23 ms·

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc c

by jwr 13y ago

The land of the free. As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. I am from a formerly-eastern-europe-soviet-bloc country (Poland) and these kinds of oppressive techniques sound very familiar. The haziness of procedures, lack of basic rights, intimidation, no accountability of state officials -- we've seen all that until 1989. At the time, while the communist regime was imposed on us, the USA seemed like heaven: transparency, procedures, basic rights, free speech, accountable officials. Look at where we are today. I can't even imagine being held captive without arrest for hours, being questioned about the purpose of my trip, about my religion and habits, all while travelling within my country. When entering the country, the passport clerk has exactly two options: let me in, or call the police and get me arrested on the spot. I feel free and I am happy to live in a free country, together with people who because of the past oppressive Soviet regime are quite sensitive to abuses of power. At the same time, the U.S. is rapidly degenerating into something that isn't quite the sinister oppressive regime, but getting close to the point where it could become one, if a wrong leader gets elected. It's scary. And the worst thing is -- American people got so used to the idea of living in a free country, that they do not even admit the thought that things are going the wrong way. Most people don't see the signs.

angersock 13y ago
I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression.
- songzme 13y ago
  What a great analogy!
- amirmc 13y ago
  > "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " The thing is, they don't need to follow you around the same way as in the 'old days' because, like many things, modern technology makes it easier and more efficient. The tyranny of the future isn't going to be like that of the past. That makes it difficult to explain the dangers to people.
  - angersock 13y ago
    All of our intuitions betray us these days, whether it is how to behave on a social network or how to properly handle your privacy.
  - msrpotus 13y ago
    One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.
    - mikegagnon 13y ago
      Exactly. The biggest threat from surveillance and censorship isn't the imposition on average citizens. Rather, the risk is that surveillance, censorship, intimidation, selective law enforcement, and so on are targeted at specific political opponents --- such as Aaron Swartz, Barrett Brown, Glenn Greenwald, Marin Luther King Jr. and so on. Such authoritarian harassment presents a straightforward threat to democracy because it stifles political dissent. Democracy is incompatible with the stifling of political dissent.
      - prawn 13y ago
        Too many people view major, rival parties as opponents. Are they waiting for Democrats to imprison Republicans and vice versa? Those parties are brothers. The opposition includes the names you listed and because they don't have that glossy marketed façade and brand, they're viewed by the majority as crazed or rogues.
- jrockway 13y ago
  The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression. Or you can take the train.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    TSA does more than just airports "With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyond-airport-security.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...
    - chimeracoder 13y ago
      That thought is terrifying. I was afraid I was going to be put on the no-fly list afterwards and would have to travel back to NYC by train (a four-day trip). Even before this experience I used to avoid flying in favor of taking the train. I don't know what I'd do if the TSA became commonplace at train stations.
      - jrockway 13y ago
        Take the bus? Drive?
        RyanMcGreal 13y ago
        Please stop. Your comments here are glib, contemptuous and entirely unhelpful.
        hyperventilator 13y ago
        Stallman has said as much. But if he said the US are Nazis that would be helpful, right?
- jwr 13y ago
  > I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. And she is right — the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state. But it is on a slippery slope, and those of us who have experienced a police state and can detect certain symptoms are deeply worried. What's even more worrying is that this quiet (it is quiet, Hacker News represents at a first approximation 0% of the voting population) change takes place in a country which is the #1 military, financial and political world power.
  - joering2 13y ago
    > "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " It is too expensive and inefficient to follow everyone personally. You can instead shoot a satellite in the space that each second takes high-definition infrared photos of Earth and can pinpoint/track/identify each person by their uniquely located veins/blood packets on their shoulders. See? Khazakhstan v. 2.0. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/13/secret-us-spy-satellite-launches-into-space-after-6-week-delay/ http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/13/secret-us-spy-sate...
    - hollerith 13y ago
      The URL does not support any of the assertions in your comment.
      - namenotrequired 13y ago
        It is also from fox'news'...
      - drivebyacct2 13y ago
