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Stop Watching Us Gathers Over 100,000 signatures to fight NSA surveillance
- enraged_camel 13y agoI know cynicism is not very productive, but I have never understood the point of petitions like this. Surely people know they are useless unless backed up by billions of dollars of funding?
- csense 13y ago> useless Not to the NSA! With no effort at all, they've gathered the names of 100,000 subversives to put on a secret watch list! (I hope I'm kidding.)
- korethr 13y agoI hope you're kidding too. However, the cynic in me suspects that most of the signatories to the petition might already have been identified by the likes of PRISM as potential subversives and put on a secret watch list. This petition is probably just a confirmation of the majority of the names on that list.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- binarycrusader 13y agoWelcome to the new era of McCarthyism.
- redblacktree 13y agoWhere privacy is the enemy? Really?
- binarycrusader 13y agoI was referring to how in the McCarthy era, people were persecuted for mere association with any sort of "unpatriotic" activity or organization. That's a dark place to which I hope we never return.
- Bill_Dimm 13y agoThis petition is probably just a confirmation of the majority of the names on that list It's far worse than "just confirmation." If the NSA is training a machine learning algorithm to identify subversives based on various features/activities of those people, they need a set of labeled (i.e. subversive = yes/no) training data for the algorithm to learn from. They now have 100,000 extra training samples to help the machine learning algorithm better tune its ability to identify subversives. So, not only have the 100,000 people moved from the "probably subversive" to "known subversive" column, but the NSA is better able to predict subversiveness for all of the people that didn't sign the petition by comparing their features/activities to those that did.
- Gaggleduck 13y agoWell, time to get better AQUAINTed. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nsa-police.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nsa-police.html
- DennisP 13y agoThat's a perspective I hadn't thought of, and will try to apply to other situations. On the other hand, if the 100,000 people who already signed have now identified me as a subversive, I'd better go ahead and sign, in the hopes that it will maximize the odds of reigning in the NSA before they come get me.
- drivebyacct2 13y agoA secret watch list? Holy shit, I wonder if they constantly surveil people on that list. Oh wait.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- iguana 13y agoI hesitated signing it for a good 5 minutes because I didn't want my name on the list of subversives, but then realized that since they monitor everything, I was already on the list. Oh well, I'll let you guys know how good the food is in the secret prisons.
- a3n 13y agoI think you'll be proud to tell your grandchildren that you were on the list of subversives.
- stox 13y agoI made the subversive list, I kid you not, at the age of 12. Needless to say, I stopped caring long long ago. Didn't find out about it until years later, when I was silly enough to think about enlisting in the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion School.
- brokenparser 13y agoOn the subversive list years before it was cool. Dude, you are the real hipster.
- dredmorbius 13y agoPlease tell me you've shared that story somewhere.
- stox 13y agoTrust me, everyone who knows me has heard the story. But you do make a point, I should write it up and put it up on a website to educate others as to some of the abuses that have been occurring for so long.
- redblacktree 13y agoHold on. Are you saying that being on the side of freedom, privacy and government transparency is now "subversive?" Where did America go?
- lessnonymous 13y agoThe constitution used to be about restricting what the government could do. Now it's about restricting what the people can do.
- sinak 13y agoJust to clarify - this is not simply a petition. We're using a script that the late Aaron Swartz wrote to deliver emails directly to Congress via the contact us pages on legislator's websites. That means there'll be hundreds of thousands of emails delivered to Congress in the coming days. It's amazing how practical some of the things that Aaron worked on are.
- brk 13y agoSo then, it's easy for them to have a consistent block of text to filter on? Is there any data that sending template emails works? It seems like its too easy to write off as people investing minimal effort, and not sending a unique message. I honestly don't know,, but this does not feel 'effective' to me.
- marshray 13y agoSo have you written your own personalized emails then?
- MarcParadise 13y agoI have. I got a form letter in response. There's some irony there.
- brk 13y agoMy experience as well, but at least I wrote a unique email.
- deepblueocean 13y agoI believe that the staffers of many elected representatives typically count the number of constituents who were agitated enough even to send a form letter. Think of it like a poll. Would you make the claim that politicians are willing to write off people who respond to polls just because they all answer the same question or the question isn't somehow the "right" one? Probably not. Of course, it's not a poll because people self-select. But even still, if the report to the representative says "this week, we had 37 letters about gun control and 43,742 about surveillance", well, it's clear what the politician wants to say that he or she is doing something about when he or she next sees a reporter.
- gesman 13y agoPeople want to feel "empowered" cheaply. Like signing a petition or sitting (i.e. demonstrating). It never worked but doing the same thing all over again and expecting the different result is a habit of the crowds. Now go ahead - downvote my post - feel the power :)
- Ihmahr 13y agoIn a democracy you should expect a lot of signatures to have an effect.
- dredmorbius 13y agoYou're assuming this is a democracy.
- nish1500 13y ago"100,000 signatures .. um ... wow big number. We didn't know so many people didn't like it. Sorry guys ... you opened our eyes. Sorry, again. No more spying" - NSA
- davvolun 13y agoOf course, the idea that it's useless to try is guaranteed to accomplish nothing.
