so) un-biased:] 'From the Land of the Free, to the Land of the Lost' ?? We used to love America. Is there something your blind at, maybe ahead ? You know...there once was a story, about a snake not understanding 'step'... (-; Sry, too offtopic...^^
- solotronics 6y ago
  Creating the Federal reserve bank closed the loop. The politicians and corporations are able to control the whole system of money/power independently of what any outsider wants. Print the money, give it to your friends, buy/create the politicans, make the laws, enrich yourself, repeat the cycle but with more power and wealth this time around.
  - javert 6y ago
    The vast majority of corporations are victims, too. Some of the giant ones are not, though.
    - tossAfterUsing 6y ago
      Wish this were more well understood.
RobRivera 6y ago
>you're fucked I'm sorry but any anecdotal spinning of history and current events supporting a bold claim about the downfall of western society is just outright non scientific, immeasurable, and quite frankly below educated discourse. Now if you have a thesis about the sunset of western hegemony backed by reduced gdp numbers, geopolitical influence, and crime stats, thats a more worthwhile discussion. Call me old fashioned, but passionate cries of wolf really Re just that until you show me the data
- komali2 6y ago
  I'm not sure what GDP, geopolitical influence, or crime stats have to do with a theory that the values set down in the Constitution are degrading.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    Did "you're fucked" mean the Constitution is degrading? That's, I believe, parent poster's point; without qualifiers, there's no conversation to be had on the topic. Because that is the dichotomy of early 21st-century America: objective measures of "how the country's doing" are at odds with subjective concepts like "Are we free?" You have to start by even coming to agreement that less "freedom" (and one should probably qualify that---freedom from what, freedom to do what) for more GDP, more safety, more prosperity is a bad thing.
    - komali2 6y ago
      > You have to start by even coming to agreement that less "freedom" (and one should probably qualify that---freedom from what, freedom to do what) for more GDP, more safety, more prosperity is a bad thing. We don't have to agree at all. It is a bad thing. If you think trading freedom for the right to more plutocrat oversight is good, what's the point of even discussing at all?
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        > what's the point of discussing Consensus; same as always. And cross-pollination of ideas.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
The United States used to be an example to the world. As a nation it used to take its founding principles seriously. That started changing during the cold war and became most obvious post-9/11.
- Corrado 6y ago
  if that's true then the terrorists have won.
  - nxc18 6y ago
    Americans worked overtime post-9/11 to make sure the terrorists won. We made sure to become so afraid, so terrified in daily life that we were willing to give up our freedoms. See the patriot act, TSA, DHS, and other nonsense. The terrorists won the moment we decided to live in fear.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    I think the seeds were planted in the pacific theater. After such a terrible surprise attack, the USA probably feels justified in preventing future attacks by all means possible. Isn't that what national security is all about? Also, cryptanalysis was highly successful in the second world war: the outcomes of many battles were determined by successful interception and decoding of enemy communications. The importance of knowing enemy secrets was proven. The cold war marked the beginning of global surveillance: the USA and other world powers launched satellites pointed at the Earth in order to constantly watch their enemies. After 9/11, the definition of "enemy" apparently expanded to include a nation's own population. Thus the 21st century is the beginning of total surveillance of all humans on Earth, not just enemy military forces. Terrorism really is effective. America was not defeated but it a certain way it was destroyed. It abandoned all the principles it stood for in the name of national security.
- jylam 6y ago
  > The United States used to be an example to the world. Or so the americans say. Who else ?
duxup 6y ago
>China isn't pretending to be free. What does a sentiment like this even mean? Take a look at China's own propaganda, they very much celebrate their idea of what freedoms their citizens have.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Hell, if you talk to Chinese citizens, they don't seem to generally claim they aren't free. Even if the conversation happens in confidence where they aren't concerned about the government hearing their opinion.
- pixelperfect 6y ago
  "freedom" and "democracy" are two of the twelve "core socialist values" that are plastered almost anywhere you look in China.
nabnob 6y ago