        Pretty sure it was merely an example of how mass surveillance is easier than individual surveillance. In fact, being a super-set, if they're good enough at it, it's nearly guaranteed to be more effective.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  What's her experiences with Kazakhstan exactly? I've never been there but would expect from any post-soviet country a great deal of nobody caring about you and not many secret police anywhere.
  - jnbiche 13y ago
    The ex-soviet central Asian republics are packed full of secret police -- until 2006, Turkmenistan boasted one of the world's most famous totalitarian regimes under his Amazingself-for-life President Niyazov, and although his successor has made some reforms, things haven't gotten much better since Niyazov's death. The other republics share the same kind of government to a greater or lesser extent. IWPR at http://iwpr.net http://iwpr.net has amazing independent coverage of Central Asia, the Balkans, and Africa, and is a good place to keep abreast of what's going on in those regions. You may be thinking of the former Eastern Bloc countries, which with a few notable exceptions have followed a much more democratic path after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      Turkmenistan is something special, I've heard of that. I'm not saying anything about "democratic path". That I am saying is about nobody caring about anything (probably with an exception of taking bribes) in most of ex-USSR countries.
    - turar 13y ago
      Kazakhstan is nothing like Turkmenistan in this regard. In fact, it's nothing like Uzbekistan even. In terms of personal freedoms, average life in Kazakhstan is on par with the US, if not "freer" than the US. It's certainly no police state.
      - madaxe 13y ago
        Agreed. Kaz is very free, compared to, say, Kyrgyz, or Uzbek, or Turkmen. It's also very free compared to the US. You can see the "secret" police. They stand out like sore thumbs, as they're mostly Russians, and dress different, and harass people. I think that she may have mistaken overt police corruption for a police state. The two are not synonymous.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- laureny 13y ago
  > She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. She's right, and like her, I have found it next to impossible to explain this to Americans who think the US is turning into a police state. People making this claim should spend a few hours reading on history and learn about the Gestapo or the Stasi. What's happening in the US occasionally produces unfortunate episodes, such as the one above, but by and large, the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    For me as an outside observer it is the rate of change of the rights and freedoms that is scary and stunning, not the decline in absolute terms. US involuntarily have all pieces of the puzzle for a very high quality totalitarian state. The question is whether someone will be able to assemble them before the immune system of the american society activates in full force and dismantles them. Surveillance capabilities: check Militarized police: check (Balko has some scary data, but haven't checked it thoroughly) Obedient propaganda machine: not quite there, but as the lead up to the Iraq war showed - achievable. Secret laws: check Btw - KGB means "Комитет Государственая Безопасност" which translates into " Committee for State Security" not that far from "Department of Homeland Security" As John Oliver said a few weeks ago about NSA: "We don't say you broke any laws with what you did, we are surprised you didn't have to." Lets just hope that the US society will be able to reverse the trend.
    - madaxe 13y ago
      Homeland == vaterland. You did not have this term until the DHS came about.
      - Confusion 13y ago
        If 'vaterland' is intended to be the German translation of Homeland, then Homeland == Heimat. And although usually an innocuous word, in certain contexts some Nazi connontations cling to it. The word 'Homeland' actually creeps me out more than 'Heimat'.
- derefr 13y ago
  > She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about You know, it strikes me that one of the large differences between most of these countries, and the US, is the relative size of the population to the government+military. For having a population of 300mm people, somewhere less than 5 million people (~1.7%) work in the US public sector. What this means is, we could have just as many secret police following people as happens under any repressive regime--but the vast majority of US citizens would never be aware of it, since in relative terms "being followed around by a black van" would be about as rare per capita as "being struck by lightning." You wouldn't personally know anyone it had happened to, you'd only read about it--and so you'd think it wasn't really a thing that happens here.
- wepple 13y ago
  "The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression." wow - what a brilliant way of describing it
- rusabd 13y ago
  I was in Kazakhstan recently. I am Muslim, religious, have beard etc... I had interview with nice КНБ (http://www.knb.kz/ http://www.knb.kz/) agent right after customs. It was about 1 minute after which I was free to go. Nothing like experience described here.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    I'm white, not religious, had a car spray painted with maltese crosses and puerile jokes. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes on the border from Russia to Kaz, and they let us go on their way. No in-depth search, no bribes, no nothing. Oh, and they take their border security seriously - they just don't do security theatre.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  > She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. That's the NSA's job, or so they think....
