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Four fears for authoritarians

263 points by wlj 13y ago

001sky 13y ago
Don't forget... Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks' http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims...
- gfosco 13y ago
  People say a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    Its nothing personal. And in any event, It's perhaps even out of Zucks's hands now, though. Google and Facebook both said they didn’t know anything about the National Security Agency using a program called PRISM to access their users’ data. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mv06t60fV9YclwHzFmDOEk2wGGBj-jd5od7cS-I-d6E/edit?pli=1 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mv06t60fV9YclwHzFmDOEk2w...
  - clicks 13y ago
    That's not a good enough excuse. I'm frustrated that you trivialize intentions to hand over people's e-mails, addresses, pictures like it's nothing, "oh, but he was just 19!". I was 19 once too, did a lot of stupid stuff, but even then I was never willing to hand over pictures/private details about thousands of people to my friends (I could have -- I was the owner of a fairly popular forum when I was 16 which had roughly 10k users). What irks me about the quote is how specific and self-assured he sounds: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks. It is very difficult to buy that he's since then done a complete 180 degree turn. He is of course aware that he can't hand his friends private information of FB users because there'll be consequences (like FB going down, his wealth going down, his reputation going down), but what the chat message tells us is what Mark is really like, what his conscience is truly like: if he's willing to put being thought of as cool and hip to his friends (or whatever was the guiding motive behind his willingness to release private information of students) above privacy of others, he's probably willing to put profit above privacy and well-being of others. But of course that's already been made clear by his many other actions since then. I am also saddened that pg time and again praises him for being an example of a good founder. The hacker community should continue giving him as much hell as possible (as most of it does, thankfully), refuse to promote its business (don't put 'Like' buttons on your stuff), don't use Facebook Connect, don't have a FB profile, do not disclose bugs to FB, etc. Don't reward individuals who lack basic conscience.
    - dylangs1030 13y ago
      Again: people do a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19. I'm assuming you've never met Mark Zuckerberg. All you have to go on are his portrayals in the media. Have you ever said anything racist? Sexist? Discriminatory, widely insulting? Have you ever joked about things you would do to take advantage of other people? How would you feel if any one of those things were held against you by everyone years later? I've personally said worse things, and I've later regretted them. I'd be mortifed to have them follow me for a decade. The man is turning 30 soon. It was literally a decade ago. Let it go.
      - clicks 13y ago
        I haven't met Mark but I know people who knew Mark in his Harvard days. None of them have very nice things to say about him. The age argument is not good enough. You're still trivializing his willingness to release private information about thousands of students at his university without their permission.
      - 001sky 13y ago
        Again: people do a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19. Like Vote? or Like Make Porn? How would you feel if any one of those things were held against you by everyone years later? You're really missing the Irony here, eh?
  - eksith 13y ago
    They also say a lot of things they truly mean before they develop a "shut up filter" later on in life.
    - dylangs1030 13y ago
      I think you're being too harsh. I've personally said much worse things, and it would deeply shame me to have a trivial statement (not action, statement) follow me in the media for the rest of my life. Especially if it were in a private conversation. He was careless. Most teenagers are. He was probably not even seriously thinking when he said it. He's almost 30 now. Let's judge the man on what he says today.
      - tripzilch 13y ago
        3 minutes between two posts defending pretty much the same thing. you must've said some pretty terrible stuff if you're that afraid :) don't worry though, you can still cast the second stone :-P
      - eksith 13y ago
        Fair enough, I was being snarky. But throw yourself back to your younger days. You've said worse, but how much of it did you really mean? Now back to today, how much of what you say do you mean? Read and listen to his words on how he feels about privacy in the digital age. Especially with regard to "expectation" of privacy in a sharing site (silly concept, this privacy business there, isn't it?). If he's grown as much as you believe he has, and if how much Zuckerberg means of what he says is any way comparable to you today in terms of how much he means it, I'd still worry. Does that still sound like someone you want guarding your basket while you put all your eggs in it?
