Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 189 posts

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#121

Post by spenczar5 »

whatshisface wrote: post #79
Bartweiss wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes I am. 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,…

Maybe we'll end up with a new political subculture that derives pride and some sense of personal identity from fighting this stuff; just like gun people almost enjoy supporting the NRA. (In some way I think computer rights would be a lot more fun to support if a large fraction of the public was against it, then we would have the satisfaction of arguing.)

I think that already exists. The political subculture is "privacy nut" computer nerds who wear EFF shirts. There just aren't that many of them.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#122

Post by adventured »

logfromblammo wrote: post #52
okonomiyaki3000 wrote: post #34

"We only have hours"? What are we supposed to do in those hours? Make phone calls that won't get through? Tweet? Forget it. Senators and congressmen don't fear their constituents so they're not going to listen to their constituents.

We may only have hours left to watch elected representation completely ignore the welfare of the electorate again, but we probably still have months left to choose who exactly it is that we will be shoving up against the wall when the revolution comes. At this point, when they obviously don't fear losing their office, they need to fear something else. If you can't bring yourself to do physical violence, you can maybe…

> we probably still have months left to choose who exactly it is that we will be shoving up against the wall when the revolution comes

Advocating violence - and implying worse - is a step beyond inappropriate on HN.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#123

Post by 0xfeba »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #58
0xfeba wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boat was built and set sail under Bush and the GOP congress, under the super-Orwellian PATRIOT Act. I am not happy Obama expanded their powers but fail to see how the GOP would make the situation better.

The boat has been under construction for decades. The FISA courts were set up in 1978 (that's the Democrat Carter, and I believe that it was Democratic Congress at the time, too), but even that was only a response, trying to rein in the national surveillance apparatus that was already running wild. Reagan upped it a notch with Exec Order 12333, GWB obviously built on top of that, and Obama went hog-wild with it. Ther…

That's true. Myopic of me.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#124

Post by MrZongle2 »

trisimix wrote: post #11

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.

IMO the effort to fight NN should have been spent fighting this.

The end consumer will eventually see the costs of losing NN. The cost of losing privacy is not as obvious in the short-term.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#125

Post by juanmirocks »

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #5

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?

Tough times in the US; too many attacks on rights and liberties at once. I feel for you.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#126

Post by sandworm101 »

jameskegel wrote: post #73
sandworm101 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stephen Frye did a nature series a few years ago called "last chance to see" in which he expressed the notion that environmentalists are so dismayed and tired that they are ready to give up and accept the future. I'm starting to feel that way about US democracy. I used to work in the US (lawyer) but have returned to Canada. I feel like I am sitting on a hill watching Rome burn. Why bother trying to help when the Roma…

As much as Canada’s own legislation is shaped by US events, I hope you don’t sit on that hill long- you should be offline gathering metaphorical water buckets.

Or we wait until it is in rubble, until the Romans realize what they have done to themselves, and then document the destruction so that nobody forgets the mistakes. That's what I think Disney just did. That Trump robot will be terrorizing people for generations to come.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#127

Post by maxxxxx »

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #5

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?

That's what you hire lobbyists for and pay them. They will just keep working on it until they get it done. As citizen you can't sustain the effort to fight them, so eventually they will get their way.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#128

Post by sandworm101 »

oceanghost wrote: post #101
sethgecko wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda off-topic but 4,500 species are critically endangered right now Based on the fact that more than 99.9% of all the species are now extinct, how is this an alarming sign? It seems like a part of the natural evolutionary process.

I've always thought that about pandas. They dont have a mating instinct and have a very difficult diet in terms of effort required per calorie. And they're going out of business. Isn't that evolution?

They mate fine. Most of the problem has been linked to their zoo habitats, at least in the west. They were so precious that they weren't given the climbing structures (ie trees) to properly exercise in case they fall. The Chinese give them lots of climbing exercise and are breeding them just fine. Give humans too much food and no exercise and they stop breeding too.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#129

Post by mring33621 »

mLuby wrote: post #61
iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #5

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?

An antidote to fatigue is automation! I'd be happy to give EFF posting ability for this issue on my social media accounts. And I'd be fine with them using my voice and signature to generate voicemails and letters to my elected officials. if they abuse that power (which I doubt they would) I bet they'd be much more responsive to "their constituents" and also social media at least it's easy enough to de-auth integratio…

I think this is the core of a very interesting idea.

Re: We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

#130

Post by mring33621 »

mring33621 wrote: post #129
mLuby wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An antidote to fatigue is automation! I'd be happy to give EFF posting ability for this issue on my social media accounts. And I'd be fine with them using my voice and signature to generate voicemails and letters to my elected officials. if they abuse that power (which I doubt they would) I bet they'd be much more responsive to "their constituents" and also social media at least it's easy enough to de-auth integratio…

I think this is the core of a very interesting idea.

expanding...

  - call it Automated, Permissioned Grassroots Campaigning
  - Users permit designated Orgs to post on their behalf on social media and other online forums
  - Users guide priorities & tone of posts
  - ML for content generation
  - Aided by collaborative computer-human workflow
Post reply on HN