8 ms·

In any other civilized country, after being caught spying, governments would be ashamed and massacrated by public opinion and politicians would review and stop

In any other civilized country, after being caught spying, governments would be ashamed and massacrated by public opinion and politicians would review and stop their actions immediatly .. but in US they(the big brother) have no shame at all.. they continue to do it as if theres nothing wrong with.. and people just act normal while civil rights get shattered appart in pieces.. people need to get real.. this is pretty serious.. this will have a great impact and damage not only on civil rights but also in business.. Im sure a lot of people form outside US are waking up and will start to build their own local versions of sucessful US bussiness.. and this is just the tip of the iceberg.. we can think of a lot of other things coming, and none of the are good for anybody

northwest 13y ago
Your first sentence would imply that at least the UK, Germany and France are not civilized countries.
- declan 13y ago
  On a per-capita basis, the Netherlands is at the top with far more electronic surveillance than almost any other country, and the U.S. is at the bottom. (This may be only domestic LE surveillance, can't remember.)
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    The number of times the Dutch police have legally tapped telephone and internet lines may vastly exceed that of others such as the U.S. because the U.S. (thinks it) doesn't need a warrant and as such it's not being logged as a wiretap. Some numbers of Dutch wiretaps: http://www.thehollandbureau.com/2010/03/07/the-netherlands-champion-in-national-surveillance/ http://www.thehollandbureau.com/2010/03/07/the-netherlands-c...
    - declan 13y ago
      Thanks for the citation. Excerpt from the article: "That is 1681 per day. 84% of this tapping concerned mobile phones. Compare this with the news that there were 2208 taps in the United States in the whole of 2007." It's comparing like to like. Neither numbers include intelligence-related surveillance, only domestic criminal law enforcement. The Dutch are wiretap-happy and the U.S., thanks to Title III, is relatively restrained.
      - MisterWebz 13y ago
        The ability to intercept the communications of anyone on the internet without a warrant is relatively restrained? Do you even have a source for your claims? How exactly are you comparing the two?
        declan 13y ago
        The U.S. courts publish non-intelligence wiretap stats per year: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+courts+annual+wiretap+statistics+2012 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+courts+annual+wiretap+statistics+201... Intelligence gathering is rather different.
      - pavs 13y ago
        Why would you bother to wiretap, when you can listen to everyone, or get far more information through other means of data collection?
  - duaneb 13y ago
    A) it's far more plausible to roll out pretty much any infrastructure in population-dense areas (i.e. netherlands, britain). B) We really have no idea how much the US is wiretapping because apparently we don't need public warrants anymore because terrorists and freedom.
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  sorry: let me make it clear.. i consider US a high profile country when we get into account the "quality" and sofistication of its citizens.. its high developed concerning the consciousness and general inteligence of its people.. thats is exacly why is so scary it makes me remember the question we keep making ourselves of why and how the sofisticated(and also high profile citizens) of the germany of the 30´s could be swallowed by the ideology of the nazis.. we end up believeing this is all about cultural matter.. for us looking outside of it looks that privacy its not that big deal, and when it is.. the governement get rid of it by making hocus pocus and creating virtual terror, so they can make people support they efforts to brake privacy and freedom
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > i consider US a high profile country when we get into account the "quality" and sofistication of its citizens.. Based on...what, exactly?
    - oscargrouch 13y ago
      im starting from the premisse that at least people have a good educational level to understand whats happening.. it gets higher in satelites regions like new york, SF, LA, chicago, seattle, etc.. but you know, generalizations are pretty much questionable, what do we really know?! :)
  - northwest 13y ago
    What I'd simply like you to see is that, while it's true that the US has a leading role in the history of humanity, the problem of mass surveillance enabled via corruption is very present in (at least!) Western Europe as well.
booruguru 13y ago
Don't worry, everything will be alright, so long as Americans get to keep their guns....you know...to protect their FREEDOM! The very freedoms they are giving up without a fight or even a word of protest. So umm...ah... U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
- ams6110 13y ago
  The way things are going we may need those guns. The 2nd amendment was written to allow the people to defend themselves from the government. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. (Thomas Jefferson)
  - falk 13y ago
    You're missing his point. You could have all the guns in the world but that isn't going to change the fact that Americans don't care they are being monitored and spied on. Including the vast majority of ardent supporters of the 2nd amendment.
  - drhayes9 13y ago
    I've never been clear why people think "guns" will protect them from a government that has massive technological and economic resources at their disposal. I'm not saying you won't be alive. And I know guerrilla techniques can keep these kinds of conflicts going for decades. But what will you really have besides some quasi-freedom? To me, the much more important weapons of (using your example) the Revolutionary War here in the U.S. were the intellectual weapons sharpened by the Enlightenment that were used to create the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the first place.
    - noarchy 13y ago
      >I've never been clear why people think "guns" will protect them from a government that has massive technological and economic resources at their disposal. Those economic resource, of course, were taken from the population. Cutting off the oxygen in this area, so to speak, might be far more effective than guns. Guns, as it happens, are what implicitly lay behind the government's ability to take your money.
diafygi 13y ago
> and people just act normal while civil rights get shattered appart in pieces Not all of us. There's a protest with some pretty high profile speakers going on this Sunday (http://1984day.com/ http://1984day.com/). Were you planning on going? It seems that most of the "people are just bending over" commenters are the ones who don't attend or write/call their reps, making you included in your own ridicule.