      - eCa 13y ago
        > Let's judge the man on what he says today. I have judged him and Facebook by their words and actions: I've never had a Facebook account. (And I don't think he's changed much since he wrote that.)
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    some people said a lot of dumb stuff (like that) when they're 19. other people can be trusted to lead a corporation that globally has access to individuals most private data and relationships. I really don't think it's unreasonable that I prefer those two sets to be distinct. unrealistic, maybe. unreasonable, no.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    I do hope you are 19 or younger.
tlarkworthy 13y ago
If anyone knew the most effective way for us UK citizens to stop our government from making irreversible constitutional mistakes I would be highly grateful for the information.
- Yaa101 13y ago
  Go with pitchforks to the city council to start with. With other words, stop being afraid and take the risk to be attacked by security forces. That is the only way.
  - pjc50 13y ago
    Solidarity first: find a whole load of people to go with, otherwise your "take the risk to be attacked by security forces" is just "suicide by cop". You cannot do this as a large number of independant individuals. You need an organisation, or several; and yes, that means politics and compromise and all the other things about working with people.
    - tlarkworthy 13y ago
      Do we have an organisation?
- gnerd 13y ago
  Well I suppose we could start by having a written constitution rather than a uncodified constitution, otherwise, it seems to me, once they bring in legal measures as acts and statutes and then the public gets used to an idea, it is not long before it gets baked into case law and then we're as good as fucked once it is accepted as common law. Other than that, I suppose we could cross our fingers and hope for the best, like we did in the days before we had a constitutional monarchy, we would cross our fingers and hope we wouldn't get a shitty king. Well we don't need protection from our monarchs (as far as I can tell), we now are in dire need of protection from our government (and other "friendly" governments by extension). Our customs and traditions have done well for us, its amazing to me we got this far, but maybe its time to get a bit more serious about our protections of rights and have them baked into common law. I suppose there is a bit of irony that the protections we now seek from those who govern us are actually baked into the EU, but our country seems to be half in and half out (I'm a little angered I have to have cookie warnings on my web properties because of EU directives and yet my basic little right to privacy my grandparents generation helped put into the UN is not even taken seriously, never mind the EU equivalents).
scrrr 13y ago
Yep, see what happened in the Arabic countries (and some other countries outside of the Islam-sphere). People organised to protest using the Internet. People get educated using the Internet. In Cuba they exchange information using thumb drives. And every bullshitter (= our governments) should be afraid of it. They are, of course. And surveillance is their reaction. What will help is if everyone finally realises that it's NOT about pornography, that it's NOT about terrorism, that it's NOT about drugs, that it's NOT about whatever reason they name..
- andreasklinger 13y ago
  What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.
  - yuvadam 13y ago
    Act by raising your awareness. Act by not standing silent. Act by being the change you want to see. There is nothing else but this.
    - TimSAstro 13y ago
      I'm sorry to be snarky, but this gives me absolutely no concrete guidance on things I can do. It's a platitude.
      - yuvadam 13y ago
        Well, that is because there's no guaranteed success in any course of action, save for becoming change, and believing that that action alone is a small, but important, part in the network effect. I understand HN isn't exactly the usual activist crowd, but it should be pretty easy to understand that activism is about acting against forces much larger, stronger, and better funded than you are. Actions that bring change will be one-in-a-million, and they will always be the fruit of an individual (or a collective) that are persistent in their goals, and pursue them regardless of others joining them or not.
asgard1024 13y ago
