10 ms·

Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

250 points by panarky 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago
Not wrong, but kind of incomplete, given that all sorts of policies get held hostage with these stupid "Congress makes impossible mutually conflicting demands" fights.
tehwebguy 3y ago
Yeah a lot of things shouldn’t be but everything except renaming post offices is now.
TriangleEdge 3y ago
I'm curious what the `upvoteCount/commentCount` will be for this post. I'd also be curious to see a chart where x is time and y is a score for something along the lines of "I am free to critique the US government without any form retaliation".
- hartator 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - HHC-Hunter 3y ago
    There's one in every thread.
  - TriangleEdge 3y ago
    How is saying "I think people are scared to speak" make me a fed?
- RobRivera 3y ago
  Curious george is that you!? :3
- TriangleEdge 3y ago
  Since I'm being downvoted,... what I'm suggesting is that it's going in a downwards trend. Edit: The chart is going in a downwards trend.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Yes, we understood your implication that the government is punishing critique by down voting hacker news posts. I think you got down voted because people disagree, not because they didn't understand.
    - TriangleEdge 3y ago
      That's not what I said.
alphanullmeric 3y ago
Funny to see this make headlines here, where many people would gladly support using mass surveillance to fund the government. The same ones that support financial privacy restrictions are quick to play victim when the same violations are applied in ways that don’t benefit them.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  That's how it works. People support policies that are beneficial and don't support policies that are harmful. Privacy is just one component of this evaluation. If we demand absolute privacy with no government oversight, even by warrants, the cost of increased crime will be larger than the marginal benefit from increased privacy. If we demand that nobody can hold somebody else's data, the cost to businesses that rely on their employees getting information from their company's logged communications will be larger than the marginal benefit of increased privacy.
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    It’s how it works for people that lack consistency. If you don’t want absolute privacy then you are also free to support an absolute lack of it. “I want privacy except when it stops me from getting at other people’s money” is not an acceptable option.
    - lern_too_spel 3y ago
      No, they're consistent on what matters. Privacy isn't the be-all and end-all of utility. It's merely one component. Being able to take back money stolen by a crook is something that most people value, and they are happy to pay the privacy cost to get it. A foolish consistency (insisting on absolute consistency for the wrong concept) is the hobgoblin of little minds.
      - alphanullmeric 3y ago
        You are free to sacrifice your own privacy. This discussion is about whether you have the right to forcefully sacrifice mine. You’re only consistent in doing what benefits you, even if that means your support for a policy depends on who is involved and not what it does.
motohagiography 3y ago
While I've believed that developing privacy and encryption tech was ignoring the deeper problem, and it was a poor substitute for using that effort to actually engage with and reform the institutions we use privacy tech to protect ourselves from, when you are up against anonymous cynicism like earmarking continuity of government bills, the only thing left to do is shrug and become a cypherpunk maximalist. Life is too short. Might as well ride this civilization into the ground.
- peltier 3y ago
  -and it was a poor substitute for using that effort to actually engage with and reform the institutions Well said. Its amazing that the IC has lagged behind on this and not made sufficient efforts to regain the publics trust. -the only thing left to do is shrug and become a cypherpunk maximalist. Life is too short. Might as well ride this civilization into the ground. This is the saddest story ever monitored. Many share that sentiment and has for decades.
- panarky 3y ago
  > cypherpunk maximalist Way past time to get assassination markets back in the popular imagination so that a new generation can re-litigate the usenet flame wars of olde, amplified by a factor of ten thousand.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  > developing privacy and encryption tech was ignoring the deeper problem It was not. Even with privacy-respecting government and laws (and corporations), it is important that mass surveillance isn't easy, or it's virtually guaranteed to happen. Stealing is illegal, yet you don't leave your cash savings on the windowsill.
agentgumshoe 3y ago
These are the kinds of things that annoy me in relation to celebrities. For instance, Taylor Swift/Kanye could raise this issue and probably single-handedly cause enough upset to have this changed/removed. I wish they worked positive (and sure, sometimes they'll probably get it wrong) policy change rather than quiet charities and token signalling. In terms of the government using it for ransom, well, the other side should absolutely say they'll shutdown government if these privacy overreaches are not removed. Put the pressure back on and vocalise the absurdity of the situation. But hey, it's not a wild guess to say both sides are really in support of the measure and use the 'ransom' as an excuse to pass it.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  If a celebrity spoke out on this issue, wouldn’t that basically just result in the tabloid press responding with a campaign of “Hmm, what does he/she have to hide?” No surprise if people who already find it hard to live a private, peaceful life don’t want to invite that on themselves.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Celebrities are about as ignorant about the issue as regular people, but there's also millions of people vying for them to say stuff. So much so that it's literally a commodity that they sell. Furthermore, celebrities often get pushback for making political statements, even extremely milquetoast ones like "Israel shouldn't collectively punish Palestine for Hamas". Their job is to be liked by everyone, which means they can stand for nothing. That being said, I know of few people who actually support America's current surveillance apparatus. Liberals hate it because it's corrosive to liberal democracy; Trumpists hate it because it hurt them; and left-wingers hate it because they're the intended target. The phrasing I use for this kind of issue is "anti-partisan": the general voting population hates it, but politicians want it to continue because it's instrumental to other goals that the voting population would support. A key wrinkle is that most anti-partisanism would also disadvantage wealthy individuals if it got its way - i.e. right to repair harms OEMs' god-given right to force you to buy a new one - so wealth tends to rally around continuing the thing we don't want. Celebrities are sort of in the wealth orbit insamuch as social capital and being well known is a saleable commodity, so they also have a tendency to orbit around opposing antipartisan issues. In other words, they don't want the CIA to spy on them, but they also want a neoliberal economy to sell products into, which is growing increasingly unpopular, which requires having a CIA spy on extremists, which means they want the CIA to spy on someone else. None of this is consciously understood or planned, there's no CIA guy telling celebrities to shut up about the spying, it is merely a coincidence of class interests and incentives.
peltier 3y ago
Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty. Once said by a brave abolitionist.
avidphantasm 3y ago
This is why Democrats and traditional Republicans secretly love having narrow majorities. It lets them shove down our throats otherwise unsavory policies in the name of keeping the lights on.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... > Section 702 is a key provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information. As a US citizen, why wouldn't I want this reauthorized?
- wmf 3y ago
  If you believe that's what it actually does, go for it. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa-section-702-civil-rights-abuses https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- rockskon 3y ago
  Because the intelligence community has interpreted it to allow them to collect enormous amounts of U.S. persons communications and have analysts parse it and read it to make a determination on its foreign intelligence relevance. Or if you're hot, some teenage intelligence analyst will make a copy of that nude you sent to your spouse to save for his personal spank bank. It's all for national security you see. All without a warrant. Because intentionally collecting information they know will be predominantly on U.S. persons is a-okay as long as one or two drops in that ocean of U.S. persons communication is of foreign nationals communicating.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
I wish they would get a border deal done. That's what the GOP base wants, and quietly what a lot of Dems want too. This is just nonsense.
RecycledEle 3y ago
If you think anyone in the US Government cares about your privacy, you are nuts.

