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The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

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Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish. Why can't this idiotic meme die already?

Because it's not a meme, it's an actual social cycle

It's a meme. It comes from 9GAG. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hard-times-create-strong-men

Those Who Remain: A Postapocalyptic Novel is not an academic work of sociology.

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it is that we buy into it, literally. If you want to stop it, stop buying into companies that are compliant and sell you out in their technology choices.

And 3 steps after that you’ll have to go live off grid in a cabin in the woods. As romantic as it sounds, the one single purpose for for-profit companies is to produce shareholder value, and very few of them see shareholder value in keeping a legal department specifically designed for fighting constant and endless attacks on our privacy. Much more profitable to do anything else instead.

I refuse to believe that we are as powerless to stop oppression as your comment implies.

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#303
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do these people continue to be re-elected at all? Surely there's some other (D) that could have replaced Feinstein a decade ago - but California keeps re-electing her? There's near unanimous agreement she "lost it" long ago - yet here she still is. A mandatory retirement age is great and all... but maybe we need to figure out why people vote for someone nearly nobody wants in the first place. Just the "safe" vote…

Senators get OP with longevity. Having a bunch of old senators is an emergent behavior of the rules of the Senate.

Is this true, or are these just benefits of someone who has been in the Senate for 30 years having good working relationships with 70 other Senators, and the branch new Senator being lucky to know one or two?

Put another way, what rules of the Senate benefit length of service over anything else?

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#304
post #7

A reminder that "you have nothing to hide" argument is a fallacy because people abuse their power: Some first hits as reminders of places where their powers are abused [1]: "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... [2]: https://reason.com/2022/07/26/police-can-access-your-ring-ca... [3]: https://reason.com/2021/04/26/warrantless-border-s…

A better example are people that do have something to hide - whistleblowers, union organizers, political activists, journalists, upstart politicians... How does the nature of their work change, if the current government in power knows all their secrets, and abuses or selectively leaks/prosecutes them? And does that change society for the better, or for the worse?

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who uses that argument, ask them to hand you their phone, unlocked, and a list of passwords for all of their accounts. If you have nothing to hide, why would you have a problem with me poking around in the most intimate aspects of your life?

The really crazy part is that I have multiple friends and family that would turn over their info to me with no questions asked.

Unfortunately, it's an issue that's hard for many to understand until it directly affects them. Sometimes you need to find something relatively innocuous but still embarrassing and 'give them a thwap' with it, but even then the chances of them understanding are still low.

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#306
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best analogy for this I've seen is this: it's no secret that everybody poops. But that doesn't mean everyone likes having other people watch while they do it (privacy).

I've tried using this in an argument and gotten a response along the lines of "I don't mind if people watch me poop."

Well I'd say they're full of shit, haha. Most people have something they care about; them refuting a specific case doesn't refute the general concept. They're either arguing in bad faith or are not very good at thinking logically.

If they truly have no ethical or moral boundaries, then they are probably deviant enough that they won't be able to get into a position to set much policy, anyways, by definition of their lack of fitness to represent the majority of any population.

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't really convince them. To them, a friend might be someone they want to hide things from, but they won’t care about some unknown government entity having access.

This comes from not knowing what organizations are likely to do with it. Would they be okay with the data being used to overcharge them whenever they're in a hurry because the organization knows when they don't have time to comparison shop? How about maximizing their tax burden by using the data to calculate the highest tax rates each area would tolerate before moving or changing their vote? Suppose the government fa…

And it doesn't even have to be an organization. How often do you hear of cops or civil employees poking around in records they have no business to poke around in?

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#308
post #7

A reminder that "you have nothing to hide" argument is a fallacy because people abuse their power: Some first hits as reminders of places where their powers are abused [1]: "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... [2]: https://reason.com/2022/07/26/police-can-access-your-ring-ca... [3]: https://reason.com/2021/04/26/warrantless-border-s…

Those seeking to abuse power employ the nothing to hide fallacy.

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#309
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make your substantive points without calling names. No one is saying you owe your least favorite senators better, but you owe the community better if you're posting here. I can't link to the guidelines because I'm on my phone - but this is in there!

It's one thing to demand not calling ordinary people names, but Feinstein isn't an ordinary person. If one can't call a person in power names, that implies many things you probably didn't want to imply.

I covered that point (or thought I did!) with the second sentence in my GP comment. The issue is what it does to us as a community. That's significant.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The EARN IT bill is back, seeking to scan our messages and photos

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many seem to not realize that privacy is not about having something to hide (I guess that would be secrecy), but about the right to keep things to yourself. Those are two different concepts.

"Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world." -- excerpt from A Cypherpunk's Manifesto, Eric Hughes, March 9, 1993

By that definition I would say secrecy is also necessary for an open society. For example my bank password is something I don’t want anyone to know.
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