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Tim Berners-Lee scolds 'hypocritical' West over spying

170 points by titlex 13y ago

Create 13y ago
TBL himself is also hypocritical: British people read other people's mail at CERN without their (even posterior) knowledge. I would be surprised indeed, if he wouldn't know a thing about it -- yet he kept shut about it too.
- Create 13y ago
  Are you suggesting, that it is plausible, that -- sitting at MIT, like RMS -- he is naive enough not to be aware? (The first sentence is a fact.)
- redblacktree 13y ago
  He implicated "The West" which very much includes the United Kingdom. He is a citizen, like you, who is just now seeing proof of what one of these governments has been up to. He knows that the UK is doing it as well.
D9u 13y ago
Secret courts, secret judges, secret police, secret torture, secret wars... These acts are not what one would expect of a nation which was once the bastion of freedom for all the world, and I agree that the US & UK have been acting hypocritical for far too long now. Can the "American Dream" survive the current state of affairs?
- mpyne 13y ago
  The nation that: * inflicted syphilis on unsuspecting black people, * tapped MLK Jr.'s phone calls while conducting continuous surveillance on him, * imprisoned thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans for the crime of being on the West Coast at the wrong time, * forced the Chinese and Irish to work under horrific conditions building the nation's railways, * evicted the Native Americans from their native lands, which they had inhabited for thousands of years, * disobeyed a direct ruling from the Supreme Court in order to do this, * brutally (brutally!) put down a rebellion in the Philippines after "liberating" the archipelago from the Spanish, * oh, and held millions of black people in abject slavery, and later poverty and the constant fear of death, does not warrant your label of being more "the bastion of freedom for all the world" compared to even our modern state. I get it, you're mad, but if you're going to talk about American history could you at least know a little about American history? FISC (and its judges) have been around since 1978. I don't even know what "secret police" you're talking about. Torture is always wrong, but America has been there before (e.g. aforementioned brutal Philippine wars). Somehow the "American Dream" survived that. So what's your goal? To give up? Just to say that America sucks (if so, you'll need to take a number, there's about 200 million Americans ahead of you in that particular line :P)? Or do you want to make it better? Because making it better requires meaningful political advocacy, of the kind that helped make parts of DOMA unconstitutional today, and not simply whining.
  - zhemao 13y ago
    I agree with everything except "forced the Chinese and Irish to work under horrific conditions building the nation's railways." The conditions were terrible, but I don't think the laborers were forced. They were paid, voluntary labor. Perhaps you would say that they were exploited by their employers, but they weren't "forced" in quite the same way as, say, African laborers prior to 1864.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Fair enough, though I would say that there wasn't much of a choice presented to them once they reached our shores because working the rails (or other beyond-menial tasks) or starving. :-/
      - zhemao 13y ago
        Well yeah, that goes without saying. Obviously they wouldn't have taken such a dangerous job if they had better options. They probably wouldn't have left Ireland or China in the first place if they weren't facing poverty and starvation. Course, there was a lot of Nativist sentiment against the Irish and the Chinese that kept them from getting better employment, and that certainly is a mark against the US. But not necessarily in terms of "freedom", as that was a ugly part of civil society and not of government policy. Now, the Chinese exclusion act, on the other hand ...
    - rdouble 13y ago
      Not sure about the Chinese or railroad workers in particular but most Irish arriving in the USA prior to the mid-1800s were indentured servants.
    - mark_l_watson 13y ago
      Not to be critical, but off course the Chinese laborers were for all intents slaves. After the railroad was built, they were put to work digging 1000 miles of cancels that became the Sacramento delta region.
      - 13y ago
tome 13y ago
Tim Berners-Lee's opinion on this matter is as valuable as yours or mine, that is to say indeed valuable, but not to be made the subject of a news report.
- lukifer 13y ago
  The more people standing up to call bullshit on the NSA, the better. I'd like to live in a world where ideas are discussed on their merits and not based on the people proposing them, but we don't live in that world. When the "creator of the web" says something, it makes news in a way that it does not when you or I say something.
  - tome 13y ago
    This may well be true, but it's hard to reconcile with Hacker News's latest meme of "It shouldn't be about personalities, it should be about facts".
peterclary 13y ago
Consider the use of the word "scolds" instead of "blasts", "criticizes", etc.

