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Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance
- ohmshalalala 11y agoWar...HUH...what is it good for? Absolutely nothin..say it again!
- rasur 11y agoYou'd think someone would have the wit to have Pardoned him by now, no?
- mcdougle 11y agoDid you see the episode of John Oliver's show recently about the subject? Oliver went out and asked people about it, and the general response was "Who is Edward Snowden? Didn't he release some documents that compromised the safety of the U.S.?" and "NSA? Privacy? Meh." On HN and Reddit, there's plenty of knowledge of the subject because that's the kind of stuff we're interested in and concerned about. But most of society apparently couldn't care less.
- cryoshon 11y agoShrug, that "most of society" is getting integrated more with sites like Reddit etc. Exposure to previously not-discussed knowledge is increasing, and people's diet of the mainstream media is (very slowly) weakening.
- mcdougle 11y agoTrue, but I think even most who read things like Reddit don't necessarily follow the main stuff that's posted. Reddit's kind of a mixed bag of information, and people go there for all sorts of stuff. I know I generally skip over a lot of the stuff on the front page, even if it might be a big deal, if it doesn't look particularly interesting to me. When I said HN and Reddit I should've said the more technical crowd.
- sharkweek 11y agoI still frequently hear the "I'm not doing anything wrong, what do I care if they're recording me?" argument.
- lentil_soup 11y agoFor those people I love this quote from Snowden himself: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say" [0] [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_...
- mcdougle 11y agoI hadn't heard that before. That's a really good quote/counter-argument
- desp 11y agoI keep seeing this John Oliver segment brought up in threads related to Snowden & the NSA - it's a comedy show! While interesting, it is not statistically significant proof that "most of society apparently couldn't care less." 0.33% of the US is more than 1 million people. They show ~8 tourists in Times Square on a cold morning in April. Additionally, being able to identify Snowden is not necessarily indicative of public awareness and concern around issues of civil liberty, privacy, etc. When you do go looking for these numbers they of course vary wildly based on the poll source, questions asked, etc. As a quick example, these two pew reports[1][2] can be interpreted pretty differently. Does anybody know of any great analysis that's been done in this space? [1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/nsa-opinion/country/united-states*/ http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/nsa-opinion/country/unit... [2] http://www.people-press.org/question-search/?qid=1858375&pid=51&ccid=51#top http://www.people-press.org/question-search/?qid=1858375&pid...
- mcdougle 11y agoTrue. But his bit follows pretty closely with what I've experienced (and I've heard others say the same). My friends within the tech sphere pretty much all understand the issue and have an opinion on it. For the most part, my friends outside of the tech sphere generally don't care -- the ones that do are usually pretty into current events and generally know more about what's going on in the world than I do. I know that's still not statistically significant, but I haven't really seen much analysis on it, so I go with what I've got.
- rasur 11y agoSadly no idea who John Oliver is until you mentioned him (English man living in Switzerland). Quite sad that a lot of Americans don't know who Snowden is, I think most Europeans do (in a completely unscientific anecdata kind of way, you understand..)
- adregan 11y agoSee the discussion on this article from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663415
- Zenst 11y agoThe World also says No to Crime and that is the crux and fine balance.
- tosseraccount 11y ago"World says no to surveillance" Headline is deceptive. Loading the New York Times itself has plenty of third party cookies. The world uses Google and has no idea what cookies and flash tracking is. Most people I speak to say "Who cares?"
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- maresca 11y agoBut you have the choice to use or not use those sites. You also have the ability to block those things. You can't block government surveillance.
- tosseraccount 11y agoIf you know how to block tracking by Google and the New York Times, you have the expertise to throw the Feds off the trail, too. How many people know how to do this?
- maresca 11y agoIf you think technical expertise is enough to throw Feds off your trail, you are sorely mistaken.
- Practicality 11y agoIt's probably a matter of degrees. Clearly there must be a degree of expertise that would be sufficient. However, it's not likely that most of us reading this discussion would have that. I think you would need to be knee-deep in all the security journals and following every detail. Most of us don't have the time.
- bikeshack 11y agoExcept for the part when they will care eventually. Secrecy loves silence
- secfirstmd 11y agoBring him home!
- miguelrochefort 11y agoIt's unsettling to see how irational people become when faced with the question of privacy. It is obvious that in the next 10 years, privacy will become frowned upon. I personally see surveillance as progress, and am ready to embrace it. Feel free to ask me anything about that.
- caskance 11y agoWhat is it like being so brave?
- miguelrochefort 11y agoIt's just common sense, really.
- jacquesm 11y agoIt really isn't common sense, it is common but not sensical. Privacy is a great good and a lack thereof has vast implications none of which are beneficial to the whole of society. Privacy may be well worth the occasional death-by-terrorist or even the drug problem (which is far larger than terrorism). And who am I kidding, it's not as if the terrorists and the drug traffickers are the real target of this surveillance, it's basically the prelude to a statist future where any progressive will be 'on the radar' before they even realize they're worthy of the term.