250 points by panarky 3y ago

Not wrong, but kind of incomplete, given that all sorts of policies get held hostage with these stupid "Congress makes impossible mutually conflicting demands" fights.

tehwebguy 3y ago

Yeah a lot of things shouldn’t be but everything except renaming post offices is now.

TriangleEdge 3y ago

I'm curious what the `upvoteCount/commentCount` will be for this post. I'd also be curious to see a chart where x is time and y is a score for something along the lines of "I am free to critique the US government without any form retaliation".

hartator 3y ago
[flagged]
- HHC-Hunter 3y ago
  There's one in every thread.
- TriangleEdge 3y ago
  How is saying "I think people are scared to speak" make me a fed?
RobRivera 3y ago
Curious george is that you!? :3
TriangleEdge 3y ago
Since I'm being downvoted,... what I'm suggesting is that it's going in a downwards trend. Edit: The chart is going in a downwards trend.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  Yes, we understood your implication that the government is punishing critique by down voting hacker news posts. I think you got down voted because people disagree, not because they didn't understand.
  - TriangleEdge 3y ago
    That's not what I said.

alphanullmeric 3y ago

Funny to see this make headlines here, where many people would gladly support using mass surveillance to fund the government. The same ones that support financial privacy restrictions are quick to play victim when the same violations are applied in ways that don’t benefit them.

lern_too_spel 3y ago
That's how it works. People support policies that are beneficial and don't support policies that are harmful. Privacy is just one component of this evaluation. If we demand absolute privacy with no government oversight, even by warrants, the cost of increased crime will be larger than the marginal benefit from increased privacy. If we demand that nobody can hold somebody else's data, the cost to businesses that rely on their employees getting information from their company's logged communications will be larger than the marginal benefit of increased privacy.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  It’s how it works for people that lack consistency. If you don’t want absolute privacy then you are also free to support an absolute lack of it. “I want privacy except when it stops me from getting at other people’s money” is not an acceptable option.
  - lern_too_spel 3y ago
    No, they're consistent on what matters. Privacy isn't the be-all and end-all of utility. It's merely one component. Being able to take back money stolen by a crook is something that most people value, and they are happy to pay the privacy cost to get it. A foolish consistency (insisting on absolute consistency for the wrong concept) is the hobgoblin of little minds.
    - alphanullmeric 3y ago
      You are free to sacrifice your own privacy. This discussion is about whether you have the right to forcefully sacrifice mine. You’re only consistent in doing what benefits you, even if that means your support for a policy depends on who is involved and not what it does.