I have come to conclusion that more radical thinking is needed. American constitution (or other derived documents, such as EU Charter on Human Rights, I am EU citizen), as it stands, is not going to cut it. The thing is, the extremes of keeping things hidden we see in the government are just a tip of a long tail of many, many people trying to keep things hidden in other, more mundane, institutions. For existential fears, people who could point out these problems stay silent. We accept this as a necessary acts, because of "competition". But aren't wars and such just another result of this thinking, really? (For an interesting take on morality of speaking truth, see also Sam Harris' book Lying.) Here's a couple of ideas: 1. Can democratic state do without any secret service at all? I don't mean not to have "operational" security. You need to keep secret where you have troops, keys etc. But; maybe it should just release all the secrets after 5 years, about operations they did. Likewise, their operations should be made public, just like courts are. In other words, the default position should be to release, not keep secret. I am on a fence regarding technology plans - would really world be a better place if Russians couldn't make the bomb? The point is, we take position "secret service is needed" for granted; I don't think it is. 2. There should be no blank exceptions to free speech, just like in the above case. It should be right applied to everybody, not just US (or other state) citizens. Private sector shouldn't be an exception - you should have right to publicly criticize your employer. There should be no contracts preventing you from disclosing information about what you don't like, or about what happened to you. 3. I envision a platform that would allow anonymous publishing of unreliable information, which then could be collectively analyzed and the reliability of sources assessed, without revealing them. Kind of inversion of classical journalism, where you have a limited number of people (editors) accessing unreliable information and only publishing if you can reasonably prove it to be true; here you would publish indiscriminately things, that are not true, and only later, via some algorithm that would connect the sources somehow yet retain their anonymity, the correctness of the information would be proved. It should allow to connect very small leaks from many people. This would require a cultural change in how we understand media, but it could be done in incremental way. I am not completely advocating all of what I just mentioned; I would just like to see some discussion about that. Maybe everything about institutional behavior in the past, older than 5 years, let's say, should just be fair game to publish. This rule would nicely exclude all the technical and operational plans.
c2prods 13y ago
Very good article, I think it got everything right. It's a well-known fact that fear always leads to dark outcomes for democracy (it's been very well covered through many films and books, from Yoda to Orwell :p). Yet, for the first time, local governments try to shut down a global network. This paradox might be what saves us. At any rate, the least we can do is to raise awareness about this topic.
talktime 13y ago
Expat Brit here. Quite frankly I'm frightened to pass through UK ports now to visit family after reading about Schedule 7 powers. My reading of it is that passing through a UK port means I enter a legal limbo. If stopped by an inquisitor, I'm likely to assert my right to silence. This may mean I'm detained and intimidated for 9 hours. At the end of this I can be arrested and charged with 'non-cooperation', this may involve further detention and/or fines all for simply remaining silent. Leaving the UK is worse, as I'll likely miss my flight, and have the expense of re-booking. This is just if the border agents are acting within 'the law'. Virtually every UK citizen passes through a port at sometime during the year - the inquistors can simply wait there for anyone they are interested in. It effectively means the right to silence is dead. Foreign visitors should be aware they can be legally forced to give up their Gmail/Facebook passwords. Hope Big Ben is worth it. I wonder what the plans are for Julian Assange when he eventually leaves the UK - almost certain to be detained under Schedule 7.
- radio4fan 13y ago
  > Quite frankly I'm frightened to pass through UK ports now to visit family after reading about Schedule 7 powers. I'm not going to worry about it too much, myself. The statute is quite clear that you can only be questioned to establish whether you appear to be a terrorist. The law has been broken in the case of David Miranda. I hope he will sue -- as he has threatened -- so that Special Branch know that they can't get away with breaking the law in this way. Chapter and verse: Schedule 7, 2 (1) An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7 ... 40 Terrorist: interpretation. (1) In this Part “terrorist” means a person who— (a) has committed an offence under any of sections 11, 12, 15 to 18, 54 and 56 to 63, or (b) is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40 If you're worried about this, perhaps you should also be worried about entering the US -- including in transit -- in case you are declared to be an unperson and sent to Gitmo with no trial or legal recourse. It's a bit worse than a maximum of nine hours of pointless tedium and handing over your Gmail/Facebook passwords which -- let's face it -- the spooks will have if they want them anyway. As for Assange, if they get their hands on him, they will ship him to Sweden. He's spent the last year holed up in one room: I doubt another nine hours would bother him too much.