- honzzz 13y ago
  I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. I grew up in a communist totalitarian regime and I am not amused at all. We live in different world now and even oppressive regimes do things differently but that does not mean they are less dangerous... I would say exactly the opposite. Some person claimed in this discussion that "the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects" - I am not sure I personally believe that but my main point is that this does not matter at all even if it were true. There is huge inertia and a country might still seem relatively free even years after it passed the point of no return on the way to oppressive regime. When the situation is so severe that it is visible to everyone... it is already too late and the most likely scenario in that case is that the whole generations will be lost. It is my impression that people from countries which in their modern history never experienced totalitarian/oppressive regime severely underestimate (or in most cases are totally blind to) warning signs. For those who are interested please let me offer personal view of someone who does have an experience with totalitarian regime - you might think I am oversensitive but despite the fact that years ago I had spent few months in the US and I loved it and despite the fact that I believe there is nothing about me that could trigger their attention I would still be afraid to visit again and I decided to strictly avoid even flying over the USA. P.S. The fact that the guy was even refused water just makes me sick.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jrockway 13y ago
I don't think this is that oppressive. He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can't hamfistedly accuse you of a crime. All it says is that they have to charge you or let you go in 24 hours, give you a trial, and punish you in a consistent way. They did that here; they asked some questions and they let him go. You can argue about the techniques; religious questions, not giving him water, but it's all a well-documented psychological game that they're trying to play. If they make the suspect mad, the suspect is more likely to start yelling hysterically without thinking, saving the taxpayer the cost of a long trial. It's worth a try, right? (I think the correct answer to any question is, "my lawyer will answer that. get me my lawyer.") Anyway, I look at this like the lottery, but in reverse. Sometimes you lose the reverse lottery and a day of your life gets fucked up. But ultimately, life moves on and you have an interesting story. You can say that the government is an oppressive regime that is out to get you for your political views, or you can say you rolled the dice and lost. Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?
- amirmc 13y ago
  > "Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?" Politely. With the view that I'm dealing with people who are innocent unless found to be otherwise. Edit: Please also note that permethrin is not an explosive. Should everyone who uses insect repellant be treated this way while going through security? I'm surprised the guy even knew the name of the chemical (I wouldn't have).
- mindcrime 13y ago
  I don't think this is that oppressive. Yeah, well, it didn't happen to you, did it? He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. "We gave him free room and board for 17 years, then laid him on a comfortable bed and gave him some medicine to make him fall asleep for a while". vs. "We kept him caged in a tiny, windowless cell and gave him just enough stale bread and dirty water to keep him alive for 17 years, then we executed him." Details matter, dude.
Tloewald 13y ago
It's an appalling story and the behavior of the TSA is often reprehensible, but seriously -- this is not a fair comparison. So yes, security guys don't know Hindu from Muslim or Indian from whatever, but it's well-known there is a heightened alert right now, US embassies all over the middle-east and Africa are closed out of security fears, and this guy fit a crude profile AND did something slightly unusual (opted out of a security measure) AND triggered a gas chromatograph AND probably fired off several behavioral red flags. Sucks but it's just Bad Luck.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  What a load of shit. "Security guys" should be fucking competent or they shouldn't be "security guys" at all. And who cares about some "keep the sheep fearful and in line" propoganda shit the US government puts out about supposed threats to embassies or whatever? The "opt-out" he elected is explicitly defined as a valid procedure by the TSA, so citing that as "suspicious" is bullshit. And "behavioural red flag?" Are you shitting me? What do you think somebody is supposed to do when they are detained against their will, subject to multiple interrogations, denied food and water, and otherwise accosted by a gang of jack-booted thugs? The only part of this story that makes it anything less than a total clusterfuck on the part of the TSA is that their so-called "explosive detector" alerted on something. Fine, it should take about 3 minutes after that to manually pat down / search the individual and find (or not) any explosives they are carrying. If you don't find any (and seemingly they didn't) that's what we call a "false positive". They happen, but that does not justify all the follow-on bullshit. Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    > "Security guys" should be fucking competent or they shouldn't be "security guys" at all. I'd say the same of Java programmers, but we know that's not true, and Java coders get much better salaries. > And "behavioural red flag?" Are you shitting me? In Britain for many years the main security measure at Heathrow was for security people to simply interview passengers on check in and ask them about their bags, where they were traveling, etc. -- the main purpose was to look for behavioral cues and not so much obtain answers to the questions. I believe this is one of the things TSA officers are supposed to receive training in. So maybe he was low blood sugar and this triggered some kind of tic that also caused a false positive. So you've got a bunch of things that all put you on the wrong side of checklist, voluntarily pick another one, and then add another couple from pure bad luck, and it sucks. I speak as someone who has been randomly detained for no stated reason at customs in Australia long before 9/11, and who since, having dark hair and complexion, is frequently on the wrong end of TSA profiling. > Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned. You've led a sheltered life.
nolok 13y ago
It is also my perception that as western european countries (France for me) want more and more surveillance and US-like "security" laws, former soviet block countries are adding to our safeguard in the European parliament. The number of small level scary stuff I have seen discarded because the EU told us "seriously, you can't do that" is crazy (did you know that until recently, you could be detained by the police with no lawyer for several hours in France ? The EU forced us to fix that [1]). That is the one and only reason I have always been against turkish being in the EU, not religion or anything else like that like the medias like to claim. One has to wonder what will happen when the former soviet countries start to forget what oppression means too. [1] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garde_%C3%A0_vue_en_droit_fran%C3%A7ais#Moment_d.27intervention_de_l.27avocat http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garde_%C3%A0_vue_en_droit_fran%...
ranman 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
umsm 13y ago
Regardless of the geographic location you call home, I believe that it's not "if" but "when" the government will remove your freedom. They may do this out of "political", "religious", or any other "reason" they see fit. The truth is that the world is changing. People do stupid things. You give people power and it's only a matter of time when something can go wrong.
drhodes 13y ago
For those who haven't read it, Book 8 of The Republic by Plato details a possible transformation from democracy to tyranny. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html
paganel 13y ago
> I can't even imagine being held captive without arrest for hours, being questioned about the purpose of my trip, about my religion and habits, all while travelling within my country I also grew in an Eastern European country (Romania), and I remember thinking about those poor Soviet citizens who needed passports to travel inside the USSR. It all seemed very surreal, having to have special approval from your government in order to travel inside your own country.
robomartin 13y ago
> if a wrong leader gets elected That has already happened. You can probably go back to the last ten presidential elections and this statement would hold true in some form. I'd say the same about moat senators and representatives. It's a disaster we've been engineering with great consistency for 50 years. I don't know what it will take for the US voter to wake up. Actually, no, I know, things have to get substantially worst. Most people don't pay attention to politics and how the country is being run often enough to be aware. They watch tv networks during elections to be told how to vote, and then they go back to sleep. Politicians love it. Whole blocks of people will always vote the same way. Nobody thinks. We are watching our destruction from the inside and there's precious little we can do about it.
j2d3 13y ago
"At the same time, the U.S. is rapidly degenerating into something that isn't quite the sinister oppressive regime, but getting close to the point where it could become one, if a wrong leader gets elected." I think it has little to do with any leader who gets "elected." The actual leadership is safe behind the scenes, busy "electing" people with well placed capital. The faces change, but not what's underneath. I think we passed the point you worry we are getting close to, and I think the wrong leaderS have been "elected" for long enough that we're... just totally screwed. "It's scary." Yep.
samsolomon 13y ago
> ...the USA seemed like heaven: transparency, procedures, basic rights, free speech, accountable officials. That last part is interesting, and I think it may play a bigger role here. It is difficult to hold people accountable for actions that are hidden, and not well understood. James Clapper lied to Congress in his testimony, and has had little more reprimand than us bitching about it on the internet.
etler 13y ago
Just from my experience, the Snowden thing was the best thing to happen for getting people to notice government abuses of power. Before him, if you were to say something like "the government is tracking everything we do on the internet", everyone would call you a conspiracy theorist. Now it's treated like common knowledge, and I even hear it taken even further than what has been verified.
blablabla123 13y ago
> As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. People have stopped reading manuals. Bed bug spray is highly flammable. Basically it's one category below explosive...

