5 ms·

Hmm. You know what? Your position, on paper, makes a lot of sense. At the same time, there are times where you say "eh, fuck it." And this, for me, is one of

Hmm. You know what? Your position, on paper, makes a lot of sense. At the same time, there are times where you say "eh, fuck it." And this, for me, is one of them. Assume we live in a world where those who have power exist in a sphere of privilege. They enjoy protections from the consequences of their actions. Their influence and connections exempt them from the standard costs of citizenship. If that's the case, if these people exist outside of due process, what's left? This, I guess. There are lot of communications in this bundle that are probably pretty mundane, sent and received by people who show up for jury duty and take traffic school when they run a red light. And it sucks that they've lost their privacy on this. On the other hand, because of Strafor's mission, you can be almost certain that a handful of messages will reveal information where disclosing it is emphatically a public good. Will we find wrongdoing? Downright illegality? I'm not sure. But I am pretty sure that actions like this are the last reasonably potent check on power we have left.

earbitscom 15y ago
So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  and yet I bet you think That seems slightly unfair. Unless of course you've performed a comprehensive background check on danilocampos' comment history. But I bet you haven't ;)
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    You're right. That's not cool. But I haven't really run into anyone who thinks we should shut down sites without due process, particularly on HN. Even still, I shouldn't jump to conclusions.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral. You feel as though "things like the Pirate Bay" are run by people who are so wealthy and powerful that they've completely subverted criminal justice and international law? I had no idea Dick Cheney was running torrent sites. The bit where he sent those stooges to sit in a Swedish court was a nice touch, I guess.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    No, I feel "They enjoy protections from the consequences of their actions," and, "if these people exist outside of due process, what's left?"
    - libraryatnight 15y ago
      They enjoy protections provided by operating in a country where their site is legal. They're not operating outside due process.
  - jonhendry 15y ago
    If Dick Cheney were running Stratfor, they wouldn't have said that Iraq probably didn't have WMD.
    - danilocampos 15y ago
      Get off this, dude, no one thinks Dick Cheney's running Stratfor. I bet he has friends on their client list, though.
      - forensic 15y ago
        All of Dick Cheney's friends get their intel from the CIA. Stratfor is small potatoes.
- drewblaisdell 15y ago
  The Pirate Bay does not exist outside of the confines of due process. It exists only because it is transparent and complies totally with Swedish law. No one is doing TPB any favors. If anything, it gets more negative attention than it (legally) should.
jonhendry 15y ago
"On the other hand, because of Strafor's mission" The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that?
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that? ...Nothing at all? It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. A type of information of particular interest to people with skin in the game of world politics. That is, a guy on Stratfor's secret client list probably has much more interesting email to read than a guy working at a Radio Shack in Sarasota, Florida.
  - jonhendry 15y ago
    "It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. " And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't.
    - danilocampos 15y ago
      > And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't. Oh, thanks so much, jonhendry! I really appreciate your filling me in. Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened. The fact remains, the sort of person who is emailing high-level folk at Stratfor either knows things or wants to know things of geopolitical importance. A source with a compelling piece of data the public doesn't know about, perhaps. Or a business tycoon with a question that, knowing it was asked, completely invalidates the public narrative that company had spun. So if your mission is to get access to data about how people are running the world, a great place to start is a private global intelligence firm. No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing. Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."
devs1010 15y ago
Agreed. Over the last 10 years, arguably much longer, if you take into account the "war" on drugs, the US government has begun to, in some aspects, wage war on its own citizens. The power grabs by politicians and law enforcement nowadays is reaching insane levels to the point where I am not confident that we live in a fully "free" country anymore and to where I think that people doing things like this could be one of the only defenses against our country going even further down the shitter. Just as our government is fine with killing plenty of innocent people in a variety of ways (non-militants killed in wars, overzealous law enforcement, people executed that are later exonerated) I am fine with some innocent "casualties" when citizens fight back, which in this case is the loss of privacy for some of the people who sent these emails.
- DanBC 15y ago
  Kismet and nmap protected by the 2nd amendment?
eternalban 15y ago
> At the same time, there are times where you say "eh, fuck it." Cognitive dissonance overload! "Anonymous"/"99%"/TPTB_NOT is correct (imo) in criticizing the TPTB's theory of 'suspended norms/ethos due to emergency' e.g. get ready to be groped by a uniformed servant from the margines. Good times. Now we have supporters of anon/99/we-the-people's position asserting that the philosophy of "what is Right is what is convenient'/'end justifies the means' is in fact acceptable. USA is saying "eh, fuck it" when it kidnaps, tortures, rapes (abu ..), terrorizes (same place), and holds in contempt (fuck it) the said "it": Our aspirations, our principles, our heritage, and our "fucking" way of life. Simply based on that ideological finger print, I would certainly entertain the view that holds these groups and their shenanigans to be entirely the work of TPTB.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  In a democracy, people don't get re-elected when they're shown to be crooks in such a huge way that it's impossible to ignore. We already know, to some extent, how crook-y some of these people are. In particular, we know how easily they assault our civil liberties, or perhaps better stated our right to privacy. If assaulting theirs is how we convince the masses that they should not be there, then it is perhaps reasonable to do so. Ours are already under fire, the question is whether destroying theirs will produce a big enough result to make it worth it. I don't think the answer is clear-cut in general, and time will tell in this case, but I don't know that it's as cognitively dissonant as it seems. In the case of the government, they can't say “well we're watching everyone's conversations because so are the terrorists”. That makes their justification very different from the one in use here, and thus changes the equation a lot.
  - eternalban 15y ago
    There are dragon slayers and there are also those who tilt at windmills. I'll be a believer the day that Anonymous/Lulzie-ones core dump the archives of The City of London. Slaying that dragon is a game changer; effectively random acts of cyber anarchy and antisocial behavior (people's CCs, for ex.) just raise dust and TPTB love occultation and delight in the demonstration of the emptiness of our "convictions" and "principles". Have you ever considered that this is an intellectual/spiritual battle between a subset asserting superiority in every dimension of human endeavor that (literally) justifies their rule? If yes, then mind your "principles" and "convictions". That is the Human Front. Hold the line, please.
Iv 15y ago
That. Protect privacy for everyone or have no privacy for anyone. I'd be happy to have all my emails exposed if I could read Lehman Brother's inboxes.

