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/u/161719 tells us all why surveillance is not OK

406 points by davidbarker 13y ago

hacknat 13y ago
I like this a lot. It does a good job of dispelling the poor I've-got-nothing-to-hide defense. Being against a surveillance state isn't about being against the state being able to prosecute criminals, it's about being against giving the state (a group of people) the architecture to leverage personal information to maintain a political agenda. This sounds conspiratorial in the US and, I think, for now, it kind of is. However liberty is chipped away in bits and pieces, not in broad swings of an axe. "161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. However, the day will come when the chips are down on some administration, because of some terrorist attack (domestic or foreign) or politically volatile situation, and there will be immense political and moral support for them to utilize our, now, nascent surveillance architecture to stop bad things from happening that are morally gray (like a political movement that is highly divisive). That's the nightmare scenario. Those who take the government's surveillance abuses seriously aren't (de facto) anti-security or anti-law-and-order they are concerned, I think, rightly so about the path we are headed down.
- saraid216 13y ago
  One of these days, you guys are going to figure out how to make this argument without resorting to "In the grim darkness of the far future, blackmail will totally happen. This will be incredibly new and no one will have figured out it happens until it's too late!" Blackmail has been happening regularly for the past four thousand years, ever since we noticed that politics is a thing. These "nightmare scenarios" are like Socrates talking about how people won't understand each other anymore because everything's being written down, or how people say the Internet is making us stupid because filter bubble or what not. You guys keep going on about how, if you don't stop things now, it'll be bad down the road. This is blind idiocy. The nightmare scenario already showed up a thousand years ago. You need to figure out how to respond to it, rather than trying to prevent it. Figuring out how to scare the sheeple isn't a pissing contest between you and the state.
  - cdada 13y ago
    right because the state never makes any appeal to emotion, ever. what they say is always rational
    - saraid216 13y ago
      You might want to take reading lessons, since I said the exact opposite of that.
- eric_bullington 13y ago
  >"161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. You'd be surprised how fast things can go downhill under proper conditions. In 1984, Sarajevo, which prided itself as being the most cosmopolitan and tolerant of cities in Yugoslavia, was at the top of the world. At the time, Yugoslavia a very advanced and prosperous country with the world's sixth largest army and fifth largest air force (by air assets), and nearly matched the largest economies of the Eastern Block by GDP (Poland and Czechoslovakia). It also enjoyed significantly more political freedom than the Eastern Block, with most citizens able to freely travel to both Western Europe and the Eastern Block countries. That year, Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics, and basked in the admiration of the world. There was little to no talk of "ethnic tensions" or "ancient hatreds", and all three major religions mixed freely, along with a sizable Jewish population dating back to the 1400s. Sarajevo had by far the highest rate of interreligious marriage of any Yugoslav city. Six years later, Bosnia was in a state of horrific sectarian war, Sarajevo was under siege, and a campaign of religious genocide against the local Muslim population was well underway in the countryside around the city. War refugees brought with them tales of violence unheard of in Europe since the Nazi years. The brutal war lasted for another 3 bloody years, with almost 200,000 dying in Bosnia alone from the violence. My point is, given the right conditions, things can go downhill from "pretty good" to "god-awful" incredibly fast.
  - pasbesoin 13y ago
    Watching that Olympics from Sarajevo, and then following the news of the war and atrocities just a few years later, was definitely a... "strange" experience. And that was with the... "luxury" of being at significant remove from the actual circumstances. I agree. One can't count on inertia. Or, perhaps it might be said, inertia can be a two-edged sword. Once the direction begins changing, it can be very difficult to stop.
  - diydsp 13y ago
    From my quick skimming of Yugoslavian history, the period from the end of World War II and in particular the 1970s up to 1986 was actually frought with economic and ethnic tensions. One of the sections of the Wikipedia page is titled "Ethnic Tensions and Economic Crisis." [1] People should also note that the Ukranian activities have been a long, unfolding process - there was the Orange Revolution there just 10 years ago. The recent events are not unanticipated. I mention these b/c your post refutes the PP's belief that the U.S. is far from "downhill." I do not believe the U.S. is anywhere near "proper" :) conditions for things to go downhill. It is still wise for us to inhibit the growth of surveillance apparatus, but the U.S. is quite different from the war-torn former Communist republics. We have had some challenges like recessions, the Enron scandal, etc., but we are simply too large, too diverse and have too much momentum for damage in any part of our country to spread and threaten the entirety of it. I believe the majority of the spying apparatus which has been uncovered has been for national and individual economic cheating and gaining military initiative rather than controlling the population. Gaining access to individuals of interest, however, is a handy fringe benefit, I imagine, and we should certainly curtail the growth of systems which abet this activity. We could start by not working for and not letting our friends work for, the architects and implementers of these systems! Of course it's not a problem for most of us in this particular sphere, because so many of us focus on delighting and creating value for customers instead! yay! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia
- lostcolony 13y ago
  Here's the kicker though: everyone who defends this type of spying does so saying it's only to catch 'terrorists'. Even if we accepted the idea that this would be all it ever was used for...it still means every one of us, right now, can be surveilled, locked up on any excuse, and charged with terrorism. Protest the government peacefully, but in an area they don't like? Terrorist. https://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-domestic-terrorism https://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-r... Really, break any law? Terrorist. http://wilmington.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/for-police-drug-use-seen-as-domestic-terrorism http://wilmington.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/for-pol... Do anything whatsoever? Terrorist. http://www.storyleak.com/everyone-now-terrorist-us-government/ http://www.storyleak.com/everyone-now-terrorist-us-governmen... Really, we're seeing this constant broadening of what can be labelled terrorism, and once you're labelled that, you effectively lose all your rights. With that, and pervasive surveillance, any act you make to change the government, or to voice your concerns as a citizen, makes you vulnerable to having all of your rights revoked. That's -terrifying-.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    everyone who defends this type of spying does so saying it's only to catch 'terrorists'. Even if we accepted the idea that this would be all it ever was used for...it still means every one of us, right now, can be surveilled, locked up on any excuse, and charged with terrorism. This is because the US government (and Five Eyes countries) has not, and probably will never define what the word "terrorist" means to them.
    - techsupporter 13y ago
      The definition of a terrorist is easy: someone who does something that the government does not like. Right now, for the United States, that definition mostly overlaps with what the governed people also do not like, such as ending people's lives and financial crimes and all that. The problem, at least for those not in charge, is that the definition can and does slip. The conundrum, at least for me, is that I am perfectly willing to accept that government--as an institution, not specifically any current government--is a good thing. Government can and should do things like build roads, provide mass transit, raise a military, promulgate regulations for things like the economy and the environment and the RF spectrum, and even make provision for health care and a social safety net. All of these things can and should exist in a modern country with a modern government. However, this only works if the people doing the governing recognize that they, too, are governed. Our (the United States) government has delegated so much to private entities and hidden agencies and "dark" budgets that the folks in those groups no longer need to feel as though they are limited. They _can_ do almost anything because our public government has _given_ them that ability. I don't think that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, just that a good idea can inevitably be twisted into something foul.
- pron 13y ago
  The problem is that this misuse of power by the US government happens hand-in-hand with a power grab of the same scale by US corporations. Google collects similar amounts of information as the NSA, and certainly uses much more of it than the NSA does. So you could say the US is facing two threats: government overreach and corporate feudalism. The question then becomes which of the two is the more serious, and more imminent threat? Considering American culture and history, and combining it with a sober, non-ideological analysis of the current forces affecting government and its structure, I'd say that corporate feudalism is a lot more likely, and a much bigger threat.
  - Datsundere 13y ago
    You can avoid google, not put your picture up on social media and so on. But you can't avoid the government.
    - pron 13y ago
      But you can't avoid Google. First, the people you correspond with may be on Google. Second, and this is the most important point, Google does not make clear the terms of the contract you're entering with them (i.e. free services in exchange for semi-authorized surveillance). In effect, they're tricking people into surveillance. In many ways this is far worse than what the government does because what the government does irks people; it generates anger. Google does not, and they have people like you maintain the illusion that you can opt out of Google, when, in fact, "opting out" is really hard. In 1984 Orwell made it clear that Big Brother rules through love, not violence or coercion. Few would rebel against a power that creates an illusion that it is not oppressive. A government does not have this advantage.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >"161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. Wait, who said it's not abused as we speak? In fact, illegal surveillance was going on (and abused) at least since the J.E Hoover days.
