3 ms·

Having our communication intercepted, stored, and analyzed en masse is not bad because of whoever is in office today. It's bad because someone different, someo

by acabal 13y ago

Having our communication intercepted, stored, and analyzed en masse is not bad because of whoever is in office today. It's bad because someone different, someone with less scruples, could be in office tomorrow. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I actually believe that the people in charge of this stuff today are at least trying to be careful about what they're doing with the information they've collected. But once the infrastructure to surveil, analyze, and more importantly store for all eternity everybody's communication is in place, you're leaving an awfully tempting pot of gold for the people in power a decade from now. That's who I don't trust. In either case, saying mass surveillance and archiving of everybody's personal communications is OK because "trust me guys, I'm for realsies not gonna screw you" is ignorant at best and despicable at worst. I didn't elect this guy and I've never met him, and he doesn't have my interest at heart--his interests are catching terrorists, and soon everybody's going to be a terrorist. We're already calling nonviolent nuns terrorists: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/protesting-nuns-branded-terrorists/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/protesting-n...

LoganCale 13y ago
> I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I actually believe that the people in charge of this stuff today are at least trying to be careful about what they're doing with the information they've collected. They're passing intelligence to the DEA and IRS for domestic crimes, with orders from the top of the DOJ to hide that intelligence from everyone, even the courts, and only use it to construct a parallel case to prosecute with. I don't believe that's "trying to be careful" with the information. That's a blatant abuse of our legal system. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...
- malandrew 13y ago
  Yup. We don't have to wait 10 years. The people with less scruples are in office now already abusing the system. If these are the norms of acceptable behavior now, I fear what they are going to consider acceptable (ab)use of the system in 10 years.

by acabal 13y ago

LoganCale 13y ago

> I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I actually believe that the people in charge of this stuff today are at least trying to be careful about what they're doing with the information they've collected. They're passing intelligence to the DEA and IRS for domestic crimes, with orders from the top of the DOJ to hide that intelligence from everyone, even the courts, and only use it to construct a parallel case to prosecute with. I don't believe that's "trying to be careful" with the information. That's a blatant abuse of our legal system. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence-laundering https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel...

malandrew 13y ago
Yup. We don't have to wait 10 years. The people with less scruples are in office now already abusing the system. If these are the norms of acceptable behavior now, I fear what they are going to consider acceptable (ab)use of the system in 10 years.