batemanesque 13y ago
meaningless reification of 'the internet'... the current secrecy debate is no more about the internet than Watergate was about tape recorders
batemanesque 13y ago
and describing all this as the same 'agenda' is grossly simplistic & undermines attempts to reinforce civil liberties. there may be broad trends but they're not driven by a unified entity, and given that the scope of NSA surveillance was known before Snowden his leaks hardly give credence to the possibility of taking conspiracy theories seriously
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Calling something a conspiracy theory is not an argument, and I'm not sure what the scare quotes around 'agenda' are supposed to communicate to me.
personlurking 13y ago
"Once the filters are built, the terms upon which they can filter can be (indeed will be) modified." This and every law on the books. A law is like ground being broken on a particular location (realm of life), something will be built upon it down the line. Much fuss might be made over the specific law but it is all slight of hand.
jstalin 13y ago
I'm reminded of a George Washington quote: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." In other words, government is, at its bare naked minimum, the monopoly of force. It must be contained, mistrusted, and treated as a necessary evil. Despite the USA being screwed up in so many ways, I still thank my lucky stars for the anti-federalists, who gave us the bill of rights. Without them, we would be much worse off today than we are.
- kanz 13y ago
  "Despite the USA being screwed up in so many ways, I still thank my lucky stars for the anti-federalists, who gave us the bill of rights. Without them, we would be much worse off today than we are." The current administration and the previous administrations don't care about the Bill of Rights.
  - AJ007 13y ago
    Fortunately we have a legal system that, to some degree, does. Thus the outrage over secret courts which wave everything through (and the disturbance that a single unelected Supreme Court justice is responsible for the secret kangaroo court's appointments.)
    - shpxnvz 13y ago
      > Fortunately we have a legal system that, to some degree, does. A large body of decisions in trial and appellate courts at both the state and federal level, up to and including the SCOTUS provide plenty of evidence that this is not the case.
- presidentender 13y ago
  Hamilton argued that the very existence of the bill of rights invited the expansion of government into all those areas not expressly forbidden therein, but one might question Hamilton's motivations. That Washington 'quote' cannot be found before 1902. I agree with the sentiment, but false attribution does nothing to help our credibility.
goleksiak 13y ago
This is about control - but control for what purpose? The short-term financial gain of elites? Maybe. To satisfy elite paranoia?. Maybe. Maybe this is control for stability. The government creates models of the future and with more and more data about climate change pointing to disaster in the next few decades, those models must be focusing more and more at that point. So instead of government "holding its people back from a bright future", they are pragmatically laying the foundations for the control structures that will be necessary in the unavoidably dark future. How can stability be maintained when society is radically altered by climate change? Answer: Control
tokenadult 13y ago
I seem to be part of a small minority of HN participants who have actually lived through a transition from 1) an authoritarian regime with pervasive surveillance, direct governmental control of all mass media organizations, secret police who tortured and killed peaceful dissidents--even dissidents based in other countries, and a ruling party organized essentially as a terrorist organization to 2) a government constrained by rule of law with broad protection of individual civil liberties, a free press, judicial and legislative oversight of the police, and multiple political parties based on voluntary participation. I have tried to tell the story before here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 of what life was like under the dictatorial regime, and I have repeatedly recommended experience-tested tips for freedom-fighters http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html about how people around the world can, and do, organize to overcome authoritarian repression. It's up to everyone here on Hacker News to decide whether or not to pay the price to organize to secure liberty. I know what the cost is, and I know what the reward is, of a successful freedom-fighting movement. I don't know whether or not Hacker News participants will mostly set aside their desires for comfort and entertainment to struggle successfully for freedom, but I will watching meanwhile, and I am always willing to help when dare to take a consistent stand for freedom.