- caskance 11y agoIf you choose to assume that privacy is inherently good, of course you will reach conclusions that say we should prioritize privacy over other things. Not really useful to people who recognize that privacy was nothing more than a temporary artifact of urbanization happening before widespread access to technology, and on the balance made people measurably less happy.
- jacquesm 11y ago
- mhurron 11y ago"Privately, there were moments when I worried that we might have put our privileged lives at risk for nothing — that the public would react with indifference, or practiced cynicism, to the revelations." Except I don't see anything other than that. I don't see the world saying no to servailence. I see Europeans complaining about the NSA while turning a blind eye to their own governments doing the same thing, but that's nothing new. I see Americans demanding the government do whatever they can do 'stop terrorism.' I only see people agreeing with Snowden and really being annoyed with the survailence because I frequent the small groups of people that do. Outside of that, I don't see it.
- cryoshon 11y agoThere's been congressional and judiciary action and an abundance of discussion. You can't claim there is public indifference: congress would never move on an otherwise niche issue unless they were fearful. There's a plurality of people concerned about increasing security in light of all the recent hackings of public data. This issue is intimately related to surveillance, and is undeniably of rising concern. This is the start! It took two years to get rolling, but there is the potential to get back on the right track.
- bttf 11y agoDespite that, I think the fact that major tech companies are bringing encryption into the fold as a standard feature, along with the judicial branch knocking down the NSA calling their practices unconstitutional certainly counts for something, if not for a lot of effort from a lot of concerned members of society.
- jobu 11y agoDo you think the Patriot Act would've been allowed to lapse if it weren't for Snowden? It's possible, but seems very unlikely. The USA Freedom act may not be perfect, but it helps and there's no way it would exist without the documents Snowden released. Also: - NSA's phone spying program ruled illegal by appeals court ( http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/07/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSKBN0NS1IN20150507 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/07/us-usa-security-ns... ) - Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech On Encryption, Privacy ( http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-blistering-speech-on-encryption-privacy/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/apples-tim-cook-delivers-bl... ) - Fuck these guys - Brandon Downey, Google Security Engineer (https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG
- swombat 11y agoI may be cynical, but I see the opposite. I really want to believe Snowden is right about this, but what I see is governments passing more obscure laws to create more legal loopholes, and in fact doubling down on the investment in "security" infrastructure. I don't see a trend of governments demanding accountability from their spies. Quite the opposite. The conservative government is about to try to pass yet another version of the Snooper's Charter, and you know what, I think this time they may well succeed, since the tories have the majority and have only just won their seats. Even if they vote to betray the human race by passing the Snooper's Charter, it will be forgotten by the time the next election comes round. Looking around Europe, I don't see a lot of visible concern about this. Occasional articles, etc, but most people don't get why this is important. The only positive trend at all is the increase in use of encryption that he notes. And to balance out that positive trend, what do we have? Governments of the world starting to make noises that "encryption should be illegal". Will Apple, Google, Facebook, etc, keep fighting for encryption if it's made illegal? Dubious. We're losing this battle at the moment.
- jokoon 11y agoAnother cost is the trust people put in technology. This could really result in ugly situations. What I'm scared of is that it could turn into a situations where people believe they have privacy, and it would be impossible to prove otherwise. You'll either end up paranoiac or it would effectively result in a society of political control. I wonder if it's possible for an investigator or a hacker to use suspicious behavior to lure the NSA and prove that they were being under surveillance while they are effectively innocent. It would be difficult to present it, since it would require legal and technological explanations.
- swombat 11y agoBasically, we are in some kind of technological singularity, at least for most people. Humans on average are no longer smart enough to understand and cope with the technological developments around them. Even if you knew everything that was going on (as Snowden largely did), and you could prove that it's evil, most humans don't have the intellectual skills required to understand it, no matter how calmly and clearly you try to explain it. It's beyond their ability to understand.
- LordKano 11y agoThe world may be saying "No" but it's saying it with a whisper. For anything to change, the world will need to say it with a scream. If every politician that voted for snooping were to be recalled or lose their next election, that would change things. Just saying "the right thing" to pollsters but voting the bums back in won't change anything.
- jacquesm 11y agoI wished this were true. But I really don't see it. Of the non-IT folk around me nobody seems to give a damn. And even of the IT folk there are quite a few in the 'governments are great, shut up and let them do their job' or 'if you've got nothing to hide' or 'that Snowden jerk is a traitor and a supporter of the terrorists' groups. Which is a real pity, they of all people should know better. What has changed post Snowdens revelations is that the governments are passing laws left, right and center to make their previous illegal behaviour legal and to reboot their programs under different names. And of course better security procedures to prevent the next Edward Snowden from either doing the deed or getting away with it without being caught whilst still within the borders. It's better than nothing, but the world is - alas - not saying no to Surveillance, if only.
- higherpurpose 11y agoYou don't need 90% support to cause a "revolution". When communism started falling around 1989 in many countries most hid in their homes, while the few fought in the streets. Most people don't care about fracking either. In fact, I think the majority support it when it's being sold as "cheaper energy!". Yet fracking is starting to get banned in multiple countries and the activists are causing a lot of trouble for those in the US as well.