Let's not act like the United States was a shining example of freedom and democracy before WWII, either. Slavery, destroying indigenous people and taking their land, followed by oppressive laws targeting black and indigenous people... Liberal democracy is definitely a step forward from monarchy, but the freedoms it offers have always been built on the oppression of many. It's no surprise that the oppressive arm of imperialism, which has targeted the rest of the world since WWII, would start to turn inwards and target US citizens.
- tossAfterUsing 6y ago
  > Let's not act like the United States was a shining example of freedom and democracy before WWII, either. Maybe we don't bother mentioning these very obvious historical circumstances. Instead, we can talk about what technological solutions exist already, or could exist in the near term, which would obviate these institutions of oppression. I am very interested in tools like Whatsat[0] and Sphinx[1] which protect communications between participants... but what about my browsing. Do i just need to migrate all my "real" searches to Tor (already pwnt) or Beaker (insufficient, frankly)? How can we continue to define ourselves as free persons while we exist among these dark patterns? 0 - https://github.com/joostjager/whatsat https://github.com/joostjager/whatsat 1 - https://sphinx.chat/ https://sphinx.chat/
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    > Maybe we don't bother mentioning these very obvious historical circumstances. Instead, we can talk about what technological solutions exist already, or could exist in the near term, which would obviate these institutions of oppression. These have never been solely technical problems, but political, moral, and organizational ones. States can simply make use or development of any technology illegal and bring the full force of its monopoly on violence to bear on those who run afoul of it. That has to be countered outside of just building things. Ignoring history doesn’t make its lessons irrelevant.
    - tossAfterUsing 6y ago
shadowgovt 6y ago
> It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2 The Twin Towers were destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, and an additional plane was crashed, via a successful conspiracy that could have been detected by blanket, passive surveillance. That's what changed. The threat model the US defense department is concerned about has changed significantly since WWII. The threat to Pax Americana is not direct military intervention, since the possession of atomic weapons ensures that's a short trip to annihilation for any nation-state that tries it. It's small-cell actors using sabotage tactics and technology as huge force-multipliers. As for individual citizens, it appears most still see the threat of asymmetric warfare as a more profound threat to their life and livelihood than passive, blanket government surveillance.
- malandrew 6y ago
  I wouldn't even say it is just the threat model that changed. Humans in developed markets now have a very unhealthy relationship with death to the point where any policy that minimizes death is acceptable consequences be damned. We no longer see death as a normal and natural part of life like previous generations did because it's not as prevalent as it once was. The threat model you just described in another era would have more likely been met with acceptance if the alternative was to give up our hard fought for freedoms.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I don't think I can point to an era in US history where an attack on a couple buildings resulting in thousands dead would have been brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens." I'd even argue that's not a healthy response to a human-caused tragedy like that. Seeing death as normal and natural carries its own antisocial pathologies. War is more justifiable if "Everyone has to die some time."
    - malandrew 6y ago
      That's a strawman that doesn't try to interpret the point I'm trying to make from the strongest possible position. I'm not suggesting that an event like that should be just brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens." I'm saying that the response to that event such as the Patriot Act and other safety-above-liberty-at-all-costs measures would have received a lot more scrutiny and been seen as disproportional. Just like your strawman is not a healthy response, neither was the response we had to 9-11. The goal of the terrorists was to fundamentally change life for Americans and get them to abandon their principles. Well they succeeded beyond their wildest imagination because we responded by dumping many of our freedoms in response.
coronadisaster 6y ago
And the police killed nearly 6,000 people in the U.S. since 2015, without due process: https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob/master/fatal-police-shootings-data.csv https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob... (that equals to about 3 per day, I am surprised that I don't hear more about them)
