NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

Post by dang » Sat, May 05, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

jknoepfler wrote: post #320

dang wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's a serious abuse because it destroys the intellectual curiosity this place exists for. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

although I genuinely couldn't tell if the responder was being serious, I think it's a shame the account was banned. I respect the decision, but I think it's a mistake to equate incoherence with ideology. I feel duty-bound to engage patiently with people with whom I disagree, but I understand that this might be inconsistent with the more general goal of running a forum.

Post by hnpromomessage » Sat, May 05, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

stickdogg wrote: post #289

DSingularity wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they behave the way they do because this is their strategy by design. I feel that during the Cold War strategists realized that being a democracy is a vulnerability. Were the soviets actually willing to go there and exploit it by manipulating the American public? Who knows. But that’s not how military strategy is created.

The Russians and Chinese manipulate the American public every day all day. Not to mention the Americans and Western Europeans with money and influence whose interests align with theirs. How do you think we ended up with president chump?

Post by willstrafach » Sat, May 05, 2018, 11:32 PM UTC

moat wrote: post #195

anoncoward778 wrote: post #17

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…

I don’t like the data collection either, but it’s impossible to know the untold disasters that it may or may not have prevented. “Assume that a legislator with courage, influence, intellect, vision, and perseverance manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect and employment on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high costs to the struggling airlines…

Post by jknoepfler » Sat, May 05, 2018, 11:50 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #321

jknoepfler wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

although I genuinely couldn't tell if the responder was being serious, I think it's a shame the account was banned. I respect the decision, but I think it's a mistake to equate incoherence with ideology. I feel duty-bound to engage patiently with people with whom I disagree, but I understand that this might be inconsistent with the more general goal of running a forum.

It gets rather simple pretty quickly if you look at the site as a whole: accounts that repeatedly post like that one did have a destructive effect on the community, just like fire has on a town. We know it's mostly unintentional, but the flames don't burn less for that reason. We want the town to survive, so we can't let people do this here. The analogy is good in another way too: we don't care what color the flames…

Post by lern_too_spel » Sun, May 06, 2018, 12:27 AM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #305

lern_too_spel wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your sources support your claims. I've been pointing to the exact same sources. I do not work for the US government any more than you work for the Kremlin. Obama called for a "thoughtful fact based debate" over government data collection policies in the wake of the Snowden leaks. By spreading nonsense, you are preventing that debate from occurring.

I guess that means no citations.