7 ms·

Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy

183 points by hawkharris 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Fice 13y ago
Why do people who knowingly trust their data and communications to a few corporations expect any privacy in the first place? Why do people who, as it now appears, care so much about surveillance use Skype and Facebook? It is not the government, but careless consumers who are killing democracy.
ccarter84 13y ago
Glad the NYT Editorial board has stepped up and been so blunt. "But Americans should not be fooled by political leaders putting forward a false choice. The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. Far too little has been said on this question by the White House or Congress in their defense of the N.S.A.’s dragnet. "
- gohrt 13y ago
  > "The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. " No, NYT, the question is how which security goals can be achieved without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. There is no security goal that justifies destroying freedom, as freedom is the motivation for our security goals.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Go ask the villagers in the unadministered lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan how their freedom from government is working out for them. It's easy to say that security is completely unimportant when it's not your daughter being beaten and raped for being seen outside without a veil.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      More like, it is easy to say that security is completely unimportant when you have spent your entire life in such a cocoon of security, you don't know what life is like outside of it.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
clarkmoody 13y ago
It would be nice if people realized that the United States was built upon the premise that the individual is sovereign, not the states. Your rights come from God, not government. Many think they have all the freedom they need, since they can drive (most places) with no papers and download whatever apps they want on their phones. The government is heading down a very dangerous path and has been for a long time. Members of both major parties are too blame, for they have allowed government to grow to a scale that is far too large to leave room for the individual to be truly free.
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  When people use the "Nothing to hide", or "The government does not care about your cat videos, this is the equivalent of: I'm not using my liberty, so I don't care about it. The government may not be interested in you specifically, but they are interested in the more influential figures who share those same opinions. The HBGary leak revealed the targeting of Glenn Greenwald, and surely you're aware of MLK. What if he had had some minor personal failing, and the FBI had used it against him to derail his movement?
  - mpyne 13y ago
    MLK did have "minor personal failings", IIRC.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > Your rights come from God, not government. No, my rights come what the people are willing to fight for and establish with government. Absent government, there are no rights, there is only what I'm willing to claim my rights are and what I can defend. There is no God and nature doesn't create rights.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    You have rights regardless of the government. Absent government, you have the right to do whatever you want, as does everyone else. The proper purpose of the government is to protect your rights from other people; this is done by carefully and judiciously placing restrictions on everyone's rights via the law. Legal codes should be as minimalist as possible, to ensure people can exercise their rights as broadly as possible. Of course, the question of whether rights exist in the absence of government or if rights are created by the law is as old as the hills, so we may have to just disagree on this one.
analyst74 13y ago
No, surveillance is not a threat to democracy, people not caring about democracy is what threatens democracy. Democracy has never been a right, it's always been a privilege that people demanded, and guess what, when people stop demanding it, power will naturally collude.
- noelherrick 13y ago
  I agree with your point that apathy is a threat to democracy, but there are multiple threats to an open and fair system, and a surveillance state is one of them.
  - akiselev 13y ago
    I would argue that most (if not all other) internal threats to a democracy are a subset of the vigilance and apathy problem. If the surveillance state existed before the democracy and continued on without the consent of the governed, then it wasn't a democracy to begin with. If the citizens allowed a surveillance state to take root or their vigilance slipped, then continued vigilance would keep the surveillance state in check. However, I'm making the assumption here that for the surveillance state to take enough power to make it unstoppable (without violent revolution), it would have to grow to the point where its secrecy is no longer maintainable, and the aforementioned vigilance would take over and bring in the rains. Now that I've written that, it all seems like semantics...
- marshray 13y ago
  You can't have a democracy without citizens who are able to think freely. You can't think freely when you are aware that an invisible entity is constantly watching every phone call you make and every web page you surf to. Knowing you're under surveillance changes your behavior. It's a recipe for insanity, not democracy.
  - gwgarry 13y ago
    What we have is this: "Inverted totalitarianism is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash." What we need is this: The Theory of Communicative Action has three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of rationality that is no longer tied to, and limited by, the subjectivistic and individualistic premises of modern philosophy and social theory; (2) to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the lifeworld and systems paradigms; and, finally, (3) to sketch out, against this background, a critical theory of modernity which analyzes and accounts for its pathologies in a way that suggests a redirection rather than an abandonment of the project of enlightenment.
malkia 13y ago
If surveilance threathens your choice, then it's a threat to the democracy, but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. As such it's congresmen and senators that might be threatened by it since the do our real voting for us.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Uh, thanks, but intelligent, educated people who are attentive to civic life (e.g. a significant portion of the HN readership) don't need to have the difference between a pure democracy and a representative one spelled out in detail each and every time the word "democracy" comes up in conversation.
  - slg 13y ago
