Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks • Hacker News Board

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#111

Post by naasking » Sun, Jun 09, 2013, 3:17 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #85

paul wrote: post #22

If the government hasn't done anything wrong, then they shouldn't have anything to hide from us :) More seriously, some amount of surveillance is probably necessary, but they need to be a lot more open and transparent about it. Secret laws and secret courts are not the stuff a free society is made of.

Governments have a legitimate need for secrecy in some situations. If FBI investigations of white collar crimes were posted on a public website, for example, there would be a dramatic rise in both flights and wire transfers to Belize. The blame here lies squarely with legislators that have drafted laws that are intentionally worded to give the public a false sense of privacy while enabling agencies like NSA to run am…

> Governments have a legitimate need for secrecy in some situations. If FBI investigations of white collar crimes were posted on a public website, for example, there would be a dramatic rise in both flights and wire transfers to Belize.

I think this argument is based on a strawman. The 'secrecy' most people assume and that the government wants is 'keeping secrets indefinitely at their sole discretion'. The 'secrecy' needed by your or any other scenario is merely a time-limited secret, ie. that all information must be released publicly once investigations are completed. The former is intrinsically harmful, the latter shouldn't harm anyone.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#112

Post by grey-area » Sun, Jun 09, 2013, 4:37 PM UTC

epsylon wrote: post #106

philwelch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This semantic argument is completely tiresome. There's no contradiction between being a democracy and being a republic. The US is a democratic republic. Non-democratic republics include ancient Rome and 18th-century America (where slaves couldn't vote). Democratic non-republics include the UK, Canada, and Holland (which are monarchies). "Republic" doesn't actually mean anything aside from "not a monarchy". When the f…

I'll also add that democracy does not imply elections. Actually, in Athenian democracy, decision makers were elected through sortition [1] (drawing of lots). They considered elections to be the very mark of an oligarchic system, which is what (in my opinion) most so-called "modern democracies" have become. (As illustrated by the importance of parties and of a class of professional decision makers, namely politicians,…

To be fair, pure democracy in Athens led to all kind of disasters as the crowd was easily swayed by demagogues like Alcibiades, leading to disastrous foreign adventures like the sicillian expedition in the Peloponnesian war (A war like no other is a great book on this). It's hardly a model we should emulate.

I prefer the mediated kind of democracy (in spite of the tendency to oligarchy) as at least it tempers the rule of the mob.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#113

Post by pandaman » Sun, Jun 09, 2013, 4:58 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #105

pandaman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will skip the nonsense point of me being somehow stuck, if you think more than 5 seconds I believe you can figure out how this works yourself. As for your second point: it contradicts reality. There had been even direct democracies (ancient Athens among many others) and, judging by the frequency that constitutions change around the world in most democratic countries you need just a referendum to entirely repeal the…

Since the American democratic process is capable of passing arbitrary Constitutional amendments into law, and since the Constitution itself says its establishment derives from the will of the people, your interpretation is completely untenable. Of all the hundreds of democracies established throughout history, almost all of them had governance through elected representatives and almost all of them had some kind of le…

Sorry, this is just too silly. No wonder you are arguing so vigorously - your ignorance is astounding. I will bow myself out.

Re: Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks

#114

Post by philwelch » Sun, Jun 09, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #113

philwelch wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the American democratic process is capable of passing arbitrary Constitutional amendments into law, and since the Constitution itself says its establishment derives from the will of the people, your interpretation is completely untenable. Of all the hundreds of democracies established throughout history, almost all of them had governance through elected representatives and almost all of them had some kind of le…

Sorry, this is just too silly. No wonder you are arguing so vigorously - your ignorance is astounding. I will bow myself out.

I'm sorry, I just don't see where you're coming from. By the most common usage of the word, most countries deemed "democratic" have some type of constitution, and many of them even have things like monarchies that are nearly impossible to abolish according to the written law--through there's a practical understanding that if the people wanted to, they could do away with these things.

On what authority was the Constitution itself established if not the will of the people? On what authority does the Constitution assert its own if not, in its own words, "we the people"?

I contend that the people of the United States could do away with the Constitution the same way they did away with the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution even gives them a mechanism: pass a Constitutional amendment that repeals every preceding amendment and article and establishes a new Constitution on top of it. Once this legal maneuver was done, no one would ever need to read the original Constitution and its authority would be moot.

In fact, if you consider the idea that the Articles of Confederation were the original constitution, the fact that they are no longer in effect today even absent a formal mechanism in the Articles to abolish them shows that the Constitution could be replaced in the same way. "We the People" somehow had the authority to establish the Constitution in 1787--on what grounds do we not have the authority to establish a new one should we see fit?