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The Salon writer seems angry that libertarian-ish organizations are even listed as allies or allowed to participate in the event. Apparently, shunning libertari

by gojomo 13y ago

The Salon writer seems angry that libertarian-ish organizations are even listed as allies or allowed to participate in the event. Apparently, shunning libertarian-leaners as if they were 'unclean' takes an even higher precedence than opposing illegal mass surveillance. It's almost like how hard-core racist movements consider 'one drop' of disfavored ancestry as contaminating. In the real world of people who aren't professional ideologues, it's good to work with people on common projects even when there are severe disagreements elsewhere. Appearing together doesn't imply any general endorsement, or risk any sort of infection by diabolical libertarian heresies.

nhaehnle 13y ago
I generally agree, and I tried to make that abundantly clear in my comment. It's not even about having to agree on every topic. There is reasonable doubt that I wouldn't even agree on the topic of surveillance with many libertarian backers. The troubling thing is when you implicitly lend support to somebody who then turns around and basically backstabs you on the same topic. On the topic of surveillance, it seems quite likely that some of those libertarian backers would be more than happy to implement their own mass surveillance. They don't object to mass surveillance on principle, they just object to the state doing it. Simply put, it seems quite likely that they are not friends of individual privacy. Case in point, as discussed elsewhere in this thread: Why are there so many tracking scripts on the stopwatching.us website? On a personal note: It's interesting that this was my first negative voted comment on HN in a long time.
- gojomo 13y ago
  "...seems quite likely they are not friends of individual privacy" is a vague and unfair slur without specific examples of organizations and anti-privacy stances. True, the libertarian-leaning groups are not going to mind so much about something like audience-tracking scripts, because such things are a pea-shooter threat to privacy, compared to the government's privacy carpet-bombing. We can defend ourselves and others from Google Analytics, and not wind up in prison for trying. Not so with a state program of total, secret, compulsory surveillance, that's linked with the government's unique scale, permanence, legal immunity, and ability-to-punish. Against such a threat, those who emphasize the common cause are the good coalition partners. Someone on the sidelines, like the Salon writer, withholding support based on a partisan ideological purity test? Not an impressive coalition partner!

by gojomo 13y ago

nhaehnle 13y ago

I generally agree, and I tried to make that abundantly clear in my comment. It's not even about having to agree on every topic. There is reasonable doubt that I wouldn't even agree on the topic of surveillance with many libertarian backers. The troubling thing is when you implicitly lend support to somebody who then turns around and basically backstabs you on the same topic. On the topic of surveillance, it seems quite likely that some of those libertarian backers would be more than happy to implement their own mass surveillance. They don't object to mass surveillance on principle, they just object to the state doing it. Simply put, it seems quite likely that they are not friends of individual privacy. Case in point, as discussed elsewhere in this thread: Why are there so many tracking scripts on the stopwatching.us website? On a personal note: It's interesting that this was my first negative voted comment on HN in a long time.

gojomo 13y ago
"...seems quite likely they are not friends of individual privacy" is a vague and unfair slur without specific examples of organizations and anti-privacy stances. True, the libertarian-leaning groups are not going to mind so much about something like audience-tracking scripts, because such things are a pea-shooter threat to privacy, compared to the government's privacy carpet-bombing. We can defend ourselves and others from Google Analytics, and not wind up in prison for trying. Not so with a state program of total, secret, compulsory surveillance, that's linked with the government's unique scale, permanence, legal immunity, and ability-to-punish. Against such a threat, those who emphasize the common cause are the good coalition partners. Someone on the sidelines, like the Salon writer, withholding support based on a partisan ideological purity test? Not an impressive coalition partner!