- dclowd9901 13y agoI guess I don't understand how government works. If a significant portion of the electorate doesn't want something, how do they keep the government from implementing it? Because it's certainly not by voting. I'm dead serious. Why does a government do things that its people don't want it to do?
- iguana 13y agoThere are some things that the people may want to do, but that the government should still not do. This is why we're a republic, and not a democracy: to prevent the tyranny of the majority. The idea is that a constitution limits the power of the majority. The only deciding factor to any action by government (or lack thereof) is: is the act constitutional? In the US, this question is decided by the judiciary. Since a court already opined that such surveillance is illegal, it shows how much stronger the executive branch is in comparison to the others. Since the legality of the surveillance is in question, in a fair and reasonable system, a court would order an injunction against the surveillance until the legality was settled. What complicates this matter, is the executive branch's position that even discussing the legality of their actions is classified and secret. Pretty sad from the administration that promised us transparency.
- enraged_camel 13y agoContrary to popular belief, the American government does not actually represent its people. It represents special interest groups, which is a euphemism for "those who have money." Once your mind makes that paradigm shift, everything becomes incredibly easy to understand. The fact of the matter is that the seeming irrationality and inefficiency of American government is a feature, rather than a bug. The inefficiency and general waste in government affairs actually serve to obfuscate the real functions and purpose of the state and makes reform vastly more complex and costly than it otherwise would be. The example I like to give is the tax code. The income tax started out as a tax on wealth and it used to be that only a very small percentage of households paid anything. Over time though, the burden of taxation shifted downward onto the middle class, while the elite simultaneously found alternative means of storing their wealth to avoid taxation almost completely. The problem is that the tax code is so complex now that most people cannot even comprehend the amount of loopholes in it. The only people who can are tax attorneys working for corporations and the ultra-rich. This is what I mean by the inefficiency and general waste serves to obfuscate the issue. And the funny thing is, this is all working exactly as intended. The wealthy tightly control the system and the rest of the population is too distracted fighting for the crumbs to actually organize, form meaningful alliances and fight to change the status quo. What they do instead is share news articles and memes on Facebook and sign silly petitions on the Internet to be able to pat themselves in the back for fighting the good fight. They just want to feel good about themselves. At the end of the day, this is because the vast majority of people don't actually care about the events that happen around them. They care about their self-perceived role in those events and their own feelings. You can actually see this type of behavior in many different cases outside politics. Take something as simple as exercise. A lot of people sign up for personal trainers, not because they actually want to exercise correctly and lose weight, but because the act of making superficial effort (such as paying a small amount of money) towards a goal is sufficient to make them feel good. And if they fail at weight loss, they can tell themselves that, well, they at least tried. Which is what the signers of this petition are going to tell themselves when it accomplishes nothing.
- a3n 13y agoThe NSA probably thinks that collecting everything and analyzing it later was "a neat idea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North#Iran.E2.80.93Contra_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_North#Iran.E2.80.93Cont...
- marshray 13y agoI don't see the analogy with Iran-Contra.
- a3n 13y agoWell it's a stretch I admit, but they probably really did think it was a "neat idea," which was a phrase that Oliver North used (quoted in the link) to describe his opinion of the arms for hostage deal that he was being investigated for. A more direct if mundane line is that Oliver North worked for/with John Poindexter. Poindexter was allowed to resign in disgrace, North was fired. Poindexter later worked for DARPA, where he proposed Total Information Awareness, which was widely viewed with suspicion and back-burnered, and then came back bit by bit as cynically predicted at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter
- marshray 13y agoOooh, and there was also the part where North "deleted" his emails and thought they were, you know, actually gone? He lied to Congress and then the emails were recovered from "backup tape". http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/white_house_email/index.html http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/white_house_email/index.html I'd totally forgotten the Poindexter connection.
- spikels 13y agoDon't forget about the White House petition to pardon Snowden. It now has 70,229 signatures but needs 100,000 to get a response. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden/Dp03vGYD https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snow...
- res0nat0r 13y agoPardon him from what? He hasn't been charged with a crime. The temporary outrage of the internet over something they don't even have a grasp on is why no one takes these petitions seriously.
- icebraining 13y agoTechnically, he can be pardoned preemptively by the POTUS, like Nixon was. The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception [of impeachments]. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.
- nano111 13y agoresonator--
- icebraining 13y agoPlease stop, these posts only add noise.
- nano111 13y agoIf I could down-vote I would not be doing this...
- joering2 13y agoSo 100,000 people sleep better tonight. And if you ever read any of government responses, you know nothing changed.
- tn13 13y agoThe only thing politicians really care about is their ability to get elected. That is something we need to target in a threatening way.
- jmomo 13y agoComrades! Only enemies of the United States of America would ever sign a petition like this, and thus so such enemies should be rightly targeted for increased scrutiny given their increased risk of threat to the state.
- ianstallings 13y agoAnd all were immediately added to Main Core.
- Qantourisc 13y agoI'd say only 100,000 that's it? I'm rather disappointed. There are 316,037,000 in your country, that means 315,937,000 who don't give a fuck ? Note to self: Never even set foot on USA soil.