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The belief that the government was actually spying on everyone was fringe. It was there, since it was obviously plausible, but basically nobody wanted to belie
by teddyh 5y ago
The belief that the government was actually spying on everyone was fringe. It was there, since it was obviously plausible, but basically nobody wanted to believe it, so most people dismissed it out of hand with something like “they would never do that”. No “regular people” knew what ECHELON was.
- asimpletune 5y agoI don't think it was fringe. There was the patriot act and secret courts and all that stuff. There were even people who tried to expose this stuff but failed because of a catch-22: to sue the govt for spying on you, you had to show standing, which you couldn't do, because the govt was secretly spying on you. That being said, I think a lot of people didn't believe in this stuff, which I guess makes it sort of fringe, but I think it was more like there was an attitude of laziness, technical ignorance, and a lot of nationalism to catch the terrorists.
- eldenwrong 5y ago
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoSecret courts were more debated than mass spying, so let's not mix that up.