WH on NSA snooping: You can totally trust us.

[Zarn]

Nah, I actually do want privacy back as an end and a means. You're correct that I want to prevent people from gaining too much power, but I am also in favor of privacy for its own sake.

I freely confess that no solution is available at the moment. It seems hard to conceive of a way to restore privacy in the current phase of technology, but I remain stubborn and hopeful

( Finding a way to create a cultural respect for privacy is the best solution I can think of, but such a task can't even being until this stuff is less new and exciting. Right now I just keep the faith and wait on the sidelines, it's a lost cause for at least a few more decades. I don't agree with your "give everyone everything" solution, but I do agree that creating a renewed respect for privacy in the current culture is a task best not attempted.

I'm waiting for the shine to come off the apple before I really start proselytizing. )

We need to attach the issue to thing like when a cop illegally searches you car and other similar situations. It's the same thing, but it is put into a different scenario.

Ask anyone who was illegally searched (whether they had nothing to something or nothing to hide) if they were okay with it? Most people in this category are young and are not to keen on police.

 

[EvenStranger]

Exactly. People like myself need to wait until public unease over constantly being watched is ripe and then try to give it philosophical form and turn it into a real movement.

Our time is not now, IMO. We must wait a while.

 

[peter grimes]

We need to attach the issue to thing like when a cop illegally searches you car and other similar situations. It's the same thing, but it is put into a different scenario..

There's one very large difference with the NSA stuff, though.

The programs are classified as Top Secret. That's an actual legal technical term, and the result is that it can't be discussed in court. In fact, the evidence can't even be presented to most people. So we have a conundrum typical of East Germany: You are accused of crime X, based on evidence that we can't show you or your lawyer, and you can't challenge the validity of the evidence. You won't get a jury, since jurors don't have the necessary clearance to hear the evidence.

At least with uniformed beat cops you have a right to face your accuser and offer a viable defense challenge.

With the NSA stuff, that's simply not possible.

 

[Zarn]

There's one very large difference with the NSA stuff, though.

The programs are classified as Top Secret. That's an actual legal technical term, and the result is that it can't be discussed in court. In fact, the evidence can't even be presented to most people. So we have a conundrum typical of East Germany: You are accused of crime X, based on evidence that we can't show you or your lawyer, and you can't challenge the validity of the evidence. You won't get a jury, since jurors don't have the necessary clearance to hear the evidence.

At least with uniformed beat cops you have a right to face your accuser and offer a viable defense challenge.

With the NSA stuff, that's simply not possible.

Okay, but if the NSA is worse, that would only help our case. Or do you see it differently?

 

[peter grimes]

Okay, but if the NSA is worse, that would only help our case. Or do you see it differently?

I don't see it as worse, only different. They're both very very bad. Perhaps if my skin color were less bland I'd feel differently.

 

[Zarn]

A 'bland' skin color?

Anyway, there is a comparison. I find it hard that someone can argue against one but for another.

 

[Akka]

People think they can give their personal life, down to the last stitch, over to Zuckerberg and his ilk and still maintain their privacy? Idiots, every last one. Including myself, fwiw.

That's also what makes me cringe when I read about this.

Privacy is becoming scarcer and scarcer, and YOU (general "you") are to blame even much more than all the government conspiracies, as YOU are the reason why it's becoming more and more acceptable to give up all of it because it's convenient.

 

[peter grimes]

I don't see it as worse, only different. They're both very very bad. Perhaps if my skin color were less bland I'd feel differently.

A 'bland' skin color?

Anyway, there is a comparison. I find it hard that someone can argue against one but for another.

Bland, meaning that I look white.

What in my above comment leads you to believe that I'm "arguing for" one of these things? I'm unequivocally against both. I guess I should have been clearer.

My position is one is no worse than the other - they are both superbad. If I looked like a minority here in NYC, and had been stopped, searched, and frisked for no justifiable reason - then maybe I'd feel that the NYPD's Stop & Frisk program was worse.

Does that make sense?

