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Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

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Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#71

Post by WealthVsSurvive »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #35
aborsy wrote: post #22

Surveillance pertains to asymmetric information, a situation where a few in the society (those in power) have access to the information of the rest of the society (those not in power, namely, the public) but not conversely. The asymmetry of the information gives those in power great advantage over public. The rich and powerful claim, we monitor you to protect you, and to better serve you. The scope and the characteri…

There is also the implicit assumption of "superior goodness" of those in power, who will "benevolently assure our security". If anything, power corrupts. Trusting a certain small group to be ethically superior is insanity. If anything, history proves that, on average, those with more money are _less_ethical_. They often got the money by being that way, then convince everyone to give them more power.

Oh, the worst part is that our system doesn't even require that people be convinced to give the wealthy more wealth. The relationship of State governance & powerful trade unions with the "world banks" functions like an insurance scam, whereby private losses are foisted upon an unwilling populace through all sorts of very fancy sounding financial tools. It's a charade. Why do you think they are so resistant to letting housing naturally crash? Can't have those plebs realize they can live and provide for themselves without debt, gotta inflate, inflate, inflate, so they'll be forced to work where we want, salary tiered by what we need. Hey, I wonder what happens if you do that, while at the same time ensuring that no one has access to capital? $10 bag o' chips. So much faith in our brave and fearless "leaders." Oh hey, look, someone's nephew is running for office. They are just so darn deserving. We've really come so far since feudalism.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#72

Post by baxtr »

eivarv wrote: post #24

The Norwegian parliament recently passed a bill that implements bulk metadata collection here as well. I tried debating with ministers, writing op-eds, and even organizing petitions (over 1000 security, privacy and tech professionals in a couple of days) before the vote. While every informed person I know thinks it's a bad idea, and every organization consulted massively criticized it as mass surveillance, a huge maj…

I’m almost at a point where I think a well programmed robot would do a better job using known heuristics and a method to test legislation for effectiveness.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#73

Post by vkou »

pdonis wrote: post #55
eivarv wrote: post #24

The Norwegian parliament recently passed a bill that implements bulk metadata collection here as well. I tried debating with ministers, writing op-eds, and even organizing petitions (over 1000 security, privacy and tech professionals in a couple of days) before the vote. While every informed person I know thinks it's a bad idea, and every organization consulted massively criticized it as mass surveillance, a huge maj…

> how can we work against this on a technical level? As the saying goes, you can't use a technical solution to fix a social problem. One way to fix the social problem is to vote politicians out of office when they make bad decisions--not just about surveillance, but in general. People who don't have to pay a cost for bad decisions have no incentive to make better decisions. Another way is to not give powers like this…

> Another way is to not give powers like this to governments in the first place. If politicians don't have decision making power at all over something, they can't harm the rest of us by making a bad decision.

It is generally impossible for a parliament to pass a law that forbids a future parliament from repealing it.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#74

Post by l332mn »

mellow2020 wrote: post #51
craigsmansion wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but is the US that much better in terms of authoritarianism or surveillance? Who knows? The last guy who touched upon it had to hide in freedom-loving Russia afterwards. The PRC has it easy. They don't have to hide their actions behind contortions of "national security", which makes it difficult to compare the extent and pervasiveness of US and PRC surveillance.

> The last guy who touched upon it On the other hand, people like Chomsky aren't being persecuted. Though all in all, I would also say they get ignored very efficiently, Chomsky still isn't exactly unknown either. Is there a Chinese author and speaker with decades of real harsh criticism of their government under their belt, who is living in China with their works being translated in all sorts of languages and also a…

You can't really draw a direct comparison between PRC and the US, and ask how China would react to a 'Chinese Chomsky'. Their respective conditions and rational incentives for population control are not very similar. The US (after the fall of the USSR) is a country who's stability has not truly been threatened by criticism and dissident voices, while China is a state which has been and currently is extremely vulnerable and threatened by instability, unrest and separatism, and is consequentially on high alert.

Reaction to criticism and dissidence not really a principled stand in the eyes of a state. The way the US clamped down hard on leftist political groups and organizations during the Cold War is rather the actions of a country believing itself to be threatened by instability and unrest. Political figures who fronted harsh criticisms against the government have routinely been assassinated or framed and arrested. COINTELPRO is a program which shows how political repression works the US when it feels politically vulnerable.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#75

Post by chrisco255 »

casraso wrote: post #43
dsbleia wrote: post #30

I'm asking this question not to spark a contentious debate or be ridiculed. But I'm genuinely curious, as someone who has little experience with China and only lived in the US, is the US just as much of a surveillance state as China? We often hear a lot of 'information' (bordering propaganda), about China being an "authoritarian surveillance state". I don't mean to sound absurd, but is the US that much better in term…

Americans like to think they are immune to propaganda, or that for some reason other countries produce more of it than they do. What I have observed as someone not living in china or america is that they are roughly on equal footing and produce about as much deceptive trash as any other country, my own included. This means you will have a lot of americans answering your question by saying that america does less surve…

We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. The school officers here are generally older cops working part time with not much time left before retirement.

