4 ms·

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

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
> 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. This "rights-centric" view of the founding is a bit of historical revisionism that seems to be in vogue as of late. The framers saw republicanism, federalism, democratic accountability, and separation of powers as the key bulwarks against excess government power, not the Bill of Rights. That's why the Constitution is almost wholly preoccupied by defining a blueprint for these things. Only one of the 85 Federalist Papers is primarily concerned with individual rights, and it's an argument for why a Bill of Rights is unnecessary: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_84.html http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_84.html. In Federalist 84, Hamilton makes the argument that a Bill of Rights is unnecessary in a democratic republic. In the context of the freedom of the press, he writes: "What signifies a declaration, that 'the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved'? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. [3] And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights." (emphasis added). > 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. Well obviously we don't see eye-to-eye on whether its worthwhile to fix the spying issue, because we apparently disagree about whether it's a defect in an otherwise fairly sound system, or a symptom of irreparable corruption. I will say this, however: revolutions are rarely democratic processes. They are, more often than not, a way for radicals and other ideological minorities to impose their viewpoints on the majority. I don't think they're something to look forward to.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  Don't know if you can stomach a Heritage Foundation essay, but there's lots of good historical stuff here: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/12/securing-liberty-the-purpose-and-importance-of-the-bill-of-rights http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/12/securing-li... The important point is that the founders felt such boundaries were mere "parchment barriers", not that such boundaries were unnecessary! just the opposite. The BOR was created because the states would not go along with ratifying the constitution based solely on structural descriptions. Clear and deliberate promises would have to be made, and even then all the parties concerned were dubious such promises would hold out over the test of time. I agree with that assessment. I think systems of people drift from well-executing to poorly executing. Good systems of people have self-correction mechanisms built in. Our system of government has one such system. Over time, however, the self-correction mechanism itself becomes broken. I do not necessarily feel that it is irreparable or a revolution is required (as opposed to many of the founders, who privately felt that another revolution was all but certain). I'm simply pointing out that you can't keep beating the same mule and expecting it to continue plowing the field. I think that's the difference here. If I understand you correctly, the problem is one of perception -- if only we could get those citizens happy again! Whereas in my mind the problem is structural -- over time, with the government in basically a state of war with its own population, "keeping them happy" is not in the cards. I'm not sure what a "fix" would be, but I'm not opposed to any action taken on the issue. Couldn't hurt. The spying issue isn't an issue because I'm upset about it -- the problem here isn't that people are just going bonkers when they realize what's going on (as Senator Wyden describes). The problem is that the democratic system of government itself cannot function over a long period of time with the state knowing so much about the people. It just doesn't work. That's a theory of government problem, not a constitutional or realpolitik one. If you understand that, then you realize that this is the type of problem that exists outside of the structures created to contain it - hence the response that "it's all legal". Of course it's legal. We don't have tyrants out to purposefully destroy our system of government. Instead we have patriotic, brilliant, and hard-working people out to protect us. And these people will continue to game the system in any way possible to make sure we're protected. That's how we got here. I think if you don't understand how we got here, and you don't understand the nature of the problem, it becomes very difficult to understand what could be done to "fix" it. You might start thinking that you could vote in some handsome slick-talking schmucks who can wave a magic wand around and put the genie back in the bottle. That might be a great recipe for kicking the can down the road, but not so much for actually self-correcting. From where I sit, a few more constitutional amendments are going to be necessary. Good luck taking bets on when that's going to happen. EDIT: I'll also add that the anti-federalists, you know, those tin-foil-hat-wearing hand-waving guys, turned out to be exactly correct in many of the arguments they made against a federal government. A standing army, use of the executive to control the military and interfere in state's matters, and so on. At the time they were shouted down as being paranoid. Sounds very familiar, doesn't it? But I honestly do wish you the best of luck in your "vote some good guys in office" plan. Anything that will keep the country on a stable path for another century or two is a good thing in my book.