snitko 13y ago
But people can still vote and I'm sure that voting and democracy will help them elect honest leaders who have their best interest in mind, right? I mean, it worked in 2008 with Obama, right? Right?
- zzzcpan 13y ago
  You are being sarcastic, right?
  - zzzcpan 13y ago
    I guess some people genuinely believe that they "choose" their leaders. Ok.
    - snitko 13y ago
      I was being sarcastic, yes.
      - zzzcpan 13y ago
        Ok. I was referring to all the downvotes on that question.
tinalumfoil 13y ago
r/conspiracy is a joke full of hyperbole. That's a pretty large jump from Snowden's NSA leaks to the government using threats regularly to control people to full on civil war with all journalists dead or in jail.
- snitko 13y ago
  Happened in Ukraine though. Pretty much out of the blue sky. People thought they were rather safe, judging by the experience of the past years and then suddenly this violence. Why? Because when government feels threatened it doesn't care about constitution or anything it ever promised. The question for the government is "what is the most effective way I can deal with this". If violence is more effective and government has more to lose not using it, violence will be used.
  - snitko 13y ago
    I should also add the the sad truth about state violence is that it doesn't cost anything to those who order it. Taxpayers, the ones this violence is being used against, are paying for it. Problem is, they usually don't recognize this fact. A more effective way in the extreme case when government orders a crackdown would be to stop paying, not go and protest. You can get in trouble either way, but in the latter case the state wouldn't have any excuse that "you started it".
    - darkmighty 13y ago
      In an apocalyptic crackdown situation it wouldn't really matter to the government whether the government is being paid. They are the sole issuers of money. Sure, this damages the economy, but if they have disregarded public welfare to such a point they may as well do a little economic damage.
      - snitko 13y ago
        This is why people should stop paying before the government grows into a monster.
allochthon 13y ago
I think this story is touching. But it misdiagnoses the real danger facing the US at the present time and misapplies the lesson to be learned, which no doubt is applicable in some parts of the world. The real danger facing the US at the present time is not of becoming a fascist surveillance state. It's of becoming a corporation, with a vast sea of indentured servants, where the owners of the corporation are a small group of people with wealth beyond one's wildest dreams. This is the dystopian scenario that Orwell would write about if he were alive today. In this future, you will have to be on good terms with the management of the corporation, or you will find yourself in great difficulties. The owners will take pride in the acts of charity and goodwill that they bestow upon you, the poor, and will expect gratitude in return.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - allochthon 13y ago
    I can sympathize with your position. But I think effective action requires one to be clear-eyed in one's analysis. In my own analysis I see two mostly independent threats. One is a genuine threat (the coming of plutocracy), and one is a threat that feels more theoretical than pressing. That's just my analysis. Other people will come to their own conclusions.
- rosser 13y ago
  ...because your scenario and /u/161719's are somehow mutually exclusive? To the contrary, I think the eventuality described in TFA is almost necessary for establishing the corporatist state you fear.
  - zzzcpan 13y ago
    His one is the cause.
- snitko 13y ago
  Corporations are many. Government is one. Corporations don't have police force or armies because they would be paying for them out of their own pocket. Instead, they lobby the government to use violence/regulation/wars where it is required for profits, and then taxpayers pay for it. So, what you really want, is remove opportunities for corporations to use free money. Then everything they do, they'd have to pay for out of their own pocket. And that would be a game changer.
thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago
For anyone who owns a website, remember to sign up for http://thedaywefightback.org http://thedaywefightback.org.
1457389 13y ago
It's funny he mentions animal rights activists... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QbLK5aySU&t=2m47s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QbLK5aySU&t=2m47s The actual document he is referring to: http://imgur.com/NobVcQD http://imgur.com/NobVcQD
infocollector 13y ago
The problem is, its very hard to deter a government from surveillance. And its almost impossible to even build tools that will stop governments from prying - if they wish to do so (The problem is not crypto of course). That is why we started building http://bit.ly/blibonline http://bit.ly/blibonline - but then its no match to any government.
- avmich 13y ago
  Government should really lose it's practical power on many matters. Examples: government officials actually should be very transparent, as in "they can't refuse they are constantly monitored by public". Legal opportunities for various kinds of "closed doors negotiations" should be sharply reduced, as in "closed door negotiations are only allowed in cases 1), 2) and 3)", for example, military, international talks. Many decisions involving specific actions are required to have the name of the decider, who is both required to be questioned by public and, if public decides, removed from the position (mechanism of decision is another matter).