There still is a fundamental difference in the way that power is broken up in the US between states and federal and between different courts that are widely independent. You have a lot of levers to defend yourself if a state wants to initiate legal action against you. In China, you don't fight the CCP and win, ever. People often sue and win against the Federal Government.

There are many fundamental differences. We have rights to free speech, guns, due process, and hundreds of years of common law precedence to fall back on, in addition to a generally far more rebellious culture.

EDIT (reply to caraso): A lot, because if the surveillance is used against you, you have many levers of unaffiliated and totally separate branches of government to pull to come to your defense.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#76

Post by casraso »

chrisco255 wrote: post #75
casraso wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans like to think they are immune to propaganda, or that for some reason other countries produce more of it than they do. What I have observed as someone not living in china or america is that they are roughly on equal footing and produce about as much deceptive trash as any other country, my own included. This means you will have a lot of americans answering your question by saying that america does less surve…

We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. The school officers here are generally older cops working part time with not much time left before retirement. There still is a fundamental difference in the way that power is broken up in the US between states and federal and between different courts that are widely independent. You have a lot of levers to defe…

What does any of that have to do with surveillance?

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#77

Post by chrisco255 »

casraso wrote: post #44
jjcon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and EU countries have processes, checks and balances on those powers (though not always enough, I think they need more). These checks keep abuse low and keep mass surveillance limited to national security domains. This is in stark contrast to China where this power can be used/abused with almost no oversight or limitations.

What is a specific example of such a process, check, and/or balance that the united states has that china does not?

The right to bear arms. The right to free speech. States rights. Hundreds of years of common law precedence. The 4th amendment. The fact that if a piece of evidence is acquired against you in an unlawful way it cannot be used against you in court as a US citizen. The right to a jury trial, etc etc.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#78

Post by pdonis »

vkou wrote: post #73
pdonis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can we work against this on a technical level? As the saying goes, you can't use a technical solution to fix a social problem. One way to fix the social problem is to vote politicians out of office when they make bad decisions--not just about surveillance, but in general. People who don't have to pay a cost for bad decisions have no incentive to make better decisions. Another way is to not give powers like this…

> Another way is to not give powers like this to governments in the first place. If politicians don't have decision making power at all over something, they can't harm the rest of us by making a bad decision. It is generally impossible for a parliament to pass a law that forbids a future parliament from repealing it.

> It is generally impossible for a parliament to pass a law that forbids a future parliament from repealing it.

Not giving powers to governments in the first place would be something at a higher level than parliamentary. In the US, it would be something like a Constitutional amendment.

I agree that no such action, at any level, can ever be completely irreversible, in the sense that future citizens would never have to worry about the issue again. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#79

Post by pdonis »

matz1 wrote: post #68
pdonis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Information want to be free. You're welcome to let all of your private information out for everyone to see if that's what you believe. But people like me who do not want to do that should not be forced to. > The sooner we adapt with the life where all surveillance records is public the better. I strongly disagree.

>You're welcome to let all of your private information out for everyone to see if that's what you believe I don't necessarily want to, I'm just being realistic and pragmatic. >But people like me who do not want to do that should not be forced to. No one is forced to but the inconvenience and the cost of keeping thing private will go up and up.

> I'm just being realistic and pragmatic.

Being realistic and pragmatic doesn't need to mean being defeatist.

> the inconvenience and the cost of keeping thing private will go up and up

Only if citizens let governments continue to increase their surveillance activities with no oversight and no pushback.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#80

Post by l332mn »

chrisco255 wrote: post #75
casraso wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans like to think they are immune to propaganda, or that for some reason other countries produce more of it than they do. What I have observed as someone not living in china or america is that they are roughly on equal footing and produce about as much deceptive trash as any other country, my own included. This means you will have a lot of americans answering your question by saying that america does less surve…

We started putting armed police in schools to defend against school shootings. Not to intimidate students. The school officers here are generally older cops working part time with not much time left before retirement. There still is a fundamental difference in the way that power is broken up in the US between states and federal and between different courts that are widely independent. You have a lot of levers to defe…

You don't think courts or government institutions in China are subject to or follow Chinese law, or do you think that the state is particularly prone to abuse of the law (moreso than in the US)? How do you suppose "fighting the CCP" would work in practice? If you are up against the legislative and judicial body itself, you have only the law to support you. It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. What matters is how much government abuse of the law that exists in the first place. It might be much higher in the US for all you know.
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