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I suppose pretty much everybody is against mass surveillance, academics or not. But what choice do we have? I think the problem is that we don't really live in

I suppose pretty much everybody is against mass surveillance, academics or not. But what choice do we have? I think the problem is that we don't really live in democracies. It's not only mass surveillance, but also wars, inequalities and so on...

herbig 13y ago
I don't know, I've been surprised by just how many of the people I know either don't know anything at all about this, or simply don't care.
- BrownBuffalo 13y ago
  This also plays out in the turn-out of voters on election day - its just a disconnect in community. Not saying its bad -or- good, but its reflective of how diluted our outlets are and the lack of trust we all have in everything and it becomes a culture of indifference.
  - lkbm 13y ago
    If we had a direct vote on mass surveillance I wouldn't be at all surprised if American voters rejected it, but that's not how we make political decisions in the US. There are very few candidates who oppose mass surveillance (though we did elect a president who spoke out against trading freedom for security during his campaign), and most of them also have a bunch of other policy positions that are sufficiently distasteful to enough people that even opponents of mass surveillance will either reject him/her for those other positions, or reject him/her for being "unelectable".
    - rayiner 13y ago
      I doubt it. Neither party really opposes surveillance, and if there was broad public opposition to surveillance, one or the other would. I posit that you're not seeing a failure of representative democracy to properly express what is a position with majority support. Rather, you're failing to perceive the nature of the electorate. I remember I stared college the year after 9/11 and was in school when the Iraq war started. Conservative place as far as colleges go, but left of center for the region as a whole. I heard a lot of talk about turning the middle east into a glass parking lot. That was not a position anyone was afraid to take publicly. Imagine my surprise when I'd come back to my very liberal circle in northern Virginia and hear about the "overwhelming public opposition to the Iraq war." Simply put, ideological minorities often don't realize that they are that.
      - lkbm 13y ago
        Neither party is big on decriminalizing marijuana, but it has >50% support among Americans. Neither party is big on ending gerrymandering, but I'd guess it has >50% support (opposition?) from Americans. There's stuff that gets votes, and there's stuff the majority supports. They aren't necessarily the same. On the other hand, the Washington Post/Pew Research Center say there's narrow majority support some of the mass surveillance. Narrow majority opposition for some aspects: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa-tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over-privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-suppor...
- pavanred 13y ago
  Not to forget the people who still bank on the reasoning - Why should I care, I have nothing to hide. I am sure everyone of these people will object to a routine daily search of their house to make sure that they are not responsible for the occasional neighbourhood burglary.
  - yodsanklai 13y ago
    "I am sure everyone of these people will object to a routine daily search of their house" It's a good analogy because the usual argument for mass surveillance applies here too. By massively searching houses, we may find a few dangerous criminals and lives would be saved!
lectrick 13y ago
Any country in charge of its own currency can always fund a war without a vote by simply printing more of it for itself (debasing the currency of course via "invisible tax"), which is why I support cryptocurrencies. Any person who is OK with mass surveillance has clearly never seen the movie The Lives of Others ("Das Leben der Anderen," yes it's German with English subtitles, deal with it) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/ because to watch that movie is to watch the fall of a country which was destroyed by "too much introspection," as it were.
- asgard1024 13y ago
  "Any country in charge of its own currency can always fund a war without a vote by simply printing more of it for itself" Really? How? Who will fight in this war? Their own population, for the worthless currency? And where do the weapons (and gasoline to power these) come from? Or are they going to spray the enemy with bonds and futures?
someguyonhn 13y ago
We don't really live in democracies? So the fact that a President of the United States was elected who appointed two liberal leaning Supreme Court justices that were confirmed by a freely and fairly elected Senate and now serve their terms without fear of being removed for making an unpopular decision, making Roe v. Wade less likely to be overturned, and the recent Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases to be adjudicated the way they were didn't happen? If that's not democracy I'd love to hear what you think is. Saying we don't live in a democracy is a popular thing to say (obviously, seeing as this is the top comment) but it's just wrong. Senator McCain and then-Senator Obama had two very separate plans for things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and healthcare reform if they were elected. The fact that the country and the world is the way it is today, for better or worse, is because people went out and voted in a free and fair election, and then did it again and again and again in primaries and general elections for local, state, and federal offices in the US. The Constitution of the United States says that, had the sitting President of the United States or myself been alive during the start of our country, we would be 3/5ths of a human being... yet he runs the place, and I had the right to have campaigned and voted for him twice had I been inclined. That's democracy in action. The fact that he, myself, the two previously mentioned Supreme Court justices, and anyone else got to exercise our right to vote, knowing if we were intimidated or denied for any reason the judicial system would support our right, is democracy in action. The fact that I can get on HN, reddit, a blog, or walk outside and type/say pretty much whatever vile things I want about the leaders of my country and any other country, is democracy in action. Obviously Americans are lucky to live in a time and place where we have the ability to perfect our Union. Please don't disrespect the work of countless often forgotten women, men, and children from around the globe who have sacrificed, willingly or otherwise, very significant parts of, and all too often their entire lives for democracy, by acting like their actions didn't help contribute to others being able to live in (or one day live in) democracies.
- laumars 13y ago
  I think the OP's point is that it's a pseudo-democracy. We might vote in a president or political party, but we have no real power over the decisions made. Just to run in the elections you need heavy corporate sponsorship, which means any major candidate is already tainted with the potential of a conflict of interest. Then you have corporate lobbyists who have the ability to push their agendas in ways that the Joe Public and everyday voter never could. And even if you could say without a doubt that no corruptions, secret deals with mates nor any conflict of interests existed in any of those in congress (etc), you still have the issue with regards to how much power some some government agencies have and how their not run by elected officials. Sometimes it feels like all we're voting on is our favourite puppet and whoever gets voted in will just continue on the same regime that his predecessor left. Sometimes it feels like our votes are completely meaningless as if the government suspects something to be unpopular, then they'll just go ahead and do it anyway; but more covertly.
rayiner 13y ago
So I'm watching this new show "Almost Human." its about a future where technology destroys the traditional CSI techniques (e.g. DNA bombs to wipe out DNA evidence), and police are "forced to respond" with synthetic human police. So you have a cop that can go into a business and just download all the documents on their network without touching anything. At one point the synthetic cop asks his human partner "we don't need a warrant for this?" And the partner is like "I didn't think so either." The point of the joke is that the robot wants to follow the warrant requirement, because its a rule, but the human cop knows that its okay to break the rules when the bad guy could get away. So no, not everyone opposes mass surveillance. Just watch some movies. Since the time of westerns there's been this deep seated idea that procedural protections are optional when a bad guy could get away. This is not a failure of democracy. This is a non-democratically designed procedure being eroded by democracy.

