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We Only Have Hours Left to Stop the NSA Expansion Bill

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

#171

Post by [deleted] »

sethgecko wrote: post #77
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,…

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.

[deleted]

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

#172

Post by gleenn »

akvadrako wrote: post #165
uiberto wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find this pair of articles interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/we-dont-need-to-save-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2017/12/15/53e6147c-... Species do go extinct, but not at the rate we are experiencing today. Even if the current rate of species loss was equal to the historical rate, that does not mean that humans wish to live in such a natural state of chaos. Did American culture…

I think species have died at such rates before, during earlier mass extinction events. It's natural they happen once in a while. If we always preserve what we have, there will be no room for something new to develop.

You realize we're not in a massive extinction event now right? You're comparing things like giant meteors killing all the dinosaurs to right now? If you can see the sun, we shouldn't have all these animals dying.

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

#173

Post by willstrafach »

nerdponx wrote: post #3

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…

> 2) use an offshore VPN at all times

This would actually be far more likely to enable collection of your traffic, whereas US Persons cannot be queried.

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

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

gleenn wrote: post #172
akvadrako wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think species have died at such rates before, during earlier mass extinction events. It's natural they happen once in a while. If we always preserve what we have, there will be no room for something new to develop.

You realize we're not in a massive extinction event now right? You're comparing things like giant meteors killing all the dinosaurs to right now? If you can see the sun, we shouldn't have all these animals dying.

> You realize we're not in a massive extinction event now right?

We are, in fact, in a mass extinction event right now, with extinction rates estimated at 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than any previous such event.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

> If you can see the sun, we shouldn't have all these animals dying.

Not all previous mass extinctions have involved the sun be blotted out by impact or volcanic events, though several have.

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

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

akvadrako wrote: post #165
uiberto wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find this pair of articles interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/we-dont-need-to-save-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2017/12/15/53e6147c-... Species do go extinct, but not at the rate we are experiencing today. Even if the current rate of species loss was equal to the historical rate, that does not mean that humans wish to live in such a natural state of chaos. Did American culture…

I think species have died at such rates before, during earlier mass extinction events. It's natural they happen once in a while. If we always preserve what we have, there will be no room for something new to develop.

> I think species have died at such rates before, during earlier mass extinction events.

No, they haven't; extinction rates in the current mass extinction event are much higher than previous ones.

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

#176

Post by akvadrako »

jacobolus wrote: post #168
akvadrako wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think species have died at such rates before, during earlier mass extinction events. It's natural they happen once in a while. If we always preserve what we have, there will be no room for something new to develop.

Sure. A mass extinction event which will take humans with it. Then a few million years down the line new speciation will fill all of the ecological niches in whatever equilibrium arises. The planet and life themselves are unlikely to be completely wiped out, absent some future technology we can’t yet imagine. As long as you don’t have any attachment to anything more narrow than “all life on earth” (e.g. your family,…

Interesting wording - I indeed don't have any attachment to the things you mention. I do want intelligent life (for now, humanity) to survive and stay powerful, but I'll take the bet that we're adaptable enough to manage even if 90% of the other species perish.

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

#177

Post by nerdponx »

willstrafach wrote: post #173
nerdponx wrote: post #3

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…

> 2) use an offshore VPN at all times This would actually be far more likely to enable collection of your traffic, whereas US Persons cannot be queried.

Is that so? What do you mean? This is the first time I've heard anyone say that.

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

#178

Post by njarboe »

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…

Don't forget the grand daddy: J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, 1924-1971.

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

#179

Post by bogomipz »

cookiecaper wrote: post #170
bogomipz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original comment was only referring to devaluation of speech. But lets take the three examples that I used: Trying to repeal health care provisions as your most pressing piece of legislation but not bothering to have an alternative plan to present to the population as a replacement. Passing legislation which gives permanent tax breaks to corporations but then only temporary breaks to regular people(expires after 8…

I was trying to keep this short. :C See last section for tl;dr. ---- Health care repeal: Insurance premiums have skyrocketed since the ACA went into effect. Just this year, I know a small business owner whose premium for high-deductible family plan has gone up 2.5x. My employer-provided health insurance premium increased a little (relatively at least), but both the individual and family deductibles jumped by about 40…

>""Without a replacement" isn't considered a big issue because it's not like repealing the ACA shuts down the medical facilities/industry in any real way"

No, taking important things like health care away from people and not presenting any kind of a replacement is a huge deal.

>"Net neutrality is an example of polarization run amok, because I think that there would be a lot more bipartisan support for a real solution if there wasn't a sentiment that agreeing with "the other side" was an automatic stain."

Again all you can do is reframe reality into people being led astray by cable news pundits. Do you believe the majority of the population in the US are dummies? Where was the solution that was posited? Oh wait, there was none. Another subtractive, zero sum motion.

>"These are subjective perspectives informed by individual life experiences, and it's necessarily colored by our private biases,"

Again with the "there's no real issue here" - this is just people being led astray by the political media. Plenty of people with good critical thinking skills believe that their governments are representing moneyed interests ahead of them. I find your whole reductionist view that this is all just a big misunderstanding brought on by biased news media to be not only insulting but dangerous.

Again, this isn't about "left vs right" or "blue vs red" its about governments that prioritize the will of moneyed interests over people. The "other side" that people are worried about isn't a democrat or a republican the "other side" is a government that is not acting in their citizen best interests.

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

#180

Post by logfromblammo »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #167
logfromblammo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can you do if that fancy club that prefers rich people takes a cut of all your performances, no matter where you play?

Make house shows. Use alternative venues. Don't give them your energy.

Did you understand that was a metaphor?
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