5 ms·

screw it, i'll repost my comment here too. I know i'll get the down-vote brigade but meh: Here's what bugs me about all the people chiming in about how messed

by jumby 13y ago

screw it, i'll repost my comment here too. I know i'll get the down-vote brigade but meh: Here's what bugs me about all the people chiming in about how messed up this all is. It's like you all think we live in some sort of utopia whereby we are the only ones doing this sort of surveillance. Every single sophisticated foreign intelligence is doing this back at us, their citizens and their enemies - probably with more resources and state sponsorship. China, Russia, Israel, Iran, etc. Why wouldn't we continue to push the boundaries and try and have a leg up on this? Should we bury our heads in the sand and hope that China doesn't pwn our entire national electric grid? (google it) Additionally, these actors are directly targeting and stealing intellectual property, reverse engineering and compromising state secrets in order to gain military & intelligence advantages directly from US based companies (see Boeing - google it). State actors are embedding backdoor trojans into US destined products (example: look at the wikipedia page on Huawei) Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives). Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts? Before every gets up in arms about this, consider the world in which we live first.

OvidNaso 13y ago
Not one of those reasons, except the last, has anything to do with a vast majority of the revelations about what the NSA is doing that has people up in arms. And the only legitimate argument about protecting against terrorism, people are starting to realize that the threat is miniscule and is amplified due to cognitive interpretations of data.
- jumby 13y ago
  Every one of those reasons (and likely many more we don't know about) is why the NSA is doing what they do.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    You did read that the NSA trains their people to shout "9/11!" when questioned about the need for what they do? Or did you not get the joke about the cow?
angersock 13y ago
"Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts?" Because we're Americans, goddamnit, and that's not what we do.
- jumby 13y ago
  You must live in a utopia where there are no evil-doers.
  - angersock 13y ago
    I don't need to live in a utopia to see that doing the right thing despite being afraid and aware of existential threats is something worth doing.
    - jumby 13y ago
      Would your opinion change if a nuclear bomb was detonated in Houston, TX?
      - waqf 13y ago
        A nuclear bomb has not been detonated in Houston, TX. But nice straw man.
      - angersock 13y ago
        Nope. In fact, the thing that would bring the best rest to my soul would be the expectation of my fellow citizens to pick up the next day where they left off. You win by showing your opponent that whatever they do it does not matter. That's true strength. You know how many rigs, refineries, and lives we've lost building our energy sector? How many times Galveston has gotten back after getting wiped off the map by hurricanes? We're strong, we're stubborn, and we rebuild and recover from any disaster without giving into fear. That's the legacy I want to leave.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Is that the sort of scenario that keeps you up late at night? That isn't normal. Normal people do not spend their time worrying that Texas is going to get nuked. You should probably talk with somebody about that.
MisterWebz 13y ago
> Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives). Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts? They should. Ever heard of the practice of getting a warrant before surveilling someone's communications? (google it). At this point this seems to be a foreign concept to so many people because one side is suggesting no spying at all, while the other side is suggesting they're okay with the NSA spying on everyone. There's a middle ground, and it's called getting a warrant.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  More specifically, getting a warrant from something other than an automatic warrant dispenser.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
So external threats are real. Granted. How does turning on your own population, and people who are not a threat and wish you no ill worldwide, help here? Being a better baddie is not the only way to deal with baddies, the bit in Team America about assholes, dicks and pussies is stupid bullshit, and the fact that so many people are eating it up doesn't make it less bullshit. Simply consider that everything you just said, "they" tell their people, too, and use it to keep them in line and under control. This kind of thinking is aiding the very things it claims to fight. E.g. War profiteers and mullahs sending people on suicide missions are of the same class, not opposing poles.
- mattlutze 13y ago
  3 serious questions: How do you know the difference between a person who is a threat, and a person who is not a threat, before you look at that person a little to determine they are not a threat? How much looking is needed to determine "Not a Threat" and put them in the ignore pile? How long before you should look a little again to make sure they're still not a threat?
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    There is still a difference between checking someone out, and treating them essentially as second-class people. Or, say, torturing people then declaring said torture "classified becuz national security". Also, how does this not doubly so go for certain agencies and politicians? The transparency mostly goes one way, doesn't it? How deeply does the public need to be able to inspect these agencies before they can be sure they're not a threat? How long before it needs to look again?
    - mattlutze 13y ago
      What is that difference? Please be as precise as you can. Because in the popular usage today, saying people (how many, and who?) are being treated as "second-class people" carries a very derogatory connotation. And if the difference is very small, it feels like an inappropriate statement to make. Re: your second sentence, my mind asks: "How many people have been tortured?" My gut tells me that the percent of people alive today who have been tortured by the US intelligence community is nil. I don't even know how to guess. A few hundred? Divided by 6 billion? 5 X 10^-6 percent of the world's population, maybe? Is the outrage is equal to the hazard in the situation, or is the outrage is artificially high compared to that hazard? I am not arguing torture is good or bad, I'm specifically saying it as a supporting argument feels like a distraction. Politicians live in the public eye. This has been shown time and again, in the US and elsewhere, that especially in the Internet age they get all the oversight needed. Obviously the same is becoming true for agencies, given the prevalence of leaks and whistle-blowing.
ubernostrum 13y ago
Before every gets up in arms about this, consider the world in which we live first. We live in a world where a foreign power invaded our soil, captured our capital and burnt it to the ground, and we did not suspend our Constitution to deal with the threat. We live in a world where an internal faction, in rebellion, threatened to end our existence as a country, and we did not suspend our Constitution to deal with the threat* We have increasingly abandoned that ideal in favor of "the Constitution is not a suicide pact", but we have faced existential threats before and survived them. So I, personally, need a stronger argument than "there are threats out there". * Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, and legal scholars can argue over whether it was done in the proper form, but the Constitution does permit the suspension in times of rebellion.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, and legal scholars can argue over whether it was done in the proper form There's not really much debate on the matter -- from the contemporary decision in Ex Parte Merryman and the numerous other district court and circuit court decisions finding against the suspension until it was abandoned up through a chain of decisions repeating its logic (the most notable recent example being Hamdi v. Rumsfeld), the pretty clear weight of decisions from the courts -- and there's not a whole lot of contrary scholarship -- has been that, to the extent that the writ can be suspended, it can't be suspended unilaterally by the executive branch. > the Constitution does permit the suspension in times of rebellion. Actually, the Constitution does not expressly permit the suspension of habeas corpus in any circumstances, it (in Art. I, Sec. 9, among limits on Congress' powers) prohibits the suspension of the writ of it with some exceptions to the prohibition.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives) No, they don't want to destroy Americans, they want to destroy America through terror. Killing Americans is a means, not the ends. And, on the other side, American patriots do exist and want to preserve the freedoms that define America at any cost (including their lives).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

