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> We’ve gone from just killing bad bills to passing bills that protect people’s rights. By people, do they mean "american people"? I may be wrong but my unders

> We’ve gone from just killing bad bills to passing bills that protect people’s rights. By people, do they mean "american people"? I may be wrong but my understanding from Snowden revelations is that the NSA is listening and recording without restriction all conversations from non-US citizen (whereas it was restricted to meta-data for US citizens). I don't know if the freedom act is an improvement for the rest of the world, but I doubt so. It would be nice for our american friends to understand that we value our privacy too.

happyscrappy 11y ago
>It would be nice for our american friends to understand that we value our privacy too. I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies. Or they say "oh but my country sucks at it so it doesn't matter". The entire West shares intel and double checks each other by espionage. Of course you don't want to condemn the entire West, that would be stupid.
- zamalek 11y ago
  Exactly. America simply got caught.
- yodsanklai 11y ago
  > I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies. We're not talking about spies here but about mass surveillance. And if that can reassure you, I wouldn't be any less upset knowing that Norway or Japan openly record all my conversations and stores them until the end of times. But the thing I find insulting and scary here is that there are no consideration at all in this debate for non-US citizens. Basically, the message there is "sorry guys, what we did was wrong... except when it's about everybody else in the world". And in the end, everybody suffers from that. What Snowden said in Citizenfour is that the NSA uses the British surveillance system because it has less restriction than their own concerning americans.
saiya-jin 11y ago
yeah, it would be nice, but then they can close their surveillance agencies for good. a bit of hyperbole but let me try here - most american don't give a damn about rest of the world, do they (now this assumption is begging to be proven wrong)
mattwad 11y ago
It's more important that a government can't spy on its own people. Without equal transparency between people and state, there's no way that the people can change the government. Mass surveillance invokes fear in the people to have and share ideas the government doesn't like. I think anything that protects freedom of speech for the American people is still a win for international folk as well. Disclaimer: I am American and don't believe we will ever have an Internet where we aren't vulnerable to being watched by 'someone.'

happyscrappy 11y ago

>It would be nice for our american friends to understand that we value our privacy too. I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies. Or they say "oh but my country sucks at it so it doesn't matter". The entire West shares intel and double checks each other by espionage. Of course you don't want to condemn the entire West, that would be stupid.

zamalek 11y ago
Exactly. America simply got caught.
yodsanklai 11y ago
> I love how everyone pretends that only the US has spies. We're not talking about spies here but about mass surveillance. And if that can reassure you, I wouldn't be any less upset knowing that Norway or Japan openly record all my conversations and stores them until the end of times. But the thing I find insulting and scary here is that there are no consideration at all in this debate for non-US citizens. Basically, the message there is "sorry guys, what we did was wrong... except when it's about everybody else in the world". And in the end, everybody suffers from that. What Snowden said in Citizenfour is that the NSA uses the British surveillance system because it has less restriction than their own concerning americans.

saiya-jin 11y ago

yeah, it would be nice, but then they can close their surveillance agencies for good. a bit of hyperbole but let me try here - most american don't give a damn about rest of the world, do they (now this assumption is begging to be proven wrong)

mattwad 11y ago

It's more important that a government can't spy on its own people. Without equal transparency between people and state, there's no way that the people can change the government. Mass surveillance invokes fear in the people to have and share ideas the government doesn't like. I think anything that protects freedom of speech for the American people is still a win for international folk as well. Disclaimer: I am American and don't believe we will ever have an Internet where we aren't vulnerable to being watched by 'someone.'