thret 13y ago
This post strongly reminded me of Beatrice and Virgil. I'd like to point out that the protagonist loses the moment he turns on his friends. That's the turning point.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
iuguy 13y ago
I'd love to share the optimism that the genie can be put back in the bottle, but I don't. When we talk about surveillance on western forums, we mostly refer to the work by the five eyes community, but they're not the only community interested in or doing this sort of thing. Russia's SORM-2, expanded for the Sochi Olympics is a prime example, the Chinese have something similar too. The fact is that even if western governments turn round to their intelligence agencies and tell them to stop all of this, other countries will still fill the gap. If Germany tells America to stop spying on German citizens in Germany, do you think America will stop spying on them? No, of course not. Do you think the German intelligence community will give up benefiting from such information if it helps them bypass any new privacy laws put in place? No, of course not. It's here. The difference between the Stasi and the NSA when it comes to surveillance is not intent, simply capability. Any intelligence agency that would've had this level of capability would've pushed it as far as they can, it's what they do and they're not going to change.
- alextingle 13y ago
  Of course there will always be bad guys out there trying to subvert freedom. I think it's reasonable for those of us in the "free world" to expect our governments to help defend us from these bad actors, not use our taxes to fund them!
  - aggie 13y ago
    “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956
    - alextingle 13y ago
      Cute quote. Now explain how it relates to my point. Here it is again, for your convenience: Evil may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it must be government funded.
jokoon 13y ago
I don't like conspiracists. I think their motive is good, but the result is always poor and often irrelevant because it's politicized. That story is just over-reaching. Conspiracy is a dog biting its own tail, I'm sure many people try to use conspiracy for political goals, just like Nazi propaganda did. If I were a politician, there are many ways I could use conspiracy theories to change the public opinion. I don't think it entirely make any conspiracy theory wrong, but as always, be careful of movements of groups of people. If you don't understand what I mean, watch Promised Land (Gus Van Sant movie with matt damon about fracking in a small US town). It describes very well how to use FUD in politics to efficiently change the public opinion.
- foxhill 13y ago
  this person claims to be a victim of oppression and surveillance, and you're comparing the recital of this story to nazi propaganda. ok. i don't see how the story is over-reaching. people like you are the reason systems like prism exist - "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about". this is the world we live in now. things are going to get worse before (if) they get better. unfortunately, i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent.
  - bananacurve 13y ago
    >i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent. Statements like this make people roll their eyes and walk away. You don't need hyperbole to explain why mass surveillance is dangerous.
  - jokoon 13y ago
    > "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about". I actually believe free speech is a strong set of checks and balances, which once acquired, is hard to remove. It's a strong safety against abuse. It's something people actually believe in. Do you really think evil people are crazy enough to plot against free speech ? It's easier to just use free speech to prove someone's claims are stupid. Oppression occurs mostly because of economics, not because of surveillance. Aren't you happy Snowden remembered free speech ? It's a great example of summoning the courage to defend important concept, but there is no reason to compare a developed country, democratically-elected government, using congress and plenty of other of other functional institutions, with developing and third world countries. You got to watch history too. On top of it, I agree about how surveillance can be used to blackmail people, but I doubt you can entirely shut dissent with just blackmail. Blackmail is not a good thing, but you can't honestly believe, with the amount of communications and books, that Orwell predicted the future. Orwell warned us, just like Huxley, so it's not like it's going to happen in the US. I just want to have a honest debate, and I will shoot any emotional attempts to explain how this or that is good or bad, because it's not enough. This comment is just using emotions and fear to make a point. FUD if you prefer. I want to believe that surveillance is setting an apocalypse, but I'm just skeptic enough to just think twice.
tootie 13y ago
The mechanisms for surveillance and the political will to oppress are orthogonal. The Gestapo didn't need XKeyscore.
icantthinkofone 13y ago
The problem with this is he's assuming the US government is the same as his. It's not. If the government emailed you a sexy picture with threats, how long before you show it to the press and the police? Remember, local police are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Neither is the press. Nor are state and local government officials. It's not the same. Any comparison is naive.
almosnow 13y ago
this story sucks (downvote me, I don't care) /u/161719 is not even good for writing fiction; is not even good for writing anything at all