earbitscom 15y ago

So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral.

JonnieCache 15y ago
and yet I bet you think That seems slightly unfair. Unless of course you've performed a comprehensive background check on danilocampos' comment history. But I bet you haven't ;)
- earbitscom 15y ago
  You're right. That's not cool. But I haven't really run into anyone who thinks we should shut down sites without due process, particularly on HN. Even still, I shouldn't jump to conclusions.
danilocampos 15y ago
> So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral. You feel as though "things like the Pirate Bay" are run by people who are so wealthy and powerful that they've completely subverted criminal justice and international law? I had no idea Dick Cheney was running torrent sites. The bit where he sent those stooges to sit in a Swedish court was a nice touch, I guess.
- earbitscom 15y ago
  No, I feel "They enjoy protections from the consequences of their actions," and, "if these people exist outside of due process, what's left?"
  - libraryatnight 15y ago
    They enjoy protections provided by operating in a country where their site is legal. They're not operating outside due process.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  If Dick Cheney were running Stratfor, they wouldn't have said that Iraq probably didn't have WMD.
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    Get off this, dude, no one thinks Dick Cheney's running Stratfor. I bet he has friends on their client list, though.
    - forensic 15y ago
      All of Dick Cheney's friends get their intel from the CIA. Stratfor is small potatoes.
drewblaisdell 15y ago
The Pirate Bay does not exist outside of the confines of due process. It exists only because it is transparent and complies totally with Swedish law. No one is doing TPB any favors. If anything, it gets more negative attention than it (legally) should.