263 points by wlj 13y ago

Don't forget... Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks' http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims...

gfosco 13y ago
People say a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19.
- 001sky 13y ago
  Its nothing personal. And in any event, It's perhaps even out of Zucks's hands now, though. Google and Facebook both said they didn’t know anything about the National Security Agency using a program called PRISM to access their users’ data. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mv06t60fV9YclwHzFmDOEk2wGGBj-jd5od7cS-I-d6E/edit?pli=1 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mv06t60fV9YclwHzFmDOEk2w...
- clicks 13y ago
  That's not a good enough excuse. I'm frustrated that you trivialize intentions to hand over people's e-mails, addresses, pictures like it's nothing, "oh, but he was just 19!". I was 19 once too, did a lot of stupid stuff, but even then I was never willing to hand over pictures/private details about thousands of people to my friends (I could have -- I was the owner of a fairly popular forum when I was 16 which had roughly 10k users). What irks me about the quote is how specific and self-assured he sounds: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks. It is very difficult to buy that he's since then done a complete 180 degree turn. He is of course aware that he can't hand his friends private information of FB users because there'll be consequences (like FB going down, his wealth going down, his reputation going down), but what the chat message tells us is what Mark is really like, what his conscience is truly like: if he's willing to put being thought of as cool and hip to his friends (or whatever was the guiding motive behind his willingness to release private information of students) above privacy of others, he's probably willing to put profit above privacy and well-being of others. But of course that's already been made clear by his many other actions since then. I am also saddened that pg time and again praises him for being an example of a good founder. The hacker community should continue giving him as much hell as possible (as most of it does, thankfully), refuse to promote its business (don't put 'Like' buttons on your stuff), don't use Facebook Connect, don't have a FB profile, do not disclose bugs to FB, etc. Don't reward individuals who lack basic conscience.
  - dylangs1030 13y ago
    Again: people do a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19. I'm assuming you've never met Mark Zuckerberg. All you have to go on are his portrayals in the media. Have you ever said anything racist? Sexist? Discriminatory, widely insulting? Have you ever joked about things you would do to take advantage of other people? How would you feel if any one of those things were held against you by everyone years later? I've personally said worse things, and I've later regretted them. I'd be mortifed to have them follow me for a decade. The man is turning 30 soon. It was literally a decade ago. Let it go.
    - clicks 13y ago
      I haven't met Mark but I know people who knew Mark in his Harvard days. None of them have very nice things to say about him. The age argument is not good enough. You're still trivializing his willingness to release private information about thousands of students at his university without their permission.
    - 001sky 13y ago
      Again: people do a lot of dumb stuff when they're 19. Like Vote? or Like Make Porn? How would you feel if any one of those things were held against you by everyone years later? You're really missing the Irony here, eh?
- eksith 13y ago
  They also say a lot of things they truly mean before they develop a "shut up filter" later on in life.
  - dylangs1030 13y ago
    I think you're being too harsh. I've personally said much worse things, and it would deeply shame me to have a trivial statement (not action, statement) follow me in the media for the rest of my life. Especially if it were in a private conversation. He was careless. Most teenagers are. He was probably not even seriously thinking when he said it. He's almost 30 now. Let's judge the man on what he says today.
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      3 minutes between two posts defending pretty much the same thing. you must've said some pretty terrible stuff if you're that afraid :) don't worry though, you can still cast the second stone :-P
    - eksith 13y ago
      Fair enough, I was being snarky. But throw yourself back to your younger days. You've said worse, but how much of it did you really mean? Now back to today, how much of what you say do you mean? Read and listen to his words on how he feels about privacy in the digital age. Especially with regard to "expectation" of privacy in a sharing site (silly concept, this privacy business there, isn't it?). If he's grown as much as you believe he has, and if how much Zuckerberg means of what he says is any way comparable to you today in terms of how much he means it, I'd still worry. Does that still sound like someone you want guarding your basket while you put all your eggs in it?
    - eCa 13y ago
      > Let's judge the man on what he says today. I have judged him and Facebook by their words and actions: I've never had a Facebook account. (And I don't think he's changed much since he wrote that.)
- tripzilch 13y ago
  some people said a lot of dumb stuff (like that) when they're 19. other people can be trusted to lead a corporation that globally has access to individuals most private data and relationships. I really don't think it's unreasonable that I prefer those two sets to be distinct. unrealistic, maybe. unreasonable, no.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  I do hope you are 19 or younger.