motohagiography 3y ago

While I've believed that developing privacy and encryption tech was ignoring the deeper problem, and it was a poor substitute for using that effort to actually engage with and reform the institutions we use privacy tech to protect ourselves from, when you are up against anonymous cynicism like earmarking continuity of government bills, the only thing left to do is shrug and become a cypherpunk maximalist. Life is too short. Might as well ride this civilization into the ground.

peltier 3y ago
-and it was a poor substitute for using that effort to actually engage with and reform the institutions Well said. Its amazing that the IC has lagged behind on this and not made sufficient efforts to regain the publics trust. -the only thing left to do is shrug and become a cypherpunk maximalist. Life is too short. Might as well ride this civilization into the ground. This is the saddest story ever monitored. Many share that sentiment and has for decades.
panarky 3y ago
> cypherpunk maximalist Way past time to get assassination markets back in the popular imagination so that a new generation can re-litigate the usenet flame wars of olde, amplified by a factor of ten thousand.
SenAnder 3y ago
> developing privacy and encryption tech was ignoring the deeper problem It was not. Even with privacy-respecting government and laws (and corporations), it is important that mass surveillance isn't easy, or it's virtually guaranteed to happen. Stealing is illegal, yet you don't leave your cash savings on the windowsill.

agentgumshoe 3y ago

These are the kinds of things that annoy me in relation to celebrities. For instance, Taylor Swift/Kanye could raise this issue and probably single-handedly cause enough upset to have this changed/removed. I wish they worked positive (and sure, sometimes they'll probably get it wrong) policy change rather than quiet charities and token signalling. In terms of the government using it for ransom, well, the other side should absolutely say they'll shutdown government if these privacy overreaches are not removed. Put the pressure back on and vocalise the absurdity of the situation. But hey, it's not a wild guess to say both sides are really in support of the measure and use the 'ransom' as an excuse to pass it.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
If a celebrity spoke out on this issue, wouldn’t that basically just result in the tabloid press responding with a campaign of “Hmm, what does he/she have to hide?” No surprise if people who already find it hard to live a private, peaceful life don’t want to invite that on themselves.
kmeisthax 3y ago
Celebrities are about as ignorant about the issue as regular people, but there's also millions of people vying for them to say stuff. So much so that it's literally a commodity that they sell. Furthermore, celebrities often get pushback for making political statements, even extremely milquetoast ones like "Israel shouldn't collectively punish Palestine for Hamas". Their job is to be liked by everyone, which means they can stand for nothing. That being said, I know of few people who actually support America's current surveillance apparatus. Liberals hate it because it's corrosive to liberal democracy; Trumpists hate it because it hurt them; and left-wingers hate it because they're the intended target. The phrasing I use for this kind of issue is "anti-partisan": the general voting population hates it, but politicians want it to continue because it's instrumental to other goals that the voting population would support. A key wrinkle is that most anti-partisanism would also disadvantage wealthy individuals if it got its way - i.e. right to repair harms OEMs' god-given right to force you to buy a new one - so wealth tends to rally around continuing the thing we don't want. Celebrities are sort of in the wealth orbit insamuch as social capital and being well known is a saleable commodity, so they also have a tendency to orbit around opposing antipartisan issues. In other words, they don't want the CIA to spy on them, but they also want a neoliberal economy to sell products into, which is growing increasingly unpopular, which requires having a CIA spy on extremists, which means they want the CIA to spy on someone else. None of this is consciously understood or planned, there's no CIA guy telling celebrities to shut up about the spying, it is merely a coincidence of class interests and incentives.

peltier 3y ago

Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty. Once said by a brave abolitionist.

avidphantasm 3y ago

This is why Democrats and traditional Republicans secretly love having narrow majorities. It lets them shove down our throats otherwise unsavory policies in the name of keeping the lights on.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographic.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/icotr/Section702-Basics-Infographi... > Section 702 is a key provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States, with the compelled assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information. As a US citizen, why wouldn't I want this reauthorized?

wmf 3y ago
If you believe that's what it actually does, go for it. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa-section-702-civil-rights-abuses https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fisa...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
rockskon 3y ago
Because the intelligence community has interpreted it to allow them to collect enormous amounts of U.S. persons communications and have analysts parse it and read it to make a determination on its foreign intelligence relevance. Or if you're hot, some teenage intelligence analyst will make a copy of that nude you sent to your spouse to save for his personal spank bank. It's all for national security you see. All without a warrant. Because intentionally collecting information they know will be predominantly on U.S. persons is a-okay as long as one or two drops in that ocean of U.S. persons communication is of foreign nationals communicating.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

local_crmdgeon 3y ago

I wish they would get a border deal done. That's what the GOP base wants, and quietly what a lot of Dems want too. This is just nonsense.

RecycledEle 3y ago

If you think anyone in the US Government cares about your privacy, you are nuts.