by jumby 13y ago

OvidNaso 13y ago

Not one of those reasons, except the last, has anything to do with a vast majority of the revelations about what the NSA is doing that has people up in arms. And the only legitimate argument about protecting against terrorism, people are starting to realize that the threat is miniscule and is amplified due to cognitive interpretations of data.

jumby 13y ago
Every one of those reasons (and likely many more we don't know about) is why the NSA is doing what they do.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  You did read that the NSA trains their people to shout "9/11!" when questioned about the need for what they do? Or did you not get the joke about the cow?

angersock 13y ago

"Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts?" Because we're Americans, goddamnit, and that's not what we do.

jumby 13y ago
You must live in a utopia where there are no evil-doers.
- angersock 13y ago
  I don't need to live in a utopia to see that doing the right thing despite being afraid and aware of existential threats is something worth doing.
  - jumby 13y ago
    Would your opinion change if a nuclear bomb was detonated in Houston, TX?
    - waqf 13y ago
      A nuclear bomb has not been detonated in Houston, TX. But nice straw man.
    - angersock 13y ago
      Nope. In fact, the thing that would bring the best rest to my soul would be the expectation of my fellow citizens to pick up the next day where they left off. You win by showing your opponent that whatever they do it does not matter. That's true strength. You know how many rigs, refineries, and lives we've lost building our energy sector? How many times Galveston has gotten back after getting wiped off the map by hurricanes? We're strong, we're stubborn, and we rebuild and recover from any disaster without giving into fear. That's the legacy I want to leave.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Is that the sort of scenario that keeps you up late at night? That isn't normal. Normal people do not spend their time worrying that Texas is going to get nuked. You should probably talk with somebody about that.

