3 ms·

I think your takeaway is wrong. It isn't the government doing naughty secret things but the government doing so with support from a plurality of the people. The

by _8j50 3y ago

I think your takeaway is wrong. It isn't the government doing naughty secret things but the government doing so with support from a plurality of the people. The patriot act is a non-partisan issue that gets renewed every administration. Snowden and Assange should be locked up accroding to a majority of americans. Your takeaway should be that a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any law because that is what the rulers must do to continue to get elected. You worry about privacy and laws, they worry about answering for even a relatively small terrorist attack. The people gave away their freedoms out of fear.

imiric 3y ago
> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. Where do you think that fear comes from? It can be fabricated using real or fake events anytime the government wants to pursue a political or financial goal. Modern media is a government mouthpiece, even in apparent liberal democracies, and is used to sway public opinion in any direction. This mechanism is also exploited by political enemies, to sow dissent and social unrest, crippling democratic systems.
- _8j50 3y ago
  The original fear of terrorism was very real, but they sacrificed theirs and their childrens freedoms for temporary security. The cowards let the terrorists win. We live in the most information accessible time in history and in the US most people can read and write and are capable of researching topics on the internet. If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. It is because their ears are hearing the lies they crave. Even when you debate with people these days on many political topics they basically plug their ears and scream "fake news". They are more interested in winning culture wars than the truth. The immigrant family down the streer driving down home prices or having to attend diversity meetings at work is a greater concern than the FBI monitoring all their comms. There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special?
  - imiric 3y ago
    > There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special? The US certainly isn't special. We see the effects of disinformation in all countries. Increase in social tensions and belief in conspiracy theories, elections swung by social media campaigns, the radical right gaining power, Brexit, etc. These are all orchestrated in part by companies like Cambridge Analytica, foreign and local propaganda, troll farms, etc. None of this is really new. What's made it special _now_ is the internet. It has given both local and foreign agents the reach and power to influence public opinion on an unprecedented scale. > If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. Really? Fact check it where, on the internet? If all sources of information are polluted to the point where it's either impossible or very difficult to discern fact from fiction, can we really blame people for believing what they read, hear and see? But you're right that the average person won't even make an effort to doubt the information they're provided from whatever source they already align with. So, yes, education and critical thinking are crucial, but this is exactly what disinformation agents know how to exploit. Psyops and information warfare work, and they work better today than ever before.
zahllos 3y ago
I'm reading your comment as saying that if I don't think Snowden/Assange should be pardoned and set free, I'm implicitly supporting mass surveillance. I wanted to provide a counterbalance to that view. Snowden is a complicated case - in my view it isn't as simple as 100% hero or 100% villain - but Assange is in my view relatively clear. Wikileaks and Manning appear to have leaked anything they can. I don't support such a scattergun approach. Also, while some of their leaks pertain to surveillance (the vault 7 ones) most of them do not. Then there's Assange. He was facing extradition to Sweden under a European Arrest Warrant for rape alleged to have taken place there, but instead skipped bail on the pretext it was all some US conspiracy. Until extradition was approved he was free on bail. Likely had he been extradited to Sweden he would also have been free on bail, and the burden of proof would have remained on prosecutors. I'm sure he would have had a fair trial. Instead he made it to the Ecuadorian embassy and stayed until he made himself unwelcome. At which point he was arrested by the UK for skipping bail and has since been subject to the very extradition procedure that was his pretext. I'm British, although I no longer live there. If you are the US government and you want to extradite someone legally I can't imagine a friendlier jurisdiction than the UK. I'm also mildly irritated that the UN torture experts keep sounding off that this is torture. Not at all. Assange chose to enter the Ecuadorian embassy and in doing so chose to break the law by not attending court. He chose to remain there for a considerable time, making labelling him a flight risk so obvious as to be automatic. When he came out of the embassy, he was convicted and jailed of that crime. He has also remained there because he's currently subject to extradition proceedings and no judge is going to grant him bail. I'm certain living in a confined space in the embassy wasn't pleasant, but that was a choice. I'm certain prison isn't pleasant either (no matter what UK tabloids say) but that is a consequence. This is a far cry from what, say, the Syrian regime does. I support encryption and anything that frustrates mass surveillance because I believe fundamentally that private citizens have a right to a private life and that invasion of that privacy should be specific and justified, including when it comes to electronic communications. I accept that law enforcement will sometimes be faced with a situation in which they cannot decrypt communications between two almost certain criminals and this may make their job harder, and I'm happy with that trade-off. In the end, all a pervasive backdoor does is target law abiding citizens, as criminals by definition won't feel bound to put their keys in escrow or whatever. They're already developing their own handsets and the police have shown themselves capable of targeting them (encrochat). At the same time, if Assange is extradited to the US tomorrow then good riddance. I don't see that I have to support him in any way in order to object to mass surveillance, pervasive monitoring and mandated backdoors.
Aerbil313 3y ago
> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. The modern state is far more freedom-restricting than any other type of state which came before, and this is due to technology. Historically there were many slaves who were freer than the “free” man of today. You’re also right that fear is the predominant feeling/force that maintains order in a modern state. See the book Technological Slavery: https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Tec...
throwaway892238 3y ago
> a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any law because that is what the rulers must do to continue to get elected Except that's never been how democracies work. Going back to the first democratic greek city-states, to now, they all tend to operate on a number of different motivators, the last of which is law-makers changing what they do to fit the public interest. Landed gentry and the aristocracy get priority, followed by merchants, and then the rest of the government gets its say, which often competes/clashes with other parts of the government. For the most part, anyone who gets elected got there through political savvy, money, and being exceptionally good at convincing people to trust them and give them power. So they're quite good at doing what they want despite what the people might want. I agree that the people are often quick to give away their rights to secure their safety (or desires). But with transparency in government, people will notice the things they don't like (despite what they've given away or sold, including their principles) and can become outraged enough to reverse their previous acquiescence. You actually see this outside of democracies in most nations where people see enough bullshit that they eventually revolt.

