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Funny that you should mention moving goalposts. That seems to be the M.O. of the NSA apologists. First, the arguments is "It's not content. It's just metadata,

Funny that you should mention moving goalposts. That seems to be the M.O. of the NSA apologists. First, the arguments is "It's not content. It's just metadata, which is no different from addresses on postal mail envelopes". That's already a terrible rationalization. But, then, revelations come out that it is more than metadata being captured. It's actual call content and no warrant is required for a run of the mill "analyst" to listen to those calls. So, now the goalpost is being moved to whether the NSA has "direct" or "indirect" accesss to gmail servers--a specious and inconsequential debate over some subjective semantics. What will it take for the apologists to actually grow concerned about what's really happening here?

n09n 13y ago
Probably never. A lot of us "apologists" think that this is actually a good thing, but many are unwilling to admit it, even to themselves. For me, it's simply a matter of valuing truth over privacy.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  It actually would be better for the apologists to come out and say that you want the government to have carte blanche access to all of our information. At least it's honest and doesn't waste people's time in these trivial non-debates about peripheral non-issues. OTOH, of course, that posture is all the more stupefying. Which "truth", exactly, is so important that we should all be willing to give up our privacy? And, how is it that you find it so easy to trust our government with such power? After all, if it is untoward human beings who make truth-finding so difficult that these drastic, privacy-defiling measures are necessary, then why do you have so much trust for other fallible human beings to wield this power?
  - n09n 13y ago
    It doesn't matter which truth exactly. The more information they have access to, the better the decisions they will be able to make (in theory, at least). I don't trust them to wield that power because I don't need to trust them. I hope that by wielding that power, they destroy it by making it clear to the world that privacy no longer exists.

n09n 13y ago

Probably never. A lot of us "apologists" think that this is actually a good thing, but many are unwilling to admit it, even to themselves. For me, it's simply a matter of valuing truth over privacy.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
It actually would be better for the apologists to come out and say that you want the government to have carte blanche access to all of our information. At least it's honest and doesn't waste people's time in these trivial non-debates about peripheral non-issues. OTOH, of course, that posture is all the more stupefying. Which "truth", exactly, is so important that we should all be willing to give up our privacy? And, how is it that you find it so easy to trust our government with such power? After all, if it is untoward human beings who make truth-finding so difficult that these drastic, privacy-defiling measures are necessary, then why do you have so much trust for other fallible human beings to wield this power?
- n09n 13y ago
  It doesn't matter which truth exactly. The more information they have access to, the better the decisions they will be able to make (in theory, at least). I don't trust them to wield that power because I don't need to trust them. I hope that by wielding that power, they destroy it by making it clear to the world that privacy no longer exists.