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Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

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Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#4
I'm curious what the `upvoteCount/commentCount` will be for this post.

I'd also be curious to see a chart where x is time and y is a score for something along the lines of "I am free to critique the US government without any form retaliation".

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#5
Funny to see this make headlines here, where many people would gladly support using mass surveillance to fund the government. The same ones that support financial privacy restrictions are quick to play victim when the same violations are applied in ways that don’t benefit them.

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#6
While I've believed that developing privacy and encryption tech was ignoring the deeper problem, and it was a poor substitute for using that effort to actually engage with and reform the institutions we use privacy tech to protect ourselves from, when you are up against anonymous cynicism like earmarking continuity of government bills, the only thing left to do is shrug and become a cypherpunk maximalist. Life is too short. Might as well ride this civilization into the ground.

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#7

I'm curious what the `upvoteCount/commentCount` will be for this post. I'd also be curious to see a chart where x is time and y is a score for something along the lines of "I am free to critique the US government without any form retaliation".

[flagged]

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#8

Funny to see this make headlines here, where many people would gladly support using mass surveillance to fund the government. The same ones that support financial privacy restrictions are quick to play victim when the same violations are applied in ways that don’t benefit them.

That's how it works. People support policies that are beneficial and don't support policies that are harmful. Privacy is just one component of this evaluation. If we demand absolute privacy with no government oversight, even by warrants, the cost of increased crime will be larger than the marginal benefit from increased privacy. If we demand that nobody can hold somebody else's data, the cost to businesses that rely on their employees getting information from their company's logged communications will be larger than the marginal benefit of increased privacy.

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#9
post #7

I'm curious what the `upvoteCount/commentCount` will be for this post. I'd also be curious to see a chart where x is time and y is a score for something along the lines of "I am free to critique the US government without any form retaliation".

[flagged]

There's one in every thread.

Re: Reauthorizing mass surveillance shouldn't be tied to funding the government

#10
These are the kinds of things that annoy me in relation to celebrities. For instance, Taylor Swift/Kanye could raise this issue and probably single-handedly cause enough upset to have this changed/removed.

I wish they worked positive (and sure, sometimes they'll probably get it wrong) policy change rather than quiet charities and token signalling.

In terms of the government using it for ransom, well, the other side should absolutely say they'll shutdown government if these privacy overreaches are not removed. Put the pressure back on and vocalise the absurdity of the situation. But hey, it's not a wild guess to say both sides are really in support of the measure and use the 'ransom' as an excuse to pass it.

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