by _8j50 3y ago

imiric 3y ago

> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. Where do you think that fear comes from? It can be fabricated using real or fake events anytime the government wants to pursue a political or financial goal. Modern media is a government mouthpiece, even in apparent liberal democracies, and is used to sway public opinion in any direction. This mechanism is also exploited by political enemies, to sow dissent and social unrest, crippling democratic systems.

_8j50 3y ago
The original fear of terrorism was very real, but they sacrificed theirs and their childrens freedoms for temporary security. The cowards let the terrorists win. We live in the most information accessible time in history and in the US most people can read and write and are capable of researching topics on the internet. If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. It is because their ears are hearing the lies they crave. Even when you debate with people these days on many political topics they basically plug their ears and scream "fake news". They are more interested in winning culture wars than the truth. The immigrant family down the streer driving down home prices or having to attend diversity meetings at work is a greater concern than the FBI monitoring all their comms. There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special?
- imiric 3y ago
  > There have always been media and politicians that want to use fear to control the people. Why is now and why is the US special? The US certainly isn't special. We see the effects of disinformation in all countries. Increase in social tensions and belief in conspiracy theories, elections swung by social media campaigns, the radical right gaining power, Brexit, etc. These are all orchestrated in part by companies like Cambridge Analytica, foreign and local propaganda, troll farms, etc. None of this is really new. What's made it special _now_ is the internet. It has given both local and foreign agents the reach and power to influence public opinion on an unprecedented scale. > If someone is falling for fake information, it is not the media's fault, they can fact check any media themselves. Really? Fact check it where, on the internet? If all sources of information are polluted to the point where it's either impossible or very difficult to discern fact from fiction, can we really blame people for believing what they read, hear and see? But you're right that the average person won't even make an effort to doubt the information they're provided from whatever source they already align with. So, yes, education and critical thinking are crucial, but this is exactly what disinformation agents know how to exploit. Psyops and information warfare work, and they work better today than ever before.

