5 ms·

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

by talmand 13y ago

monsterix 13y ago
Is there a way for people to initiate impeachment of Obama / get rid of scumbags from the Government given the number of lies and mess that's already out there? Like it or not but a lot of non-American users see these actions like a bid to take over the Internet. It is a sort of waging a war against the rest of the world. Treating ordinary citizens from outside America default as terrorists and subjecting 'em to round-the-clock surveillance is a gross violation of human rights. Why is the world silent on this? Why do I read 'only American citizens deserve privacy' in every piece of debate and discussion out there? IMO, a historic equivalent of this type of naked surveillance was when the Jews were stripped of their clothes under Nazi Germany (I know this sounds a bit over the top, but well it's not). The world needs to stop thinking that privacy is grant only to those who belong to certain nations. [Edit: Thank you for the negative votes. The statements hold true despite your lack of respect for opinions.]
- hga 13y ago
  The remedies are the power of the purse, which won't necessarily be followed but which we are attempting and got very close in the first vote in the House, and/or impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, which is an inherently political act. In practice, as the political lay of the land is today, I'm not even sure Obama would be impeached and convicted if he were "caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy" (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards). Touching on the Jews in Europe before and during WWII, first they were stripped of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (e.g. see this in two months: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1598131621/ http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1...). As you may have heard, the US is going in the opposite direction outside of what we're taking to calling "slave states" like New York and Maryland, and probably California soon. We have options, please see here for previous discussion before you dismiss this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921
  - monsterix 13y ago
    Agreed. But since this is about catching everyone else in bed on the planet it gets far more serious than a ... say a Monica Lewinsky episode. I believe breach of privacy globally is a very serious offence and it should be measured as such. You and I bearing licensable firearms from the pop and mom stores is absolutely no parallel to the capability that the agencies possess. Strength of gun laws seems suspect in the era of drones, robotics and the goldmine of everyone's data and emotions.
    - hga 13y ago
      The Monica Lewinsky based impeachment that wasn't followed by a real trial in the Senate was about perjury, not catching someone in bed (if the latter it was the worst kept secret in US history, do a search on bimbo eruptions). We (used to) expect better from our Presidents. "licensable" firearms? I don't know what benighted jurisdiction you live in, but in mine we don't need no stinking licenses to buy or own them. We do need one to carry concealed (only a handful of states don't), but that's in part a different thing, but it still makes certain acts of terror more difficult and expensive. Please read the discussion I linked to which touches on that, and don't doubt for a second that the more forward thinking/paranoid or whatever members of the RKBA community aren't working through how to operate in an era of pervasive surveillance. As SF authors and readers have for decades and decades, I'm checking now and the first story I read on this theme was "The Hunting Lodge" by Randall Garret, first published in 1954 in Astounding, I read it in the early '70s in a superb 1968 Robert Silverberg collection Men and Machines. And pay attention to the maxim "Professionals discuss logistics".
      - monsterix 13y ago
        > "licensable" firearms By that I meant arms that are available for sale on the market. Sorry, it didn't come off as accurately as I intended. Will definitely read up Men and Machines, next.
- walid 13y ago
  True, the NSA doesn't respect the privacy of any non-American on the planet in bulk. This is more than just a privacy violation. Also the NSA might respect an Americans privacy if they are farther than three hops from a foreigner, kinda like saying they don't.
- hyperventilator 13y ago
  If you think this is just an American problem you are deceiving yourself.
a3n 13y ago
The NSA "hoovers" information, but it doesn't refer to the vacuum cleaner anymore.
hga 13y ago
Ummm, no. I'm sure he didn't have files on my parents (well, perhaps aside from a pro-forma one on my father, who as an USNavy officer for 4 years in the '50s would I believe have gotten a Secret clearance as all officers do today), he had files on everyone "important". And e.g. the fruits of bugging Goldwater's campaign airplane, as ordered by LBJ. About the latter he said something to the effect of "If the President orders it...." There's a qualitative difference between "The government has its eye on 'important' people" and "The government is spying on every phone call everyone makes" etc. (the metatdata collection we're pretty sure is happening from the Snowden leaks which included a blanket writ for all of Verizon Businesses' metadata).
- cbhl 13y ago
  I think the thing we need to consider is that they don't need to have explicit files per se on anybody anymore. It seems more likely that if a file was needed on you, they could generate one by simply typing some PII (say, a name and address) into a computer form, which then causes form letters to be sent mail merge style to credit agencies, retailers, telecoms, and major social networks requesting your information. Then, as the relevant data comes in, it gets added to an electronic folder to be accessed by whomever thinks they need access to it.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    For the most part it's true they could quickly generate a file, but they could have done that in 1998 as well (modulo the lack of things like Facebook at the time). Being able to instantly pull up email contents would certainly be different in scale and scope though!
    - cbhl 13y ago
      I doubt it; POP3 and SMTP are plaintext. Put a few wiretap in at major colos; build a few data centers, maintain a couple of essentially very large hashtables and it seems plausible that they could instantly pull up email contents. It'd be a bit bigger scale than GMail search or whatever corporations use for e-Discovery in Outlook, but it'd be plausible. Whether the government allocated budget to such a contraption is another matter; I think that would be a bigger concern than the technical plausibility of "store everyone's email for all time in perpetuity". I mean, if GMail was supposed to fulfill that vision (ha!) then it can't possibly be unreasonable for a determined government to build it.
reitzensteinm 13y ago
Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it private? Do you honestly expect them to fall on their sword for the good of the nation? Giving a shadowy group with essentially no oversight access to damn near every skeleton in the closet society has under the guise of "security" is analogous stuffing your house with munitions and trusting your kids not to play with matches.
- MaysonL 13y ago
  Do you want the NSA or GCHQ knowing that your teenage daughter is pregnant before you do?
  - ynniv 13y ago
    I would certainly expect it if Target already does, but then this just highlights how pervasive the problem is. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...]
  - Torgo 13y ago
    The nude pictures she texted to her boyfriend are now part of her permanent file as well.
- maaaats 13y ago
  Wow, good point. Never considered it that way, only my own personal reasons.
  - npsimons 13y ago
    It is interesting to reflect upon the phrase "I have nothing to hide". The first thing to note is that it is very selfish and self-centered: "I have nothing to hide". People who say the phrase don't seem to realize that other people may be doing perfectly harmless things in private that are illegal, or at least would get them ostracized. The second point about the phrase is it has an implicit timeframe: "I have nothing to hide right now". Those who say it regularly seem to lack any foresight (or memory of history) or imagination and can't seem to visualize a future in which they might (even unintetionally) do something which will put them on the bad side of the law. They also don't seem to consider the possibility that the prohibition against ex post facto laws could be suspended.