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

> 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. This "rights-centric" view of the founding is a bit of historical revisionism that seems to be in vogue as of late. The framers saw republicanism, federalism, democratic accountability, and separation of powers as the key bulwarks against excess government power, not the Bill of Rights. That's why the Constitution is almost wholly preoccupied by defining a blueprint for these things. Only one of the 85 Federalist Papers is primarily concerned with individual rights, and it's an argument for why a Bill of Rights is unnecessary: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_84.html http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_84.html. In Federalist 84, Hamilton makes the argument that a Bill of Rights is unnecessary in a democratic republic. In the context of the freedom of the press, he writes: "What signifies a declaration, that 'the liberty of the press shall be inviolably preserved'? What is the liberty of the press? Who can give it any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion? I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer, that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government. [3] And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights." (emphasis added). > 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. Well obviously we don't see eye-to-eye on whether its worthwhile to fix the spying issue, because we apparently disagree about whether it's a defect in an otherwise fairly sound system, or a symptom of irreparable corruption. I will say this, however: revolutions are rarely democratic processes. They are, more often than not, a way for radicals and other ideological minorities to impose their viewpoints on the majority. I don't think they're something to look forward to.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Don't know if you can stomach a Heritage Foundation essay, but there's lots of good historical stuff here: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/12/securing-liberty-the-purpose-and-importance-of-the-bill-of-rights http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/12/securing-li... The important point is that the founders felt such boundaries were mere "parchment barriers", not that such boundaries were unnecessary! just the opposite. The BOR was created because the states would not go along with ratifying the constitution based solely on structural descriptions. Clear and deliberate promises would have to be made, and even then all the parties concerned were dubious such promises would hold out over the test of time. I agree with that assessment. I think systems of people drift from well-executing to poorly executing. Good systems of people have self-correction mechanisms built in. Our system of government has one such system. Over time, however, the self-correction mechanism itself becomes broken. I do not necessarily feel that it is irreparable or a revolution is required (as opposed to many of the founders, who privately felt that another revolution was all but certain). I'm simply pointing out that you can't keep beating the same mule and expecting it to continue plowing the field. I think that's the difference here. If I understand you correctly, the problem is one of perception -- if only we could get those citizens happy again! Whereas in my mind the problem is structural -- over time, with the government in basically a state of war with its own population, "keeping them happy" is not in the cards. I'm not sure what a "fix" would be, but I'm not opposed to any action taken on the issue. Couldn't hurt. The spying issue isn't an issue because I'm upset about it -- the problem here isn't that people are just going bonkers when they realize what's going on (as Senator Wyden describes). The problem is that the democratic system of government itself cannot function over a long period of time with the state knowing so much about the people. It just doesn't work. That's a theory of government problem, not a constitutional or realpolitik one. If you understand that, then you realize that this is the type of problem that exists outside of the structures created to contain it - hence the response that "it's all legal". Of course it's legal. We don't have tyrants out to purposefully destroy our system of government. Instead we have patriotic, brilliant, and hard-working people out to protect us. And these people will continue to game the system in any way possible to make sure we're protected. That's how we got here. I think if you don't understand how we got here, and you don't understand the nature of the problem, it becomes very difficult to understand what could be done to "fix" it. You might start thinking that you could vote in some handsome slick-talking schmucks who can wave a magic wand around and put the genie back in the bottle. That might be a great recipe for kicking the can down the road, but not so much for actually self-correcting. From where I sit, a few more constitutional amendments are going to be necessary. Good luck taking bets on when that's going to happen. EDIT: I'll also add that the anti-federalists, you know, those tin-foil-hat-wearing hand-waving guys, turned out to be exactly correct in many of the arguments they made against a federal government. A standing army, use of the executive to control the military and interfere in state's matters, and so on. At the time they were shouted down as being paranoid. Sounds very familiar, doesn't it? But I honestly do wish you the best of luck in your "vote some good guys in office" plan. Anything that will keep the country on a stable path for another century or two is a good thing in my book.