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> The American people have betrayed the internet. We need to take it back. You might think my correction of the title is inflammatory but we shouldn't forget:

• elux 13y ago
  >If the Americans don't like the situation then they can vote for someone who will enact legislation that reflects that, Like who? Red? Or Blue?
• DamnYuppie 13y ago
  LOL, Constitutional Democracy by butt. When you have the ability, as an elected official, to receive money from "campaign sponsors" and do not have to disclose where it came from what you have is not a democracy but a puppet regime dressed up as the peoples choice.
  • twoodfin 13y ago
    Well then we're safe, because campaign contributions to candidates in Federal elections in excess of $200 must be disclosed to the FEC: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml#Disclosure http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml#Disclosure Corporations, labor unions and foreign nationals are also forbidden from donating to candidates' campaigns. If you're thinking of Citizens United, it doesn't apply to elected officials "receiving money".
    • jlgreco 13y ago
      Re 'Super PACs not permitted to coordinate directly': There is an important difference between "not permitted to" and "don't".
      • twoodfin 13y ago
        Again, if the original comment was meant to imply that candidates could legally receive significant quantities of money from anonymous sources to finance their campaigns, that's flat wrong. I'm not sure what argument your comment is meant to respond to. Candidates and PACs sometimes run afoul of FEC regulations? Who's saying they don't? That's a big jump from a regime of legal anonymous direct contributions implied by the original comment.
        • jlgreco 13y ago
          Legalities are irrelevant, what is important is the reality of the system. Widespread illegal bribery with little to no enforcement is not a better situation to be in than widespread legal bribery; the situations are functionally equivalent.
• ferdo 13y ago
  America is called a constitutional democracy. It started out as a constitutional republic. In practice, it's closer to a plutocracy and has been for some time. The average net worth of a US Senator is ~$10 million. Political solutions will only come about in reaction to technical solutions that we come up with. I'd posit that the political classes are an evolutionary obstacle for the technical community to solve. If successful, we thrive. If unsuccessful, technology will be owned by the political classes and we're beholden to them until we solve the problem.
  • rayiner 13y ago
    > In practice, it's closer to a plutocracy and has been for some time. You mean since the founding of the republic? http://www.businessinsider.com/american-presidents-republican-candidates-net-worth-2012-1?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/american-presidents-republica.... George Washington was worth an estimated $500 million. Adams was a pauper at only $20 million. Jefferson was $200m+ before he went broke. Madison was $100m+. The average net worth of senators is skewed up by a few wealthy businessmen. The median is around $2.5 million, which is actually not even top 1%. The top 5% mark is at $1.8m. And don't forget: Senators skew married, skew older, skew white, skew educated relative to overall households, and all of those characteristics are correlated with higher income and net worth. The median senator might not even crack the top 5% if you look only at households with white married 60-year olds who all have college degrees and 60% of whom have a JD or MD. $2.5 million net worth is rich, but it's not "plutocracy" rich. It's "two Google engineers marrying and buying a house and putting money into their 401ks for 30 years" rich.
    • ferdo 13y ago
      Whatever you want to call it, this form of government plainly doesn't represent the general population of the country.
      • twoodfin 13y ago
        What evidence do you have that the general population cares much at all about these revelations? As rayiner pointed out, President Obama could end any of these programs with a phone call, but even though he hasn't, his supporters overwhelmingly still support him.
• brady747 13y ago
  I think you have confused America with the idea of America.
• DennisP 13y ago
  The American people tried that when they first voted for Obama, who said all sorts of pretty things about rolling back the surveillance state.
  • a3n 13y ago
    I sometimes play this game: Imagine Obama (or whoever) is running again [EDIT: by "again" I mean their original campaign, in the past], and they make campaign promises to do exactly what they end up doing in their actual administrations. Would they be nominated and elected? I like to think not, but Americans are so partisan I have my doubts. "And if elected, I will arrest and prosecute more whistleblowers than all administrations before me combined, I will record the metadata for every call that every American makes, and much of the actual contents, and all emails. I will kill innocent women and children as collateral damage in CIA drone strikes, and blame them for not having better parents. And I'll buy a puppy for my daughters."
• guelo 13y ago
  The American people are only now beginning to understand what is going on thanks to Snowden's leaks.