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  Is due process required when someone points a gun at the police? Charges them with a knife? Tries to run them over? I watch 2-3 new police bodycam videos per day thanks to some neat Youtube channels (Police Activity and Real World Police). I've seen maybe one or two shootings on those channels that were clearly wrong, out of hundreds that were justified or a reasonable person could find to be justified. Wondering if there's a database of police shootings that includes more information about the circumstances of the encounter.
  - maerF0x0 6y ago
    I would say that there is a spectrum to backing the claim of "due process" w/ time constraints. For example body cams can really help validate that there was a gun, pointed at someone, and the person was threatening... IMO Governments need to be quick to integrate technologies that can reinforce the true spirit of their laws such that true justice (not just legalism) is applied.
    - ciarannolan 6y ago
      I'm pretty surprised how well the bodycams thing is working out overall. Of course there are rare cases where they "lose" the footage or whatever, but the sheer volume of videos coming out makes me believe that it's working in most cases (even high profile or controversial cases).
  - coronadisaster 6y ago
    I have seen a lot of bad faith cops on https://ns.reddit.com/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/ https://ns.reddit.com/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/, but most of the time, they don't kill the suspect. This is the best database that I have found so far for shootings by police and at least they tell you if the suspect was armed, but yes more information is always better... But the main issue is that even if the cop was found to use excessive force, there are no real consequences, most of the time.
hi5eyes 6y ago
incarceration rate of the United States of America is one of the highest in the world i love the “freedom” meme for america
- wchar_t 6y ago
  But criminals still need to be imprisoned, free country or no.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    One would think a country that was, for want of a more specific term, "doing it right" would have fewer criminals. That the US has so much incarceration per-capita suggests something ain't working, if we respect freedom on paper but have to deprive more citizens of it than any other nation.
  - techntoke 6y ago
    I wish this were the case, but they seem to disproportionately lock up African Americans while giving the rich white people a free pass on crime.
    - waffle_ss 6y ago
      According to National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) numbers, across all races - African Americans included - the arrest rates for violent crimes correlates with the actual amount of crime committed by that race.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        That's a tricky number to tease out. One must ask how "actual amount of crime" is measured. Oftentimes, one finds a feedback loop between arrest rate counting and instances of crime counting that means all kinds of confounding factors enter into the number (including distribution of police patrol resources and likelihood police will let an infringement off with a warning).
Spooky23 6y ago
Snowden wasn't talking about the FBI.
backtoyoujim 6y ago
The country has elected a fraudster involved with organized crime whose response to power has been to envy authoritarians. And that is the current US Federal leadership. Every other federal agency is going to follow suit. Then the congressional departments will do the same to try and maintain hegemony. The Federal US is not just fucked ... the US Federal is actively fucking every nation state that the US Federal can fuck as a triumph of criminality. This is also including US state & municipal governments. If there was ever a time for a coalition of forces to invade the US it would be with this president. Trump would give up Alaska to Putin in a trade to stay in power.
waffle_ss 6y ago
What is "the next stage," exactly? Does the nod to China mean that it's disappearing those who dissent from the state, turning ethnic minorities into organ donors + fertilizer and remarrying their wives over to the ethnic majority, building dragnet panopticons that lock you out of social existence entirely if its algorithmic eye deems you a problem? The US wasn't founded on perfection and it certainly hasn't taken only correct steps since then. WWII wasn't the high water mark for freedom, either - Americans have stronger freedom of speech now compared to then for example. This law is clearly a misstep but I hardly think it means it's time to stick a fork in the West.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  I took "the next stage" to mean stages in the cycles of empires (ie towards decay+collapse), not to say the CCP is a positive evolutionary step in governments.
dang 6y ago
Please don't post generic ideological rants to HN. They're tedious, not what this site is for, and lead to worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  Despite the fact that I agree with their sentiment, you're 100% in the right here. HN is great because it's NOT the place for that. Thanks for speaking out.

