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Well, there it is. The administration's case. It is legal. However, my question was along the lines of political theory, not constitutional law. There's no dou

Well, there it is. The administration's case. It is legal. However, my question was along the lines of political theory, not constitutional law. There's no doubt that some really powerful legal minds have concluded that all of this is legal, but can a government function this way? Obviously this type of information collection and storage wasn't happening before at this scale. Obviously it is now. Aside from the most likely correct reading of the constitution, does it not seem from a simply observational viewpoint that something is now amiss? Would it not be reasonable for the average citizen, looking back on decades and centuries of private conversations with his friends, meetings which did not involve public records being kept, and private papers immune from government scrutiny, to wonder if somehow he wasn't getting the short end of the stick compared to his ancestors? Or is your response that since it is legal, our citizen should just shut up? Or perhaps you have something along the lines of "elect representatives who will then pass laws" I find it fascinating that the status quo has changed so much, and because a technology shift was involved, your presumption is that it is the citizen who should have been more wary, lest his personal affairs become part of the public record. Especially since 1) officials have been very careful not to allow the citizens to know what they are recording and what their capabilities are, and 2) It's virtually impossible to live in the modern world without "broadcasting" If you've got something else besides "but it's legal!" I'd love to hear it. Thanks for the engagement, btw.

rayiner 13y ago
> However, my question was along the lines of political theory, not constitutional law. There is an important practical reason for drawing the distinctions and putting things into correct legal perspective: if you believe that the government has slowly chipped away at legal rights that used to exist, then it's harder to justify believing that political action can change the status quo. On the other hand, if you recognize that what you really have is a disconnect between peoples' behaviors as enabled by new communications technologies, and the government's acting pursuant to established law, then it's much more justifiable to believe that political action can change the status quo. As for whether the government should collect less or people should be more wary of broadcasting their private information, my answer is: both. I think laws are necessary to create protections for electronic communications that didn't exist before (and I think those laws could work because I don't believe the government is just ignoring the law). At the same time, I find it a little bit disingenuous for people to complain about being tracked when they carry little tracking devices around with them. Ultimately, what you'll see is a shift in equilibrium of privacy. I don't think you can structure the law to hamstring the government so much that it doesn't know anything more about you than it did in 1975. Not in an era when people broadcast their bowel movements in real time to their thousand closest Facebook friends so that companies can spam them with advertisements for the best laxatives. Socially, we're in a post-privacy era in that regard. Though I do think you'll see the equilibrium fall at a point short of "the government collects everything, all the time."
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  I'm not sure I'm getting any more detail with your last response. It seems that you are wanting to shift the discussion now from "But it's legal!" to more along the lines of "But whether people think they have a chance at changing things is important!" This is interesting, but only if you assume the entire situation is in the toilet and your goal is simply to try to mitigate a disaster approaching on the horizon. I'm not so sure that such mitigation is possible or wise. As I recall, the entire reason for having a Bill of Rights was the fear -- to the point of considering this a certainty -- that the government would encroach on individual rights and continue encroaching unless it was specifically forbidden to do so. Now perhaps from a civil unrest viewpoint it's better to have the plebians thinking they have a shot at changing the great ship of state by the traditional democratic process, but I doubt the founders would have believed it. For historical reasons. I have no idea if the "post privacy" world is upon us or not. If I have any say, the answer is something along the lines of "fuck no!" but, unfortunately, they do not ask me these things. I do know, however, that lots of folks view most all current problems through political filters. They tend to forgive more when their guys are in power and condemn more when they're not. This, along with changing up the figureheads at the top of the corrupt political system regularly, has kept a lid on social unrest for a good long time. Here's hoping that continues along unimpeded.
  - md224 13y ago
    At the risk of playing messenger and getting shot, I'll say this: I think what rayiner's trying to do is clarify the narrative. Right now the dominant narrative on HN seems to be "the government has expanded their powers to intrude on our right to privacy." Rayiner is suggesting that perhaps the government is simply exercising the power it had been granted over years of precedent-setting court decisions (including, critically, the loss of expectation of privacy when information is handed to a third party). According to this alternate narrative, what has changed hasn't really been the government's scope of power, but rather our increasing reliance on third-party services to mediate our interactions in the modern world. As more and more of our communication is digitized and aggregated by third party services, more of our information falls within the government's constitutionally limited scope. A key point of contention is whether what we're seeing here is the government breaking laws, or the government following laws that simply haven't caught up with the times. Rayiner believes (I think) that it's the latter, and therefore has reason for optimism; as he says, "I think those laws [to protect electronic communications] could work because I don't believe the government is just ignoring the law."

