4 ms·

Fear-mongering is strong. Look at all the freedoms we lost after 9/11. Pedophiles and terrorists and porn are always the scapegoats. It is also a very electabl

Fear-mongering is strong. Look at all the freedoms we lost after 9/11. Pedophiles and terrorists and porn are always the scapegoats. It is also a very electable sound bite. Everyone is against the "bad people". Re-election at any cost is the goal. We have government of the people and by the people but we stopped being for the people long long ago.

krapp 6y ago
But pedophiles and terrorists are 'bad people' and 'the people' are overwhelmingly in favor of stopping them. It's only in libertarian/ancap bubbles of places like HN where pedos and terrorists are treated like noble antiheroes in the eternal war against fascism and political correctness. If you're going to talk about government "for the people" you need to remember who "the people" actually are and what the majority of them want.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Of course everyone wants those bad people stopped. But every law that claims to be "to stop the bad people and save the children" end up not actually getting used to that end, but instead to further harm the people. They all have far more collateral damage. I used to investigate computer crime. You know what would have made my job really easy? Unlimited access to all computers worldwide. Luckily I had to learn alternative investigative methods because we value privacy more than we value catching criminals, which is a good thing. I'd rather a criminal go free once in a while than a complete loss of privacy.
  - carapace 6y ago
    > Unlimited access to all computers worldwide. Isn't that more-or-less what the NSA have already? What I mean is, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA already have most criminals' dirty laundry. The only thing keeping the law from rolling 'em up wholesale is the Overton window around parallel construction.
pphysch 6y ago
Don't forget the communists, the OG once-and-future scapegoats.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  The fearmongering list has also been expanded to Russia and the far-right. As the list of perceived threats grows more varied, so does bipartisan support for undermining encryption.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  With communists, especially in the 50s you would have been arguably justified in being extremely sceptical of them in power. Not to the extents of McCarthy but keep in mind that around that time the KGB were really flexing their muscles. In the UK, the soviets were almost totally successful largely because the British establishment could not believe that someone who came from the right place and went to the right place could really be a communist spy. Even after, with or without hindsight, it was obvious Kim Philby was almost exonerated and re-entered MI6 to an extent purely because the people above him decided it was simultaneously too damaging and unlikely for a Cambridge man to be a communist.

krapp 6y ago

But pedophiles and terrorists are 'bad people' and 'the people' are overwhelmingly in favor of stopping them. It's only in libertarian/ancap bubbles of places like HN where pedos and terrorists are treated like noble antiheroes in the eternal war against fascism and political correctness. If you're going to talk about government "for the people" you need to remember who "the people" actually are and what the majority of them want.

jedberg 6y ago
Of course everyone wants those bad people stopped. But every law that claims to be "to stop the bad people and save the children" end up not actually getting used to that end, but instead to further harm the people. They all have far more collateral damage. I used to investigate computer crime. You know what would have made my job really easy? Unlimited access to all computers worldwide. Luckily I had to learn alternative investigative methods because we value privacy more than we value catching criminals, which is a good thing. I'd rather a criminal go free once in a while than a complete loss of privacy.
- carapace 6y ago
  > Unlimited access to all computers worldwide. Isn't that more-or-less what the NSA have already? What I mean is, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA already have most criminals' dirty laundry. The only thing keeping the law from rolling 'em up wholesale is the Overton window around parallel construction.

pphysch 6y ago

Don't forget the communists, the OG once-and-future scapegoats.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drak0n1c 6y ago
The fearmongering list has also been expanded to Russia and the far-right. As the list of perceived threats grows more varied, so does bipartisan support for undermining encryption.
mhh__ 6y ago
With communists, especially in the 50s you would have been arguably justified in being extremely sceptical of them in power. Not to the extents of McCarthy but keep in mind that around that time the KGB were really flexing their muscles. In the UK, the soviets were almost totally successful largely because the British establishment could not believe that someone who came from the right place and went to the right place could really be a communist spy. Even after, with or without hindsight, it was obvious Kim Philby was almost exonerated and re-entered MI6 to an extent purely because the people above him decided it was simultaneously too damaging and unlikely for a Cambridge man to be a communist.