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  actually i have pretty much abandon my "normal" life to pursue a dream by creating a software tool to make people more free.. and that before all of this that its happening right now.. i were very worried, not just because of governments, but also by the way companies are doing things and the way the cloud movement is heading to.. also im not based in US, the government snooping its just one part of the problems that we have.. that i wished to solve back than.. i hope that by the end of this year, this tool will get available, and it can be clear what we can do with it.. but i think that when the time comes, it will be clear that im making my part.. Those are times we should not be so selfish anymore, and have to make a stand.. we need to find our ways through the XXI century.. and that is not by copying or using the same weapons of the XX century.. i think that is one part of the problems we are facing.. we need our XXI century identities, we need to shape a new century.
- LoganCale 13y ago
  It's too bad there are huge areas of the U.S. where there is no protest occurring within 600 to 1000 miles.
rmk2 13y ago
My free translation from the German (because I do not have the English version) of something somebody once said, or rather wrote: "Behind the technological veil, behind the political veil of democracy reality shows itself: the universal servitude, the loss of human dignity with prefabricated freedom of choice. And the power structure does not appear 'sublimated' anymore in the style of a liberalist culture, appears not even hypocritical anymore (so that it at least retains the 'formality', the husk of dignity), but brutal, in that it throws over board all claim to truth and justice." And for the philologically inclined: > Hinter dem technologischen Schleier, hinter dem politischen Schleier der Demokratie zeigt sich die Realität: die universale Knechtschaft, der Verlust menschlicher Würde bei vorfabrizierter Wahlfreiheit. Und die Machtstruktur tritt nicht mehr 'sublimiert' auf im Stil einer liberalistischen Kultur, nicht einmal mehr heuchlerisch (so daß sie zumindest die 'Förmlichkeiten', die Hülse von Würde, beibehielte), sondern brutal, indem sie allen Anspruch auf Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit über Bord wirft. (Herbert Marcuse: Konterrevolution & Revolte, Frankfurt ²1973, p.22.)
- northwest 13y ago
  Remarkable to what degree that applies to our time. Some things seem to be so timeless...
  - TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
    The whole world keeps repeating itself. You should read Ecclesiastes! "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  at least now society in general has taken the red pill (by force?), if im allowed to use the matrix metaphor.. do we now will make the right choice? or we will continue to pretend that nothing happens? at least now we are more awake.. as you beatifully quoted someone who were awake and conscious before anyone else does.. Did´nt follow much of Marcuse myself, but Adorno are one of my favorite philosophers, thank you for sharing :)
tptacek 13y ago
To which civilized country are you referring? Can you please be specific, so we can actually do some research and see if the claim needs rebutting?
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Simply replace "any other" by "a".
  - tptacek 13y ago
    It's a suspect definition of "civilized" that excludes every country in the world.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      Yes, and? It can mean many things, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, but the thinking behind the new word was connected to modernism's active pursuit of progress and enlightenment. In that sense, there are traces of civilization everywhere. But to call any country "civilized, period" would strike me as a mixture of hybris and aiming rather low. Even just the way "we" produce and process most of our meat means we're far from civilized. Not only do we not have civilized countries, I doubt we even have nominees.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        If "civilized" is a label that can apply to no country at all, what was the point of changing the "any" to an "a"? Ok, things are better in Utopia. Moving back to the real world now...
- angersock 13y ago
  Perhaps the Vatican?
vermontdevil 13y ago
This is not new in the US sadly. Just different tools. Back then the FBI spied on many people using HUMINT. Filled out reams of paper detailing the activities of the people they spied on. All because they were 'different'. I never believed that your typical American really cares about freedom, liberty and all that. For them what's important are 1) money and 2) have a home and watch tv. Just me.
dobbsbob 13y ago
This is going on in all of our countries, not just the US. There was a student riot here when they jacked the tuition 300% and now the police demand cameras everywhere, hidden SIM card kill switches that wipe the entire phone rendering it a brick so they can prevent organizing during social unrest (they shopped this as anti theft measures, but of course only the authorities have control of the kill switch and you have to report your lost phone), special tags on vehicles to trace them at all times, drones, and ISP level spying because you have nothing to worry about if you're not a criminal right? My country is contracting the exact same intel corps the US is contracting which are run by ex CIA managers. My country is leasing the exact same software that uses previously unknown exploits to backdoor all our communications that the US is using like FinFisher/FinSpy and VUPEN. It's a giant festering dystopian industry straight out of 1984 with tentacles across the globe. They are showing up to campuses here and offering huge salaries for "data analyst" positions. They are not even trying to hide the fact anymore that you will be spying on your own neighbors while developing these databases. They used to pretend it was to prevent terrorism and crime now it's blatent shredding of the bill of rights/constitution and developers are signing up in droves because they're the ones paying the most money and nobody else here is hiring. My country's version of CENTCOM is all over political commentary, newspaper articles and radio stations denouncing all detractors of this new fascist order. The politicians use this feedback as "proof" of positive feedback on their new rights slashing spy programs. The privacy watchdog in charge of the spy agency in my country was promptly sacked as soon as they took office. They now operate in total secrecy. This isn't sustainable. Eventually all of us will rise up and cast off the 20th century dictator leftovers destroying our countries, starting wars, watching us through our smart TVs, creating food shortages, pumping up armnaments and fear.... It's only a matter of time the question is how far will they go and get away with this until we burn it all to the ground. A century from now all of our descendents will study this period as the 21st century dark ages and those kids will wonder how anybody survived the great oppression.
- siculars 13y ago
  You have a surprising amount of hope, my friend.
- snitko 13y ago
coldtea 13y ago
>In any other civilized country, after being caught spying, governments would be ashamed and massacrated by public opinion and politicians would review and stop their actions immediatly Which country would that be? Because the governments do the same things all around the world, and in all "Western democracies" too. After all, it's not something inherently American that forces them to do that. It's them working to keep the status quo and keep the population sheepish to the tune of big private interests, an d those are international.

