4 ms·

Though I completely agree with the intention of your point, the same sort of logic can be used to justify all sorts of dubious "three letter" activity. By that

by mmmooo 12y ago

Though I completely agree with the intention of your point, the same sort of logic can be used to justify all sorts of dubious "three letter" activity. By that same logic, are you still an idiot if instead of a tweet, it was a facebook public post? How about a facebook post marked only visible to your friends? Or in an email to your brother's wife's third cousin? I'm not a big fan of slippery slopes, but this one looks a bit lubricated.

deleted 12y ago
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javajosh 12y ago
Yes, and this has to do with the nature of power. Government naturally has a huge amount of power - they can confine you, kill you (in most states), take your property away, access all of your data, and do other really bad things to you, like irrevocably label you a felon. The only real limits are the will of law-enforcement, legal limits, and real resources (like prisons and bullets). What's happening now is that the limits on the "access all of your data" power are eroding or gone mostly because of this line of thinking. "Wouldn't we feel stupid if a nuke went off on US soil when there were emails going back and forth about it we could have read." The framers of the Constitution understood that a government is an extraordinarily powerful beast, and that it's not always just. That's why they spelled out limits to it's power, like the 1st and 4th Amendment. Now we have government operatives at every level clamoring to remove these shackles to their productivity. "We can only protect you if you give up your rights," they say. But who will protect us from them?
michaelt 12y ago
The criteria for it getting on the front page is "anything an investigative journalist could get their hands on with a few days of dedicated searching, assuming they knew the person's name" So tweets are in and public facebook messages are in, but private facebook messages and e-mails are out.

by mmmooo 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

javajosh 12y ago

Yes, and this has to do with the nature of power. Government naturally has a huge amount of power - they can confine you, kill you (in most states), take your property away, access all of your data, and do other really bad things to you, like irrevocably label you a felon. The only real limits are the will of law-enforcement, legal limits, and real resources (like prisons and bullets). What's happening now is that the limits on the "access all of your data" power are eroding or gone mostly because of this line of thinking. "Wouldn't we feel stupid if a nuke went off on US soil when there were emails going back and forth about it we could have read." The framers of the Constitution understood that a government is an extraordinarily powerful beast, and that it's not always just. That's why they spelled out limits to it's power, like the 1st and 4th Amendment. Now we have government operatives at every level clamoring to remove these shackles to their productivity. "We can only protect you if you give up your rights," they say. But who will protect us from them?

michaelt 12y ago

The criteria for it getting on the front page is "anything an investigative journalist could get their hands on with a few days of dedicated searching, assuming they knew the person's name" So tweets are in and public facebook messages are in, but private facebook messages and e-mails are out.