    I think it is important in this instance because that is the real heart of the problem. The US government is increasingly making decisions that go against public opinion. Something like PRISM would have a much higher chance of getting through Congress than being approved by national referendum. It seems like at some point the US government has gone from ruling on behalf of the people to simply ruling the people.
  - malkia 13y ago
    I agree with you, but I've recently (few years ago) learned about the difference. I was born in Bulgaria, and I thought we were democratic back then when communism was "all good" :) (lol, how wrong was I).
- gnaritas 13y ago
  > but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. A representative democracy is a real democracy; it's just not a direct democracy. Please stop this nonsense of thinking that only direct democracies count as democracies.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    I think only direct democracy is a real democracy. No need for "direct", just "democracy" will do. The fact that so call democratic countries need a modifier before the word "democracy" tells you that it is not real, as such. A representative democracy is really a practical alternative to a real democracy which would have been hard to implement. That doesn't make it real though. Its just the practical best one can do, probably. That abstraction layer of representatives, who get a free reign, gets in the way, rendering it no longer a real democracy.
unclebucknasty 13y ago
>The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights... There is another issue that hasn't been discussed enough, and this quote from the article simultaneously refers to the need to discuss "balance" between security and freedom, while also unquestioningly keeping alive the idea that there is a grave threat and hence need for outsized security. So, the question is also, what is the true scale and number of these so-called "terrorism threats"? And, how do you measure the required balance without a true assessment of the actual threat (vs. assuming it)? After 9/11 we went into this permanent "War on Terror" war-footing, wherein this notion of an overwhelming threat of terrorism was simply assumed (ex. by this article). But, when, if ever, do we question whether that posture still makes sense (or ever did, for that matter)?
- comefrom10 13y ago
  There's a very interesting video about 9/11 that every American really, really, really should watch put out by a group called Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. "9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
  - tokenadult 13y ago
    I recommend that you read better sources: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/ http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/
    - comefrom10 13y ago
      Have you watched the video?
    - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
      Actually, that AEA911Truth video is very good with some very high calibre scientists and engineers discussing the event. I especially liked Lynn Margulis's description of what science actually is and how the follow up "investigation" cannot be called scientific by any stretch of the immagination. You should watch it before you just dismiss it.
gcv 13y ago
Surprised and pleased to see the NYT editorial board take this stance, considering it has traditionally supported the Obama administration. According to a poll cited in today's WSJ and LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democrats-nsa-poll-20130612,0,2973289.story http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democ...), Democrats tend to support NSA surveillance, whereas Republicans tend to oppose it — a complete reversal of the situation under the Bush 43 administration. In other words, a majority of voters likes surveillance, as long as it is being conducted by their preferred political party.
- kareemm 13y ago
  The country needs more media organizations who are willing to take non-partisan stances like this.
- tzs 13y ago
  You talk about liking surveillance in your final sentence, but about supporting surveillance earlier. There is a significant different between supporting something and liking something. I support visiting the dental hygienist twice a year, for instance, but I don't like visiting the dental hygienist. Assuming we are talking about supporting, rather than liking, then it is quite rational to support surveillance when done by your own party. I choose politicians to support based on my belief that they largely share my values and goals and are smart enough and educated enough to act in ways that help further the advancement of those values and goals. However, I recognize that politicians who succeed in getting elected gain access to information that is not available to me. That information will occasionally make the correct action in some cases appear to be against my values when judged by someone with the information I have, but actually in accord with my values given the extra information the politician has. To put it simply, you are more likely to trust the politicians you support than the politicians you do not support, and so you are more likely to give politicians you support the benefit of the doubt if they occasionally do things that appear to go against your shared values.
alan_cx 13y ago
I would suggest its a threat to society, even humanity it's self. Social interaction only works because we have the ability to keep secrets. We hide our true feelings and intents to enable the great machine to work. If those views became known to all, you'd be in trouble. Worse still, what if you really knew every one else's views. Even worse than that, say a few people knew your real views, then used them to manipulate you. Our ability to keep things private is vital. I hope that some people think I'm talking about interpersonal relationships, and that other people think I'm talking about international diplomatic relations. If government expects to be able to keep secrets and privacy, it had better understand my need for it too. If it doesn't want its privacy abused, then it had better not abuse mine. We both need and value it.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I'm curious if you can even attach a quantitative value to information omission and lying through experiment. I suspect that there is some sort of nash equilibrium achieved that creates more overall welfare in a system with information omission and lying than an identical system minus the information omission and lying. I'm curious what quantity of omission/lying (assuming it's measurable) produces the greatest overall welfare even if some individual actors may fare more poorly in said system.
redwood 13y ago
Surveillance is reflexive. It has no doubt already changed, irreversibly, how we all communicate. We hesitate more, we collaborate less. This is the immediate, intrinsic downside---an economic impact, even---that isn't being discussed. This loss alone makes the surveillance state a net sink on our society. Let alone the threat to democracy ,the potential abuse of power. We need to show Obama and the other leaders that standing up against irrational fear of inevitable crime IS a tenable political position
kingkong 13y ago
Very relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k

