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Isn't it obvious how the widespread knowledge that the government can read everything you do online - your FB posts, your emails, your texts - contributes to th
by seibelj 6y ago
Isn't it obvious how the widespread knowledge that the government can read everything you do online - your FB posts, your emails, your texts - contributes to the erosion of trust in government and institutions?
As an anecdote, I went to DEFCON last year. I was at a blackjack table and surrounded by midwestern salt-of-the-earth types. I had my badge on which flashed lights, and someone asked if I was "one of those computer hackers" and I said Yes (of course). Then they asked me if it was true that the government could read everything they did on their computer! The very first question! I hesitated, and said yes! The government can indeed read everything they do online! It made the whole table silent.
The mainstream media keeps publishing these hand-wringing articles about how America's faith in institutions has diminished, as if Trump did it all. I argue that the total lack of privacy and argument from the Department of Justice that any privacy is akin to terrorism / criminal behavior kills society more than what they think they protect.
Is not privacy a fundamental American principle? What the hell happened?
- dannyw 6y ago9/11 and the “you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” mentality happened.
- moonchild 6y ago9/11 certainly provided that argument with a lot more ammo, but the rhetoric has been around for ages. Remember the cold war and McCarthyism?
- cgriswald 6y agoMcCarthyism was bad and I see what you’re saying but it isn’t quite the same thing. McCarthyism wasn’t really about government control but about a sort of mass hysteria. It was more like the Salem witch trials. Much of the rhetoric during the Cold War actually made these types of government activities unacceptable to the average person because not doing these things was used to differentiate the US from the Soviets. “Microphones in every house? What is this, Soviet Russia?”
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago>Is not privacy a fundamental American principle? What the hell happened? Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and we have not been vigilant.
- 082349872349872 6y ago> Is not privacy a fundamental American principle? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#United_States says activist judges provided privacy, mostly over the latter half of the twentieth century, but strict constructionists would answer: it isn't.