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

by talmand 13y ago

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

monsterix 13y ago

Is there a way for people to initiate impeachment of Obama / get rid of scumbags from the Government given the number of lies and mess that's already out there? Like it or not but a lot of non-American users see these actions like a bid to take over the Internet. It is a sort of waging a war against the rest of the world. Treating ordinary citizens from outside America default as terrorists and subjecting 'em to round-the-clock surveillance is a gross violation of human rights. Why is the world silent on this? Why do I read 'only American citizens deserve privacy' in every piece of debate and discussion out there? IMO, a historic equivalent of this type of naked surveillance was when the Jews were stripped of their clothes under Nazi Germany (I know this sounds a bit over the top, but well it's not). The world needs to stop thinking that privacy is grant only to those who belong to certain nations. [Edit: Thank you for the negative votes. The statements hold true despite your lack of respect for opinions.]

hga 13y ago
The remedies are the power of the purse, which won't necessarily be followed but which we are attempting and got very close in the first vote in the House, and/or impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate, which is an inherently political act. In practice, as the political lay of the land is today, I'm not even sure Obama would be impeached and convicted if he were "caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy" (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards). Touching on the Jews in Europe before and during WWII, first they were stripped of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (e.g. see this in two months: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1598131621/ http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Control-Third-Reich-Disarming/dp/1...). As you may have heard, the US is going in the opposite direction outside of what we're taking to calling "slave states" like New York and Maryland, and probably California soon. We have options, please see here for previous discussion before you dismiss this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155921
- monsterix 13y ago
  Agreed. But since this is about catching everyone else in bed on the planet it gets far more serious than a ... say a Monica Lewinsky episode. I believe breach of privacy globally is a very serious offence and it should be measured as such. You and I bearing licensable firearms from the pop and mom stores is absolutely no parallel to the capability that the agencies possess. Strength of gun laws seems suspect in the era of drones, robotics and the goldmine of everyone's data and emotions.
  - hga 13y ago
    The Monica Lewinsky based impeachment that wasn't followed by a real trial in the Senate was about perjury, not catching someone in bed (if the latter it was the worst kept secret in US history, do a search on bimbo eruptions). We (used to) expect better from our Presidents. "licensable" firearms? I don't know what benighted jurisdiction you live in, but in mine we don't need no stinking licenses to buy or own them. We do need one to carry concealed (only a handful of states don't), but that's in part a different thing, but it still makes certain acts of terror more difficult and expensive. Please read the discussion I linked to which touches on that, and don't doubt for a second that the more forward thinking/paranoid or whatever members of the RKBA community aren't working through how to operate in an era of pervasive surveillance. As SF authors and readers have for decades and decades, I'm checking now and the first story I read on this theme was "The Hunting Lodge" by Randall Garret, first published in 1954 in Astounding, I read it in the early '70s in a superb 1968 Robert Silverberg collection Men and Machines. And pay attention to the maxim "Professionals discuss logistics".
    - monsterix 13y ago
      > "licensable" firearms By that I meant arms that are available for sale on the market. Sorry, it didn't come off as accurately as I intended. Will definitely read up Men and Machines, next.
walid 13y ago
True, the NSA doesn't respect the privacy of any non-American on the planet in bulk. This is more than just a privacy violation. Also the NSA might respect an Americans privacy if they are farther than three hops from a foreigner, kinda like saying they don't.
hyperventilator 13y ago
If you think this is just an American problem you are deceiving yourself.