183 points by hawkharris 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Fice 13y ago

Why do people who knowingly trust their data and communications to a few corporations expect any privacy in the first place? Why do people who, as it now appears, care so much about surveillance use Skype and Facebook? It is not the government, but careless consumers who are killing democracy.

ccarter84 13y ago

Glad the NYT Editorial board has stepped up and been so blunt. "But Americans should not be fooled by political leaders putting forward a false choice. The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. Far too little has been said on this question by the White House or Congress in their defense of the N.S.A.’s dragnet. "

gohrt 13y ago
> "The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. " No, NYT, the question is how which security goals can be achieved without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. There is no security goal that justifies destroying freedom, as freedom is the motivation for our security goals.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Go ask the villagers in the unadministered lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan how their freedom from government is working out for them. It's easy to say that security is completely unimportant when it's not your daughter being beaten and raped for being seen outside without a veil.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    More like, it is easy to say that security is completely unimportant when you have spent your entire life in such a cocoon of security, you don't know what life is like outside of it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

clarkmoody 13y ago

It would be nice if people realized that the United States was built upon the premise that the individual is sovereign, not the states. Your rights come from God, not government. Many think they have all the freedom they need, since they can drive (most places) with no papers and download whatever apps they want on their phones. The government is heading down a very dangerous path and has been for a long time. Members of both major parties are too blame, for they have allowed government to grow to a scale that is far too large to leave room for the individual to be truly free.