northwest 13y ago

Your first sentence would imply that at least the UK, Germany and France are not civilized countries.

declan 13y ago
On a per-capita basis, the Netherlands is at the top with far more electronic surveillance than almost any other country, and the U.S. is at the bottom. (This may be only domestic LE surveillance, can't remember.)
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  The number of times the Dutch police have legally tapped telephone and internet lines may vastly exceed that of others such as the U.S. because the U.S. (thinks it) doesn't need a warrant and as such it's not being logged as a wiretap. Some numbers of Dutch wiretaps: http://www.thehollandbureau.com/2010/03/07/the-netherlands-champion-in-national-surveillance/ http://www.thehollandbureau.com/2010/03/07/the-netherlands-c...
  - declan 13y ago
    Thanks for the citation. Excerpt from the article: "That is 1681 per day. 84% of this tapping concerned mobile phones. Compare this with the news that there were 2208 taps in the United States in the whole of 2007." It's comparing like to like. Neither numbers include intelligence-related surveillance, only domestic criminal law enforcement. The Dutch are wiretap-happy and the U.S., thanks to Title III, is relatively restrained.
    - MisterWebz 13y ago
      The ability to intercept the communications of anyone on the internet without a warrant is relatively restrained? Do you even have a source for your claims? How exactly are you comparing the two?
      - declan 13y ago
        The U.S. courts publish non-intelligence wiretap stats per year: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+courts+annual+wiretap+statistics+2012 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=us+courts+annual+wiretap+statistics+201... Intelligence gathering is rather different.
    - pavs 13y ago
      Why would you bother to wiretap, when you can listen to everyone, or get far more information through other means of data collection?
- duaneb 13y ago
  A) it's far more plausible to roll out pretty much any infrastructure in population-dense areas (i.e. netherlands, britain). B) We really have no idea how much the US is wiretapping because apparently we don't need public warrants anymore because terrorists and freedom.
oscargrouch 13y ago
sorry: let me make it clear.. i consider US a high profile country when we get into account the "quality" and sofistication of its citizens.. its high developed concerning the consciousness and general inteligence of its people.. thats is exacly why is so scary it makes me remember the question we keep making ourselves of why and how the sofisticated(and also high profile citizens) of the germany of the 30´s could be swallowed by the ideology of the nazis.. we end up believeing this is all about cultural matter.. for us looking outside of it looks that privacy its not that big deal, and when it is.. the governement get rid of it by making hocus pocus and creating virtual terror, so they can make people support they efforts to brake privacy and freedom
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > i consider US a high profile country when we get into account the "quality" and sofistication of its citizens.. Based on...what, exactly?
  - oscargrouch 13y ago
    im starting from the premisse that at least people have a good educational level to understand whats happening.. it gets higher in satelites regions like new york, SF, LA, chicago, seattle, etc.. but you know, generalizations are pretty much questionable, what do we really know?! :)
- northwest 13y ago
  What I'd simply like you to see is that, while it's true that the US has a leading role in the history of humanity, the problem of mass surveillance enabled via corruption is very present in (at least!) Western Europe as well.