 

[Formaldehyde]

That is apparently a major difference between a supposed liberal and a supposed conservative. The former generally seems far more willing to care no matter what color his skin is, while the latter seems preoccupied with only caring about his own rights.

But in this particular case, the only people who don't seem to care are those who have already decided to give up their freedom and liberty for perceived safety. This is an issue that crosses the traditional left-right boundary because it directly affects everybody on the planet. But it is apparently just dawning on many of those in Europe that their rights have been violated by the NSA for decades now.

 

[JollyRoger]

A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative that has been arrested.

 

[EvenStranger]

This is an issue that crosses the traditional left-right boundary because it directly affects everybody on the planet.

It also cuts to a much more fundamental character trait. Are you more interested in dignity or safety? Freedom or pragmatism?

It's tough all over.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'd hardly call being overtly fearful and paranoid of terrorists "pragmatic". It is far more an excuse to impose authoritarianism on others which is the opposite of being pragmatic.

The pragmatic approach would be to stop incessantly meddling in the affairs of other countries which directly provokes these acts.

 

[Zelig]

They could save far more lives by diverting all the money spent on terrorism prevention to healthy eating and exercise promotion.

 

[JollyRoger]

They could save far more lives by diverting all the money spent on terrorism prevention to healthy eating and exercise promotion.

Except the money they already spend on that actually promotes unhealthy eating and exercise.

 

[Zelig]

Except the money they already spend on that actually promotes unhealthy eating and exercise.

I was thinking along the lines of a draft where they only start counting your service once you meet the physical requirements.

If there's not enough money to draft everyone coming out of highschool, start by drafting the children of the wealthiest people, and work down.

 

[kramerfan86]

Their defense for this crap is ridiculous. "oh well it could have possibly prevented 9/11 if we had it" "its prevented plots... but we cant tell you about those plots just trust us"

 

[peter grimes]

Their defense for this crap is ridiculous. "oh well it could have possibly prevented 9/11 if we had it" "its prevented plots... but we cant tell you about those plots just trust us"

I'm more interested in the explanation for why it failed to prevent somethings we already know about.

Clearly this system can't be as valuable as they claim if it didn't prevent the Lakshar e Taiba attack against India - that's purportedly the precise sort of terrorism that justifies this, no?

 

[EvenStranger]

Look, it's pretty simple.

A combination of political and economic interests wants universal, absolute surveillance( I'd almost call it technological omniscience, really. ) Imagine being able to enforce the most asinine speech codes, or ban even the most innocuous things. Nobody will ever be able to so much as jaywalk or mutter an impolite word under their breath if we get where everyone seems to want to go.

 

[galdre]

They want all this surveillance to keep track of, and squash, policital dissidents.

 

[peter grimes]

Look, it's pretty simple.

A combination of political and economic interests wants universal, absolute surveillance( I'd almost call it technological omniscience, really. ) Imagine being able to enforce the most asinine speech codes, or ban even the most innocuous things. Nobody will ever be able to so much as jaywalk or mutter an impolite word under their breath if we get where everyone seems to want to go.

I'm not so sure about that. My views on the intentions of PRISM and similar products has been changing lately, and a bestof'ed post on reddit really captured a slice of my thinking, but added considerably to it.

Agencies and government contractors really should be viewed as businesses. They structure themselves that way, intelligence industry* talks of product*, clients*, consumets*, etc.

These intelligence sector entities take in budget money and output some type of data. If that data is well-marketed*, the client* will ask for more in both quantity and quality. This is the incentive* that drives collection of data.

In the case of PRISM, we have a group with a secret budget, operating in secret, producing secret products for secret clients authorized by secret rules checked by a secret court.

The only way the NSA budget remains stable is if can sell congress on flashy stuff. The people running the program do not care about jaywalking of anything. They care about their department's budget, and justifying it's existence - just like everyone else in every business environment.

I'm on my phone, so it's tough to grab a link. But please read the whole comment. This search should grab it:

!g: site:reddit.com/r/bestof angry PRISM