a3n 13y ago

The NSA "hoovers" information, but it doesn't refer to the vacuum cleaner anymore.

hga 13y ago

Ummm, no. I'm sure he didn't have files on my parents (well, perhaps aside from a pro-forma one on my father, who as an USNavy officer for 4 years in the '50s would I believe have gotten a Secret clearance as all officers do today), he had files on everyone "important". And e.g. the fruits of bugging Goldwater's campaign airplane, as ordered by LBJ. About the latter he said something to the effect of "If the President orders it...." There's a qualitative difference between "The government has its eye on 'important' people" and "The government is spying on every phone call everyone makes" etc. (the metatdata collection we're pretty sure is happening from the Snowden leaks which included a blanket writ for all of Verizon Businesses' metadata).

cbhl 13y ago
I think the thing we need to consider is that they don't need to have explicit files per se on anybody anymore. It seems more likely that if a file was needed on you, they could generate one by simply typing some PII (say, a name and address) into a computer form, which then causes form letters to be sent mail merge style to credit agencies, retailers, telecoms, and major social networks requesting your information. Then, as the relevant data comes in, it gets added to an electronic folder to be accessed by whomever thinks they need access to it.
- mpyne 13y ago
  For the most part it's true they could quickly generate a file, but they could have done that in 1998 as well (modulo the lack of things like Facebook at the time). Being able to instantly pull up email contents would certainly be different in scale and scope though!
  - cbhl 13y ago
    I doubt it; POP3 and SMTP are plaintext. Put a few wiretap in at major colos; build a few data centers, maintain a couple of essentially very large hashtables and it seems plausible that they could instantly pull up email contents. It'd be a bit bigger scale than GMail search or whatever corporations use for e-Discovery in Outlook, but it'd be plausible. Whether the government allocated budget to such a contraption is another matter; I think that would be a bigger concern than the technical plausibility of "store everyone's email for all time in perpetuity". I mean, if GMail was supposed to fulfill that vision (ha!) then it can't possibly be unreasonable for a determined government to build it.

reitzensteinm 13y ago

Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it private? Do you honestly expect them to fall on their sword for the good of the nation? Giving a shadowy group with essentially no oversight access to damn near every skeleton in the closet society has under the guise of "security" is analogous stuffing your house with munitions and trusting your kids not to play with matches.

MaysonL 13y ago
Do you want the NSA or GCHQ knowing that your teenage daughter is pregnant before you do?
- ynniv 13y ago
  I would certainly expect it if Target already does, but then this just highlights how pervasive the problem is. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...]
- Torgo 13y ago
  The nude pictures she texted to her boyfriend are now part of her permanent file as well.
maaaats 13y ago
Wow, good point. Never considered it that way, only my own personal reasons.
- npsimons 13y ago
  It is interesting to reflect upon the phrase "I have nothing to hide". The first thing to note is that it is very selfish and self-centered: "I have nothing to hide". People who say the phrase don't seem to realize that other people may be doing perfectly harmless things in private that are illegal, or at least would get them ostracized. The second point about the phrase is it has an implicit timeframe: "I have nothing to hide right now". Those who say it regularly seem to lack any foresight (or memory of history) or imagination and can't seem to visualize a future in which they might (even unintetionally) do something which will put them on the bad side of the law. They also don't seem to consider the possibility that the prohibition against ex post facto laws could be suspended.