booruguru 13y ago

Don't worry, everything will be alright, so long as Americans get to keep their guns....you know...to protect their FREEDOM! The very freedoms they are giving up without a fight or even a word of protest. So umm...ah... U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

ams6110 13y ago
The way things are going we may need those guns. The 2nd amendment was written to allow the people to defend themselves from the government. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. (Thomas Jefferson)
- falk 13y ago
  You're missing his point. You could have all the guns in the world but that isn't going to change the fact that Americans don't care they are being monitored and spied on. Including the vast majority of ardent supporters of the 2nd amendment.
- drhayes9 13y ago
  I've never been clear why people think "guns" will protect them from a government that has massive technological and economic resources at their disposal. I'm not saying you won't be alive. And I know guerrilla techniques can keep these kinds of conflicts going for decades. But what will you really have besides some quasi-freedom? To me, the much more important weapons of (using your example) the Revolutionary War here in the U.S. were the intellectual weapons sharpened by the Enlightenment that were used to create the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in the first place.
  - noarchy 13y ago
    >I've never been clear why people think "guns" will protect them from a government that has massive technological and economic resources at their disposal. Those economic resource, of course, were taken from the population. Cutting off the oxygen in this area, so to speak, might be far more effective than guns. Guns, as it happens, are what implicitly lay behind the government's ability to take your money.

diafygi 13y ago

> and people just act normal while civil rights get shattered appart in pieces Not all of us. There's a protest with some pretty high profile speakers going on this Sunday (http://1984day.com/ http://1984day.com/). Were you planning on going? It seems that most of the "people are just bending over" commenters are the ones who don't attend or write/call their reps, making you included in your own ridicule.

oscargrouch 13y ago
actually i have pretty much abandon my "normal" life to pursue a dream by creating a software tool to make people more free.. and that before all of this that its happening right now.. i were very worried, not just because of governments, but also by the way companies are doing things and the way the cloud movement is heading to.. also im not based in US, the government snooping its just one part of the problems that we have.. that i wished to solve back than.. i hope that by the end of this year, this tool will get available, and it can be clear what we can do with it.. but i think that when the time comes, it will be clear that im making my part.. Those are times we should not be so selfish anymore, and have to make a stand.. we need to find our ways through the XXI century.. and that is not by copying or using the same weapons of the XX century.. i think that is one part of the problems we are facing.. we need our XXI century identities, we need to shape a new century.
LoganCale 13y ago
It's too bad there are huge areas of the U.S. where there is no protest occurring within 600 to 1000 miles.

rmk2 13y ago

My free translation from the German (because I do not have the English version) of something somebody once said, or rather wrote: "Behind the technological veil, behind the political veil of democracy reality shows itself: the universal servitude, the loss of human dignity with prefabricated freedom of choice. And the power structure does not appear 'sublimated' anymore in the style of a liberalist culture, appears not even hypocritical anymore (so that it at least retains the 'formality', the husk of dignity), but brutal, in that it throws over board all claim to truth and justice." And for the philologically inclined: > Hinter dem technologischen Schleier, hinter dem politischen Schleier der Demokratie zeigt sich die Realität: die universale Knechtschaft, der Verlust menschlicher Würde bei vorfabrizierter Wahlfreiheit. Und die Machtstruktur tritt nicht mehr 'sublimiert' auf im Stil einer liberalistischen Kultur, nicht einmal mehr heuchlerisch (so daß sie zumindest die 'Förmlichkeiten', die Hülse von Würde, beibehielte), sondern brutal, indem sie allen Anspruch auf Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit über Bord wirft. (Herbert Marcuse: Konterrevolution & Revolte, Frankfurt ²1973, p.22.)

