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Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

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Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#231

Post by mizcheif_k »

edw519 wrote: post #36

"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…

I hate that attitude so much. Abstaining from voting is just lazy, it's not activism, in fact it's inactivism. You don't have to vote for the two major parties, if you can't find a candidate you like then at least show up and vote for yourself.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#232

Post by malandrew »

twistedpair wrote: post #187
malandrew wrote: post #144

Why is it not possible to prosecute politicians for fraud or at least sue them in a court of law for making fraudulent claims, possibly via a class action suit? If an advertiser promised that their product does X when it obviously does not, then that is essentially fraud, and I have the right to sue on those grounds because I paid for their services with my money. In the case of politicians, I give them votes based o…

Sue them? Did they sign a legally binding contract with terms guaranteeing the closure of Gitmo and a moratorium on domestic spying? Did this contract provide for immediate impeachment on breach of terms? Sorry pal, but "promises" are worth the paper they're written on. It's simply your fault for being credulous. This game's been going on for hundreds of years.

Thanks, Samuel Goldwyn.

"If you vote for me, I will " sounds like an oral contract to me, since it involves consideration in the form of a vote.

Oral contracts when done before witnesses may be enforceable in some jurisdictions, except when the type of contract in question explicitly requires a written counterpart, such as in the conveyance of property.

I'm curious if this could be solved at the federal level via checks and balances provided at the state level. i.e. could a State legislate that it is illegal for candidate for US federal office to make false campaign claims when in that state. e.g. Any promises conveyed in speech made by a US presidential candidate when campaigning in that state, would constitute a legally binding contract between that candidate and any constituent of that state that votes for that candidate if that candidate is successfully elected into office.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#233

Post by tjr »

baddox wrote: post #221
tjr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like in my state about 1,500,000 people voted in the 2012 presidential election. So if a few hundred thousand people decided to not vote because their one vote doesn't matter, it's conceivable that the result in a state could be swayed. So why try to persuade people their vote doesn't matter? If enough of them (an admittedly large number) listen, it will matter.

> So if a few hundred thousand people decided to not vote because their one vote doesn't matter, it's conceivable that the result in a state could be swayed. Yes, but it's extremely unlikely that your vote would sway the result, and I'm operating under the assumption that you can only control your own decision to vote. > So why try to persuade people their vote doesn't matter? If enough of them (an admittedly large n…

The sum of everyone's votes is made up of a bunch of single individual votes. If you persuade enough individuals to not cast their single vote, then the election outcome could be swayed.

So sure, telling individual people their vote doesn't matter is basically true. But how many people have you told?! :-)

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#234

Post by mpyne »

nathan_long wrote: post #225
mpyne wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second oddest thing is that the same people who complain about how the corporations are running the world are for some reason much more incensed about governments getting access to this personal data for actual useful reasons (however minor they're perceived) than they are about corporations accumulating this data to sell to each other and anyone with enough dollars (as clearly mentioned in the privacy policies t…

Both are troubling, but governments can imprison and/or kill you. Corporations usually can't or won't. The "actual useful reasons" you mention may exist alongside personal or political reasons of individual government employees.

It's not as if the average individual government employee has the ability to spawn black helicopters or deploy police assets just to settle a neighborhood rivalry. If anything they have less actual power than a corporate drone nowadays (just ask the bankers).

Teenagers have killed themselves over stuff posted to Facebook so I wish people would quit acting like the government is really that much more directly important to the day-to-day lives of people. If you're going to be worried then be worried, but at least be consistently worried.

http://xkcd.com/1200/ is also close to relevant.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#235

Post by john_b »

rayiner wrote: post #188
john_b wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to privacy falls under the "human rights" part of my comment. You are free to disagree that privacy in some meaningful sense is not a human right, but the very fact that so many other rights (both legal and human) are easily compromised when it is not present is a strong hurdle to overcome, should you wish to make that argument. As an example, you have the right to criticize your employer (freedom of speech…

> You are free to disagree that privacy in some meaningful sense is not a human right I don't disagree that privacy in some meaningful sense is a human right. I disagree that a "privacy" right that is broad enough to encompass information about me collected by a private company based on my voluntary use of its service (i.e. phone call records) rises to the level of human right. To me, that's instead a matter of balan…

Not sure why you're being downvoted.

One of the main problems with privacy today is that your rights to privacy are typically enumerated in lengthy terms of service or user agreements that can and do change without notice. If these documents truly do enumerate "rights" they shouldn't be so easily changed whenever the company finds it convenient or profitable. What you initially agreed to was a 20 page document written in legalese that few will bother to read through.

If you truly want to be informed and up to date on your privacy rights for all of the services you use, you basically have to make it a full time job. It's not a sustainable system. What we need is some sort of societally accepted norms, and possibly laws, regarding privacy so that you don't have to hire a lawyer to give you a monthly update explaining what Facebook can and can't do with the data you and your friends provide them.

My point is that whatever norms or laws that result from those considerations will be arbitrary unless they are based firmly on a respect for an individual's human right to privacy.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#236

Post by just2n »

bmelton wrote: post #217
agwa wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those in power want you not to vote No, those in power very much want you to vote. Voting is a great feel-good process that gives the illusion that the people are sovereign when in reality we have practically no power and the government can do whatever the hell it wants as long as both parties agree on it. If this wasn't a democracy it would be quite clear where the power really lies, but since it is a democracy, t…

Then beat them. Let them spend all the money they spend trying to get you to vote, then use that vote to cast a ballot for a third party candidate that best reflects your beliefs. Being able to get a substantial number of votes is a HUGELY BIG DEAL for third parties, as at some point (I can't remember the number exactly, I think it's 4%) they start getting federal funds to aid in future elections. A viable third part…

The problem is that FPTP mathematically guarantees a 2 party system in a steady state. So long as you own the 2 parties, you effectively own the government. What's worse is that it also actively works against additional parties.