ravenstine 6y ago

America has been over for a very long time. I know I'll get downvoted for saying this, but this is something that more people need to hear because the fact they can vote affords citizens the cognitive dissonance they need to believe the propaganda they were taught about the US federal government. I'd still choose America over China any day, but that doesn't mean I think the United States is a free country; it's a free-range farm.

shadowgovt 6y ago
"America has been over" is a statement that needs qualifiers to have meaning. "America" means different things to different people.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  It does mean different things to different people, but there's a relatively common understanding of "America" as an idea. Interpretations of America generally have a lot of overlap, even if there's some difference. Our rights are pretty much a central pillar of the concept of America, and if they aren't inalienable or taken seriously, then America is fundamentally lost. Even if people have a different idea of what America is, that doesn't mean their interpretation is congruent with an objective viewpoint of America, especially if their idea is prescriptive.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    I agree an objective viewpoint is possible to find, but any conversation about "America being over" needs to start with confirmation that the speakers have agreed upon an objective viewpoint. Decontextualized, the fundamental rights Americans celebrate are at odds with each other (right to life and right to liberty are the obvious examples, and some good criteria for discerning how to maintain those in coexistence has been established, but others, like "Freedom from fear" or "Freedom from want" and "Right to liberty," are much, much murkier. And this is all, of course, in the context of an ever-changing world that brings new technologies and experiences that must be interpreted against those rights).
    - Lineup 6y ago
      >...right to liberty are the obvious examples >..."Right to liberty," are much, much murkier. Uh... I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to say, or if you are sure of what you are trying to say, or if you have a very appropriate username. Moreover the freedoms [0] that you mentioned are aspirational. Also, not the constitutional freedoms of speech and religion, which are enshrined therein. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms
- dvtrn 6y ago
  "America" means different things to different people. Well there's one qualifier right there. The American Mythos of "all men are created equal" has failed to line up with the American reality for quite a long damn time and for reasons that don't require much more effort to "qualify" than is needed to lift up an arm and point at a history book. It's been qualified, documented and analyzed thoroughly enough that the qualifiers should be abundant and "self-evident"-to continue the trope of quoting directly from the user's manual.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    If that's the criteria, America never started. That line was penned when Americans still kept other human beings as slaves. The long arc of history of the US bends towards that phrase becoming more true, but there's still a long way to go for everyone to be demonstrably accepting of it.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      I would agree with that conclusion; it’s central to my belief system though I must also offer the caveat lector that I don’t want readers thinking this to be THE criteria, just one (honestly opinionated) criterion. Although it would be the first data point in an outline of what would be my infinitely-less abridged critique of the “American Mythos”, under which many, MANY others would invariably fall-it is still at the end of the day only one. The others would probably include a few one liners shamelessly stolen, but dutifully attributed to Hunter Thompson, James Baldwin and Cormac McCarthy. Could probably fit Howard Cosell in there too now that I think about it.
usedtoo 6y ago
'a country? It's a free-range farm.' [OT and (hope so) un-biased:] 'From the Land of the Free, to the Land of the Lost' ?? We used to love America. Is there something your blind at, maybe ahead ? You know...there once was a story, about a snake not understanding 'step'... (-; Sry, too offtopic...^^
solotronics 6y ago
Creating the Federal reserve bank closed the loop. The politicians and corporations are able to control the whole system of money/power independently of what any outsider wants. Print the money, give it to your friends, buy/create the politicans, make the laws, enrich yourself, repeat the cycle but with more power and wealth this time around.
- javert 6y ago
  The vast majority of corporations are victims, too. Some of the giant ones are not, though.
  - tossAfterUsing 6y ago
    Wish this were more well understood.

RobRivera 6y ago

>you're fucked I'm sorry but any anecdotal spinning of history and current events supporting a bold claim about the downfall of western society is just outright non scientific, immeasurable, and quite frankly below educated discourse. Now if you have a thesis about the sunset of western hegemony backed by reduced gdp numbers, geopolitical influence, and crime stats, thats a more worthwhile discussion. Call me old fashioned, but passionate cries of wolf really Re just that until you show me the data

komali2 6y ago
I'm not sure what GDP, geopolitical influence, or crime stats have to do with a theory that the values set down in the Constitution are degrading.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Did "you're fucked" mean the Constitution is degrading? That's, I believe, parent poster's point; without qualifiers, there's no conversation to be had on the topic. Because that is the dichotomy of early 21st-century America: objective measures of "how the country's doing" are at odds with subjective concepts like "Are we free?" You have to start by even coming to agreement that less "freedom" (and one should probably qualify that---freedom from what, freedom to do what) for more GDP, more safety, more prosperity is a bad thing.
  - komali2 6y ago
    > You have to start by even coming to agreement that less "freedom" (and one should probably qualify that---freedom from what, freedom to do what) for more GDP, more safety, more prosperity is a bad thing. We don't have to agree at all. It is a bad thing. If you think trading freedom for the right to more plutocrat oversight is good, what's the point of even discussing at all?
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      > what's the point of discussing Consensus; same as always. And cross-pollination of ideas.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

The United States used to be an example to the world. As a nation it used to take its founding principles seriously. That started changing during the cold war and became most obvious post-9/11.

Corrado 6y ago
if that's true then the terrorists have won.
- nxc18 6y ago
  Americans worked overtime post-9/11 to make sure the terrorists won. We made sure to become so afraid, so terrified in daily life that we were willing to give up our freedoms. See the patriot act, TSA, DHS, and other nonsense. The terrorists won the moment we decided to live in fear.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  I think the seeds were planted in the pacific theater. After such a terrible surprise attack, the USA probably feels justified in preventing future attacks by all means possible. Isn't that what national security is all about? Also, cryptanalysis was highly successful in the second world war: the outcomes of many battles were determined by successful interception and decoding of enemy communications. The importance of knowing enemy secrets was proven. The cold war marked the beginning of global surveillance: the USA and other world powers launched satellites pointed at the Earth in order to constantly watch their enemies. After 9/11, the definition of "enemy" apparently expanded to include a nation's own population. Thus the 21st century is the beginning of total surveillance of all humans on Earth, not just enemy military forces. Terrorism really is effective. America was not defeated but it a certain way it was destroyed. It abandoned all the principles it stood for in the name of national security.
jylam 6y ago
> The United States used to be an example to the world. Or so the americans say. Who else ?