406 points by davidbarker 13y ago

I like this a lot. It does a good job of dispelling the poor I've-got-nothing-to-hide defense. Being against a surveillance state isn't about being against the state being able to prosecute criminals, it's about being against giving the state (a group of people) the architecture to leverage personal information to maintain a political agenda. This sounds conspiratorial in the US and, I think, for now, it kind of is. However liberty is chipped away in bits and pieces, not in broad swings of an axe. "161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. However, the day will come when the chips are down on some administration, because of some terrorist attack (domestic or foreign) or politically volatile situation, and there will be immense political and moral support for them to utilize our, now, nascent surveillance architecture to stop bad things from happening that are morally gray (like a political movement that is highly divisive). That's the nightmare scenario. Those who take the government's surveillance abuses seriously aren't (de facto) anti-security or anti-law-and-order they are concerned, I think, rightly so about the path we are headed down.

saraid216 13y ago
One of these days, you guys are going to figure out how to make this argument without resorting to "In the grim darkness of the far future, blackmail will totally happen. This will be incredibly new and no one will have figured out it happens until it's too late!" Blackmail has been happening regularly for the past four thousand years, ever since we noticed that politics is a thing. These "nightmare scenarios" are like Socrates talking about how people won't understand each other anymore because everything's being written down, or how people say the Internet is making us stupid because filter bubble or what not. You guys keep going on about how, if you don't stop things now, it'll be bad down the road. This is blind idiocy. The nightmare scenario already showed up a thousand years ago. You need to figure out how to respond to it, rather than trying to prevent it. Figuring out how to scare the sheeple isn't a pissing contest between you and the state.
- cdada 13y ago
  right because the state never makes any appeal to emotion, ever. what they say is always rational
  - saraid216 13y ago
    You might want to take reading lessons, since I said the exact opposite of that.
eric_bullington 13y ago
>"161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. You'd be surprised how fast things can go downhill under proper conditions. In 1984, Sarajevo, which prided itself as being the most cosmopolitan and tolerant of cities in Yugoslavia, was at the top of the world. At the time, Yugoslavia a very advanced and prosperous country with the world's sixth largest army and fifth largest air force (by air assets), and nearly matched the largest economies of the Eastern Block by GDP (Poland and Czechoslovakia). It also enjoyed significantly more political freedom than the Eastern Block, with most citizens able to freely travel to both Western Europe and the Eastern Block countries. That year, Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics, and basked in the admiration of the world. There was little to no talk of "ethnic tensions" or "ancient hatreds", and all three major religions mixed freely, along with a sizable Jewish population dating back to the 1400s. Sarajevo had by far the highest rate of interreligious marriage of any Yugoslav city. Six years later, Bosnia was in a state of horrific sectarian war, Sarajevo was under siege, and a campaign of religious genocide against the local Muslim population was well underway in the countryside around the city. War refugees brought with them tales of violence unheard of in Europe since the Nazi years. The brutal war lasted for another 3 bloody years, with almost 200,000 dying in Bosnia alone from the violence. My point is, given the right conditions, things can go downhill from "pretty good" to "god-awful" incredibly fast.
- pasbesoin 13y ago
  Watching that Olympics from Sarajevo, and then following the news of the war and atrocities just a few years later, was definitely a... "strange" experience. And that was with the... "luxury" of being at significant remove from the actual circumstances. I agree. One can't count on inertia. Or, perhaps it might be said, inertia can be a two-edged sword. Once the direction begins changing, it can be very difficult to stop.
- diydsp 13y ago
  From my quick skimming of Yugoslavian history, the period from the end of World War II and in particular the 1970s up to 1986 was actually frought with economic and ethnic tensions. One of the sections of the Wikipedia page is titled "Ethnic Tensions and Economic Crisis." [1] People should also note that the Ukranian activities have been a long, unfolding process - there was the Orange Revolution there just 10 years ago. The recent events are not unanticipated. I mention these b/c your post refutes the PP's belief that the U.S. is far from "downhill." I do not believe the U.S. is anywhere near "proper" :) conditions for things to go downhill. It is still wise for us to inhibit the growth of surveillance apparatus, but the U.S. is quite different from the war-torn former Communist republics. We have had some challenges like recessions, the Enron scandal, etc., but we are simply too large, too diverse and have too much momentum for damage in any part of our country to spread and threaten the entirety of it. I believe the majority of the spying apparatus which has been uncovered has been for national and individual economic cheating and gaining military initiative rather than controlling the population. Gaining access to individuals of interest, however, is a handy fringe benefit, I imagine, and we should certainly curtail the growth of systems which abet this activity. We could start by not working for and not letting our friends work for, the architects and implementers of these systems! Of course it's not a problem for most of us in this particular sphere, because so many of us focus on delighting and creating value for customers instead! yay! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia
lostcolony 13y ago
Here's the kicker though: everyone who defends this type of spying does so saying it's only to catch 'terrorists'. Even if we accepted the idea that this would be all it ever was used for...it still means every one of us, right now, can be surveilled, locked up on any excuse, and charged with terrorism. Protest the government peacefully, but in an area they don't like? Terrorist. https://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-domestic-terrorism https://www.aclu.org/national-security/how-usa-patriot-act-r... Really, break any law? Terrorist. http://wilmington.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/for-police-drug-use-seen-as-domestic-terrorism http://wilmington.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/for-pol... Do anything whatsoever? Terrorist. http://www.storyleak.com/everyone-now-terrorist-us-government/ http://www.storyleak.com/everyone-now-terrorist-us-governmen... Really, we're seeing this constant broadening of what can be labelled terrorism, and once you're labelled that, you effectively lose all your rights. With that, and pervasive surveillance, any act you make to change the government, or to voice your concerns as a citizen, makes you vulnerable to having all of your rights revoked. That's -terrifying-.
- rhizome 13y ago
  everyone who defends this type of spying does so saying it's only to catch 'terrorists'. Even if we accepted the idea that this would be all it ever was used for...it still means every one of us, right now, can be surveilled, locked up on any excuse, and charged with terrorism. This is because the US government (and Five Eyes countries) has not, and probably will never define what the word "terrorist" means to them.
  - techsupporter 13y ago
    The definition of a terrorist is easy: someone who does something that the government does not like. Right now, for the United States, that definition mostly overlaps with what the governed people also do not like, such as ending people's lives and financial crimes and all that. The problem, at least for those not in charge, is that the definition can and does slip. The conundrum, at least for me, is that I am perfectly willing to accept that government--as an institution, not specifically any current government--is a good thing. Government can and should do things like build roads, provide mass transit, raise a military, promulgate regulations for things like the economy and the environment and the RF spectrum, and even make provision for health care and a social safety net. All of these things can and should exist in a modern country with a modern government. However, this only works if the people doing the governing recognize that they, too, are governed. Our (the United States) government has delegated so much to private entities and hidden agencies and "dark" budgets that the folks in those groups no longer need to feel as though they are limited. They _can_ do almost anything because our public government has _given_ them that ability. I don't think that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, just that a good idea can inevitably be twisted into something foul.
pron 13y ago
The problem is that this misuse of power by the US government happens hand-in-hand with a power grab of the same scale by US corporations. Google collects similar amounts of information as the NSA, and certainly uses much more of it than the NSA does. So you could say the US is facing two threats: government overreach and corporate feudalism. The question then becomes which of the two is the more serious, and more imminent threat? Considering American culture and history, and combining it with a sober, non-ideological analysis of the current forces affecting government and its structure, I'd say that corporate feudalism is a lot more likely, and a much bigger threat.
- Datsundere 13y ago
  You can avoid google, not put your picture up on social media and so on. But you can't avoid the government.
  - pron 13y ago
    But you can't avoid Google. First, the people you correspond with may be on Google. Second, and this is the most important point, Google does not make clear the terms of the contract you're entering with them (i.e. free services in exchange for semi-authorized surveillance). In effect, they're tricking people into surveillance. In many ways this is far worse than what the government does because what the government does irks people; it generates anger. Google does not, and they have people like you maintain the illusion that you can opt out of Google, when, in fact, "opting out" is really hard. In 1984 Orwell made it clear that Big Brother rules through love, not violence or coercion. Few would rebel against a power that creates an illusion that it is not oppressive. A government does not have this advantage.
coldtea 13y ago
>"161719" is absolutely right, it probably won't be Obama, or the next President, or the President after that abuses the surveillance architecture that has been put in place. Wait, who said it's not abused as we speak? In fact, illegal surveillance was going on (and abused) at least since the J.E Hoover days.

snitko 13y ago

But people can still vote and I'm sure that voting and democracy will help them elect honest leaders who have their best interest in mind, right? I mean, it worked in 2008 with Obama, right? Right?

