5 ms·

This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. It's on the order of slavery, women's suffrage, the "trail of tears", prohibition, civil rights in the

by logn 12y ago

This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. It's on the order of slavery, women's suffrage, the "trail of tears", prohibition, civil rights in the South, etc. In other words, to reign in surveillance will take enormous will on the part of the people to change deeply rooted systems of government and power that reach far beyond any single politician. Unfortunately I don't think the people have the will to change this currently because the harm being done is so well hidden, even after Snowden's revelations.

opendais 12y ago
> This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. If you kick out enough politicians in a Democracy, you get a completely new majority government. We need to kick out about 55% of Congress.
- logn 12y ago
  But aside from that you have corporations profiting from surveillance, numerous gov't employees and contractors involved, judges receiving perks and legal bribes, existing surveillance legislation and court precedent, state and local employees/contractors (from traffic cops to fusion center workers) whose work is based on surveillance data, foreign governments who do much of the same the US does, a media that has been bought off and consolidated.
  - opendais 12y ago
    Yes. And with the right laws you can reduce that to reasonable levels.
    - maccard 12y ago
      A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. How do you know define reasonable assumption for getting a warrant to search someones home? If you need tangible evidence for that, then the warrant is basically pointless because you ahve what you need already. PCI compliance for instace is clearly being violated here, as are numerous data protection acts; the issue is that nobody is accountable for it
      - opendais 12y ago
        > A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. You need to replace Congress to close loopholes. You need to replace the President & Congress to replace the Supreme Court & enforce the laws. Seems all politics to me.
        rurban 12y ago
        And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians. There's no other way out than start telling people the truth. Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels. Seems all press and misinformation to me.
        opendais 12y ago
        > And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians. Read up. :/ I already said that. > Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels. That's ridiculous.
- ossreality 12y ago
  Meanwhile the entire apparatus of the NSA continues to exist in it's same form and doesn't give a shit what Congress looks like. Does anyone even believe that the NSA would actually stop if Congress "told" them to?
pdkl95 12y ago
It's hard to generate that kind of willpower in most people when you have groups like JTRIG spreading the "anybody that mentions the NSA doing something bad must be a tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy" meme and other methods[1] of breaking up "unrest". This is why we have freedom of assembly. It is hard to get people to stand up alone in defense of an idea, but when they can see firsthand that there are other people that also want to stand up in defense a lot more people will join in. I suspect that the primary threat we face is not about arresting unpopular groups or even information based blackmail; the threat we face is one where organization any opposition is next to impossible. You can try and conduct things offline and remind everybody that "loose lips sink ships!", but the predictive power we have discovered in data mining could make any organized opposition fall at the first tiny mistake [1] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

by logn 12y ago

opendais 12y ago

> This issue is bigger than just voting in new politicians. If you kick out enough politicians in a Democracy, you get a completely new majority government. We need to kick out about 55% of Congress.

logn 12y ago
But aside from that you have corporations profiting from surveillance, numerous gov't employees and contractors involved, judges receiving perks and legal bribes, existing surveillance legislation and court precedent, state and local employees/contractors (from traffic cops to fusion center workers) whose work is based on surveillance data, foreign governments who do much of the same the US does, a media that has been bought off and consolidated.
- opendais 12y ago
  Yes. And with the right laws you can reduce that to reasonable levels.
  - maccard 12y ago
    A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. How do you know define reasonable assumption for getting a warrant to search someones home? If you need tangible evidence for that, then the warrant is basically pointless because you ahve what you need already. PCI compliance for instace is clearly being violated here, as are numerous data protection acts; the issue is that nobody is accountable for it
    - opendais 12y ago
      > A number of those laws already exist, but are ignored or have exploitable loopholes. You need to replace Congress to close loopholes. You need to replace the President & Congress to replace the Supreme Court & enforce the laws. Seems all politics to me.
      - rurban 12y ago
        And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians. There's no other way out than start telling people the truth. Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels. Seems all press and misinformation to me.
        opendais 12y ago
        > And what to do with the executive? And what do you with the legislative? Only the supreme court can be replaced by politicians. Read up. :/ I already said that. > Which might start with independent media and education. But US people are already even more indoctrinated than in the 30ies with Goebbels. That's ridiculous.
ossreality 12y ago
Meanwhile the entire apparatus of the NSA continues to exist in it's same form and doesn't give a shit what Congress looks like. Does anyone even believe that the NSA would actually stop if Congress "told" them to?

pdkl95 12y ago

It's hard to generate that kind of willpower in most people when you have groups like JTRIG spreading the "anybody that mentions the NSA doing something bad must be a tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy" meme and other methods[1] of breaking up "unrest". This is why we have freedom of assembly. It is hard to get people to stand up alone in defense of an idea, but when they can see firsthand that there are other people that also want to stand up in defense a lot more people will join in. I suspect that the primary threat we face is not about arresting unpopular groups or even information based blackmail; the threat we face is one where organization any opposition is next to impossible. You can try and conduct things offline and remind everybody that "loose lips sink ships!", but the predictive power we have discovered in data mining could make any organized opposition fall at the first tiny mistake [1] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...