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The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

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Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#2
Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of.

Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.

Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#3

Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of. Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.

> until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world

I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today.

Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won't eliminate terrorism entirely. Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking), the threat of terrorism will forever loom.

Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#4

Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of. Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.

Terrorism is a reaction to policies conducted in foreign lands for the most part. If one wants less of it, one has to reduce their agressive behavior overseas. This is true for the US but also France, the UK and the like.

Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#8
> Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.

Calling all engineers! We do have the power amongst ourselves to add technical impediments to surveillance to the services we're building, and to the internet as a whole.

The technology exists to prevent surveillance, we just need to care, and to use it. Also keep in mind that net neutrality would be an automatic byproduct of an internet that prevents automatic surveillance.

> “The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to ‘collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always.’”

This will never change, and I would go so far as to suggest it's even a reasonable position to take, from someone who's job it is to collect information for the government. What we need to do is make our internet usage unavailable to onlookers.

Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#9

Putting the debate over actual necessity aside, it's not a great political move to be the one to actually abolish any of these programs. God forbid a future attack is shown to have been planned through a medium that you or your party ended surveillance of. Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.

> until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today. Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won…

Which is why government allows for surveillance directly in its constitution. Search warrants have always existed.

There is no government without a search warrant, since no government allows privacy against the state's will.

Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.

Re: The US’s Stance on Surveillance Needs a Hard Reset

#10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today. Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won…

Which is why government allows for surveillance directly in its constitution. Search warrants have always existed. There is no government without a search warrant, since no government allows privacy against the state's will. Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.

Right, but there is a procedure behind obtaining a search warrant, which is nothing at all like giving the government blanket surveillance powers.
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