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My Priorities for the Next Four Years

schneier.com

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Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#21

Post by aaron-lebo »

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things.

If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administration? Why is this fear more valid now then when people were worried four years ago? Did you not notice it? Is it because those people weren't on your side? Do we assume benevolent dictators?

I genuinely don't understand the mindset. If you know that in the future power may be abused by someone...why would you ever give someone that power? What caused this vast attention shift? It's genuinely smart people that seem to be noticing this stuff for the first time. How?

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#22

Post by acqq »

tomp wrote: post #16
AimHere wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason for thinking that Trump would be worse is precisely because Hillary and Obama's propaganda machine is good at painting them in a better light. Trump doesn't have to pretend to care about human rights, or war crimes or civil liberties - he outright came out in favour of torture, the killing of innocent people, racial profiling, and said a whole bunch of other heinous things during the campaign. At least wit…

Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme (killing people, even US citizens, without trial and with a lot of collateral damage) resulted in any change in government behaviour (except more secrecy and extensive supression of leaks/information)? My take on these questions is "no", but I haven't been following the events in det…

> Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme resulted in any change in government behaviour?

There were certainly Obama's voters that were disappointed by what Obama did, after he previously spoke differently. They have thought along these lines of the article:

"business as usual" ... "problems won't go away on their own"

... and didn't vote for her.

The problem is only having a binary choice when the both options don't look good.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#23

Post by ethbro »

tomp wrote: post #16
AimHere wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason for thinking that Trump would be worse is precisely because Hillary and Obama's propaganda machine is good at painting them in a better light. Trump doesn't have to pretend to care about human rights, or war crimes or civil liberties - he outright came out in favour of torture, the killing of innocent people, racial profiling, and said a whole bunch of other heinous things during the campaign. At least wit…

Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme (killing people, even US citizens, without trial and with a lot of collateral damage) resulted in any change in government behaviour (except more secrecy and extensive supression of leaks/information)? My take on these questions is "no", but I haven't been following the events in det…

We wouldn't be having these conversations if the leaks hadn't happened.

It was suspected before, now it's known. That's a fairly big difference.

Or in other words, speaking about nation state backhaul taps, etc as a threat model before made you a paranoid OpenBSD cyberpunk: now it makes you an average HN commenter.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#24

Post by sylvinus »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administratio…

To be fair, Bruce has been worried (and very publicly so) about those things for a long time. I think what the post transpires is just a new sense of urgency.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#25

Post by noelwelsh »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administratio…

I'm just going to respond to this in the context of this essay. It's very different to notice something and decide to do something about it. One requires much more expenditure of effort than the other. This is about how one person has decided to allocate their budget of effort over the next 4 years. One can reasonably assume they have noticed these problems before.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#27

Post by mhb »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administratio…

When "your guy" is in charge, you want him to be powerful so that he can do what you want. We've had over 200 years of never expecting "the other guy" to ever get the power even though every 4/8/12 years he does seem to.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#28

Post by privong »

sylvinus wrote: post #24
aaron-lebo wrote: post #21

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administratio…

To be fair, Bruce has been worried (and very publicly so) about those things for a long time. I think what the post transpires is just a new sense of urgency.

He even says as much:

Those are my four areas. Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same. Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win.

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#29

Post by AimHere »

tomp wrote: post #16
AimHere wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason for thinking that Trump would be worse is precisely because Hillary and Obama's propaganda machine is good at painting them in a better light. Trump doesn't have to pretend to care about human rights, or war crimes or civil liberties - he outright came out in favour of torture, the killing of innocent people, racial profiling, and said a whole bunch of other heinous things during the campaign. At least wit…

Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme (killing people, even US citizens, without trial and with a lot of collateral damage) resulted in any change in government behaviour (except more secrecy and extensive supression of leaks/information)? My take on these questions is "no", but I haven't been following the events in det…

Snowden forced the government to put in place a whole bunch of new procedures and regulations over the NSA. Much of it is, of course, cosmetic and inadequate, but it works towards slowing down the surveillance campaign and providing some sort of leverage for future lawsuits and the like.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-the-nsa-spying...

Re: My Priorities for the Next Four Years

#30

Post by karim »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #26

Brother Bruce has been fighting the righteous fight for a long time now, and he has been doing it with minimal ego and loads of class. And here is he is trying to lift the spirits of the anti-Trump privacy folks. What's wrong with that? Where's the love y'all?

I wouldn't read too much into this. People on Hacker News have this pavlovian need to contradict any article they're commenting on. If Schneier was saying the task was too big, you'd have people saying he's giving up too easily.
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