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U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

theprivacyissue.com

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Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#121

Post by nine_k »

colordrops wrote: post #58
54thr wrote: post #43

The threat of terror gives power to the State. Power seeks more power. The State does not erode freedoms in support of safety. The State erodes freedoms to achieve more power. Terror is the excuse. It is the State's greatest tool.

The state is made up of individuals. Who are these individuals that are seeking power?

Individuals may only be seeking more power to better do their jibs and serve to the benefit of the people.

But bureaucracy is just so evolves that it perpetuates the problem it was created to solve. Trivially, those agencies which reliably have achieved their goal get disbanded as no more needed, the only remaining in the long term are such whose goals are elusive.

This is how well-intentioned, honest people try to grab more power for their agency, because it seems to help achieve that elusive goal.

(To say nothing of people with less integrity in a position of power.)

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#122

Post by iudqnolq »

mrmuagi wrote: post #99
vokep wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn't proved to be the case. Nor does it appear so anyways, they have a commercial interest to appear as though they are interested in keeping your browsing private.

So run your own VPN, at least you can minimize the trust to yourself?

A VPN hiding your traffic from the websites you visit relies on substituting the VPNs IP for your own. If you're your own VPN, your VPN's IP is your IP.

I've used self-hosted VPNs running on AWS LightSail to have privacy from wifi operators I didn't trust, but it doesn't work for higher levels of surveillance than that.

For example, if your VPN runs on a server with a dedicated or at least relatively persistent IP and you're the only one using it an upsteam of the server like an ISP or a network of sites could track you cross-site and use that data to deanonymize.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#123

Post by ta999999171 »

jhayward wrote: post #82
godelski wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

That quote doesn't mean what many people assume it does. Franklin was actually supporting the authority of government to act/govern in the interest of collective security. [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

The tyrants quote is harder to misunderstand.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#124

Post by ta999999171 »

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #120
manicdee wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now go through them and weed out the plots that were actually sting operations where all the motivation, allies, funding and training came from three letter agencies in a million dollar operation to trick an angry young Muslim man into building a bomb instead of just graffitiing walls with ACAB.

I recall reading stories reporting that this was happening not long after 9/11. Do you have any other links to share?

The Intercept is a good source for these stories. Just add their domain/site name to your search queries.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#125

Post by austhrow743 »

oAlbe wrote: post #106
JohnFen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until the pilot agreed to open the door That's the problem -- that there was a door that could be opened. It seems to me that there shouldn't be. The pilots should have their own separate entrance from the exterior of the aircraft.

Is that actually the problem though? Or is it that you are still here discussing of ways to prevent airplane hijacking in a world where cows still kill more people that airplane hijacking terrorists? I don't mean to come across as condescending, I believe that as long as we spend our time talking about possible "solutions" to what-if, abstract problems, without addressing the real issues, we are just going to waste o…

Lot of people in the world and the commenters in this thread are not the worlds reduce death task force. Speculating on how to secure planes here has zero impact on others speculating about how to make cows less dangerous.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#126

Post by jlgaddis »

remarkEon wrote: post #46
anarchodev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the mis-selling exactly? Doesn't seem to me that they're saying using their VPN will make you impenetrable to dedicated actors with nation-state resources. VPNs do help maintain one small level of privacy (namely from your ISP), and if you're using one it's a good bet you'll be interested in other privacy concerns too. There are a lot of VPNs with really bogus claims on their websites but I didn't notice anyt…

I don’t have the time right now to do this, but someone with it (and probably more technical experience than me in that field) should write up a no BS guise to what these popular VPN services really are offering. It’s been hard, over the last couple months especially it seems, to wade through all the new products these companies are constantly dropping in this space.

Tom Scott recently made an video [0] you might be interested in. It's well worth the seven and a half minutes to watch it, IMO.

> I tried to write a more honest VPN commercial. The sponsor wasn't happy about it.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#127

Post by Razengan »

refurb wrote: post #112
Razengan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It doesn't even occur to you to address the issues that create "terrorists?"

There will always be people willing to use violence to effect change, no matter how hard you try and fix the issues they raise.

> to effect change

What change? Why don't you let them effect those changes?

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#128

Post by threatofrain »

austhrow743 wrote: post #125
oAlbe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that actually the problem though? Or is it that you are still here discussing of ways to prevent airplane hijacking in a world where cows still kill more people that airplane hijacking terrorists? I don't mean to come across as condescending, I believe that as long as we spend our time talking about possible "solutions" to what-if, abstract problems, without addressing the real issues, we are just going to waste o…

Lot of people in the world and the commenters in this thread are not the worlds reduce death task force. Speculating on how to secure planes here has zero impact on others speculating about how to make cows less dangerous.

No but IMO the motivation to speak in these matters probably owes more to reducing death than specifically securing an airplane. Similarly, if someone is talking about chemical X in food, they are likely concerned with their health in general as opposed to a specific cause of chemical X.

It would be a bit distracted to worry about chemical X when there are way more pressing issues on where to shine the limited spotlight of attention. Let those who are concerned with health speak to the spending of precious attention, and let those who are concerned with X discuss the loss of focus on X. Somewhere people will switch sides and a meta conversation will form in terms of resource allocation and framing.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#129

Post by refurb »

Razengan wrote: post #127
refurb wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always be people willing to use violence to effect change, no matter how hard you try and fix the issues they raise.

> to effect change What change? Why don't you let them effect those changes?

Because some of those changes violate human rights?

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#130

Post by Razengan »

refurb wrote: post #129
Razengan wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to effect change What change? Why don't you let them effect those changes?

Because some of those changes violate human rights?

Mass surveillance and warrantless invasion of everyone's privacy does not violate human rights?
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