duxup 6y ago

>China isn't pretending to be free. What does a sentiment like this even mean? Take a look at China's own propaganda, they very much celebrate their idea of what freedoms their citizens have.

shadowgovt 6y ago
Hell, if you talk to Chinese citizens, they don't seem to generally claim they aren't free. Even if the conversation happens in confidence where they aren't concerned about the government hearing their opinion.
pixelperfect 6y ago
"freedom" and "democracy" are two of the twelve "core socialist values" that are plastered almost anywhere you look in China.

nabnob 6y ago

Let's not act like the United States was a shining example of freedom and democracy before WWII, either. Slavery, destroying indigenous people and taking their land, followed by oppressive laws targeting black and indigenous people... Liberal democracy is definitely a step forward from monarchy, but the freedoms it offers have always been built on the oppression of many. It's no surprise that the oppressive arm of imperialism, which has targeted the rest of the world since WWII, would start to turn inwards and target US citizens.

tossAfterUsing 6y ago
> Let's not act like the United States was a shining example of freedom and democracy before WWII, either. Maybe we don't bother mentioning these very obvious historical circumstances. Instead, we can talk about what technological solutions exist already, or could exist in the near term, which would obviate these institutions of oppression. I am very interested in tools like Whatsat[0] and Sphinx[1] which protect communications between participants... but what about my browsing. Do i just need to migrate all my "real" searches to Tor (already pwnt) or Beaker (insufficient, frankly)? How can we continue to define ourselves as free persons while we exist among these dark patterns? 0 - https://github.com/joostjager/whatsat https://github.com/joostjager/whatsat 1 - https://sphinx.chat/ https://sphinx.chat/
- claudeganon 6y ago
  > Maybe we don't bother mentioning these very obvious historical circumstances. Instead, we can talk about what technological solutions exist already, or could exist in the near term, which would obviate these institutions of oppression. These have never been solely technical problems, but political, moral, and organizational ones. States can simply make use or development of any technology illegal and bring the full force of its monopoly on violence to bear on those who run afoul of it. That has to be countered outside of just building things. Ignoring history doesn’t make its lessons irrelevant.
  - tossAfterUsing 6y ago

shadowgovt 6y ago

> It seems something has shifted 180 degrees since WW2 The Twin Towers were destroyed, the Pentagon was damaged, and an additional plane was crashed, via a successful conspiracy that could have been detected by blanket, passive surveillance. That's what changed. The threat model the US defense department is concerned about has changed significantly since WWII. The threat to Pax Americana is not direct military intervention, since the possession of atomic weapons ensures that's a short trip to annihilation for any nation-state that tries it. It's small-cell actors using sabotage tactics and technology as huge force-multipliers. As for individual citizens, it appears most still see the threat of asymmetric warfare as a more profound threat to their life and livelihood than passive, blanket government surveillance.

malandrew 6y ago
I wouldn't even say it is just the threat model that changed. Humans in developed markets now have a very unhealthy relationship with death to the point where any policy that minimizes death is acceptable consequences be damned. We no longer see death as a normal and natural part of life like previous generations did because it's not as prevalent as it once was. The threat model you just described in another era would have more likely been met with acceptance if the alternative was to give up our hard fought for freedoms.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  I don't think I can point to an era in US history where an attack on a couple buildings resulting in thousands dead would have been brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens." I'd even argue that's not a healthy response to a human-caused tragedy like that. Seeing death as normal and natural carries its own antisocial pathologies. War is more justifiable if "Everyone has to die some time."
  - malandrew 6y ago
    That's a strawman that doesn't try to interpret the point I'm trying to make from the strongest possible position. I'm not suggesting that an event like that should be just brushed under the rug as "Well, death just happens." I'm saying that the response to that event such as the Patriot Act and other safety-above-liberty-at-all-costs measures would have received a lot more scrutiny and been seen as disproportional. Just like your strawman is not a healthy response, neither was the response we had to 9-11. The goal of the terrorists was to fundamentally change life for Americans and get them to abandon their principles. Well they succeeded beyond their wildest imagination because we responded by dumping many of our freedoms in response.

