Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 107 posts

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#41

Post by intended »

sudmah wrote: post #22
RobAley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the owners of the internet café also has to keep a record of all sites visited Sorry, but that is just not true.

Ok maybe not all site but they are encourage to snoop http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434112

As opposed to India, where you know, we just asked RIM and Google to give us ability to snoop on all mails.

Or where we block sites at the drop of a hat, did you miss the recent instructions where the govt and their lap dogs went after social media? The new 'evil'?

At what point will you decide that for every flaw of theirs you can point out, there is also a tradition of civil rights and organizations fighting against infringements of those rights.

In the US, UK and many other countries biometric ID systems were shot down because of the huge issues they raised for civil rights.

India? We have a few people arguing against it and the rest of the country for it.

Whats worse, a lot of us are willful in our ignorance.

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#42

Post by cdi »

quanticle wrote: post #27

I would disagree. India is not a police state. India is a bureaucratic state. These regulations are not meant to frighten or intimidate people. As the article points out, they're so ineffectual as to be laughable. Police states tend to be quite a bit more brutal than that. No, all of these regulations, permits and rules are classic hallmark of bureaucratic empire building. All those Internet cafés now need to be insp…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/08/kishwar-desai-he...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irom_Sharmila

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#43

Post by CWuestefeld »

quanticle wrote: post #27

I would disagree. India is not a police state. India is a bureaucratic state. These regulations are not meant to frighten or intimidate people. As the article points out, they're so ineffectual as to be laughable. Police states tend to be quite a bit more brutal than that. No, all of these regulations, permits and rules are classic hallmark of bureaucratic empire building. All those Internet cafés now need to be insp…

India is not a police state. India is a bureaucratic state.

Even that is interesting. It shows us that bureaucracy (and, I'd say, failure to respect one's property rights) can become indistinguishable from a police state.

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#44

Post by intended »

huntesh wrote: post #5

we are turning into communist nut-jobs. Thanks to the gandhi family and congress. gandhi family were lead in forming the congress party which was formed under british rule to support british indra gandhi declared an emergency and edited the constituent of india(made us socialist) *gandhi brought u features like no more than 20 SMS per mobile no more cars below 16 liter/KM average 10^32 scams a shitty budget that give…

Wow, several new profiles of 3 hours or less on HN, and ALL have terrible posts.

I think HN got linked somewhere.

For people unaware -

Bashing the Gandhi family and Congress is a common past time, but beyond that it gets split across people 2 factions which are rife with, if not build directly out of, hate/venom/ideologies.

Its sort of the Republicans vs Democrats, with less long term ideals and more unalloyed hate.

Ask either side for data or logic and they usually can't get too far. If they do, they have their own skewed interpretations of what happened.

Both sides are bad, one is more vocal.

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#45

Post by smutticus »

India is not a police state. India is a dysfunctional state only made functional through continuous petty bribery.

Historically police states like Nazi Germany or Mao's China operated by being well organized at all levels of society. India is absolutely not well organized at all levels of society. Instead India seems optimized for the petty bribe seeking bureaucrat. It's not the all knowing police state. It's the disorganized mafia state.

I had an easier time getting a work permit in Russia last year than India. The sheer amount of paperwork and rubber stamps required for my Indian work permit was the worst I have ever had to deal with and I've worked all over the world. All of this paperwork and stamping allows perfect opportunities for small time bureaucrats to extract bribes and favors from people who just need to get something done. So when I look at something like requiring ID to use wifi I don't see Total Information Awareness. I see Tammany Hall and a genius system that's operating exactly as it was designed, to extract graft from normal people at every possible opportunity.

Disclaimer: I lived in India for 0.5 years in '99 and recently worked there again in 2011 for a month. My answers are based on these experiences and of knowing lots of Indians frustrated with their government.