by jwr 13y ago

angersock 13y ago

I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression.

songzme 13y ago
What a great analogy!
amirmc 13y ago
> "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " The thing is, they don't need to follow you around the same way as in the 'old days' because, like many things, modern technology makes it easier and more efficient. The tyranny of the future isn't going to be like that of the past. That makes it difficult to explain the dangers to people.
- angersock 13y ago
  All of our intuitions betray us these days, whether it is how to behave on a social network or how to properly handle your privacy.
- msrpotus 13y ago
  One of the scariest parts of this is that it seems like surveillance (if not censorship) is much more targeted. If you aren't the NSA's focus or on a TSA watch list, you might not know anything is going on. But if you are unlucky enough to trigger something, you might be visited with unimaginable torment like @chimeracoder was.
  - mikegagnon 13y ago
    Exactly. The biggest threat from surveillance and censorship isn't the imposition on average citizens. Rather, the risk is that surveillance, censorship, intimidation, selective law enforcement, and so on are targeted at specific political opponents --- such as Aaron Swartz, Barrett Brown, Glenn Greenwald, Marin Luther King Jr. and so on. Such authoritarian harassment presents a straightforward threat to democracy because it stifles political dissent. Democracy is incompatible with the stifling of political dissent.
    - prawn 13y ago
      Too many people view major, rival parties as opponents. Are they waiting for Democrats to imprison Republicans and vice versa? Those parties are brothers. The opposition includes the names you listed and because they don't have that glossy marketed façade and brand, they're viewed by the majority as crazed or rogues.
jrockway 13y ago
The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression. Or you can take the train.
- amirmc 13y ago
  TSA does more than just airports "With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyond-airport-security.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    That thought is terrifying. I was afraid I was going to be put on the no-fly list afterwards and would have to travel back to NYC by train (a four-day trip). Even before this experience I used to avoid flying in favor of taking the train. I don't know what I'd do if the TSA became commonplace at train stations.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      Take the bus? Drive?
      - RyanMcGreal 13y ago
        Please stop. Your comments here are glib, contemptuous and entirely unhelpful.
        hyperventilator 13y ago
        Stallman has said as much. But if he said the US are Nazis that would be helpful, right?
jwr 13y ago
> I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. And she is right — the US is nowhere near being an authoritarian police state. But it is on a slippery slope, and those of us who have experienced a police state and can detect certain symptoms are deeply worried. What's even more worrying is that this quiet (it is quiet, Hacker News represents at a first approximation 0% of the voting population) change takes place in a country which is the #1 military, financial and political world power.
- joering2 13y ago
  > "She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about... " It is too expensive and inefficient to follow everyone personally. You can instead shoot a satellite in the space that each second takes high-definition infrared photos of Earth and can pinpoint/track/identify each person by their uniquely located veins/blood packets on their shoulders. See? Khazakhstan v. 2.0. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/13/secret-us-spy-satellite-launches-into-space-after-6-week-delay/ http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/09/13/secret-us-spy-sate...
  - hollerith 13y ago
    The URL does not support any of the assertions in your comment.
    - namenotrequired 13y ago
      It is also from fox'news'...
    - drivebyacct2 13y ago
      Pretty sure it was merely an example of how mass surveillance is easier than individual surveillance. In fact, being a super-set, if they're good enough at it, it's nearly guaranteed to be more effective.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
What's her experiences with Kazakhstan exactly? I've never been there but would expect from any post-soviet country a great deal of nobody caring about you and not many secret police anywhere.
- jnbiche 13y ago
  The ex-soviet central Asian republics are packed full of secret police -- until 2006, Turkmenistan boasted one of the world's most famous totalitarian regimes under his Amazingself-for-life President Niyazov, and although his successor has made some reforms, things haven't gotten much better since Niyazov's death. The other republics share the same kind of government to a greater or lesser extent. IWPR at http://iwpr.net http://iwpr.net has amazing independent coverage of Central Asia, the Balkans, and Africa, and is a good place to keep abreast of what's going on in those regions. You may be thinking of the former Eastern Bloc countries, which with a few notable exceptions have followed a much more democratic path after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    Turkmenistan is something special, I've heard of that. I'm not saying anything about "democratic path". That I am saying is about nobody caring about anything (probably with an exception of taking bribes) in most of ex-USSR countries.
  - turar 13y ago
    Kazakhstan is nothing like Turkmenistan in this regard. In fact, it's nothing like Uzbekistan even. In terms of personal freedoms, average life in Kazakhstan is on par with the US, if not "freer" than the US. It's certainly no police state.
    - madaxe 13y ago