jivatmanx 13y ago
When people use the "Nothing to hide", or "The government does not care about your cat videos, this is the equivalent of: I'm not using my liberty, so I don't care about it. The government may not be interested in you specifically, but they are interested in the more influential figures who share those same opinions. The HBGary leak revealed the targeting of Glenn Greenwald, and surely you're aware of MLK. What if he had had some minor personal failing, and the FBI had used it against him to derail his movement?
- mpyne 13y ago
  MLK did have "minor personal failings", IIRC.
gnaritas 13y ago
> Your rights come from God, not government. No, my rights come what the people are willing to fight for and establish with government. Absent government, there are no rights, there is only what I'm willing to claim my rights are and what I can defend. There is no God and nature doesn't create rights.
- betterunix 13y ago
  You have rights regardless of the government. Absent government, you have the right to do whatever you want, as does everyone else. The proper purpose of the government is to protect your rights from other people; this is done by carefully and judiciously placing restrictions on everyone's rights via the law. Legal codes should be as minimalist as possible, to ensure people can exercise their rights as broadly as possible. Of course, the question of whether rights exist in the absence of government or if rights are created by the law is as old as the hills, so we may have to just disagree on this one.

analyst74 13y ago

No, surveillance is not a threat to democracy, people not caring about democracy is what threatens democracy. Democracy has never been a right, it's always been a privilege that people demanded, and guess what, when people stop demanding it, power will naturally collude.

noelherrick 13y ago
I agree with your point that apathy is a threat to democracy, but there are multiple threats to an open and fair system, and a surveillance state is one of them.
- akiselev 13y ago
  I would argue that most (if not all other) internal threats to a democracy are a subset of the vigilance and apathy problem. If the surveillance state existed before the democracy and continued on without the consent of the governed, then it wasn't a democracy to begin with. If the citizens allowed a surveillance state to take root or their vigilance slipped, then continued vigilance would keep the surveillance state in check. However, I'm making the assumption here that for the surveillance state to take enough power to make it unstoppable (without violent revolution), it would have to grow to the point where its secrecy is no longer maintainable, and the aforementioned vigilance would take over and bring in the rains. Now that I've written that, it all seems like semantics...
marshray 13y ago
You can't have a democracy without citizens who are able to think freely. You can't think freely when you are aware that an invisible entity is constantly watching every phone call you make and every web page you surf to. Knowing you're under surveillance changes your behavior. It's a recipe for insanity, not democracy.
- gwgarry 13y ago
  What we have is this: "Inverted totalitarianism is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash." What we need is this: The Theory of Communicative Action has three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of rationality that is no longer tied to, and limited by, the subjectivistic and individualistic premises of modern philosophy and social theory; (2) to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the lifeworld and systems paradigms; and, finally, (3) to sketch out, against this background, a critical theory of modernity which analyzes and accounts for its pathologies in a way that suggests a redirection rather than an abandonment of the project of enlightenment.

malkia 13y ago

If surveilance threathens your choice, then it's a threat to the democracy, but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. As such it's congresmen and senators that might be threatened by it since the do our real voting for us.

alexqgb 13y ago
Uh, thanks, but intelligent, educated people who are attentive to civic life (e.g. a significant portion of the HN readership) don't need to have the difference between a pure democracy and a representative one spelled out in detail each and every time the word "democracy" comes up in conversation.
- slg 13y ago
  I think it is important in this instance because that is the real heart of the problem. The US government is increasingly making decisions that go against public opinion. Something like PRISM would have a much higher chance of getting through Congress than being approved by national referendum. It seems like at some point the US government has gone from ruling on behalf of the people to simply ruling the people.
- malkia 13y ago
  I agree with you, but I've recently (few years ago) learned about the difference. I was born in Bulgaria, and I thought we were democratic back then when communism was "all good" :) (lol, how wrong was I).
gnaritas 13y ago
> but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. A representative democracy is a real democracy; it's just not a direct democracy. Please stop this nonsense of thinking that only direct democracies count as democracies.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  I think only direct democracy is a real democracy. No need for "direct", just "democracy" will do. The fact that so call democratic countries need a modifier before the word "democracy" tells you that it is not real, as such. A representative democracy is really a practical alternative to a real democracy which would have been hard to implement. That doesn't make it real though. Its just the practical best one can do, probably. That abstraction layer of representatives, who get a free reign, gets in the way, rendering it no longer a real democracy.