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#46

Post by ck2 »

tptacek wrote: post #26
ck2 wrote: post #25

Your police aren't given $100 Million from taxpayers to buy toys like this, including land and air drones. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/08/hardcore-sec... I think US has India and virtually all other countries beat. I expect they are going to start to do random stops for IRIS scans like they do in the middle-east over here soon - you know, for all the terrorists roaming our streets and airports and bu…

Huh? This article says that in India, the police have required store owners to collect ID before allowing people to use the Internet, have required hotel owners to deny rooms to people from Delhi, require police verification before you can rent an apartment, and require witness statements to open a bank account. And so you have one article suggesting that the police somewhere wasted money on an APC, and now "we have…

You are talking about policy which can be undone with laws.

Try DE-militarizing our police which respond with massive weapon-grade force to unarmed, legal, protests (or shoot a dozen innocent bystanders to get to one crazy person).

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#47

Post by intended »

manojlds wrote: post #37
phaedrus81 wrote: post #12

I am not sure if India is a police state yet or not. I think tourists don't have it easy as they don't understand the country as well as the natives. If you are a native you do know how to get things done. However, it is true that India is on the slippery slope where its most important democratic institutions are slowly breaking down. The first to go was the media, an example of which was the media now running paid c…

A free press is something that India can still be proud of. While the media might be silly at times, they are free ( to be silly as well ).

I used to think so, but the more I've seen of the reporting, especially with the recent riots and Assam migrations, the less I trust them.

I used to never give credence to the insinuations that Indian Media was bought.

After the recent events, I've just stopped trusting them at all.

I got better reports from trawling through the dregs of r/India and then linking to other forums and checking out comments there.

Aside from that firstpost/tehelka come to mind for decent reporting.

What use is a free press, if they spend their freedom on just making up soundbites to garner eyeballs?

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#48

Post by smutticus »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #43
quanticle wrote: post #27

I would disagree. India is not a police state. India is a bureaucratic state. These regulations are not meant to frighten or intimidate people. As the article points out, they're so ineffectual as to be laughable. Police states tend to be quite a bit more brutal than that. No, all of these regulations, permits and rules are classic hallmark of bureaucratic empire building. All those Internet cafés now need to be insp…

India is not a police state. India is a bureaucratic state. Even that is interesting. It shows us that bureaucracy (and, I'd say, failure to respect one's property rights) can become indistinguishable from a police state.

I'll just leave this here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#49

Post by sudmah »

intended wrote: post #41
sudmah wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok maybe not all site but they are encourage to snoop http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18434112

As opposed to India, where you know, we just asked RIM and Google to give us ability to snoop on all mails. Or where we block sites at the drop of a hat, did you miss the recent instructions where the govt and their lap dogs went after social media? The new 'evil'? At what point will you decide that for every flaw of theirs you can point out, there is also a tradition of civil rights and organizations fighting agains…

I suggest you read this article and then tell me what right to privacy you think you have. Or will you be wilfully ignorant of what is happening right under your nose.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/27/u-s-government-domestic-survei...

Re: Yes, India is a police state - Christopher Soghoian

#50

Post by kamaal »

dr_ wrote: post #29

A few years ago I had traveled to India, and had plans to leave the country for a week then return. Big mistake. I was advised to go to the Indian embassy in the destination country to get permission to come back. I did so, they took my passport and told me to come back the following day, hence delaying my travels within that country by a day. I returned to India ok. When i was leaving India I was asked why I had not…

>>I am Indian mind you, although born and raised in the US. I will not be returning to India ever again.

Sad, I am Indian too. Born, raised in India, Bangalore.

The process you describe is something that every 'Indian' here goes through. I was a little taken aback when you said 'I am Indian mind you'. I think you refer to the legal status. Because although I agree that its painful- Being an Indian you experienced what each of your country men experiences everyday. I don't see why anybody would give you preferential treatment- merely because you returned from the US.

Besides this reminds of an incident about Gandhi, when he was asked why he wears and lives like a peasant after living in South Africa as a barrister wearing a suit, necktie, pant and shoes all the time. He replied that only way he can be one among the Indian and convince Indians that he can fight for them is to live like they live, wear what they wear and eat what they eat. To rub shoulders with ordinary Indian in their day to day lives.

Every time a NRI complains about stuff like this I always wonder- legally sure you might be an Indian.

But are you actually an 'Indian'?

Post reply on HN