      Agreed. Kaz is very free, compared to, say, Kyrgyz, or Uzbek, or Turkmen. It's also very free compared to the US. You can see the "secret" police. They stand out like sore thumbs, as they're mostly Russians, and dress different, and harass people. I think that she may have mistaken overt police corruption for a police state. The two are not synonymous.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
laureny 13y ago
> She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. She's right, and like her, I have found it next to impossible to explain this to Americans who think the US is turning into a police state. People making this claim should spend a few hours reading on history and learn about the Gestapo or the Stasi. What's happening in the US occasionally produces unfortunate episodes, such as the one above, but by and large, the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  For me as an outside observer it is the rate of change of the rights and freedoms that is scary and stunning, not the decline in absolute terms. US involuntarily have all pieces of the puzzle for a very high quality totalitarian state. The question is whether someone will be able to assemble them before the immune system of the american society activates in full force and dismantles them. Surveillance capabilities: check Militarized police: check (Balko has some scary data, but haven't checked it thoroughly) Obedient propaganda machine: not quite there, but as the lead up to the Iraq war showed - achievable. Secret laws: check Btw - KGB means "Комитет Государственая Безопасност" which translates into " Committee for State Security" not that far from "Department of Homeland Security" As John Oliver said a few weeks ago about NSA: "We don't say you broke any laws with what you did, we are surprised you didn't have to." Lets just hope that the US society will be able to reverse the trend.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    Homeland == vaterland. You did not have this term until the DHS came about.
    - Confusion 13y ago
      If 'vaterland' is intended to be the German translation of Homeland, then Homeland == Heimat. And although usually an innocuous word, in certain contexts some Nazi connontations cling to it. The word 'Homeland' actually creeps me out more than 'Heimat'.
derefr 13y ago
> She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about You know, it strikes me that one of the large differences between most of these countries, and the US, is the relative size of the population to the government+military. For having a population of 300mm people, somewhere less than 5 million people (~1.7%) work in the US public sector. What this means is, we could have just as many secret police following people as happens under any repressive regime--but the vast majority of US citizens would never be aware of it, since in relative terms "being followed around by a black van" would be about as rare per capita as "being struck by lightning." You wouldn't personally know anyone it had happened to, you'd only read about it--and so you'd think it wasn't really a thing that happens here.
wepple 13y ago
"The distressing thing is that we've been putting so much machinery into place, and gotten the noose so well fitted, that when the bottom drops out we'll only have the briefest of short, sharp shocks before we find ourselves in a terrifyingly efficient machine of oppression." wow - what a brilliant way of describing it
rusabd 13y ago
I was in Kazakhstan recently. I am Muslim, religious, have beard etc... I had interview with nice КНБ (http://www.knb.kz/ http://www.knb.kz/) agent right after customs. It was about 1 minute after which I was free to go. Nothing like experience described here.
- madaxe 13y ago
  I'm white, not religious, had a car spray painted with maltese crosses and puerile jokes. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes on the border from Russia to Kaz, and they let us go on their way. No in-depth search, no bribes, no nothing. Oh, and they take their border security seriously - they just don't do security theatre.
einhverfr 13y ago
> She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. That's the NSA's job, or so they think....
honzzz 13y ago
I've a friend who spent a good deal of time recently in Khazakhstan, and she was very amused by my attempts to express my fears of the United States becoming an authoritarian police state. She laughed and said that no, I did not understand what it was to have secret police following you about and all these other sorts of issues. I grew up in a communist totalitarian regime and I am not amused at all. We live in different world now and even oppressive regimes do things differently but that does not mean they are less dangerous... I would say exactly the opposite. Some person claimed in this discussion that "the US continues to be one of the most free countries in the world in all respects" - I am not sure I personally believe that but my main point is that this does not matter at all even if it were true. There is huge inertia and a country might still seem relatively free even years after it passed the point of no return on the way to oppressive regime. When the situation is so severe that it is visible to everyone... it is already too late and the most likely scenario in that case is that the whole generations will be lost. It is my impression that people from countries which in their modern history never experienced totalitarian/oppressive regime severely underestimate (or in most cases are totally blind to) warning signs. For those who are interested please let me offer personal view of someone who does have an experience with totalitarian regime - you might think I am oversensitive but despite the fact that years ago I had spent few months in the US and I loved it and despite the fact that I believe there is nothing about me that could trigger their attention I would still be afraid to visit again and I decided to strictly avoid even flying over the USA. P.S. The fact that the guy was even refused water just makes me sick.
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jrockway 13y ago