  • craigyk 13y ago
    ? I have just always assumed that's the kind of stuff the NSA did, after all, what else would they be doing? So the Snowden revelations were more disappointment than shock.
• deelowe 13y ago
  Technically, the US is a republic. Though all states choose to elect representatives via a democratic process, it's not a strict requirement. This is reflected in the culture in washington as well, where representatives are more working for state and corporate interests than individuals.
• zeteo 13y ago
  The American political process has four stages: money primary, party primary, general election, and lobbying. The will of the public often doesn't get expressed into policy because: 1. By the time the average citizen can play a role in the process, the remaining choices agree on many if not most important issues (see Obama vs. Romney). 2. Even if the public elects an official who promises certain policies, they can always be swayed later by lobbying (see Obama on privacy).
• rhizome 13y ago
  Your fundamental mistake is that "someone" doesn't enact legislation. They got the government they deserve, and they alone carry the blame. Condescension doesn't help.
• mcherm 13y ago
  I am not sure that correcting "the US government betrayed us" to "the American people betrayed us" is quite fair. For instance, the last time the American people elected a new president they elected a candidate who promised the most open government ever, who defended the need for whistleblowers, and who criticized his predecessor for warrantless wiretapping. The elected representatives of the American people held hearings in which they asked the head of the NSA whether his agency was engaging in certain activities and he said, on record, that they were not. (He lied.) Perhaps the will of the people actually IS being subverted.
  • rayiner 13y ago
    Obama's approval rating among democrats, the people that voted for him, is 75-80% depending on the poll. Obama might have lied about transparency and whatnot, but people don't seem to have elected him on that basis. They elected him for his views on healthcare, social welfare, abortion, etc. Thought experiment: look at the tiny number of democrats complaining about the NSA issue, then think about what would happen if Obama instead had done a 180 on Social Security, abortion, etc. You think his approval rating among democrats would be 75-80% if he had signed legislation to dismantle Social Security?
    • nitrogen 13y ago
      Why do you come to Hacker News and repeatedly remind everyone how insignificant their opinion is, how ostracized they truly are, and how much more right the "churchgoing middle-aged woman" is than the dirty nerds? If you like it here so much, why don't you stop insulting your audience and start proposing solutions?
      • rayiner 13y ago
        Nobody should be insulted to hear that they're not special and that their political opinion doesn't count any more than those of middle aged women in Des Moines. That's a beautiful thing. That's democracy. Note that I generally only point out that HN-ers have minority views in response to comments along the lines of "the USG doesn't represent the people" or "the US is not a democracy" or similar hyperbole. Finally, understanding your insignificance is part of the solution. Politics is about building coalitions. Echo chamber nerd rage will have zero impact on the status quo. Reaching out to groups with votes might.
• evunveot 13y ago
  Even if all the voters hate the surveillance state and want it gone, what do you do when the anti-NSA candidate in your district disagrees with you on war or abortion or monetary policy or...? Every informed voter has to weigh all of a candidate's (professed) views, and chances are any vote they ultimately cast is a compromise of some sort, so you end up with representatives that are collectively a jumble of contradictory opinions. Thus it's hard to put the onus on the voters for any particular policy outcome (especially when it's an outcome that's been deliberately kept secret). The government of the US is an okay system for managing the varying interests of its geographic groups (the States), but it's not really set up to reflect the will of the US people on any particular issue. Which makes me think maybe the government should be broken up functionally as well as geographically. Imagine you could vote for separate Presidents and legislators in each of the departments of the Treasury, Defense, Education, et al and make them negotiate equally amongst themselves when their purviews intersect. Then you could get the anti-NSA candidate elected to President of Defense or President of National Intelligence without worrying about his opinions on abortion or drug policy or whatever. And then you could legitimately say "The American people betrayed/saved the internet."
  • nitrogen 13y ago
    Imagine you could vote for separate Presidents and legislators in each of the departments of the Treasury, Defense, Education, et al and make them negotiate equally amongst themselves when their purviews intersect. This is something I would also like to see. There are many conceivable ways of partitioning responsibility; geographical partitioning has historical momentum, but there's no reason it has to be the only way.
• nilved 13y ago
  > America is a constitutional democracy. If the Americans don't like the situation then they can vote for someone who will enact legislation that reflects that Hahahahahahahahaha