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25 years of mass surveillance is enough

schneier.com

191–200 of 385 posts

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what I'm trying to explain is, that this paper doesn't matter if it is represented by someone who doesn't uphold its content. Germany had the Paulskirche-, the Bismarck- and the Weymar-Constitution, all of them before that certain Leader elected into power. He got to define who is worthy/unworthy, decide how to read the document his party represents and change the definition of "un-German"

The words on the paper represent the ideas of what it means to be American. Trump has nothing to do with that. His actions, when the do not align with that paper, can be described as "anti-American". The US has had a total of _one_ government and what it means to be American is in the founding document of that government. To be German is to lay claim to a history and cultural lineage that is filled with many differen…

Technically, the US has had multiple governments: the original 1781 Articles of Confederation qualifies, as it had a Congress (although a weak one).

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they still hold immense power to make our lives shittier. It is far easier to destroy a functioning system than it is to build one from the ground up

And yet the lives of everyone on this board has never been this comfortable in the past.

Do we live in different worlds? I can't think of a single meaningful way my comfort has increased in the past 25 years. In fact, with the rise of the homeless and mental health crises, the encroachment of more and more people who have no business touching computers into cyberspace, the increased relevance of flash mob power on the internet, I would say my comfort has been actively degraded on a fundamental and significant level.

On a broader timescale, we can take a look at the fact that goods which were designed to be affordable and mass-produced have been elevated to refined luxury goods, like the Herman-Miller Eames, as an indicator that material standards have fallen very far. Not the least of which because of an ever-dwindling labor share of capital (beginning in the 1970s), which silently impoverishes working households and degrades their comfort while being completely invisible to an uncareful eye on paper.

Much of the major boons of comfort were established prior to the transition to shareholder capitalism. Things like e-commerce, IoT, online banking, these are for the birds. Meaningful advances are things like HVAC and refrigeration, ubiquitous motorized transport, electrical lighting.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#193
post #13

> It says that the government “will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist” and “will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa.” So, Democratic candidates who are looking like the…

Of course, because by the new definition, the leader is "peak American", so everything in collision with his view is naturally "anti-American". The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use. On the spot, immediately. Is it anti-American to brush your teeth after breakfast? or rather before? Is both American? Neither…

Im not quite following. Things can be mislabeled as anti American, but everyone has some idea of whats anti-American in principle. Anti free speech for example is anti American.

How that gets applied is a matter of debate. But I think all public officials should agree with that.

Its kind of a fundamental thing to have an idea about the nation’s values. If that’s too taboo for someone then they are quite literally anti American. Having a country means organizing around a core set of values. We can debate what those are but arguing you can’t stand for anything?

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t be That Guy please. This tired talking point gets walked out in every privacy discussion. Both things can be (and are) bad at once, but just because one problem exists doesn’t mean that others aren’t worth solving. In any case this article is about the whole spectrum of mass surveillance, not one specific company.

[flagged]

You are wildly optimistic about police priorities and effectiveness, with or without flock cameras, when it comes to property crime.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Trump calls Democrats "enemies from within," that's anti-American. When Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power to his victorious opponent and instead plays "heads I win tails you cheated," that's anti-American. When Trump sends the FCC chair to suppress speech "we can do this the easy way or the hard way," or yucks it up with the president of El Salvador over suspending Habeas Corpus, that's anti-American. T…

While I understand the intention of what you're saying, you're still attempting a definition of the term "anti-American", which needs no definition as the term should be rejected as a whole.

If you will not say what something is against, then it is by definition for nothing.

on edit: fixed grammatical error, based on bad keyboard gesture moving stuff around.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, because by the new definition, the leader is "peak American", so everything in collision with his view is naturally "anti-American". The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use. On the spot, immediately. Is it anti-American to brush your teeth after breakfast? or rather before? Is both American? Neither…

Im not quite following. Things can be mislabeled as anti American, but everyone has some idea of whats anti-American in principle. Anti free speech for example is anti American. How that gets applied is a matter of debate. But I think all public officials should agree with that. Its kind of a fundamental thing to have an idea about the nation’s values. If that’s too taboo for someone then they are quite literally ant…

I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death.

The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore.

Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and think it, or the fact that their constituents don't know the difference.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#198
post #13

> It says that the government “will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist” and “will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa.” So, Democratic candidates who are looking like the…

The red scare of the 1950s was ridiculous enough, but at least the Soviet Union was an actual threat. We are now at a point where “pro-transgender” is the new threat?

Sure, if you conveniently drop the qualifying word "radically". But that's not what was said. What was said specifically included the word "radically" for a good reason. Radical anything is a threat.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them? Republicans could hardly dominate the discourse with these topics if there was nobody to discourse against.

> Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them? Because there's about 1% of people who are trans in the US [1] and most other populations, on top of that come a further about 1.7% people who are somewhere on the intersex spectrum [2]. Democrats aren't willing to throw literally millions of people under the bus. Republicans aren't just willing to cast them a…

Bostock affirmed core civil rights to transgender people in housing, employment, etc. The fights now are about other things (not "rights") and as such, are much more unpopular. In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair points, I did not mean undermining encryption or privacy, I meant like GDPR and right to erasure. It'd be even better if there was some form of royalty structure on our data used by companies. It'd be nice if I, at least, received a royalty check each time a data broker sold my data to the CIA.

"I want the good stuff from an authoritarian dictatorship without the bad stuff" It will never work like that.

I hate the EU, The projected was designed by American and European liberal intellectuals. It's an attempt to make Europe a group of Federated States that roughly all have a liberal constitution. To say the EU is something so different from the USA is crazy.
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