4 ms·

And now you know why David Simon was one of the few people speaking up about why PRISM wasn't really a big deal, as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War

by mpyne 13y ago

And now you know why David Simon was one of the few people speaking up about why PRISM wasn't really a big deal, as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire. If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations (and the people keep voting people in who are 'Tough on Crime' so apparently they feel the government should have that power...), then at least the NSA's abuses are essentially equal opportunity with some form of judicial oversight applied. Minorities don't seem to even get that much when we're talking about DEA, FBI, etc.

toyg 13y ago
> as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire Or rather through his 16 years as journalist on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun, from which he got enough material to write 3 books and 3 TV series, including The Wire. It's really weird how TV just outshines everything else as soon as it gets in the picture. Simon will forever be "the guy who wrote The Wire", like he was a barista in Hollywood who just sat down at the kitchen table one day and made up all of it in his head and then proceeded to film it for TV. (And no, I don't agree with him on the subject: the fact that evils come in different forms and shapes doesn't mean we should ignore one or the other.)
- mpyne 13y ago
  > Or rather through his 16 years as journalist on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun You know I almost mentioned that, but then I had the horrifying thought that he might have had someone on the police beat on his production team and that it may not have been Simon himself with that experience, and I didn't want to spout anything factually incorrect so I left it out completely. I'm glad to be corrected on that, hopefully I'll remember for the next time it comes up.
jlgreco 13y ago
The jump from "The War on Drugs is worse than PRISM" to "PRISM really isn't a big deal" is rather large... "If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations..." See, they obviously shouldn't. Justifying PRISM because the DEA is doing something that they shouldn't is silly. Both deserve criticism, and we should not curtail criticism of PRISM just because the War on Drugs isn't getting nearly the criticism it deserves. David Simon's complaint is just "hipster outrage" bullshit: "I was upset at something before it was cool!" It is just the flipside of the people who get frustrated with recent attention to surveillance because "Of course this is going on, haven't you heard of Room 641A? I've been talking about this for years! Grrr, I am upset that I am no longer unique for my suspicions."
- mpyne 13y ago
  > Both deserve criticism, and we should not curtail criticism of PRISM just because the War on Drugs isn't getting nearly the criticism it deserves. I would agree that both deserve equitable argumentation. However the choices appear to be to completely upend the way the legal system and law enforcement handles investigations (which the people have voted against time after time), or to keep the systems that exist and tighten the oversight and transparency. I suppose your choice on that will fall towards whether you are more distrustful of the government or crooks. But essentially the same logic would appear to apply to both.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > However the choices appear to be to completely upend the way the legal system and law enforcement handles investigations (which the people have voted against time after time), or to keep the systems that exist and tighten the oversight and transparency. So lets say that War on Drugs reform is impractical as it would upend the legal system or whatever bullshit. I disagree, but lets go with it... How does it follow that we should then make sure the shit is evenly spread on everybody? Is this the Harrison Bergeron school of social justice? We cannot stomach treating this segment of the population decently, so in order to make this fair, we are going to treat the rest of you like shit too?
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Well you know, that's just it; I don't agree that scrapping the War on Drugs would upend the legal system. It would presumably clear out the prisons for the most part, but that's not what we should be worried about. However many of the legal and investigatory techniques used to investigate drug-related "crimes" are perfectly cromulent ways to investigate many other actual crimes. I would like to keep those techniques available, in general. Each technique may or may not have it's place, for sure. But a useful, cost-effective tool that's not otherwise unconstitutional should be used. We should then make sure that the oversight and transparency measures for each type of tool is in place to ensure that such measures are not abused. The government is pretty much literally the only thing we the people have any input into... functions which rightly belong to "the people" at large should be placed into the government. Where government screws those up, the answer should be to fix the government, not for the people to completely abdicate that responsibility. > How does it follow that we should then make sure the shit is evenly spread on everybody? You're basically asking why a given system should be fairly applied? I would reverse the question completely and say that any given government system should start off completely fair and only deviate from that for very good reason. Avoiding "Misery Loves Company" is a good reason, mind you. We levy administrative fines on people who actually screw up, for example. But the Simon logic is, why is it permissible to surveil tens of thousands of cell phone calls within a predominantly poor, black & Hispanic neighborhood for literally years at a time, looking for evidence of small-time drug dealers, but it's not possible to get the same type of court order to surveil other communications (even at larger scale) for something that's actually important to society at large? There is a difference in scale, that's for sure. But the difference is not really as large as the difference between no surveillance and what the police/FBI/others are already doing (and have been doing) throughout America. And so that's his point, if America agrees that this type of investigatory powers should be used (the kind that have always permitted incidentally collecting too much, or searching through all records reasonably relevant to a case, etc.), where and why does the framework behind those powers actually end here when it didn't there? There may very well be a good reason, but if that reason is "we don't trust the government" then by what logic do we let the DoJ in general investigate criminal acts? I guess what I'm saying is that I really wish we would get back to a framework of control of government (like the EFF, ACLU, etc. have been pushing to do for years) instead of instinctive distrust of the idea of government. But whatever we do decide the government rightly has the power to do, we should at least be consistent with it.

