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I read your profile. One reaction was that because of your experiences, you might have already been desensitized to having your rights violated in such a manner

by mrobot 13y ago

I read your profile. One reaction was that because of your experiences, you might have already been desensitized to having your rights violated in such a manner. It was more of a shock to us who didn't expect our google searches to be monitored, but now we are all also becoming desensitized. I believe that trust is a necessary part of any life power structure, and that privacy is a part of that trust. The rights granted by those in power to those below are levers that help the system continue to work in service of the whole. The five eyes privacy violations are an unbalancing act which screws with human power in the event that something goes wrong and we have to repair or restructure the executive organ of our planet. Giving up privacy in this manner is giving up future self control in conditions that cannot be predicted. We should maintain ability to overthrow power structure at any time, we just shouldn't want to (or worse, need to without knowing we need to). I'm not giving up the levers of a system i've amplified with authority over my self. Having all actions of my life known by that system is giving up levers. Why do you like that theaustralian article so much when it supports lines like "you can't have 100 per cent security as well as 100 per cent privacy in the digital age" and "NSA chief Keith Alexander revealed that the NSA programs leaked by Snowden had helped thwart more than 50 terror plots"?

mpyne 13y ago
> Why do you like that theaustralian article so much when it supports lines like "you can't have 100 per cent security as well as 100 per cent privacy in the digital age" and "NSA chief Keith Alexander revealed that the NSA programs leaked by Snowden had helped thwart more than 50 terror plots"? What's incorrect about either line?
- mrobot 13y ago
  Here's a good article on the "54 attacks" line, which was actually cited in the "likely unconstitutional" ruling: http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-... The Obama 100%/100% thing is correct but privacy is a right. The line is not an excuse to take my privacy away without asking me. You can't drop my percentage without giving me opportunity to dissent or without my knowing about it. To do this is to make decisions about me and for me that reduce my power, it means i'm not free and becoming less free.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    The article is good but it doesn't dismantle the argument either, it clarifies it. That's nice and all, but ProPublica makes as many guesses about what possibly could be done using only non-phone metadata sources as NSA makes guesses about the absolute need for it. Remember that the U.S. Intelligence Community "could have" been tipped off to 9/11 beforehand, but it didn't happen. ProPublica saying that FBI "could have" caught an email or that a magical court order to divulge U.S. phone numbers calling al-Shabab in Somalia "could have" found Basaaly Moalin in San Diego is pure speculation too, and doesn't exactly jive well with the historical evidence that the Intelligence Community finds it difficult to identify plots beforehand. As far as your opportunity to dissent, you've had it and continue to have it. Unless you think every governmental action should be put to mass referendum then you go through your elected representative. After all the phone metadata program was specifically baked into public law several times over in the past decade, and it was done so by our representatives. It didn't simply appear out of nowhere.

by mrobot 13y ago

mpyne 13y ago

> Why do you like that theaustralian article so much when it supports lines like "you can't have 100 per cent security as well as 100 per cent privacy in the digital age" and "NSA chief Keith Alexander revealed that the NSA programs leaked by Snowden had helped thwart more than 50 terror plots"? What's incorrect about either line?

mrobot 13y ago
Here's a good article on the "54 attacks" line, which was actually cited in the "likely unconstitutional" ruling: http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-by-nsa-spreads-despite-lack-of-evidence http://www.propublica.org/article/claim-on-attacks-thwarted-... The Obama 100%/100% thing is correct but privacy is a right. The line is not an excuse to take my privacy away without asking me. You can't drop my percentage without giving me opportunity to dissent or without my knowing about it. To do this is to make decisions about me and for me that reduce my power, it means i'm not free and becoming less free.
- mpyne 13y ago
  The article is good but it doesn't dismantle the argument either, it clarifies it. That's nice and all, but ProPublica makes as many guesses about what possibly could be done using only non-phone metadata sources as NSA makes guesses about the absolute need for it. Remember that the U.S. Intelligence Community "could have" been tipped off to 9/11 beforehand, but it didn't happen. ProPublica saying that FBI "could have" caught an email or that a magical court order to divulge U.S. phone numbers calling al-Shabab in Somalia "could have" found Basaaly Moalin in San Diego is pure speculation too, and doesn't exactly jive well with the historical evidence that the Intelligence Community finds it difficult to identify plots beforehand. As far as your opportunity to dissent, you've had it and continue to have it. Unless you think every governmental action should be put to mass referendum then you go through your elected representative. After all the phone metadata program was specifically baked into public law several times over in the past decade, and it was done so by our representatives. It didn't simply appear out of nowhere.