herbig 13y ago

I don't know, I've been surprised by just how many of the people I know either don't know anything at all about this, or simply don't care.

BrownBuffalo 13y ago
This also plays out in the turn-out of voters on election day - its just a disconnect in community. Not saying its bad -or- good, but its reflective of how diluted our outlets are and the lack of trust we all have in everything and it becomes a culture of indifference.
- lkbm 13y ago
  If we had a direct vote on mass surveillance I wouldn't be at all surprised if American voters rejected it, but that's not how we make political decisions in the US. There are very few candidates who oppose mass surveillance (though we did elect a president who spoke out against trading freedom for security during his campaign), and most of them also have a bunch of other policy positions that are sufficiently distasteful to enough people that even opponents of mass surveillance will either reject him/her for those other positions, or reject him/her for being "unelectable".
  - rayiner 13y ago
    I doubt it. Neither party really opposes surveillance, and if there was broad public opposition to surveillance, one or the other would. I posit that you're not seeing a failure of representative democracy to properly express what is a position with majority support. Rather, you're failing to perceive the nature of the electorate. I remember I stared college the year after 9/11 and was in school when the Iraq war started. Conservative place as far as colleges go, but left of center for the region as a whole. I heard a lot of talk about turning the middle east into a glass parking lot. That was not a position anyone was afraid to take publicly. Imagine my surprise when I'd come back to my very liberal circle in northern Virginia and hear about the "overwhelming public opposition to the Iraq war." Simply put, ideological minorities often don't realize that they are that.
    - lkbm 13y ago
      Neither party is big on decriminalizing marijuana, but it has >50% support among Americans. Neither party is big on ending gerrymandering, but I'd guess it has >50% support (opposition?) from Americans. There's stuff that gets votes, and there's stuff the majority supports. They aren't necessarily the same. On the other hand, the Washington Post/Pew Research Center say there's narrow majority support some of the mass surveillance. Narrow majority opposition for some aspects: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-support-nsa-tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-over-privacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-suppor...
pavanred 13y ago
Not to forget the people who still bank on the reasoning - Why should I care, I have nothing to hide. I am sure everyone of these people will object to a routine daily search of their house to make sure that they are not responsible for the occasional neighbourhood burglary.
- yodsanklai 13y ago
  "I am sure everyone of these people will object to a routine daily search of their house" It's a good analogy because the usual argument for mass surveillance applies here too. By massively searching houses, we may find a few dangerous criminals and lives would be saved!