by mpyne 13y ago

toyg 13y ago

> as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire Or rather through his 16 years as journalist on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun, from which he got enough material to write 3 books and 3 TV series, including The Wire. It's really weird how TV just outshines everything else as soon as it gets in the picture. Simon will forever be "the guy who wrote The Wire", like he was a barista in Hollywood who just sat down at the kitchen table one day and made up all of it in his head and then proceeded to film it for TV. (And no, I don't agree with him on the subject: the fact that evils come in different forms and shapes doesn't mean we should ignore one or the other.)

mpyne 13y ago
> Or rather through his 16 years as journalist on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun You know I almost mentioned that, but then I had the horrifying thought that he might have had someone on the police beat on his production team and that it may not have been Simon himself with that experience, and I didn't want to spout anything factually incorrect so I left it out completely. I'm glad to be corrected on that, hopefully I'll remember for the next time it comes up.

jlgreco 13y ago

The jump from "The War on Drugs is worse than PRISM" to "PRISM really isn't a big deal" is rather large... "If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations..." See, they obviously shouldn't. Justifying PRISM because the DEA is doing something that they shouldn't is silly. Both deserve criticism, and we should not curtail criticism of PRISM just because the War on Drugs isn't getting nearly the criticism it deserves. David Simon's complaint is just "hipster outrage" bullshit: "I was upset at something before it was cool!" It is just the flipside of the people who get frustrated with recent attention to surveillance because "Of course this is going on, haven't you heard of Room 641A? I've been talking about this for years! Grrr, I am upset that I am no longer unique for my suspicions."

mpyne 13y ago
> Both deserve criticism, and we should not curtail criticism of PRISM just because the War on Drugs isn't getting nearly the criticism it deserves. I would agree that both deserve equitable argumentation. However the choices appear to be to completely upend the way the legal system and law enforcement handles investigations (which the people have voted against time after time), or to keep the systems that exist and tighten the oversight and transparency. I suppose your choice on that will fall towards whether you are more distrustful of the government or crooks. But essentially the same logic would appear to apply to both.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > However the choices appear to be to completely upend the way the legal system and law enforcement handles investigations (which the people have voted against time after time), or to keep the systems that exist and tighten the oversight and transparency. So lets say that War on Drugs reform is impractical as it would upend the legal system or whatever bullshit. I disagree, but lets go with it... How does it follow that we should then make sure the shit is evenly spread on everybody? Is this the Harrison Bergeron school of social justice? We cannot stomach treating this segment of the population decently, so in order to make this fair, we are going to treat the rest of you like shit too?
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Well you know, that's just it; I don't agree that scrapping the War on Drugs would upend the legal system. It would presumably clear out the prisons for the most part, but that's not what we should be worried about. However many of the legal and investigatory techniques used to investigate drug-related "crimes" are perfectly cromulent ways to investigate many other actual crimes. I would like to keep those techniques available, in general. Each technique may or may not have it's place, for sure. But a useful, cost-effective tool that's not otherwise unconstitutional should be used. We should then make sure that the oversight and transparency measures for each type of tool is in place to ensure that such measures are not abused. The government is pretty much literally the only thing we the people have any input into... functions which rightly belong to "the people" at large should be placed into the government. Where government screws those up, the answer should be to fix the government, not for the people to completely abdicate that responsibility. > How does it follow that we should then make sure the shit is evenly spread on everybody? You're basically asking why a given system should be fairly applied? I would reverse the question completely and say that any given government system should start off completely fair and only deviate from that for very good reason. Avoiding "Misery Loves Company" is a good reason, mind you. We levy administrative fines on people who actually screw up, for example. But the Simon logic is, why is it permissible to surveil tens of thousands of cell phone calls within a predominantly poor, black & Hispanic neighborhood for literally years at a time, looking for evidence of small-time drug dealers, but it's not possible to get the same type of court order to surveil other communications (even at larger scale) for something that's actually important to society at large? There is a difference in scale, that's for sure. But the difference is not really as large as the difference between no surveillance and what the police/FBI/others are already doing (and have been doing) throughout America. And so that's his point, if America agrees that this type of investigatory powers should be used (the kind that have always permitted incidentally collecting too much, or searching through all records reasonably relevant to a case, etc.), where and why does the framework behind those powers actually end here when it didn't there? There may very well be a good reason, but if that reason is "we don't trust the government" then by what logic do we let the DoJ in general investigate criminal acts? I guess what I'm saying is that I really wish we would get back to a framework of control of government (like the EFF, ACLU, etc. have been pushing to do for years) instead of instinctive distrust of the idea of government. But whatever we do decide the government rightly has the power to do, we should at least be consistent with it.