tlarkworthy 13y ago

If anyone knew the most effective way for us UK citizens to stop our government from making irreversible constitutional mistakes I would be highly grateful for the information.

Yaa101 13y ago
Go with pitchforks to the city council to start with. With other words, stop being afraid and take the risk to be attacked by security forces. That is the only way.
- pjc50 13y ago
  Solidarity first: find a whole load of people to go with, otherwise your "take the risk to be attacked by security forces" is just "suicide by cop". You cannot do this as a large number of independant individuals. You need an organisation, or several; and yes, that means politics and compromise and all the other things about working with people.
  - tlarkworthy 13y ago
    Do we have an organisation?
gnerd 13y ago
Well I suppose we could start by having a written constitution rather than a uncodified constitution, otherwise, it seems to me, once they bring in legal measures as acts and statutes and then the public gets used to an idea, it is not long before it gets baked into case law and then we're as good as fucked once it is accepted as common law. Other than that, I suppose we could cross our fingers and hope for the best, like we did in the days before we had a constitutional monarchy, we would cross our fingers and hope we wouldn't get a shitty king. Well we don't need protection from our monarchs (as far as I can tell), we now are in dire need of protection from our government (and other "friendly" governments by extension). Our customs and traditions have done well for us, its amazing to me we got this far, but maybe its time to get a bit more serious about our protections of rights and have them baked into common law. I suppose there is a bit of irony that the protections we now seek from those who govern us are actually baked into the EU, but our country seems to be half in and half out (I'm a little angered I have to have cookie warnings on my web properties because of EU directives and yet my basic little right to privacy my grandparents generation helped put into the UN is not even taken seriously, never mind the EU equivalents).

scrrr 13y ago

Yep, see what happened in the Arabic countries (and some other countries outside of the Islam-sphere). People organised to protest using the Internet. People get educated using the Internet. In Cuba they exchange information using thumb drives. And every bullshitter (= our governments) should be afraid of it. They are, of course. And surveillance is their reaction. What will help is if everyone finally realises that it's NOT about pornography, that it's NOT about terrorism, that it's NOT about drugs, that it's NOT about whatever reason they name..

andreasklinger 13y ago
What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.
- yuvadam 13y ago
  Act by raising your awareness. Act by not standing silent. Act by being the change you want to see. There is nothing else but this.
  - TimSAstro 13y ago
    I'm sorry to be snarky, but this gives me absolutely no concrete guidance on things I can do. It's a platitude.
    - yuvadam 13y ago
      Well, that is because there's no guaranteed success in any course of action, save for becoming change, and believing that that action alone is a small, but important, part in the network effect. I understand HN isn't exactly the usual activist crowd, but it should be pretty easy to understand that activism is about acting against forces much larger, stronger, and better funded than you are. Actions that bring change will be one-in-a-million, and they will always be the fruit of an individual (or a collective) that are persistent in their goals, and pursue them regardless of others joining them or not.