lectrick 13y ago

Any country in charge of its own currency can always fund a war without a vote by simply printing more of it for itself (debasing the currency of course via "invisible tax"), which is why I support cryptocurrencies. Any person who is OK with mass surveillance has clearly never seen the movie The Lives of Others ("Das Leben der Anderen," yes it's German with English subtitles, deal with it) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/ because to watch that movie is to watch the fall of a country which was destroyed by "too much introspection," as it were.

asgard1024 13y ago
"Any country in charge of its own currency can always fund a war without a vote by simply printing more of it for itself" Really? How? Who will fight in this war? Their own population, for the worthless currency? And where do the weapons (and gasoline to power these) come from? Or are they going to spray the enemy with bonds and futures?

someguyonhn 13y ago

We don't really live in democracies? So the fact that a President of the United States was elected who appointed two liberal leaning Supreme Court justices that were confirmed by a freely and fairly elected Senate and now serve their terms without fear of being removed for making an unpopular decision, making Roe v. Wade less likely to be overturned, and the recent Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases to be adjudicated the way they were didn't happen? If that's not democracy I'd love to hear what you think is. Saying we don't live in a democracy is a popular thing to say (obviously, seeing as this is the top comment) but it's just wrong. Senator McCain and then-Senator Obama had two very separate plans for things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and healthcare reform if they were elected. The fact that the country and the world is the way it is today, for better or worse, is because people went out and voted in a free and fair election, and then did it again and again and again in primaries and general elections for local, state, and federal offices in the US. The Constitution of the United States says that, had the sitting President of the United States or myself been alive during the start of our country, we would be 3/5ths of a human being... yet he runs the place, and I had the right to have campaigned and voted for him twice had I been inclined. That's democracy in action. The fact that he, myself, the two previously mentioned Supreme Court justices, and anyone else got to exercise our right to vote, knowing if we were intimidated or denied for any reason the judicial system would support our right, is democracy in action. The fact that I can get on HN, reddit, a blog, or walk outside and type/say pretty much whatever vile things I want about the leaders of my country and any other country, is democracy in action. Obviously Americans are lucky to live in a time and place where we have the ability to perfect our Union. Please don't disrespect the work of countless often forgotten women, men, and children from around the globe who have sacrificed, willingly or otherwise, very significant parts of, and all too often their entire lives for democracy, by acting like their actions didn't help contribute to others being able to live in (or one day live in) democracies.

laumars 13y ago
I think the OP's point is that it's a pseudo-democracy. We might vote in a president or political party, but we have no real power over the decisions made. Just to run in the elections you need heavy corporate sponsorship, which means any major candidate is already tainted with the potential of a conflict of interest. Then you have corporate lobbyists who have the ability to push their agendas in ways that the Joe Public and everyday voter never could. And even if you could say without a doubt that no corruptions, secret deals with mates nor any conflict of interests existed in any of those in congress (etc), you still have the issue with regards to how much power some some government agencies have and how their not run by elected officials. Sometimes it feels like all we're voting on is our favourite puppet and whoever gets voted in will just continue on the same regime that his predecessor left. Sometimes it feels like our votes are completely meaningless as if the government suspects something to be unpopular, then they'll just go ahead and do it anyway; but more covertly.

rayiner 13y ago

So I'm watching this new show "Almost Human." its about a future where technology destroys the traditional CSI techniques (e.g. DNA bombs to wipe out DNA evidence), and police are "forced to respond" with synthetic human police. So you have a cop that can go into a business and just download all the documents on their network without touching anything. At one point the synthetic cop asks his human partner "we don't need a warrant for this?" And the partner is like "I didn't think so either." The point of the joke is that the robot wants to follow the warrant requirement, because its a rule, but the human cop knows that its okay to break the rules when the bad guy could get away. So no, not everyone opposes mass surveillance. Just watch some movies. Since the time of westerns there's been this deep seated idea that procedural protections are optional when a bad guy could get away. This is not a failure of democracy. This is a non-democratically designed procedure being eroded by democracy.