I don't think this is that oppressive. He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government can't hamfistedly accuse you of a crime. All it says is that they have to charge you or let you go in 24 hours, give you a trial, and punish you in a consistent way. They did that here; they asked some questions and they let him go. You can argue about the techniques; religious questions, not giving him water, but it's all a well-documented psychological game that they're trying to play. If they make the suspect mad, the suspect is more likely to start yelling hysterically without thinking, saving the taxpayer the cost of a long trial. It's worth a try, right? (I think the correct answer to any question is, "my lawyer will answer that. get me my lawyer.") Anyway, I look at this like the lottery, but in reverse. Sometimes you lose the reverse lottery and a day of your life gets fucked up. But ultimately, life moves on and you have an interesting story. You can say that the government is an oppressive regime that is out to get you for your political views, or you can say you rolled the dice and lost. Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?

amirmc 13y ago
> "Let me ask you this: say you want to check for guns and explosives before people get on an airplane. How do you do it?" Politely. With the view that I'm dealing with people who are innocent unless found to be otherwise. Edit: Please also note that permethrin is not an explosive. Should everyone who uses insect repellant be treated this way while going through security? I'm surprised the guy even knew the name of the chemical (I wouldn't have).
mindcrime 13y ago
I don't think this is that oppressive. Yeah, well, it didn't happen to you, did it? He went through security and set off an explosives detector. The cops showed up and asked some questions. Then he left. "We gave him free room and board for 17 years, then laid him on a comfortable bed and gave him some medicine to make him fall asleep for a while". vs. "We kept him caged in a tiny, windowless cell and gave him just enough stale bread and dirty water to keep him alive for 17 years, then we executed him." Details matter, dude.

Tloewald 13y ago

It's an appalling story and the behavior of the TSA is often reprehensible, but seriously -- this is not a fair comparison. So yes, security guys don't know Hindu from Muslim or Indian from whatever, but it's well-known there is a heightened alert right now, US embassies all over the middle-east and Africa are closed out of security fears, and this guy fit a crude profile AND did something slightly unusual (opted out of a security measure) AND triggered a gas chromatograph AND probably fired off several behavioral red flags. Sucks but it's just Bad Luck.

mindcrime 13y ago
What a load of shit. "Security guys" should be fucking competent or they shouldn't be "security guys" at all. And who cares about some "keep the sheep fearful and in line" propoganda shit the US government puts out about supposed threats to embassies or whatever? The "opt-out" he elected is explicitly defined as a valid procedure by the TSA, so citing that as "suspicious" is bullshit. And "behavioural red flag?" Are you shitting me? What do you think somebody is supposed to do when they are detained against their will, subject to multiple interrogations, denied food and water, and otherwise accosted by a gang of jack-booted thugs? The only part of this story that makes it anything less than a total clusterfuck on the part of the TSA is that their so-called "explosive detector" alerted on something. Fine, it should take about 3 minutes after that to manually pat down / search the individual and find (or not) any explosives they are carrying. If you don't find any (and seemingly they didn't) that's what we call a "false positive". They happen, but that does not justify all the follow-on bullshit. Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  > "Security guys" should be fucking competent or they shouldn't be "security guys" at all. I'd say the same of Java programmers, but we know that's not true, and Java coders get much better salaries. > And "behavioural red flag?" Are you shitting me? In Britain for many years the main security measure at Heathrow was for security people to simply interview passengers on check in and ask them about their bags, where they were traveling, etc. -- the main purpose was to look for behavioral cues and not so much obtain answers to the questions. I believe this is one of the things TSA officers are supposed to receive training in. So maybe he was low blood sugar and this triggered some kind of tic that also caused a false positive. So you've got a bunch of things that all put you on the wrong side of checklist, voluntarily pick another one, and then add another couple from pure bad luck, and it sucks. I speak as someone who has been randomly detained for no stated reason at customs in Australia long before 9/11, and who since, having dark hair and complexion, is frequently on the wrong end of TSA profiling. > Seriously, FUCK the TSA. Those assholes are the terrorists as far as I'm concerned. You've led a sheltered life.