MisterWebz 13y ago

> Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives). Why wouldn't we surveil their cell phones, email and IM accounts? They should. Ever heard of the practice of getting a warrant before surveilling someone's communications? (google it). At this point this seems to be a foreign concept to so many people because one side is suggesting no spying at all, while the other side is suggesting they're okay with the NSA spying on everyone. There's a middle ground, and it's called getting a warrant.

GhotiFish 13y ago
More specifically, getting a warrant from something other than an automatic warrant dispenser.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

So external threats are real. Granted. How does turning on your own population, and people who are not a threat and wish you no ill worldwide, help here? Being a better baddie is not the only way to deal with baddies, the bit in Team America about assholes, dicks and pussies is stupid bullshit, and the fact that so many people are eating it up doesn't make it less bullshit. Simply consider that everything you just said, "they" tell their people, too, and use it to keep them in line and under control. This kind of thinking is aiding the very things it claims to fight. E.g. War profiteers and mullahs sending people on suicide missions are of the same class, not opposing poles.

mattlutze 13y ago
3 serious questions: How do you know the difference between a person who is a threat, and a person who is not a threat, before you look at that person a little to determine they are not a threat? How much looking is needed to determine "Not a Threat" and put them in the ignore pile? How long before you should look a little again to make sure they're still not a threat?
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  There is still a difference between checking someone out, and treating them essentially as second-class people. Or, say, torturing people then declaring said torture "classified becuz national security". Also, how does this not doubly so go for certain agencies and politicians? The transparency mostly goes one way, doesn't it? How deeply does the public need to be able to inspect these agencies before they can be sure they're not a threat? How long before it needs to look again?
  - mattlutze 13y ago
    What is that difference? Please be as precise as you can. Because in the popular usage today, saying people (how many, and who?) are being treated as "second-class people" carries a very derogatory connotation. And if the difference is very small, it feels like an inappropriate statement to make. Re: your second sentence, my mind asks: "How many people have been tortured?" My gut tells me that the percent of people alive today who have been tortured by the US intelligence community is nil. I don't even know how to guess. A few hundred? Divided by 6 billion? 5 X 10^-6 percent of the world's population, maybe? Is the outrage is equal to the hazard in the situation, or is the outrage is artificially high compared to that hazard? I am not arguing torture is good or bad, I'm specifically saying it as a supporting argument feels like a distraction. Politicians live in the public eye. This has been shown time and again, in the US and elsewhere, that especially in the Internet age they get all the oversight needed. Obviously the same is becoming true for agencies, given the prevalence of leaks and whistle-blowing.

ubernostrum 13y ago

Before every gets up in arms about this, consider the world in which we live first. We live in a world where a foreign power invaded our soil, captured our capital and burnt it to the ground, and we did not suspend our Constitution to deal with the threat. We live in a world where an internal faction, in rebellion, threatened to end our existence as a country, and we did not suspend our Constitution to deal with the threat* We have increasingly abandoned that ideal in favor of "the Constitution is not a suicide pact", but we have faced existential threats before and survived them. So I, personally, need a stronger argument than "there are threats out there". * Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, and legal scholars can argue over whether it was done in the proper form, but the Constitution does permit the suspension in times of rebellion.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, and legal scholars can argue over whether it was done in the proper form There's not really much debate on the matter -- from the contemporary decision in Ex Parte Merryman and the numerous other district court and circuit court decisions finding against the suspension until it was abandoned up through a chain of decisions repeating its logic (the most notable recent example being Hamdi v. Rumsfeld), the pretty clear weight of decisions from the courts -- and there's not a whole lot of contrary scholarship -- has been that, to the extent that the writ can be suspended, it can't be suspended unilaterally by the executive branch. > the Constitution does permit the suspension in times of rebellion. Actually, the Constitution does not expressly permit the suspension of habeas corpus in any circumstances, it (in Art. I, Sec. 9, among limits on Congress' powers) prohibits the suspension of the writ of it with some exceptions to the prohibition.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Fundamental extremists do exist and want to destroy Americans at any cost (including their lives) No, they don't want to destroy Americans, they want to destroy America through terror. Killing Americans is a means, not the ends. And, on the other side, American patriots do exist and want to preserve the freedoms that define America at any cost (including their lives).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]