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You mean you want the same government that is interested in putting back doors in phones and other surveillance techniques to pass laws that keep them from doin

You mean you want the same government that is interested in putting back doors in phones and other surveillance techniques to pass laws that keep them from doing so?

smolder 3y ago
Yes, our government is not a single homogenous entity. We can theoretically (and sometimes actually) use our legislative representatives to change the behavior of other parts.
- coldtea 3y ago
  A, the optimism of youth!
- scarface74 3y ago
  You realize the legislators are the ones asking for backdoors because - “terrorism“ and “think about the children”. When has the government ever wanted less surveillance power or less control over the internet.
  - roribolden 3y ago
    Corporations are the governments private enforcement contractors. They’ll control the internet and we’ll work for them, and they’ll work for government. See! Government involved in your life! Nice job building a firewall between society and government control. At the end of the day it’s all people. The semantic bubbles do nothing to change its all just people looking to externalize effort to live simpler themselves.
  - TchoBeer 3y ago
    "the government" is not one person with a concrete ideology, it is an amalgamation of hundreds of people who all want different things and are theoretically beholden to their voter base.
    - scarface74 3y ago
      The government in the US is not beholden to “the people”. Because of the setup of the electoral college, 2 senator per state where RI has the same number of Senators as California and gerrymandering, it is very much about the will of the minority. That’s not to mention all of the things that get done by unelected officials and judges with lifetime tenure.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      "The government", like any other large corporation, is an entity in and of itself, and not a mere aggregation of the people who run it. It has institutional culture etc, and given what it is, said institutional culture tends to lean heavily towards a highly centralized, hierarchical approach to anything it perceives as a problem; and tends to perceive anything that threatens the applicability of this approach as a problem in its own right.
  - smolder 3y ago
    The clipper chip idea flopped, right? So have a few other stupid, draconian, privacy-defeating bills since. But yeah, it may not be realistic to think that we can stop the expansion of surveillance powers for TPTB and erosion of rights for the average citizen, given the consistency and persistence of the proponents of such crap. When I look at trends of the past 20 years, it seems like wherever the law has fallen short of placing everyone under a microscope, private industry has conveniently stepped in to become the 1984-telescreen service providers instead of the government.
jabradoodle 3y ago
Much of the progress that has been achieved by governance was opposed by those with power. Your view point sounds like we should give up on any form of legislation the rich and powerful would not like.
- scarface74 3y ago
  What progress in the modern era with respect to privacy has the government done?
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    Every organisation I've worked in has had comprehensive processes for deleting personal data and only storing what is necessary due to e.g. https://www.gov.uk/data-protection https://www.gov.uk/data-protection Without such laws, every business would store as much data as they could indefinitely, because $$. All of this is besides the point that was made; your fatalistic view point suggests we should make no attempt at effective governance because there are powers that oppose us. There are countries which are more democratic than others, and the population of such countries tend to have a better quality of life and more rights.

You mean you want the same government that is interested in putting back doors in phones and other surveillance techniques to pass laws that keep them from doing so?

smolder 3y ago

Yes, our government is not a single homogenous entity. We can theoretically (and sometimes actually) use our legislative representatives to change the behavior of other parts.

coldtea 3y ago
A, the optimism of youth!
scarface74 3y ago
You realize the legislators are the ones asking for backdoors because - “terrorism“ and “think about the children”. When has the government ever wanted less surveillance power or less control over the internet.
- roribolden 3y ago
  Corporations are the governments private enforcement contractors. They’ll control the internet and we’ll work for them, and they’ll work for government. See! Government involved in your life! Nice job building a firewall between society and government control. At the end of the day it’s all people. The semantic bubbles do nothing to change its all just people looking to externalize effort to live simpler themselves.
- TchoBeer 3y ago
  "the government" is not one person with a concrete ideology, it is an amalgamation of hundreds of people who all want different things and are theoretically beholden to their voter base.
  - scarface74 3y ago
    The government in the US is not beholden to “the people”. Because of the setup of the electoral college, 2 senator per state where RI has the same number of Senators as California and gerrymandering, it is very much about the will of the minority. That’s not to mention all of the things that get done by unelected officials and judges with lifetime tenure.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    "The government", like any other large corporation, is an entity in and of itself, and not a mere aggregation of the people who run it. It has institutional culture etc, and given what it is, said institutional culture tends to lean heavily towards a highly centralized, hierarchical approach to anything it perceives as a problem; and tends to perceive anything that threatens the applicability of this approach as a problem in its own right.
- smolder 3y ago
  The clipper chip idea flopped, right? So have a few other stupid, draconian, privacy-defeating bills since. But yeah, it may not be realistic to think that we can stop the expansion of surveillance powers for TPTB and erosion of rights for the average citizen, given the consistency and persistence of the proponents of such crap. When I look at trends of the past 20 years, it seems like wherever the law has fallen short of placing everyone under a microscope, private industry has conveniently stepped in to become the 1984-telescreen service providers instead of the government.

jabradoodle 3y ago

Much of the progress that has been achieved by governance was opposed by those with power. Your view point sounds like we should give up on any form of legislation the rich and powerful would not like.

scarface74 3y ago
What progress in the modern era with respect to privacy has the government done?
- jabradoodle 3y ago
  Every organisation I've worked in has had comprehensive processes for deleting personal data and only storing what is necessary due to e.g. https://www.gov.uk/data-protection https://www.gov.uk/data-protection Without such laws, every business would store as much data as they could indefinitely, because $$. All of this is besides the point that was made; your fatalistic view point suggests we should make no attempt at effective governance because there are powers that oppose us. There are countries which are more democratic than others, and the population of such countries tend to have a better quality of life and more rights.