5 ms·

> national security implications There’s nothing more American than spying on your own people and blaming it on terrorists.

by KMnO4 4y ago

londons_explore 4y ago
A government that doesn't keep good enough control if it's people will soon be overthrown. When you give the people more freedom to protest, organise, mass communicate easily etc, you also have to add equal amounts of monitoring and restrictions to make sure that next movement to overthrow the government can't pick up speed without you catching it.
- thesuitonym 4y ago
  A government controlled by its people, instead of controlling its people, doesn't need to worry about being overthrown.
  - lazyier 4y ago
    Yeah, but that defeats the purpose of creating the state in the first place. The entire point is being able to tell people what to do for your own profit. It's a lot easier if you pretend you are doing it for the subject's benefit as it reduces the resistance to rule immensely. But you don't want to let that go too far or they start getting a big head and start thinking that paying you billions of dollars is optional.
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      There are legitimate reasons for a State to exist.
- throwawayacc2 4y ago
  We wouldn’t want those pesky commies, ahh sorry, that was the 50s and 60s, those darn uppity negroes, ahh sorry again, my bad, that was civil rights era, those blasted … err, commies again? They made a comeback in the 80s it seems. Ahh there it is. We don’t want those crazy islamist terrorists harming our people. We need to protect your freedom … by curtailing it, of course. Sorry, sorry, I’ve just been informed, the boogieman is no longer islamic terrorists. Now, it’s called radical white supremacist qanon Jan 6 anti vax conspiracy incel nationalist. My bad. I apologise. But the curtailing of freedom will continue and the surveillance will increase. In order to safeguard our freedom and privacy, of course.
  - toss1 4y ago
    If you cannot see the difference between civil rights movements attempting to change governing to be more even-handed vs expansionist authoritarian governments or movements attempting to destroy democratic governments altogether, you need serious help (and should at least stop broadcasting your ignorance).
    - tristor 4y ago
      It's less about the difference between these groups and more about the response to these groups. It is your politics showing in your response rather than the person you are replying to... do you think they don't believe that Islamic terrorists exist (which they mentioned)? At no point in the history of the government national security apparatus has the target and its veracity made any difference in the trend line of the government doing more surveillance and curtailing more freedoms. Don't believe me? Do some research on COINTELPRO.
      - toss1 4y ago
        Your argument, and that of many others here, seems to be that any govt surveillance is illegitimate, and that govt cannot have any legitimate reason to capture information on anyone. There couldn't be any actual reason for intelligence operations. "It is your politics showing". Any such view is hopelessly ignorant and naive, yet it pops up here often. The person to whom I'm replying is blatantly implying that it is nothing but a variety of illegitimate excuses that form a false justification for intelligence operations. This is even more ignorant than usual, as none of those are the source of intelligence gathering, which predates all of them. Yes, I'm familiar with COINTELPRO, a horde of illegal FBI operations, and many other excesses among the 17 intelligence agencies. I also note that these were ILLEGAL and shut down. I also note that intelligence has been twisted and abused by politicians, including bogh Bush presidents (Bush Sr. let exaggerated estimates of Soviet mil funding drive our mil funding, which did have the good result of collapsing the SU, and Jr abused intel to wrongly justify the Iraq invasion on WMD grounds). I'm know enough to see that while the excesses and even abuses do matter a lot, they are not a justification for ending all intelligence, whether domestic or international. If you want to do that, we might as well simply declare anarchy, and let everyone deal with the criminals and warlords who will take over, and that's no exaggeration.
freeflight 4y ago
Or make them spy on each other to find even more "terrorists" [0] [0] https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something

> national security implications There’s nothing more American than spying on your own people and blaming it on terrorists.

by KMnO4 4y ago

> national security implications There’s nothing more American than spying on your own people and blaming it on terrorists.

londons_explore 4y ago

A government that doesn't keep good enough control if it's people will soon be overthrown. When you give the people more freedom to protest, organise, mass communicate easily etc, you also have to add equal amounts of monitoring and restrictions to make sure that next movement to overthrow the government can't pick up speed without you catching it.

thesuitonym 4y ago
A government controlled by its people, instead of controlling its people, doesn't need to worry about being overthrown.
- lazyier 4y ago
  Yeah, but that defeats the purpose of creating the state in the first place. The entire point is being able to tell people what to do for your own profit. It's a lot easier if you pretend you are doing it for the subject's benefit as it reduces the resistance to rule immensely. But you don't want to let that go too far or they start getting a big head and start thinking that paying you billions of dollars is optional.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    There are legitimate reasons for a State to exist.
throwawayacc2 4y ago
We wouldn’t want those pesky commies, ahh sorry, that was the 50s and 60s, those darn uppity negroes, ahh sorry again, my bad, that was civil rights era, those blasted … err, commies again? They made a comeback in the 80s it seems. Ahh there it is. We don’t want those crazy islamist terrorists harming our people. We need to protect your freedom … by curtailing it, of course. Sorry, sorry, I’ve just been informed, the boogieman is no longer islamic terrorists. Now, it’s called radical white supremacist qanon Jan 6 anti vax conspiracy incel nationalist. My bad. I apologise. But the curtailing of freedom will continue and the surveillance will increase. In order to safeguard our freedom and privacy, of course.
- toss1 4y ago
  If you cannot see the difference between civil rights movements attempting to change governing to be more even-handed vs expansionist authoritarian governments or movements attempting to destroy democratic governments altogether, you need serious help (and should at least stop broadcasting your ignorance).
  - tristor 4y ago
    It's less about the difference between these groups and more about the response to these groups. It is your politics showing in your response rather than the person you are replying to... do you think they don't believe that Islamic terrorists exist (which they mentioned)? At no point in the history of the government national security apparatus has the target and its veracity made any difference in the trend line of the government doing more surveillance and curtailing more freedoms. Don't believe me? Do some research on COINTELPRO.
    - toss1 4y ago
      Your argument, and that of many others here, seems to be that any govt surveillance is illegitimate, and that govt cannot have any legitimate reason to capture information on anyone. There couldn't be any actual reason for intelligence operations. "It is your politics showing". Any such view is hopelessly ignorant and naive, yet it pops up here often. The person to whom I'm replying is blatantly implying that it is nothing but a variety of illegitimate excuses that form a false justification for intelligence operations. This is even more ignorant than usual, as none of those are the source of intelligence gathering, which predates all of them. Yes, I'm familiar with COINTELPRO, a horde of illegal FBI operations, and many other excesses among the 17 intelligence agencies. I also note that these were ILLEGAL and shut down. I also note that intelligence has been twisted and abused by politicians, including bogh Bush presidents (Bush Sr. let exaggerated estimates of Soviet mil funding drive our mil funding, which did have the good result of collapsing the SU, and Jr abused intel to wrongly justify the Iraq invasion on WMD grounds). I'm know enough to see that while the excesses and even abuses do matter a lot, they are not a justification for ending all intelligence, whether domestic or international. If you want to do that, we might as well simply declare anarchy, and let everyone deal with the criminals and warlords who will take over, and that's no exaggeration.

freeflight 4y ago

Or make them spy on each other to find even more "terrorists" [0] [0] https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something