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Is there plan to bombard the american public on so many fronts that they accept mass surveillance? What the actual fuck is wrong with this country.
That's exactly it. It's also pretty hilarious that the GOP is trying to extend the FBI's power and oversight - given the current situation with their dear leader.
Is anyone else fatigued? The effort required, ontop of just having a normal functioning life, to parse and make decisions around potential future law is incredible. Isn't this what elected officials are ment to do on our behalf?
For years, my two biggest spheres of advocacy have been environmentalism and privacy/anti-surveillance.
What I've noticed, with that background, is that privacy activism has steadily become more like environmental activism.
With rare exceptions (e.g. the ozone layer), environmentalism is an endless, grinding rear-guard action. Extinct species do not become unextinct. Destroyed habitats do not recover, at least not within hundreds of years. Draining the Glen Canyon Dam will not restore Glen Canyon; Church Rock will never be remediated. And the threats are endless and everywhere: 4,500 species are critically endangered right now, global warming is set for 3+ degrees Celsius, the Great Barrier Reef might die entirely.
Attacks on privacy aren't new, but they seem have changed. The Clipper Chip was a central, recognizable enemy, promoted by branches of the government citizens can relate to. 24 hour turnaround on surveillance legalization for intelligence agencies is part of a new and horrible political landscape. SOPA and PIPA were indirect attacks, part of a state-corporate partnership that lets each party do the things the other is barred from. And even those were too central and easy to oppose - now they're coming back piecemeal, in budget bills and trade agreements where they're harder to address.
And as with the environment, what's lost is lost. Repealing surveillance laws is rare and unsustainable. Fighting surveillance in open courts is impossible; fighting it in FISA courts is a Kafkaesque nightmare of secret evidence and lack of standing. Corporate data-gathering is unprovable, and user information breaches are irreversible. Stolen identities can't be changed or recaptured.
So yes: I'm tired. I'm tired, and it's not an accident, because we're on the wrong end of an asymmetric fight.
I don't want to be discouraging to anyone. Please, do anything you think will be helpful. But the NSA's equipment is still in hundreds of network equipment rooms, and the data is being split off recorded and rifled at will. They'll tell you they're "not collecting" your data, but they are. They're just using some strange NSA version of English where siphoning your data and storing it on hard drives is not "collecting…
> I advocate the peaceful destruction of their facility in Utah... How? Either voting doesn't work or we as a people are too collective stupid to vote for anyone different. How many like Reid, Fienstien and Hatch just keep getting elected despite their actions? Maybe we need some real people to run? Maybe we need to be smart enough to vote them in (and out when their time is up - I'm looking at you, Hatch). A there l…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With their revealed preferences, people have signaled that they want convenience more than privacy. Really, surveillance barely even seems necessary any more. People already voluntarily tell Facebook, Uber, Instagram, Amazon and their credit cards companies every detail of their lives. I'm not even sure we can reasonably stop that. The issue to me isn't so much people gathering data, because it's obvious that will ha…
I think it's more accurate to say, people have signaled that they understand the immediate benefits of convenience, but have trouble evaluating the harms of privacy loss. (At least, I know this is true for me.)
Is there anything states can do about this? And, if this passes, is there any way to protect myself? Obviously if the NSA is hoarding zero-days there isn't much you can do, but what are some practical steps? 1) avoid airports and security cameras 2) use an offshore VPN at all times 3) don't use the phone, use E2E encrypted calling like Signal 4) use cash as often as possible, or cryptocurrency Or does none of that ma…
What's your threat model? Unless you name what you're afraid of and what you're trying to hide, you're just feeding paranoia and it's unhealthy. And I'm not trying to say you should do nothing - the steps you suggest would at the very least increase the cost for NSA to collect data, potentially making it scale less or even make you fly under the radar. Still, if you want those rather uncomfortable actions to become h…
I think of it a little differently. I am trying to be part of a collective movement toward as much privacy as possible so that those who do need to protect themselves can have access to the tools they need and won't stick out when they use them. A sort of herd immunity.
I guess a good start are habits that neutralize automated mass surveillance. Targeted surveillance would be a whole other ballgame and unfortunately I don't think our tools are at a place to make this feasible for me to practice.
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I just plan on waiting it out for the next 4 years. You're not thinking that if the Democrats manage to take the White House, that this situation will improve - are you? I mean, most of this damage was done when Pres. Obama was in the White House and the Congress skewed more toward Democrats. The idea that the Democrats will defend our privacy and 4th Amendment is absurd.
Exactly. Three letter agency abilities were expanded hugely under Obama. Why people can’t grasp this, I’ll never know.
Edit: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/365718-house-set...
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Yes, we are all fatigued, and that is how they win. Can't get your Bill through? Rename it and submit again. Still won't work? Tack it onto a Medicaid / NASA funding bill. Still won't get through? Change the wording so that it becomes more vague and open to interpretation in your favour and start again. Bonus points if you give it a name involving patriotism, freedom, economic or personal health, or a backromym that…
How can we fight against these patterns? Amendments? Force bills to be broken up? Only allow a bill to be submitted once a decade? Our system is definitely broken, but I have no idea what type of changes might prevent these abuses
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just plan on waiting it out for the next 4 years. You're not thinking that if the Democrats manage to take the White House, that this situation will improve - are you? I mean, most of this damage was done when Pres. Obama was in the White House and the Congress skewed more toward Democrats. The idea that the Democrats will defend our privacy and 4th Amendment is absurd.
Obama expanded the program, yes. He did not create it. And also, many other groups I donate to are just swamping me with non-NSA stuff related to Trump and the GOP, so that's also what I meant. But still, yes, I feel democrats have a better chance of at least listening to constituent concerns about privacy. The GOP wallies about small government, except for the military and they view the NSA/FBI/CIA as the same. But…
Trump's views on privacy are obvious and awful, yes - he has Sessions as AG.
But Dianne Feinstein is one of the fiercest surveillance advocates in Congress. Hillary Clinton had vastly more support from intelligence agencies than Trump did, and refused to condemn what was described in the Snowden releases.
Meanwhile, Rand Paul ended bulk phone record collection for a few hours in 2015, defying much of both parties to do so. He filibustered over drone strikes, and promised to restrict NSA searches if he was elected.
There's a lot to dislike about Rand Paul, and libertarians aren't the only people opposing surveillance - Bernie Sanders made similar promises from the far opposite end of the spectrum.
But I think framing this as "bad under Democrats, hopeless under Republicans" makes it harder to address the problem. The mainstream of both parties are similarly awful, even if the Democrats talk a bit more softly about it, while the fringes of both parties are often strong surveillance opponents.
Is there anything states can do about this? And, if this passes, is there any way to protect myself? Obviously if the NSA is hoarding zero-days there isn't much you can do, but what are some practical steps? 1) avoid airports and security cameras 2) use an offshore VPN at all times 3) don't use the phone, use E2E encrypted calling like Signal 4) use cash as often as possible, or cryptocurrency Or does none of that ma…