111–120 of 241 posts
Instead of arguing politics (ie the moral argument) it would be more interesting to discuss the reasoning behind the wire taps or the implications of such a wire tap.
I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…
Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…
as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most
benevolent such entity in the history of the world.
The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose denizens have proudly proclaimed it to be "the greatest country on Earth" or "the greatest nation in history", some beacon of freedom and humanism, throughout its existence: The farce that is American Exceptionalism.
I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…
as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose den…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose den…
Have a good time chasing platonic ideals. You can sometimes achieve them in programming; People, however, are too broken to ever achieve them in politics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"instead, we have the misguided actions and interactions of generally well-meaning people that are so segregated from the big picture and scared of losing their jobs that they make mistakes which snowball." That's a pretty generous supposition ... in regard to both intent and competency.
I'd much rather assume derpiness than malice. If we assume malice, well, that puts all kinds of interesting moral burdens on us, right? Better to assume agents mean well than that they are actively hostile--it is much easier to reason about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…
as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose den…
Its sad that high profile news organizations in the United States now need to use secure communication channels out of fear of being harassed by their own government.
As far as we know the government only obtained records of the timestamps and endpoints of the communication, not the content. Encryption wouldn't help there, you need something like Tor. But the problem is that in order to setup a comm channel over Tor you would have to communicate over an insecure channel to set it up. Any idea of what could be the solution for a news org?
This isn't a problem that needs one solution, but multiple, layered ones. Communication should be disposable and deniable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others. The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted…
as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose den…
I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…
Land developers are wiping out wildlife habitats with no conscience as to the animal life they're destroying so they can put up ugly, treeless cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods for a quick buck.
What Canada is supposedly famous for is becoming no longer. Municipal and federal governments would rather have more highways and big box stores.
I wrote about it at length here: http://allsprawldown.com/activism/a-big-reason-canadians-are...