170 points by titlex 13y ago

TBL himself is also hypocritical: British people read other people's mail at CERN without their (even posterior) knowledge. I would be surprised indeed, if he wouldn't know a thing about it -- yet he kept shut about it too.

Create 13y ago
Are you suggesting, that it is plausible, that -- sitting at MIT, like RMS -- he is naive enough not to be aware? (The first sentence is a fact.)
redblacktree 13y ago
He implicated "The West" which very much includes the United Kingdom. He is a citizen, like you, who is just now seeing proof of what one of these governments has been up to. He knows that the UK is doing it as well.

D9u 13y ago

Secret courts, secret judges, secret police, secret torture, secret wars... These acts are not what one would expect of a nation which was once the bastion of freedom for all the world, and I agree that the US & UK have been acting hypocritical for far too long now. Can the "American Dream" survive the current state of affairs?

mpyne 13y ago
The nation that: * inflicted syphilis on unsuspecting black people, * tapped MLK Jr.'s phone calls while conducting continuous surveillance on him, * imprisoned thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans for the crime of being on the West Coast at the wrong time, * forced the Chinese and Irish to work under horrific conditions building the nation's railways, * evicted the Native Americans from their native lands, which they had inhabited for thousands of years, * disobeyed a direct ruling from the Supreme Court in order to do this, * brutally (brutally!) put down a rebellion in the Philippines after "liberating" the archipelago from the Spanish, * oh, and held millions of black people in abject slavery, and later poverty and the constant fear of death, does not warrant your label of being more "the bastion of freedom for all the world" compared to even our modern state. I get it, you're mad, but if you're going to talk about American history could you at least know a little about American history? FISC (and its judges) have been around since 1978. I don't even know what "secret police" you're talking about. Torture is always wrong, but America has been there before (e.g. aforementioned brutal Philippine wars). Somehow the "American Dream" survived that. So what's your goal? To give up? Just to say that America sucks (if so, you'll need to take a number, there's about 200 million Americans ahead of you in that particular line :P)? Or do you want to make it better? Because making it better requires meaningful political advocacy, of the kind that helped make parts of DOMA unconstitutional today, and not simply whining.
- zhemao 13y ago
  I agree with everything except "forced the Chinese and Irish to work under horrific conditions building the nation's railways." The conditions were terrible, but I don't think the laborers were forced. They were paid, voluntary labor. Perhaps you would say that they were exploited by their employers, but they weren't "forced" in quite the same way as, say, African laborers prior to 1864.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Fair enough, though I would say that there wasn't much of a choice presented to them once they reached our shores because working the rails (or other beyond-menial tasks) or starving. :-/
    - zhemao 13y ago
      Well yeah, that goes without saying. Obviously they wouldn't have taken such a dangerous job if they had better options. They probably wouldn't have left Ireland or China in the first place if they weren't facing poverty and starvation. Course, there was a lot of Nativist sentiment against the Irish and the Chinese that kept them from getting better employment, and that certainly is a mark against the US. But not necessarily in terms of "freedom", as that was a ugly part of civil society and not of government policy. Now, the Chinese exclusion act, on the other hand ...
  - rdouble 13y ago
    Not sure about the Chinese or railroad workers in particular but most Irish arriving in the USA prior to the mid-1800s were indentured servants.
  - mark_l_watson 13y ago
    Not to be critical, but off course the Chinese laborers were for all intents slaves. After the railroad was built, they were put to work digging 1000 miles of cancels that became the Sacramento delta region.
    - 13y ago

tome 13y ago

Tim Berners-Lee's opinion on this matter is as valuable as yours or mine, that is to say indeed valuable, but not to be made the subject of a news report.

lukifer 13y ago
The more people standing up to call bullshit on the NSA, the better. I'd like to live in a world where ideas are discussed on their merits and not based on the people proposing them, but we don't live in that world. When the "creator of the web" says something, it makes news in a way that it does not when you or I say something.
- tome 13y ago
  This may well be true, but it's hard to reconcile with Hacker News's latest meme of "It shouldn't be about personalities, it should be about facts".

peterclary 13y ago

Consider the use of the word "scolds" instead of "blasts", "criticizes", etc.