zahllos 3y ago

I'm reading your comment as saying that if I don't think Snowden/Assange should be pardoned and set free, I'm implicitly supporting mass surveillance. I wanted to provide a counterbalance to that view. Snowden is a complicated case - in my view it isn't as simple as 100% hero or 100% villain - but Assange is in my view relatively clear. Wikileaks and Manning appear to have leaked anything they can. I don't support such a scattergun approach. Also, while some of their leaks pertain to surveillance (the vault 7 ones) most of them do not. Then there's Assange. He was facing extradition to Sweden under a European Arrest Warrant for rape alleged to have taken place there, but instead skipped bail on the pretext it was all some US conspiracy. Until extradition was approved he was free on bail. Likely had he been extradited to Sweden he would also have been free on bail, and the burden of proof would have remained on prosecutors. I'm sure he would have had a fair trial. Instead he made it to the Ecuadorian embassy and stayed until he made himself unwelcome. At which point he was arrested by the UK for skipping bail and has since been subject to the very extradition procedure that was his pretext. I'm British, although I no longer live there. If you are the US government and you want to extradite someone legally I can't imagine a friendlier jurisdiction than the UK. I'm also mildly irritated that the UN torture experts keep sounding off that this is torture. Not at all. Assange chose to enter the Ecuadorian embassy and in doing so chose to break the law by not attending court. He chose to remain there for a considerable time, making labelling him a flight risk so obvious as to be automatic. When he came out of the embassy, he was convicted and jailed of that crime. He has also remained there because he's currently subject to extradition proceedings and no judge is going to grant him bail. I'm certain living in a confined space in the embassy wasn't pleasant, but that was a choice. I'm certain prison isn't pleasant either (no matter what UK tabloids say) but that is a consequence. This is a far cry from what, say, the Syrian regime does. I support encryption and anything that frustrates mass surveillance because I believe fundamentally that private citizens have a right to a private life and that invasion of that privacy should be specific and justified, including when it comes to electronic communications. I accept that law enforcement will sometimes be faced with a situation in which they cannot decrypt communications between two almost certain criminals and this may make their job harder, and I'm happy with that trade-off. In the end, all a pervasive backdoor does is target law abiding citizens, as criminals by definition won't feel bound to put their keys in escrow or whatever. They're already developing their own handsets and the police have shown themselves capable of targeting them (encrochat). At the same time, if Assange is extradited to the US tomorrow then good riddance. I don't see that I have to support him in any way in order to object to mass surveillance, pervasive monitoring and mandated backdoors.

Aerbil313 3y ago

> The people gave away their freedoms out of fear. The modern state is far more freedom-restricting than any other type of state which came before, and this is due to technology. Historically there were many slaves who were freer than the “free” man of today. You’re also right that fear is the predominant feeling/force that maintains order in a modern state. See the book Technological Slavery: https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Tec...

throwaway892238 3y ago

> a democracy would always reflect the will of the people with or without any law because that is what the rulers must do to continue to get elected Except that's never been how democracies work. Going back to the first democratic greek city-states, to now, they all tend to operate on a number of different motivators, the last of which is law-makers changing what they do to fit the public interest. Landed gentry and the aristocracy get priority, followed by merchants, and then the rest of the government gets its say, which often competes/clashes with other parts of the government. For the most part, anyone who gets elected got there through political savvy, money, and being exceptionally good at convincing people to trust them and give them power. So they're quite good at doing what they want despite what the people might want. I agree that the people are often quick to give away their rights to secure their safety (or desires). But with transparency in government, people will notice the things they don't like (despite what they've given away or sold, including their principles) and can become outraged enough to reverse their previous acquiescence. You actually see this outside of democracies in most nations where people see enough bullshit that they eventually revolt.