We also have a rampant issue of uninformed voting. I'd bet there are close to 50M people who just "vote with the party" and follow their biased news network rather than learning about the candidates and issues, then forming their own opinions.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#237

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #224
rayiner wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Constitution, the federal government is given broad, exclusive, power over national security and defense. Intelligence-gathering has always a part of national security and defense. That was a key purpose of the documents, to address the failure of the Articles of Confederation to provide for a robust centralized defense. Intelligence gathering has always been a part of the historical understanding of defense a…

> In the Constitution, the federal government is given broad, exclusive, power over national security and defense Like "privacy", "national security" appears nowhere in the Constitution. The federal government is given certain specific powers that can be grouped under the umbrella "national security", just as it is given certain specific limits based on particular rights that can be grouped under the umbrella "privac…

"National security" falls under the umbrella of "common Defence" (which appears twice in the Constitution). Indeed, one of the motivating forces behind the creation of a stronger federal government under the Constitution was Shay's Rebellion, which was a purely internal threat.

The term ("privacy") does not appear in the Constitution, and the specific limits on federal power that do appear can't be generalized to fit under the umbrella of that term. There is no indication that e.g. the founders intended the 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination to be rooted in a "privacy" concept. It's clearly based on a "due process" concept, which explains why there is no general right to refuse to testify (which is what you'd have if the right was based on privacy) but only a right to refuse to testify in a way that might incriminate yourself. The concern is about he extreme persuasiveness of confessions, and the potential for abuse from coerced confessions, not about the right to keep information from a government investigation.

Similarly, the 3rd and 4th are better understood as rights based on the sanctity of the home and person (notably since the 4th conspicuously omits any reference to communications).

Attempts to find a right of "privacy" in the Constitution are extremely strained, for the simple reason that there isn't one. The founders just weren't thinking of this overriding concept of "privacy" as an umbrella concept for rights as disparate as protection against search and seizure, self-incrimination, or a right to an abortion.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#238

Post by betterunix »

Nursie wrote: post #205
bpatrianakos wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carlin was a great comedian and I'm a big fan but I'm not about to agree with this simply because the late great George Carlin said it. This is totally backwards and you have to do some mental gymnastics to believe it. In the end, this is what it is, a joke. If you don't vote you have done nothing to even try to elect someone who you, in good faith, believe will do what you deem the right thing. Yeah, politicians are…

Your vote is your mandate. If you so choose not to give your mandate to anyone, that is up to you. It is the only political power I have, and even though the statement is ignored or interpreted as apathy, the statement that you don't believe in any of those arseholes is just as valid as the statement that you do. I, personally, cannot stand the "then vote for the least worst because at least the other guy won't get i…

Your vote is not the only political power you have. You can organize people, even if it is only at the local level. Once you do that, you have begun to gain political power, and that is how political careers are started. We do not have titles of nobility here; nobody is more entitled to be politically engaged than anyone else.

In practice, it is hard to take power from the established parties. It is hard to get past the local level without being well-connected. Hard, but not impossible.

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#239

Post by SEMW »

iy56 wrote: post #207
SEMW wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only records taken from Internet companies pertain to non-citizens living outside the U.S As a 'non-[US]-citizen living outside the US', I'm a bit disturbed by the implication that it's somehow less bad for the US government to demand any data they like about non-US citizens (from private companies based in the US) than data about US citizens. Non-US citizens do make up 95% of the world's population, and they u…

It is less bad. The US government doesn't have any obligation to protect the rights of citizens of some other country not living in the US. If your government disagrees, tell them to sign a treaty.

Both my country and the US are already signatories to various international treaties guaranteeing a human right against arbitrary interference with privacy and correspondence, e.g. the ICCPR. The US has declined to transcribe it into its own law. My country is also a member of an international human rights court that enforces a (admittedly qualified) right to privacy (for humans - hence 'human rights' - not just citizens of the particular member state concerned). AFAIK the US is not a member of any such organisation.

I'm a bit bemused at the level of cognitive dissonance required to loudly assert both that something is an 'inalienable human right' and at the same time that it doesn't apply to non-citizens. Perhaps the US government uses 'inalienable' and 'human' to mean something different to everyone else?

Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)

#240

Post by laumars »

iy56 wrote: post #207
SEMW wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only records taken from Internet companies pertain to non-citizens living outside the U.S As a 'non-[US]-citizen living outside the US', I'm a bit disturbed by the implication that it's somehow less bad for the US government to demand any data they like about non-US citizens (from private companies based in the US) than data about US citizens. Non-US citizens do make up 95% of the world's population, and they u…

It is less bad. The US government doesn't have any obligation to protect the rights of citizens of some other country not living in the US. If your government disagrees, tell them to sign a treaty.

Frankly that level of xenophobia is just bad - period. Sure, it would be "worse" if the US was spying on their own citizens as well (and frankly I'm not convinced that they're not), but I take real objection to you saying that it's "less bad" as it's essentially saying that something is "ok" when you compare it to something even worse - when in actual fact both examples are appalling.

America should be leading by example rather than hypocritically condoning China (et al) for their spying then turning around and doing the same thing themselves. And most importantly, America (and every other country for that matter) should be comparing themselves to the best examples - constantly trying to better the nation - rather than comparing themselves to the worst and saying "we're less bad than those governments".

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