zzzcpan 13y ago
You are being sarcastic, right?
- zzzcpan 13y ago
  I guess some people genuinely believe that they "choose" their leaders. Ok.
  - snitko 13y ago
    I was being sarcastic, yes.
    - zzzcpan 13y ago
      Ok. I was referring to all the downvotes on that question.

tinalumfoil 13y ago

r/conspiracy is a joke full of hyperbole. That's a pretty large jump from Snowden's NSA leaks to the government using threats regularly to control people to full on civil war with all journalists dead or in jail.

snitko 13y ago
Happened in Ukraine though. Pretty much out of the blue sky. People thought they were rather safe, judging by the experience of the past years and then suddenly this violence. Why? Because when government feels threatened it doesn't care about constitution or anything it ever promised. The question for the government is "what is the most effective way I can deal with this". If violence is more effective and government has more to lose not using it, violence will be used.
- snitko 13y ago
  I should also add the the sad truth about state violence is that it doesn't cost anything to those who order it. Taxpayers, the ones this violence is being used against, are paying for it. Problem is, they usually don't recognize this fact. A more effective way in the extreme case when government orders a crackdown would be to stop paying, not go and protest. You can get in trouble either way, but in the latter case the state wouldn't have any excuse that "you started it".
  - darkmighty 13y ago
    In an apocalyptic crackdown situation it wouldn't really matter to the government whether the government is being paid. They are the sole issuers of money. Sure, this damages the economy, but if they have disregarded public welfare to such a point they may as well do a little economic damage.
    - snitko 13y ago
      This is why people should stop paying before the government grows into a monster.

allochthon 13y ago

I think this story is touching. But it misdiagnoses the real danger facing the US at the present time and misapplies the lesson to be learned, which no doubt is applicable in some parts of the world. The real danger facing the US at the present time is not of becoming a fascist surveillance state. It's of becoming a corporation, with a vast sea of indentured servants, where the owners of the corporation are a small group of people with wealth beyond one's wildest dreams. This is the dystopian scenario that Orwell would write about if he were alive today. In this future, you will have to be on good terms with the management of the corporation, or you will find yourself in great difficulties. The owners will take pride in the acts of charity and goodwill that they bestow upon you, the poor, and will expect gratitude in return.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- allochthon 13y ago
  I can sympathize with your position. But I think effective action requires one to be clear-eyed in one's analysis. In my own analysis I see two mostly independent threats. One is a genuine threat (the coming of plutocracy), and one is a threat that feels more theoretical than pressing. That's just my analysis. Other people will come to their own conclusions.
rosser 13y ago
...because your scenario and /u/161719's are somehow mutually exclusive? To the contrary, I think the eventuality described in TFA is almost necessary for establishing the corporatist state you fear.
- zzzcpan 13y ago
  His one is the cause.
snitko 13y ago
Corporations are many. Government is one. Corporations don't have police force or armies because they would be paying for them out of their own pocket. Instead, they lobby the government to use violence/regulation/wars where it is required for profits, and then taxpayers pay for it. So, what you really want, is remove opportunities for corporations to use free money. Then everything they do, they'd have to pay for out of their own pocket. And that would be a game changer.

thomasfromcdnjs 13y ago

For anyone who owns a website, remember to sign up for http://thedaywefightback.org http://thedaywefightback.org.

1457389 13y ago

It's funny he mentions animal rights activists... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QbLK5aySU&t=2m47s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QbLK5aySU&t=2m47s The actual document he is referring to: http://imgur.com/NobVcQD http://imgur.com/NobVcQD

infocollector 13y ago

The problem is, its very hard to deter a government from surveillance. And its almost impossible to even build tools that will stop governments from prying - if they wish to do so (The problem is not crypto of course). That is why we started building http://bit.ly/blibonline http://bit.ly/blibonline - but then its no match to any government.

avmich 13y ago
Government should really lose it's practical power on many matters. Examples: government officials actually should be very transparent, as in "they can't refuse they are constantly monitored by public". Legal opportunities for various kinds of "closed doors negotiations" should be sharply reduced, as in "closed door negotiations are only allowed in cases 1), 2) and 3)", for example, military, international talks. Many decisions involving specific actions are required to have the name of the decider, who is both required to be questioned by public and, if public decides, removed from the position (mechanism of decision is another matter).

thret 13y ago

This post strongly reminded me of Beatrice and Virgil. I'd like to point out that the protagonist loses the moment he turns on his friends. That's the turning point.