asgard1024 13y ago

I have come to conclusion that more radical thinking is needed. American constitution (or other derived documents, such as EU Charter on Human Rights, I am EU citizen), as it stands, is not going to cut it. The thing is, the extremes of keeping things hidden we see in the government are just a tip of a long tail of many, many people trying to keep things hidden in other, more mundane, institutions. For existential fears, people who could point out these problems stay silent. We accept this as a necessary acts, because of "competition". But aren't wars and such just another result of this thinking, really? (For an interesting take on morality of speaking truth, see also Sam Harris' book Lying.) Here's a couple of ideas: 1. Can democratic state do without any secret service at all? I don't mean not to have "operational" security. You need to keep secret where you have troops, keys etc. But; maybe it should just release all the secrets after 5 years, about operations they did. Likewise, their operations should be made public, just like courts are. In other words, the default position should be to release, not keep secret. I am on a fence regarding technology plans - would really world be a better place if Russians couldn't make the bomb? The point is, we take position "secret service is needed" for granted; I don't think it is. 2. There should be no blank exceptions to free speech, just like in the above case. It should be right applied to everybody, not just US (or other state) citizens. Private sector shouldn't be an exception - you should have right to publicly criticize your employer. There should be no contracts preventing you from disclosing information about what you don't like, or about what happened to you. 3. I envision a platform that would allow anonymous publishing of unreliable information, which then could be collectively analyzed and the reliability of sources assessed, without revealing them. Kind of inversion of classical journalism, where you have a limited number of people (editors) accessing unreliable information and only publishing if you can reasonably prove it to be true; here you would publish indiscriminately things, that are not true, and only later, via some algorithm that would connect the sources somehow yet retain their anonymity, the correctness of the information would be proved. It should allow to connect very small leaks from many people. This would require a cultural change in how we understand media, but it could be done in incremental way. I am not completely advocating all of what I just mentioned; I would just like to see some discussion about that. Maybe everything about institutional behavior in the past, older than 5 years, let's say, should just be fair game to publish. This rule would nicely exclude all the technical and operational plans.

c2prods 13y ago

Very good article, I think it got everything right. It's a well-known fact that fear always leads to dark outcomes for democracy (it's been very well covered through many films and books, from Yoda to Orwell :p). Yet, for the first time, local governments try to shut down a global network. This paradox might be what saves us. At any rate, the least we can do is to raise awareness about this topic.

talktime 13y ago

Expat Brit here. Quite frankly I'm frightened to pass through UK ports now to visit family after reading about Schedule 7 powers. My reading of it is that passing through a UK port means I enter a legal limbo. If stopped by an inquisitor, I'm likely to assert my right to silence. This may mean I'm detained and intimidated for 9 hours. At the end of this I can be arrested and charged with 'non-cooperation', this may involve further detention and/or fines all for simply remaining silent. Leaving the UK is worse, as I'll likely miss my flight, and have the expense of re-booking. This is just if the border agents are acting within 'the law'. Virtually every UK citizen passes through a port at sometime during the year - the inquistors can simply wait there for anyone they are interested in. It effectively means the right to silence is dead. Foreign visitors should be aware they can be legally forced to give up their Gmail/Facebook passwords. Hope Big Ben is worth it. I wonder what the plans are for Julian Assange when he eventually leaves the UK - almost certain to be detained under Schedule 7.

radio4fan 13y ago
> Quite frankly I'm frightened to pass through UK ports now to visit family after reading about Schedule 7 powers. I'm not going to worry about it too much, myself. The statute is quite clear that you can only be questioned to establish whether you appear to be a terrorist. The law has been broken in the case of David Miranda. I hope he will sue -- as he has threatened -- so that Special Branch know that they can't get away with breaking the law in this way. Chapter and verse: Schedule 7, 2 (1) An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/7 ... 40 Terrorist: interpretation. (1) In this Part “terrorist” means a person who— (a) has committed an offence under any of sections 11, 12, 15 to 18, 54 and 56 to 63, or (b) is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40 If you're worried about this, perhaps you should also be worried about entering the US -- including in transit -- in case you are declared to be an unperson and sent to Gitmo with no trial or legal recourse. It's a bit worse than a maximum of nine hours of pointless tedium and handing over your Gmail/Facebook passwords which -- let's face it -- the spooks will have if they want them anyway. As for Assange, if they get their hands on him, they will ship him to Sweden. He's spent the last year holed up in one room: I doubt another nine hours would bother him too much.