rayiner 13y ago

> However, my question was along the lines of political theory, not constitutional law. There is an important practical reason for drawing the distinctions and putting things into correct legal perspective: if you believe that the government has slowly chipped away at legal rights that used to exist, then it's harder to justify believing that political action can change the status quo. On the other hand, if you recognize that what you really have is a disconnect between peoples' behaviors as enabled by new communications technologies, and the government's acting pursuant to established law, then it's much more justifiable to believe that political action can change the status quo. As for whether the government should collect less or people should be more wary of broadcasting their private information, my answer is: both. I think laws are necessary to create protections for electronic communications that didn't exist before (and I think those laws could work because I don't believe the government is just ignoring the law). At the same time, I find it a little bit disingenuous for people to complain about being tracked when they carry little tracking devices around with them. Ultimately, what you'll see is a shift in equilibrium of privacy. I don't think you can structure the law to hamstring the government so much that it doesn't know anything more about you than it did in 1975. Not in an era when people broadcast their bowel movements in real time to their thousand closest Facebook friends so that companies can spam them with advertisements for the best laxatives. Socially, we're in a post-privacy era in that regard. Though I do think you'll see the equilibrium fall at a point short of "the government collects everything, all the time."

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
I'm not sure I'm getting any more detail with your last response. It seems that you are wanting to shift the discussion now from "But it's legal!" to more along the lines of "But whether people think they have a chance at changing things is important!" This is interesting, but only if you assume the entire situation is in the toilet and your goal is simply to try to mitigate a disaster approaching on the horizon. I'm not so sure that such mitigation is possible or wise. As I recall, the entire reason for having a Bill of Rights was the fear -- to the point of considering this a certainty -- that the government would encroach on individual rights and continue encroaching unless it was specifically forbidden to do so. Now perhaps from a civil unrest viewpoint it's better to have the plebians thinking they have a shot at changing the great ship of state by the traditional democratic process, but I doubt the founders would have believed it. For historical reasons. I have no idea if the "post privacy" world is upon us or not. If I have any say, the answer is something along the lines of "fuck no!" but, unfortunately, they do not ask me these things. I do know, however, that lots of folks view most all current problems through political filters. They tend to forgive more when their guys are in power and condemn more when they're not. This, along with changing up the figureheads at the top of the corrupt political system regularly, has kept a lid on social unrest for a good long time. Here's hoping that continues along unimpeded.
- md224 13y ago
  At the risk of playing messenger and getting shot, I'll say this: I think what rayiner's trying to do is clarify the narrative. Right now the dominant narrative on HN seems to be "the government has expanded their powers to intrude on our right to privacy." Rayiner is suggesting that perhaps the government is simply exercising the power it had been granted over years of precedent-setting court decisions (including, critically, the loss of expectation of privacy when information is handed to a third party). According to this alternate narrative, what has changed hasn't really been the government's scope of power, but rather our increasing reliance on third-party services to mediate our interactions in the modern world. As more and more of our communication is digitized and aggregated by third party services, more of our information falls within the government's constitutionally limited scope. A key point of contention is whether what we're seeing here is the government breaking laws, or the government following laws that simply haven't caught up with the times. Rayiner believes (I think) that it's the latter, and therefore has reason for optimism; as he says, "I think those laws [to protect electronic communications] could work because I don't believe the government is just ignoring the law."