deleted 13y ago

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iuguy 13y ago

I'd love to share the optimism that the genie can be put back in the bottle, but I don't. When we talk about surveillance on western forums, we mostly refer to the work by the five eyes community, but they're not the only community interested in or doing this sort of thing. Russia's SORM-2, expanded for the Sochi Olympics is a prime example, the Chinese have something similar too. The fact is that even if western governments turn round to their intelligence agencies and tell them to stop all of this, other countries will still fill the gap. If Germany tells America to stop spying on German citizens in Germany, do you think America will stop spying on them? No, of course not. Do you think the German intelligence community will give up benefiting from such information if it helps them bypass any new privacy laws put in place? No, of course not. It's here. The difference between the Stasi and the NSA when it comes to surveillance is not intent, simply capability. Any intelligence agency that would've had this level of capability would've pushed it as far as they can, it's what they do and they're not going to change.

alextingle 13y ago
Of course there will always be bad guys out there trying to subvert freedom. I think it's reasonable for those of us in the "free world" to expect our governments to help defend us from these bad actors, not use our taxes to fund them!
- aggie 13y ago
  “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956
  - alextingle 13y ago
    Cute quote. Now explain how it relates to my point. Here it is again, for your convenience: Evil may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean it must be government funded.

jokoon 13y ago

I don't like conspiracists. I think their motive is good, but the result is always poor and often irrelevant because it's politicized. That story is just over-reaching. Conspiracy is a dog biting its own tail, I'm sure many people try to use conspiracy for political goals, just like Nazi propaganda did. If I were a politician, there are many ways I could use conspiracy theories to change the public opinion. I don't think it entirely make any conspiracy theory wrong, but as always, be careful of movements of groups of people. If you don't understand what I mean, watch Promised Land (Gus Van Sant movie with matt damon about fracking in a small US town). It describes very well how to use FUD in politics to efficiently change the public opinion.

foxhill 13y ago
this person claims to be a victim of oppression and surveillance, and you're comparing the recital of this story to nazi propaganda. ok. i don't see how the story is over-reaching. people like you are the reason systems like prism exist - "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about". this is the world we live in now. things are going to get worse before (if) they get better. unfortunately, i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent.
- bananacurve 13y ago
  >i may never be able to tell you "i told you so", because in the future there may be no platform for us to express our discontent. Statements like this make people roll their eyes and walk away. You don't need hyperbole to explain why mass surveillance is dangerous.
- jokoon 13y ago
  > "oh, things got bad in some far away country, but this is america, something like that would never happen here. our politicians would never abuse the powers they are illegally giving themselves, so we don't really have anything to worry about". I actually believe free speech is a strong set of checks and balances, which once acquired, is hard to remove. It's a strong safety against abuse. It's something people actually believe in. Do you really think evil people are crazy enough to plot against free speech ? It's easier to just use free speech to prove someone's claims are stupid. Oppression occurs mostly because of economics, not because of surveillance. Aren't you happy Snowden remembered free speech ? It's a great example of summoning the courage to defend important concept, but there is no reason to compare a developed country, democratically-elected government, using congress and plenty of other of other functional institutions, with developing and third world countries. You got to watch history too. On top of it, I agree about how surveillance can be used to blackmail people, but I doubt you can entirely shut dissent with just blackmail. Blackmail is not a good thing, but you can't honestly believe, with the amount of communications and books, that Orwell predicted the future. Orwell warned us, just like Huxley, so it's not like it's going to happen in the US. I just want to have a honest debate, and I will shoot any emotional attempts to explain how this or that is good or bad, because it's not enough. This comment is just using emotions and fear to make a point. FUD if you prefer. I want to believe that surveillance is setting an apocalypse, but I'm just skeptic enough to just think twice.

tootie 13y ago

The mechanisms for surveillance and the political will to oppress are orthogonal. The Gestapo didn't need XKeyscore.

icantthinkofone 13y ago

The problem with this is he's assuming the US government is the same as his. It's not. If the government emailed you a sexy picture with threats, how long before you show it to the press and the police? Remember, local police are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Neither is the press. Nor are state and local government officials. It's not the same. Any comparison is naive.

almosnow 13y ago

this story sucks (downvote me, I don't care) /u/161719 is not even good for writing fiction; is not even good for writing anything at all