batemanesque 13y ago

meaningless reification of 'the internet'... the current secrecy debate is no more about the internet than Watergate was about tape recorders

batemanesque 13y ago

and describing all this as the same 'agenda' is grossly simplistic & undermines attempts to reinforce civil liberties. there may be broad trends but they're not driven by a unified entity, and given that the scope of NSA surveillance was known before Snowden his leaks hardly give credence to the possibility of taking conspiracy theories seriously

pessimizer 13y ago
Calling something a conspiracy theory is not an argument, and I'm not sure what the scare quotes around 'agenda' are supposed to communicate to me.

personlurking 13y ago

"Once the filters are built, the terms upon which they can filter can be (indeed will be) modified." This and every law on the books. A law is like ground being broken on a particular location (realm of life), something will be built upon it down the line. Much fuss might be made over the specific law but it is all slight of hand.

jstalin 13y ago

I'm reminded of a George Washington quote: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." In other words, government is, at its bare naked minimum, the monopoly of force. It must be contained, mistrusted, and treated as a necessary evil. Despite the USA being screwed up in so many ways, I still thank my lucky stars for the anti-federalists, who gave us the bill of rights. Without them, we would be much worse off today than we are.

kanz 13y ago
"Despite the USA being screwed up in so many ways, I still thank my lucky stars for the anti-federalists, who gave us the bill of rights. Without them, we would be much worse off today than we are." The current administration and the previous administrations don't care about the Bill of Rights.
- AJ007 13y ago
  Fortunately we have a legal system that, to some degree, does. Thus the outrage over secret courts which wave everything through (and the disturbance that a single unelected Supreme Court justice is responsible for the secret kangaroo court's appointments.)
  - shpxnvz 13y ago
    > Fortunately we have a legal system that, to some degree, does. A large body of decisions in trial and appellate courts at both the state and federal level, up to and including the SCOTUS provide plenty of evidence that this is not the case.
presidentender 13y ago
Hamilton argued that the very existence of the bill of rights invited the expansion of government into all those areas not expressly forbidden therein, but one might question Hamilton's motivations. That Washington 'quote' cannot be found before 1902. I agree with the sentiment, but false attribution does nothing to help our credibility.

goleksiak 13y ago

This is about control - but control for what purpose? The short-term financial gain of elites? Maybe. To satisfy elite paranoia?. Maybe. Maybe this is control for stability. The government creates models of the future and with more and more data about climate change pointing to disaster in the next few decades, those models must be focusing more and more at that point. So instead of government "holding its people back from a bright future", they are pragmatically laying the foundations for the control structures that will be necessary in the unavoidably dark future. How can stability be maintained when society is radically altered by climate change? Answer: Control

tokenadult 13y ago

I seem to be part of a small minority of HN participants who have actually lived through a transition from 1) an authoritarian regime with pervasive surveillance, direct governmental control of all mass media organizations, secret police who tortured and killed peaceful dissidents--even dissidents based in other countries, and a ruling party organized essentially as a terrorist organization to 2) a government constrained by rule of law with broad protection of individual civil liberties, a free press, judicial and legislative oversight of the police, and multiple political parties based on voluntary participation. I have tried to tell the story before here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5985720 of what life was like under the dictatorial regime, and I have repeatedly recommended experience-tested tips for freedom-fighters http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html about how people around the world can, and do, organize to overcome authoritarian repression. It's up to everyone here on Hacker News to decide whether or not to pay the price to organize to secure liberty. I know what the cost is, and I know what the reward is, of a successful freedom-fighting movement. I don't know whether or not Hacker News participants will mostly set aside their desires for comfort and entertainment to struggle successfully for freedom, but I will watching meanwhile, and I am always willing to help when dare to take a consistent stand for freedom.