jonhendry 15y ago

"On the other hand, because of Strafor's mission" The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that?

danilocampos 15y ago
> The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that? ...Nothing at all? It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. A type of information of particular interest to people with skin in the game of world politics. That is, a guy on Stratfor's secret client list probably has much more interesting email to read than a guy working at a Radio Shack in Sarasota, Florida.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  "It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. " And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't.
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    > And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't. Oh, thanks so much, jonhendry! I really appreciate your filling me in. Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened. The fact remains, the sort of person who is emailing high-level folk at Stratfor either knows things or wants to know things of geopolitical importance. A source with a compelling piece of data the public doesn't know about, perhaps. Or a business tycoon with a question that, knowing it was asked, completely invalidates the public narrative that company had spun. So if your mission is to get access to data about how people are running the world, a great place to start is a private global intelligence firm. No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing. Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."

devs1010 15y ago

Agreed. Over the last 10 years, arguably much longer, if you take into account the "war" on drugs, the US government has begun to, in some aspects, wage war on its own citizens. The power grabs by politicians and law enforcement nowadays is reaching insane levels to the point where I am not confident that we live in a fully "free" country anymore and to where I think that people doing things like this could be one of the only defenses against our country going even further down the shitter. Just as our government is fine with killing plenty of innocent people in a variety of ways (non-militants killed in wars, overzealous law enforcement, people executed that are later exonerated) I am fine with some innocent "casualties" when citizens fight back, which in this case is the loss of privacy for some of the people who sent these emails.

DanBC 15y ago
Kismet and nmap protected by the 2nd amendment?

eternalban 15y ago

> At the same time, there are times where you say "eh, fuck it." Cognitive dissonance overload! "Anonymous"/"99%"/TPTB_NOT is correct (imo) in criticizing the TPTB's theory of 'suspended norms/ethos due to emergency' e.g. get ready to be groped by a uniformed servant from the margines. Good times. Now we have supporters of anon/99/we-the-people's position asserting that the philosophy of "what is Right is what is convenient'/'end justifies the means' is in fact acceptable. USA is saying "eh, fuck it" when it kidnaps, tortures, rapes (abu ..), terrorizes (same place), and holds in contempt (fuck it) the said "it": Our aspirations, our principles, our heritage, and our "fucking" way of life. Simply based on that ideological finger print, I would certainly entertain the view that holds these groups and their shenanigans to be entirely the work of TPTB.

shadowfiend 15y ago
In a democracy, people don't get re-elected when they're shown to be crooks in such a huge way that it's impossible to ignore. We already know, to some extent, how crook-y some of these people are. In particular, we know how easily they assault our civil liberties, or perhaps better stated our right to privacy. If assaulting theirs is how we convince the masses that they should not be there, then it is perhaps reasonable to do so. Ours are already under fire, the question is whether destroying theirs will produce a big enough result to make it worth it. I don't think the answer is clear-cut in general, and time will tell in this case, but I don't know that it's as cognitively dissonant as it seems. In the case of the government, they can't say “well we're watching everyone's conversations because so are the terrorists”. That makes their justification very different from the one in use here, and thus changes the equation a lot.
- eternalban 15y ago
  There are dragon slayers and there are also those who tilt at windmills. I'll be a believer the day that Anonymous/Lulzie-ones core dump the archives of The City of London. Slaying that dragon is a game changer; effectively random acts of cyber anarchy and antisocial behavior (people's CCs, for ex.) just raise dust and TPTB love occultation and delight in the demonstration of the emptiness of our "convictions" and "principles". Have you ever considered that this is an intellectual/spiritual battle between a subset asserting superiority in every dimension of human endeavor that (literally) justifies their rule? If yes, then mind your "principles" and "convictions". That is the Human Front. Hold the line, please.

Iv 15y ago

That. Protect privacy for everyone or have no privacy for anyone. I'd be happy to have all my emails exposed if I could read Lehman Brother's inboxes.