nolok 13y ago

It is also my perception that as western european countries (France for me) want more and more surveillance and US-like "security" laws, former soviet block countries are adding to our safeguard in the European parliament. The number of small level scary stuff I have seen discarded because the EU told us "seriously, you can't do that" is crazy (did you know that until recently, you could be detained by the police with no lawyer for several hours in France ? The EU forced us to fix that [1]). That is the one and only reason I have always been against turkish being in the EU, not religion or anything else like that like the medias like to claim. One has to wonder what will happen when the former soviet countries start to forget what oppression means too. [1] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garde_%C3%A0_vue_en_droit_fran%C3%A7ais#Moment_d.27intervention_de_l.27avocat http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garde_%C3%A0_vue_en_droit_fran%...

ranman 13y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

umsm 13y ago

Regardless of the geographic location you call home, I believe that it's not "if" but "when" the government will remove your freedom. They may do this out of "political", "religious", or any other "reason" they see fit. The truth is that the world is changing. People do stupid things. You give people power and it's only a matter of time when something can go wrong.

drhodes 13y ago

For those who haven't read it, Book 8 of The Republic by Plato details a possible transformation from democracy to tyranny. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.9.viii.html

paganel 13y ago

> I can't even imagine being held captive without arrest for hours, being questioned about the purpose of my trip, about my religion and habits, all while travelling within my country I also grew in an Eastern European country (Romania), and I remember thinking about those poor Soviet citizens who needed passports to travel inside the USSR. It all seemed very surreal, having to have special approval from your government in order to travel inside your own country.

robomartin 13y ago

> if a wrong leader gets elected That has already happened. You can probably go back to the last ten presidential elections and this statement would hold true in some form. I'd say the same about moat senators and representatives. It's a disaster we've been engineering with great consistency for 50 years. I don't know what it will take for the US voter to wake up. Actually, no, I know, things have to get substantially worst. Most people don't pay attention to politics and how the country is being run often enough to be aware. They watch tv networks during elections to be told how to vote, and then they go back to sleep. Politicians love it. Whole blocks of people will always vote the same way. Nobody thinks. We are watching our destruction from the inside and there's precious little we can do about it.

j2d3 13y ago

"At the same time, the U.S. is rapidly degenerating into something that isn't quite the sinister oppressive regime, but getting close to the point where it could become one, if a wrong leader gets elected." I think it has little to do with any leader who gets "elected." The actual leadership is safe behind the scenes, busy "electing" people with well placed capital. The faces change, but not what's underneath. I think we passed the point you worry we are getting close to, and I think the wrong leaderS have been "elected" for long enough that we're... just totally screwed. "It's scary." Yep.

samsolomon 13y ago

> ...the USA seemed like heaven: transparency, procedures, basic rights, free speech, accountable officials. That last part is interesting, and I think it may play a bigger role here. It is difficult to hold people accountable for actions that are hidden, and not well understood. James Clapper lied to Congress in his testimony, and has had little more reprimand than us bitching about it on the internet.

etler 13y ago

Just from my experience, the Snowden thing was the best thing to happen for getting people to notice government abuses of power. Before him, if you were to say something like "the government is tracking everything we do on the internet", everyone would call you a conspiracy theorist. Now it's treated like common knowledge, and I even hear it taken even further than what has been verified.

blablabla123 13y ago

> As I read more and more of those stories I can't help but wonder at how things changed. People have stopped reading manuals. Bed bug spray is highly flammable. Basically it's one category below explosive...