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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

#91
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this even grounded in reality?

Obama went after whistleblowers more aggressively than any prior president, so that grounds the 'journalist' part

Does Obama still have that authority?

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

#92

Trumps stance on the intelligence community might be a good thing, as they all leave leaving the government with a desire but no experienced people to do the work. Of course that also leaves us wide open to be attacked. So maybe this causes a reset of sorts.

Clearly you don't understand Trump, he's just positioning himself with the intelligence community; as far as I am able to tell, his first visit to a government agency was to the CIA headquarters.

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

#93
post #84

For any constitutional law experts: have there been any efforts to amend the 4th amendment to explicitly take into consideration private information held by third parties (ie abrogate FISA)?

Constitutional amendments are very hard to do, and in the context of mass surveillance, highly unlikely without the public demanding in as a majority.

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

#94
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in the press conflate border control with xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. I didn't vote for the guy but my take is he isn't looking to kerb legal immigration (with the exception of people form "terrorist hotbeds") so much as require all immigrants to get the proper visa as well as get expelled if they overstay a visa --normal operating procedure for most mature governments. I can understand the p…

This conflation creates division. The same occurs with a myriad of other issues. Someone could have supported Trump at the inauguration on Friday, marched in support of women's rights on Saturday, and been entirely consistent in the views they were espousing. However, a common viewpoint is that these are somehow mutually exclusive when in fact they are far from it.

Exactly. Many people were/are surprised by the large proportion of [white] women who voted for Trump and some people continue to think that only misogynists could have voted for Trump.

It's clear many people are _trying_ to sew division where none exists in order to advance an agenda [in the immigration case there are people who because they favor unregulated immigration do purposely conflate things in order to raise concern with legal immigrants --people completely unaffected by any new immigration laws]

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

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm confident our institutions are strong enough to prevent something that blatantly unconstitutional from happening I say this in all seriousness: why?

The long history of the Republic. Our Institutions have failed us whether it's slavery or the Japanese internment, Jim Crow, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, the hysteria after 911. But in each case we eventually recognized our mistakes and made corrections. Edit: also the treatment of First Nation peoples

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

#96
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this even grounded in reality?

Obama went after whistleblowers more aggressively than any prior president, so that grounds the 'journalist' part

There is also Trump's war on the media (from yesterday's CIA speech):

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/21/media/donald-trump-war-with-...

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

#97
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama went after whistleblowers more aggressively than any prior president, so that grounds the 'journalist' part

Does Obama still have that authority?

No, but he set the precedent.

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

#98
post #72
post #62

These articles are just wishful fantasy. Our history has shown that people are perfectly willing and happy to tolerate any form of govt abuse as long as they get their dose of reality tv and 'justifications' from mass media, all you need to do is mention the T word and 'keep America great' and you can do whatever you want. Even if people cared, which they don't, the govt has zero incentive to actually do anything, be…

America already has all the power to abuse the system. They have a standing military. The reason the government is the government is because they maintain a monopoly on violence. Freaking out about surveillance is like freaking out about the compass in Rambo's survival knife when he's got a rocket launcher aimed down your throat. The compass is new I suppose. The rocket launcher has been there so long we don't even n…

Honestly, I do not disagree. In some ways I imagine that mass surveillance may even be necessary for the protection of the country, considering the potential for destruction that even a few people with the right technology and planning possess. Following your logic, it seems that the mass surveillance maybe has more potential to help than to hurt (since the govt already possesses plenty of resources for destruction).

Given how many people on here are adamant about anti-surveillance I feel like I must be missing something... like I get the overall premise but it seems to exclude a lot of important considerations...

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

#99
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DACA: whether ther 1/4 million approved or the 2 million eligble, it is unknown whether they will be targeted for deportation. Undocumented workers: past Republican administrations have engaged in work place raids as an enforcement action on workers themselves, rather than on employers engaging in illegal hiring. Muslims? It's not unreasonable for them to debate in their own mind whether the president is sincere, and…

DACA and the undocumented: that's a legitimate fear. Muslin Americans and Muslins here legally: that's legitimate but I'm confident our institutions are strong enough to prevent something that blatantly unconstitutional from happening.

It is a test of the citizenry whether such assaults on those institutions is tolerated. Korematsu v. United States is an example of how those institutions alone aren't necessarily strong enough when citizens don't really give a hoot. Korematsu is widely regarded as bad law, not case law. But until there's another test, it's speculation. And even contemplating it being tested is scary, but I think less scary than ambiguity.

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

#100
post #67
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Republicans don't mind big government. I wish more Libertarians were in Congress or otherwise existed %) Democrats are not only the main,opposition to the president; they are the force that kept adding surveillance.

Republicans don't purport to oppose "government" (they're not anarcho-libertarians). They use "small government" to mean keeping government within its legitimate functions, which includes defense and maintaining moral order. When you say to a Republican that expanding the defense department necessarily means expanding "government," you're not pointing out some inconsistency they thought of. You're simply playing game…

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