northwest 13y ago
Remarkable to what degree that applies to our time. Some things seem to be so timeless...
- TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
  The whole world keeps repeating itself. You should read Ecclesiastes! "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
oscargrouch 13y ago
at least now society in general has taken the red pill (by force?), if im allowed to use the matrix metaphor.. do we now will make the right choice? or we will continue to pretend that nothing happens? at least now we are more awake.. as you beatifully quoted someone who were awake and conscious before anyone else does.. Did´nt follow much of Marcuse myself, but Adorno are one of my favorite philosophers, thank you for sharing :)

tptacek 13y ago

To which civilized country are you referring? Can you please be specific, so we can actually do some research and see if the claim needs rebutting?

PavlovsCat 13y ago
Simply replace "any other" by "a".
- tptacek 13y ago
  It's a suspect definition of "civilized" that excludes every country in the world.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Yes, and? It can mean many things, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, but the thinking behind the new word was connected to modernism's active pursuit of progress and enlightenment. In that sense, there are traces of civilization everywhere. But to call any country "civilized, period" would strike me as a mixture of hybris and aiming rather low. Even just the way "we" produce and process most of our meat means we're far from civilized. Not only do we not have civilized countries, I doubt we even have nominees.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      If "civilized" is a label that can apply to no country at all, what was the point of changing the "any" to an "a"? Ok, things are better in Utopia. Moving back to the real world now...
angersock 13y ago
Perhaps the Vatican?

vermontdevil 13y ago

This is not new in the US sadly. Just different tools. Back then the FBI spied on many people using HUMINT. Filled out reams of paper detailing the activities of the people they spied on. All because they were 'different'. I never believed that your typical American really cares about freedom, liberty and all that. For them what's important are 1) money and 2) have a home and watch tv. Just me.

dobbsbob 13y ago

This is going on in all of our countries, not just the US. There was a student riot here when they jacked the tuition 300% and now the police demand cameras everywhere, hidden SIM card kill switches that wipe the entire phone rendering it a brick so they can prevent organizing during social unrest (they shopped this as anti theft measures, but of course only the authorities have control of the kill switch and you have to report your lost phone), special tags on vehicles to trace them at all times, drones, and ISP level spying because you have nothing to worry about if you're not a criminal right? My country is contracting the exact same intel corps the US is contracting which are run by ex CIA managers. My country is leasing the exact same software that uses previously unknown exploits to backdoor all our communications that the US is using like FinFisher/FinSpy and VUPEN. It's a giant festering dystopian industry straight out of 1984 with tentacles across the globe. They are showing up to campuses here and offering huge salaries for "data analyst" positions. They are not even trying to hide the fact anymore that you will be spying on your own neighbors while developing these databases. They used to pretend it was to prevent terrorism and crime now it's blatent shredding of the bill of rights/constitution and developers are signing up in droves because they're the ones paying the most money and nobody else here is hiring. My country's version of CENTCOM is all over political commentary, newspaper articles and radio stations denouncing all detractors of this new fascist order. The politicians use this feedback as "proof" of positive feedback on their new rights slashing spy programs. The privacy watchdog in charge of the spy agency in my country was promptly sacked as soon as they took office. They now operate in total secrecy. This isn't sustainable. Eventually all of us will rise up and cast off the 20th century dictator leftovers destroying our countries, starting wars, watching us through our smart TVs, creating food shortages, pumping up armnaments and fear.... It's only a matter of time the question is how far will they go and get away with this until we burn it all to the ground. A century from now all of our descendents will study this period as the 21st century dark ages and those kids will wonder how anybody survived the great oppression.

siculars 13y ago
You have a surprising amount of hope, my friend.
snitko 13y ago

coldtea 13y ago

>In any other civilized country, after being caught spying, governments would be ashamed and massacrated by public opinion and politicians would review and stop their actions immediatly Which country would that be? Because the governments do the same things all around the world, and in all "Western democracies" too. After all, it's not something inherently American that forces them to do that. It's them working to keep the status quo and keep the population sheepish to the tune of big private interests, an d those are international.