coronadisaster 6y ago

And the police killed nearly 6,000 people in the U.S. since 2015, without due process: https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob/master/fatal-police-shootings-data.csv https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob... (that equals to about 3 per day, I am surprised that I don't hear more about them)

ciarannolan 6y ago
Is due process required when someone points a gun at the police? Charges them with a knife? Tries to run them over? I watch 2-3 new police bodycam videos per day thanks to some neat Youtube channels (Police Activity and Real World Police). I've seen maybe one or two shootings on those channels that were clearly wrong, out of hundreds that were justified or a reasonable person could find to be justified. Wondering if there's a database of police shootings that includes more information about the circumstances of the encounter.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  I would say that there is a spectrum to backing the claim of "due process" w/ time constraints. For example body cams can really help validate that there was a gun, pointed at someone, and the person was threatening... IMO Governments need to be quick to integrate technologies that can reinforce the true spirit of their laws such that true justice (not just legalism) is applied.
  - ciarannolan 6y ago
    I'm pretty surprised how well the bodycams thing is working out overall. Of course there are rare cases where they "lose" the footage or whatever, but the sheer volume of videos coming out makes me believe that it's working in most cases (even high profile or controversial cases).
- coronadisaster 6y ago
  I have seen a lot of bad faith cops on https://ns.reddit.com/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/ https://ns.reddit.com/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/, but most of the time, they don't kill the suspect. This is the best database that I have found so far for shootings by police and at least they tell you if the suspect was armed, but yes more information is always better... But the main issue is that even if the cop was found to use excessive force, there are no real consequences, most of the time.

hi5eyes 6y ago

incarceration rate of the United States of America is one of the highest in the world i love the “freedom” meme for america

wchar_t 6y ago
But criminals still need to be imprisoned, free country or no.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  One would think a country that was, for want of a more specific term, "doing it right" would have fewer criminals. That the US has so much incarceration per-capita suggests something ain't working, if we respect freedom on paper but have to deprive more citizens of it than any other nation.
- techntoke 6y ago
  I wish this were the case, but they seem to disproportionately lock up African Americans while giving the rich white people a free pass on crime.
  - waffle_ss 6y ago
    According to National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) numbers, across all races - African Americans included - the arrest rates for violent crimes correlates with the actual amount of crime committed by that race.
    - shadowgovt 6y ago
      That's a tricky number to tease out. One must ask how "actual amount of crime" is measured. Oftentimes, one finds a feedback loop between arrest rate counting and instances of crime counting that means all kinds of confounding factors enter into the number (including distribution of police patrol resources and likelihood police will let an infringement off with a warning).

Spooky23 6y ago

Snowden wasn't talking about the FBI.

backtoyoujim 6y ago

The country has elected a fraudster involved with organized crime whose response to power has been to envy authoritarians. And that is the current US Federal leadership. Every other federal agency is going to follow suit. Then the congressional departments will do the same to try and maintain hegemony. The Federal US is not just fucked ... the US Federal is actively fucking every nation state that the US Federal can fuck as a triumph of criminality. This is also including US state & municipal governments. If there was ever a time for a coalition of forces to invade the US it would be with this president. Trump would give up Alaska to Putin in a trade to stay in power.

waffle_ss 6y ago

What is "the next stage," exactly? Does the nod to China mean that it's disappearing those who dissent from the state, turning ethnic minorities into organ donors + fertilizer and remarrying their wives over to the ethnic majority, building dragnet panopticons that lock you out of social existence entirely if its algorithmic eye deems you a problem? The US wasn't founded on perfection and it certainly hasn't taken only correct steps since then. WWII wasn't the high water mark for freedom, either - Americans have stronger freedom of speech now compared to then for example. This law is clearly a misstep but I hardly think it means it's time to stick a fork in the West.

maerF0x0 6y ago
I took "the next stage" to mean stages in the cycles of empires (ie towards decay+collapse), not to say the CCP is a positive evolutionary step in governments.

dang 6y ago

Please don't post generic ideological rants to HN. They're tedious, not what this site is for, and lead to worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Enginerrrd 6y ago
Despite the fact that I agree with their sentiment, you're 100% in the right here. HN is great because it's NOT the place for that. Thanks for speaking out.