unclebucknasty 13y ago

>The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights... There is another issue that hasn't been discussed enough, and this quote from the article simultaneously refers to the need to discuss "balance" between security and freedom, while also unquestioningly keeping alive the idea that there is a grave threat and hence need for outsized security. So, the question is also, what is the true scale and number of these so-called "terrorism threats"? And, how do you measure the required balance without a true assessment of the actual threat (vs. assuming it)? After 9/11 we went into this permanent "War on Terror" war-footing, wherein this notion of an overwhelming threat of terrorism was simply assumed (ex. by this article). But, when, if ever, do we question whether that posture still makes sense (or ever did, for that matter)?

comefrom10 13y ago
There's a very interesting video about 9/11 that every American really, really, really should watch put out by a group called Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. "9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
- tokenadult 13y ago
  I recommend that you read better sources: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/ http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11/
  - comefrom10 13y ago
    Have you watched the video?
  - retrogradeorbit 13y ago
    Actually, that AEA911Truth video is very good with some very high calibre scientists and engineers discussing the event. I especially liked Lynn Margulis's description of what science actually is and how the follow up "investigation" cannot be called scientific by any stretch of the immagination. You should watch it before you just dismiss it.

gcv 13y ago

Surprised and pleased to see the NYT editorial board take this stance, considering it has traditionally supported the Obama administration. According to a poll cited in today's WSJ and LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democrats-nsa-poll-20130612,0,2973289.story http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democ...), Democrats tend to support NSA surveillance, whereas Republicans tend to oppose it — a complete reversal of the situation under the Bush 43 administration. In other words, a majority of voters likes surveillance, as long as it is being conducted by their preferred political party.

kareemm 13y ago
The country needs more media organizations who are willing to take non-partisan stances like this.
tzs 13y ago
You talk about liking surveillance in your final sentence, but about supporting surveillance earlier. There is a significant different between supporting something and liking something. I support visiting the dental hygienist twice a year, for instance, but I don't like visiting the dental hygienist. Assuming we are talking about supporting, rather than liking, then it is quite rational to support surveillance when done by your own party. I choose politicians to support based on my belief that they largely share my values and goals and are smart enough and educated enough to act in ways that help further the advancement of those values and goals. However, I recognize that politicians who succeed in getting elected gain access to information that is not available to me. That information will occasionally make the correct action in some cases appear to be against my values when judged by someone with the information I have, but actually in accord with my values given the extra information the politician has. To put it simply, you are more likely to trust the politicians you support than the politicians you do not support, and so you are more likely to give politicians you support the benefit of the doubt if they occasionally do things that appear to go against your shared values.

alan_cx 13y ago

I would suggest its a threat to society, even humanity it's self. Social interaction only works because we have the ability to keep secrets. We hide our true feelings and intents to enable the great machine to work. If those views became known to all, you'd be in trouble. Worse still, what if you really knew every one else's views. Even worse than that, say a few people knew your real views, then used them to manipulate you. Our ability to keep things private is vital. I hope that some people think I'm talking about interpersonal relationships, and that other people think I'm talking about international diplomatic relations. If government expects to be able to keep secrets and privacy, it had better understand my need for it too. If it doesn't want its privacy abused, then it had better not abuse mine. We both need and value it.

malandrew 13y ago
I'm curious if you can even attach a quantitative value to information omission and lying through experiment. I suspect that there is some sort of nash equilibrium achieved that creates more overall welfare in a system with information omission and lying than an identical system minus the information omission and lying. I'm curious what quantity of omission/lying (assuming it's measurable) produces the greatest overall welfare even if some individual actors may fare more poorly in said system.

redwood 13y ago

Surveillance is reflexive. It has no doubt already changed, irreversibly, how we all communicate. We hesitate more, we collaborate less. This is the immediate, intrinsic downside---an economic impact, even---that isn't being discussed. This loss alone makes the surveillance state a net sink on our society. Let alone the threat to democracy ,the potential abuse of power. We need to show Obama and the other leaders that standing up against irrational fear of inevitable crime IS a tenable political position

kingkong 13y ago

Very relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k